The Me in the Mirror

Writer, activist and artist Connie Panzarino was born in 1947 with the rare disease Spinal Muscular Atrophy Type III, formerly called Amytonia Congenita. Throughout a childhood filled with both pain and joy, she strove to define herself: "I knew I was different. Now I had a name for the difference, like being Italian or Jewish. I was an Amytonia. I didn't understand if that meant that I would never walk, or if all it meant was lack of muscle tone. I didn't know that most children with this ...