Molly's Zone

Hey guys! I am just now getting around to doing a new blog; I have been so busy the past few weeks and it has been hard to find any time to put my thoughts to words. Here I am! I could have done a vlog, but there's just something about writing that makes my soul happy.  As you all can probably tell, the past few weeks I have been trying to take Molly's Zone in a slightly new direction; I have been featuring some of my writing pals from The Mighty on the blog and of course, Noelle contributed for the first time. I loved seeing her so happy to see her writing up on  Molly's Zone ; making people happy is what my life is all about. I want my blog to be inclusive of everyone with disabilities, not just about me so I have had a few wonderful guest contributors! (Quick shout out and a thank you to those who sent in their work).  Last Sunday was my mother's birthday; we had a rather quiet day at home, but we did celebrate with a birthday dinner ...

“This is it; there's no going back now,” I thought, as I stared at the two words that typically struck fear into my heart. Cerebral palsy. My diagnosis -- the secret to which I had clung for much of my life -- now hovered above a published piece of writing.  A piece of writing centered around my personal experiences living with mild cerebral palsy.  A piece of writing that -- unbeknownst to me at the time -- would transform my perception of my body forever. I, like many other women, have had a fraught relationship with my body for the majority of my life.  From a young age, I internalized messages from the media about the “ideal” woman’s body -- the type of body society prizes. Tall.  Slender.  Symmetrical. Able-bodied. Despite my understanding that one particular body type was perceived as the ideal, I have long found beauty in all bodies -- with the glaring exception of my own.  I have always been tall, long-legged and slender -- outwardly,...

How I'm Moving Forward with Cerebral Palsy One Step at A Time July 18, 2017 | Juliana Ruggiero My name is Juliana Ruggiero; I’m 18 and have spastic cerebral palsy. My story begins in 1999. I was a fragile preemie who weighed only 3.10 pounds. My parents were not able to hold me when I first came out; I was taken away to the NICU as soon as I was born. I was on a breathing machine and closely monitored by a team of doctors until I was stable enough and my lungs were developed enough to function on their own. Not even a few days into being in the world, I had a stroke and my brain bled inside. Doctors thought it was nothing, but the neurologist on call that night didn’t believe it and wanted to do an ultrasound on my head just to be sure. At just 4 days old, I got the ultrasound done, and the results were not what my parents and family wanted to hear. “There’s a black spot and a bleed on your daughter’s brain,” th...