Shane & Hannah

When I perform at speaking engagements, people often ask what my parents did to set me up for success in life. The answer is simple: from a young age, I was encouraged to be a self-advocate. That's a fancy way of saying they taught me early on how to voice my needs and stick up for myself.

My parents faced the daunting task of teaching their children skills of self-advocacy and responsibility. After all, their main goal of parenting is to set up their kids with the tools, resources, and values for a lifetime of satisfaction and success.

As a young child, I was encouraged to go out and play with the other children in our neighborhood, a process that involved introducing myself and showing my new friends how we could play our favorite games and include my wheelchair in the fun. My parents let me get dirty, make mistakes, and ultimately get into trouble (occasionally!) just like every other kid. In this way, I learned how to help kids understand my disability and realize I was no different than them.

In school, my parents and teachers included me as an equal partner in planning my disability accommodations. They urged me to voice my desires during Individualized Education Program (IEP) meetings. As long as those desires aligned with safety and common sense, the adults deferred to my opinion when crafting my accommodation plan. For example, in 4th grade, when I decided I no longer wanted a school-supplied personal attendant all day, I was responsible for showing the administrators how and why my friends were better options to be my helpers in class. This taught me how to argue, reason, and make smart decisions for myself.

As a teenager, there were times when I hated the "extra" responsibilities. My parents taught me how to make medical appointments, keep a schedule for my life, talk to insurance representatives, and more. I remember having big arguments with my parents when it was time to schedule an appointment, but I just wanted to be playing video games.

Looking back now, as a 30-year-old, I so appreciate my parents for giving me the skills and confidence to manage my life and care. I felt a strong sense of personal autonomy well before many of my nondisabled friends, and I largely attribute that to how my parents raised me. The skills and tendencies I developed throughout childhood turned out to be incredibly useful in my adult life (and attractive to partners as an added bonus). Today, I feel completely comfortable managing all the myriad responsibilities of adulthood, especially factors related to having SMA. Thanks, Mom and Dad!

During our speaking engagements at elementary schools across the country, a common question we get asked by inquisitive, young minds is: “What do you do if your house has steps?”

We don’t need to belabor an obvious fact – accessible housing is rare and difficult to find – but as Hannah and I have just purchased our first home together, we wanted to discuss a few of our observations (and tips!) from throughout this experience.

A frustrating part for me was that I couldn’t accompany Hannah to many of the open houses, due to inaccessibility. We entered the home-buying process with the assumption that at least some adaptations would need to be made to make our future home accessible, so we didn’t limit ourselves by only seeing perfectly accessible houses. The unfortunate effect of this decision was that we looked at many places with 3+ steps at every entrance.

We counteracted this issue in several ways. Sometimes, Hannah would attend the showing by herself (or with her mom!). Hannah made sure to take lots of photos and videos so she could share them with me afterwards. Another option was to have our real estate agent do a “virtual” tour for us. Using a video call on his phone, our agent walked through every room while we watched from the comfort of our apartment. With his video tour and his tips about the pros and cons of every room, it was just like doing an open house in person.

If possible, I’d also bring along my portable ramp to get inside as many of the prospective homes as I could. I enjoyed this method the best, but all three options gave us a great sense of our choices.

With a disease like SMA, requirements for a home are obviously going to vary from person to person, but here are some of the things we asked about and paid attention to when picking our first home:

• How much work needs to be done to make the front entrance accessible?
• If there’s a basement, is it a walkout or would we need to install an elevator/lift inside the home?
• We generally looked only at one-level homes. Multiple floors just mean a lot more work needs to be done to make it accessible.
• Were the rooms and doorways spacious enough to maneuver my wheelchair easily? In our first apartment, the hallway to our bedroom was so narrow that I scraped the doorway pretty much every time I entered it, which created a lovely, shrill screeching sound. Sorry neighbors!
• Since Hannah lifts me onto the toilet and into the shower right now, we paid close attention to the layout of the bathroom.
• An attached garage was pretty much a necessity for us, living in Minnesota where it snows 11 months of the years (at least it feels like). In the home that we eventually purchased, I can drive from inside our house into the garage and right into our van without ever going outside. In no small way, this feature is helping to keep me healthy, as I no longer need to spend time in the frigid cold/ice/snow getting into my van.
• Does it have a fireplace? This one has nothing to do with accessibility. I just really wanted a fireplace.

Many of us living with SMA can identify with a recurring pattern of thought that I have named my “Burden Complex.” It’s an idea that I’ve written about at length, but I believe it’s such a common part of growing up with SMA that it’s worth mentioning again.

I felt like I was bothering people. I felt like I needed to minimize my needs in order to be less of a burden to my loved ones around me. It wasn’t a constant feeling, but it was certainly hard to deal with when it did arise. These challenging emotions caused me to repeat a similar phrase when asking for help, “I’m sorry, but…”

“I’m sorry, but could I have another sip of my drink?”

“I’m sorry, but could I use the bathroom?”

My apologies were often met with the same reaction. My loved ones or friends would say, “You don’t need to be sorry, I’m happy to help!” Still, this constant reassurance did very little to alleviate my burdensome feelings.

It wasn’t until I met (and fell madly in love with) my fiancée, Hannah, that I was able to truly say goodbye to saying sorry. With a seemingly simple question, Hannah helped me better understand my Burden Complex, and thus, move on from it.

The conversation went something like this…

“Hey Hannah, sorry but can you grab me a snack?”

“Sure, my handsome and intelligent and funny Shane, but you don’t need to apologize. You know I love helping you.”

“I know, but what if you’re just saying that because it would be mean not to say it?” (This was a classic way that my Burden Complex would negate the reassurances from others.)

“Do you enjoy being my boyfriend?”

“What? Yes, obviously.”

“But what if you’re just saying that to be nice?”

“Of course I’m not! I love you!”

“Do you see how that feels? To be questioned about something that you obviously mean whole-heartedly?”

This is obviously a simplification of a healing process that takes time. Even today, I have moments where I catch myself thinking of myself as a burden. But by stopping myself from apologizing for every request and reminding myself that loved ones have no reason to lie about their willingness to help me, I’ve made great progress in seeing myself and my needs in a healthier way.