The Voiceless Minority

  Today, we welcome a new guest writer to The Voiceless Minority community. Thank you for joining the fight, Sally. Sally  Ouimet  Waters , MA CCC-SLP, received her undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Florida. She completed her Clinical Fellowship at the Malcom Randall VA Hospital in Gainesville and has over ten years of clinical experience in the Ocala area, specializing in adult dysphagia and neurogenic cognitive-communication disorders.  Sally  utilizes current evidenced-based practice to inform her treatment programs for individuals who have experienced CVA, Traumatic Brain Injury, Voice Disorders, Parkinson’s Disease, and ALS to improve communication and swallow function according to the patient’s objectives.  She specializes in the evaluation and treatment of individuals who have experienced Head and Neck Cancer, including those with tracheostomy, laryngectomy, and post-radiation dysphagia. She advocates for the oncology team t...

As we enter August, we also enter the height of the festival season, whether it be hard rock, country, or my girlfriend’s favorite EDM; if you look hard enough, you are bound to find a festival for whatever you are into somewhere. However, if you're disabled, it is that much more challenging. When you are disabled, you have many things to consider when planning an outing indoors or outdoors. I am not suggesting that disabled people should be homebodies; rather, this piece and the article from Enable Magazine in Scotland will provide ideas so that no matter what kind of disability you may have, you can live your best life regardless of your abilities or disabilities. Anyone who knows me knows I love music festivals. I attended one earlier this summer called ‘Rock the Country.’ You can learn more about ‘Rock the Country’ and plan accordingly for next year at the following website  https://www.rockthecountry.com/ . The information on the 2025 festival is not yet available, but the sit...

Happy Taco Tuesday everyone! Thank you for the continued support you have shown over the past few weeks. Today will be the third in a series about parenting with a disability. I did not intend for this topic to be a series of blogs but the topic keeps finding relevance in my life and I hope to continue to impact others as well.  I began writing about parenting with a disability a decade ago. The first blog was entitled "Who Says We Can't Have A Family".  Who Says We Can't Have A Family   Two years later I wrote a second blog entitled “Parenthood & Me”.  Parenthood & Me   If you read both blogs, you may be a little confused. I sound like a rolling contradiction (: Both of these blogs were written while I was single as a pringle. In the first blog, I had a positive outlook on having a biological child. In the second blog, I said something to the effect of after thinking about it I would be doing a disservice to a young child, and I stated that I thought it...