Posts by: Sherry Toh

As you get older, proper rest tends to become an appointment you have to schedule. It’s something you have an abundance of when you’re an infant, but its presence steadily ... Read more

April 20, 2022April 20, 2022

The Terror and Beauty of Miracles

SMA News Today Columns

I had different plans for this week’s column. As I write this, I have a spreadsheet open with my column schedule. Next to the deadline date I’ve typed “TFIOS column,” ... Read more

April 6, 2022April 6, 2022

I Won’t Quit My Fight for Access to Evrysdi in Singapore

COVID-19 Columns, SMA News Today Columns

Editor’s note: This column discusses suicide. Please find resources for help at the end of the column. I wish the call had been an April Fools’ prank. As readers of ... Read more

March 23, 2022March 23, 2022

What Disability Rights Activists Can Learn From Women’s Rights Activists

COVID-19 Columns, SMA News Today Columns

Back in 2019, I signed up for an online women’s health and rights course by women’s rights activist and Stanford teacher Anne Firth Murray. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision; I’m ... Read more

March 16, 2022March 16, 2022

To Me, Eugenics Proves That Society Is Inaccessible

SMA News Today Columns

How would you expect someone with a disability to react upon reading an account of a nondisabled man essentially telling a disabled woman she shouldn’t exist? Would you expect them ... Read more

February 23, 2022February 23, 2022

Houston, We Have a(n Intersectionality) Problem

SMA News Today Columns

If Broadway’s Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote a musical based on my column, the word “value” would be a leitmotif with its own melody. Anyone who reads my column regularly will know ... Read more

February 9, 2022February 9, 2022

‘I’m in Love.’ Ain’t That the Worst Thing You Ever Heard?

SMA News Today Columns

Like all young girls, I was part of the target demographic for romance. Disney and Barbie movies, pop music, young adult novels, TV dramas — you get the idea. Romance ... Read more

January 19, 2022January 19, 2022

Celebrating My First Anniversary of Writing ‘Wandering the Lines’

COVID-19 Columns, SMA News Today Columns

The morning of Dec. 4, 2020, my life changed forever. My best friend, fellow columnist, and work wife, Brianna Albers, burst into our private Discord channel. “YOU SHOULD APPLY,” she ... Read more

January 5, 2022January 5, 2022

‘Don’t Quit Before the Miracle Happens’

COVID-19 Columns, SMA News Today Columns

“I’m doing good, I’m on some new s**t/ Been saying ‘yes’ instead of ‘no.’” These lyrics opened Taylor Swift’s song “the 1” and her 2020 album “Folklore.” I thought them ... Read more

December 22, 2021December 22, 2021

What Will Become of Me Once I’m 23?

SMA News Today Columns

“Lord, what will become of me/ Once I’ve lost my novelty?” was the original lyric sung in Taylor Swift’s “Nothing New,” a bonus track she included with her recent remaster ... Read more

December 8, 2021December 8, 2021

As an Adult With SMA, I Need Access to Evrysdi, Too

SMA News Today Columns

Let’s start this story about Evrysdi (risdiplam) from the beginning. About a year ago, the chronic neuropathy in my scalp that had been bothering me for three years worsened to ... Read more

November 24, 2021November 24, 2021

Yennefer of ‘The Witcher’: A Study in Ableism and Power

SMA News Today Columns

For someone who has watched many a sex scene in movies and television, the sounds were unmistakable, yet unsurprising. Netflix’s “The Witcher,” based on a fantasy book series by Polish ... Read more

November 3, 2021November 3, 2021

NaNoWriMo 2021: To Write or to Rest?

SMA News Today Columns

Hear that? It’s the sound of writers across the world readying to drive ourselves crazy in November for National Novel Writing Month, aka NaNoWriMo. We’ve got our blankets, a mug ... Read more

October 27, 2021October 27, 2021

When Dentists Are More Magical Than the Tooth Fairy

SMA News Today Columns

At every briefing before their shift, the nurses at my local children’s hospital would glance at me with amusement. As a child, I was often in the hospital for respiratory ... Read more

October 20, 2021October 20, 2021

IGDA’s Game Accessibility Conference Was the Experience I Needed

SMA News Today Columns

I was unprepared for the thrill I’d experience when I logged into the instant messaging platform, Discord, and clicked on the server for the two-day Games Accessibility conference. Also known ... Read more