Road to Independence Anonymous

"Call off the priest. We have a live birth." Moments before I took my first breath, doctors were sure that I wouldn't make it out of the ICU alive. I was born three months premature and weighed two pounds, eleven ounces. Doctors officially diagnosed me with Cerebral Palsy at the age of two, and I have been confined to a wheelchair ever since. Throughout my twenty years of life, I've been told that because of my wheelchair, I would experience my fair share of challenges. When I was younger, I knew that what most would consider simple tasks would prove difficult for me: dressing myself, showering, and even transferring in and out of a car.

However, after a lot of perseverance and tenacity, I mastered these skills. To this day, I still have those same traits of diligence, and when I started my collegiate journey at Moorpark College I needed them more than ever before. Two weeks after I graduated from high school, my mom moved to Virginia to accommodate my stepfather's job as a BM1 in the Coast Guard. Even though my mom hated to leave me, I was on my own to realize my dreams of attending a four-year university. Despite the fact that I had a negative balance in my bank account, a broken-down wheelchair (affectionately named "Old...