disability Archives

This is SMA

Post author:theheatherreportblog
Post published:August 28, 2025
Post category:disability lifestyle
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August is Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) Awareness Month, and every year I like to do at least one post to celebrate the occasion. This year, the month has kind of gotten away from me, but I didn't want to let it go unacknowledged. I always struggle when trying to figure out what to write for posts like these, because SMA is my whole life! It's hard to distill my experience into one (or even a few) posts on my blog. But then I realized... maybe that's exactly what I should write about - how broad the SMA experience is.

Five Accessible Beauty Products

Post author:theheatherreportblog
Post published:July 29, 2025
Post category:beauty disability
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When I started blogging (in 2017!), I did so because I wanted to be able to talk about my disability along with all the other things that make up my life, and be able to talk about how they intersect. So for my last Disability Pride Month-specific post, it's only fitting that I talk about one of my favorite intersections - disability and beauty. I'm sharing five beauty products that I love because they are especially accessible for me!

Disability Pride Month: Where You Can Donate

Post author:theheatherreportblog
Post published:July 22, 2025
Post category:disability lifestyle
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When I shared one of my posts about Disability Pride Month earlier, a friend asked for suggestions of places she could donate to. And I realized that while I've shared about ways you can be a better ally and advocate before, I've never shared directly about places that could use your financial support. But honestly, donating is one of the best ways you can help support disability justice - especially right now, when so many funding sources are being decimated. This is far from an exhaustive list, but it's a variety of local and national, specific and broad places that could use your support.

Explaining the Disability Tax

Post author:theheatherreportblog
Post published:July 8, 2025
Post category:disability lifestyle
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Have you heard of the disability tax? No, I'm not talking about a tax credit at the state of federal level related to disability. Instead, I'm talking about the financial toll it takes to be disabled in an extremely inaccessible world that's not built with disabled people in mind. I don't think I've ever talked about this before, and since I'm currently unemployed, finances are on my mind more now than ever! So I thought I'd go over a few of the ways that I have to spend more because of my disability.

Disability Pride Month

Post author:theheatherreportblog
Post published:July 1, 2025
Post category:disability lifestyle
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You may or may not know this, but July is Disability Pride Month. This label - disability "pride" - means a lot of different things to different people. To me, it means being proud of continuing to persevere and show up every day in a world that was very much not built with me in mind.

Accidentally Adaptive: Luna Daily Everywhere Spray-to-Wipe

Post author:theheatherreportblog
Post published:October 28, 2024
Post category:Accidentally Adaptive advocacy disability
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I'm always kind of hesitant to talk about anything showering-related on here, because there's so much judgement around cleanliness! But the reality is that for me, and for many other disabled people, showering is exhausting! I don't shower every single day. But it's still important to me to look and feel fresh. And this Luna Daily Everywhere Spray-to-Wipe is the perfect thing to help me.

Surviving and Thriving with SMA

Post author:theheatherreportblog
Post published:August 26, 2024
Post category:advocacy disability
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This is my last post of the year for SMA Awareness Month, so I wanted it to be something impactful. And I got to thinking about the parents of kids who have recently been diagnosed, or the teens with SMA who are trying to figure out what their future might look like. And I just want them to know that they will be okay - that it's possible to not only survive, but to thrive, with SMA.

SMA and My Social Life

Post author:theheatherreportblog
Post published:August 19, 2024
Post category:advocacy disability
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I had friends over on Friday night, and it made me think about all the different ways that having SMA affects my social life. Even just a simple night out (or in) with friends comes with a lot of different considerations and logistics! I've talked about some of these things over the years in different posts, so I thought I would put it all together for this week's SMA Awareness Month post.

SMA and Style

Post author:theheatherreportblog
Post published:August 12, 2024
Post category:advocacy disability
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Since I share so much about style and clothing on here, I thought it might be interesting to talk about what I like to wear through the lens of disability and SMA. For me, SMA has a huge impact on the things I can comfortably wear, and sometimes makes it a bit challenging for me to translate a look in my head into reality. Sometimes, it makes me be creative and have more fun with the way I put together an outfit... and sometimes, it means that I buy multiple versions of the same item, because I've finally found something that works for me (see my Nap Dress collection).

SMA Awareness Month: Daily Life

Post author:theheatherreportblog
Post published:August 5, 2024
Post category:advocacy disability lifestyle
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is over, but that doesn't mean that my disability content stops! I do always have disability posts, regardless of the month - disability is a huge part of my life, obviously, and not something that stops at the end of July. But August is also SMA Awareness Month! So this month, I'll be sharing about disability again, but from a more specific SMA perspective. Since it's the first post of the month, I thought that I'd do something a little more introductory. It's hard to explain all the ways that SMA affects my day-to-day life, so I thought I'd take you through parts of a day in my life to give you a bit of a glimpse.