All I ever wanted was to be normal. But when I was diagnosed with a horrible disease, my life became filled with insurmountable challenges far from normal.
Terrified I wouldn’t have a life worth living, I went to an academy where everything changed for me. I was exhilarated to discover my life was just beginning.
Living without my parents and dealing with my disease alone scared me. But after making friends, my temporary home was better than I could have imagined. When I fell hard for a new friend, I must face my greatest fear: Of falling in love with someone only to risk losing him or even worse never knowing love.
A Girl on Wheels is a heartwarming story by Alicia Weston. If you like memoirs, then you’ll love this captivating and profound Christian story of disability, young love, and family.
My diagnosis of Friedreich's ataxia
My adventures at a boarding academy
Not long after we returned home from our vacation to the Redwoods with the Carters, Elizabeth decided we should get rats. Nothing seemed appealing about rats to me, but if my older siblings each got one, I wanted one too. With us leaving school, I liked the idea of having something else to fill our days. When I envisioned our new cute little rodents, though, I pictured mice and what we got held their cuteness for maybe a week, and then they lost all their appeal. They had black and white fur, fat little bodies, sharp nails, and teeth, and always stank badly. I did little with them, but Elizabeth always took them out by their cages to hold them. Rats don't live long, and all three decided to die close together. We had an animal graveyard on a little hill above our house. We buried other animals there before but held a little service for our first pets this time. Dad had put each rat in one of Mom's glass canning jars. I imagine preventing the dog from digging up the carcass because of the smell. But it didn't work. Because a few months after the funerals, the dog brought us one of the glass jars with rat blood and guts on display. I'm not sure how the dog brought the jar down the hill from the graveyard, but he did, and we had to see it; it looked and smelled incredibly disgusting. Whether the dog thought he had found a treasure to share with us or wanted us to open the jar is anyone's guess. After that unpleasant incident, we placed future dead animals in anything but a glass jar.