Down by the Cypress Trees

“What is your story?”

When I was a student journalist at the University of South Florida from 2013 to 2015, this was by far my favorite interview question. With such a simple question, so much can be gleaned from your interviewee that can be used for an article. It is a question that is disarming, in a sense. Everybody has a story that needs and wants to be told.

It has always been my belief that every story deserves to be told. I have tried to do that throughout my life and in my past writing. I have told the story of an autistic man who was known for waving signs near USF for various businesses. In talking with him and getting to know him, I gained some very important insight into his lived experience. He was a wonderfully sensitive individual, who reacted very strongly to any type of negative language. As a result, this man exuded a natural positivity like I have never seen before.

Then there was the story of Noble Joe Peccia, a former patient of Shriners Hospitals for Children in Minnesota as a child before becoming part of Shriners International in adulthood. Through several years, Mr. Peccia collected soda can tabs to donate to Shriners Hospitals for Children for raising funds for the hospital and its patients, which receive care from this wonderful network of hospitals regardless of their ability to pay. I still have a picture of him standing with multiple wagons filled with large bags of tabs.

These are just some of the important stories I have enjoyed sharing throughout my life, and I hope to continue to share stories of the great things other people do on a daily basis. The world needs more of that.

But that is not why I am here today. I am here, writing to you, because I recently realized that my own story is one that deserves to be told. By telling my own story, I hope to show you strength through adversity and to inspire you to achieve your own dreams that you have set out for yourself.

I was born with spina bifida back in the early 1990s. While it has not been an easy road at times, I am grateful for my lived experience and all I have gotten to do because I am disabled. I have played sled hockey, an adaptive sport, alongside alumni from the Tampa Bay Lightning, and I gained a wonderful group of friends from it. I have gotten to travel the country to tournaments and score goals just like the NHL players I watch on television.

There have also been some difficult moments. Because of my condition, I have had close to 20 surgeries, and with that I now know what it is like to have medical PTSD. To this day, my blood goes cold when I sense that familiar smell of rubbing alcohol in preparation for an IV. I have had to deal with my wheelchair breaking down on me, sometimes at important events, and have had to relinquish my independence to have a friend push me out to my car.

What I hope to show everybody is some of the very real and raw moments of living with a disability and how I have overcome those challenges. I hope to provide some of the insight I have gained throughout my spiritual journey and learning to live more authentically. But most of all, I just hope to make a difference. If I could inspire just one person by creating this project, I would feel fulfilled.

Buckle up and get ready to go on this journey with me. You may laugh and you may cry, but you will learn some important things about my individual experience and the collective experience of those with disabilities. Most importantly, I hope that you will take some of what I say and be able to apply it to and change your own life. Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoy the journey with me!