30 Days of MD: Melissa Soriano

by Kevin Schaefer | September 17, 2020

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Day 17 of 30 Days of MD Topic: School and MD This is @thesweetlifeofmel’s story: I never thought I’d go through a lot and experience a lot in 38 years of living life through my lens. You’re supposed to grow up a kid having fun, playing around, making lots of friends, become a teenager, go to school dances, learn how to drive and date, go to college, get a job, get married, have kids……basically the traditional life that everyone tells you to live. Well guess what society, some of us don’t live this way. I didn’t have a normal childhood. Life wasn’t easy and it still isn’t sometimes, but I’ve managed to live this long and I still have quite a lot left to live, see and experience. Some of my school years are a blur. Maybe because I spent most of it in and out of the hospital. For the first few years I went to a special education school. The school was actually divided because on one side it had kids with special needs and the other side was for normal kids and there was only one school nurse. Eventually I was able to transition to the other side because I was capable of learning more. There was an elementary school right down the street from where I lived, but they had never had a student with a disability before, so the nurse at the school I was attending fought for me to attend. Honestly it was an easy transition for me, but an educational one for Rorimer Elementary. Then came Junior high. Moving from class to class wasn’t fun, but it’s what I did just like every other teenage kid. In high school, I had just a TA with me and not a nurse. I think I turned out fine without needing a nurse at such a young age. I graduated high school and went to college. It’s not like I have 3 heads or anything. Like I always say, it’s better to ask than to assume that what you’ve learned from a textbook is how every disabled individual lives or should live. If you’re reading this and you’re thinking that you have to live a certain way that society says is the right way, make them feel stupid and do your thing. Live the way you want to live your life. After all, it is your life and no one else’s. #MDAwarenessMonth #MDAwareness #30DaysofMD

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