Here in the United States, fall is back-to-school season — something I’m very aware of as the mom of two elementary-age children. This year, the logistics of this season have looked different for…

I recently told my husband, Dave, a silly dad joke, but I had to repeat the punchline three times. By that point, it wasn’t even funny — if it ever was. Dave was simply…

Last in a series. Read part one.  After a traumatic whirlwind of a day, a sleepless night, and surgery to repair my broken hip, I woke up in the postoperative room. That’s always…

I’ve been reading “The Book of Delights” by Ross Gay. In it, he describes the small, everyday experiences that bring him joy. I am trying to follow that example, but, unlike Gay, I don’t…

Everywhere I look, I see advertisements on billboards, computer monitors, and even at the pump telling me what I should buy and how I’m missing out on having certain things. We are bombarded by…

Today, as I do most days, I woke up still tired. My sleep last night wasn’t great, but that’s not why I’m tired. I’m exhausted because I have Friedreich’s ataxia (FA). I tell…

First in a series. On Sept. 6, 2025, my worst fear happened. It felt inevitable. I am 100% dependent on mobility aids due to poor balance and coordination with Friedreich’s ataxia…

During the final hours of the 2019 Friedreich’s Ataxia Symposium in Pennsylvania, the Friedreich’s Ataxia Research Alliance announced that the pharmaceutical company Reata had achieved statistically significant positive results in its Phase 2…

Last week, I had my annual echocardiogram, known informally as an echo. My doctors want to keep an eye on my heart function because I have Friedreich’s ataxia (FA), and one of its…

As I heard the words come out of my mouth, I knew I sounded crazy. Yet there I was, pitching the idea to my husband: I wanted us to embark on a 16-hour journey…

I intended to publish a column in August that brimmed with hope and included a passage by my friend and fellow columnist Elizabeth Hamilton. We wrote about vatiquinone, which was up for…

If you’ve seen me fall or heard me talk about it, the first thing I usually say is “I’m OK.” I’ve even said that when I had a broken shoulder, when I clearly was…

When I was 25 years old, on Aug. 19, 2013, my life forever changed. Together with my parents and husband, I got the answer we’d long sought about why my balance was progressively,…

Last Monday, my husband, Dave, and I were on the last leg of our journey home from vacation in the Shenandoah Valley. The GPS interrupted our Audible book and said, “Take exit 90 toward…

Traveling from my home in Canada is stressful, expensive, and exhausting. It pushes me outside my comfort zone, and it is, more often than not, an absolute gong show. Brittany Sommerfield counts a…

Mid-August is generally recognized as back-to-school time for those with school-age children or who work in education. Our television programs are flooded with commercials for the latest and greatest in children’s fashion trends and…

The other day I was listening to a podcast. (I think I’m addicted to podcasts.) The interviewee had post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), though she preferred that it be called post-traumatic stress injury (PTSI) because…

“Yeah, that was not me. It was you.” I finally said it out loud after all these years. I was not the first person to recognize that our daughter Amelia, then 4, was experiencing…