Steve reflects on the progression of his SMA when he was a child.

I could not raise my arms above my head. I would scoot on the ground in my early years instead of crawl and I would scoot along the ground. I could not turn from side to side. They would have to call my mother during the night and she would walk up 12 steps three or four times a night to turn me several times. There was an intercom in my room. I knew that I had to depend on my mother and father to get me up in the mornings, to put me to bed at night. When I needed to go to the bathroom, I needed to wait for someone to take me to the bathroom. I was able to feed myself at that point but it was increasingly, increasingly difficult. In fact, I can’t ever remember pushing my wheelchair manually for any length of time. By the time I was eight years old, I was placed in my first motorized wheelchair.

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