Blogging with Cassidy
We’re diving right in and kicking off The Disability Download with Cassidy Goodspeed, Head Content Writer at Cerebral Palsy Strong! She’ll help us carve out the early stages of this space and we’ll work together to surface topics, tensions, and more that are interesting and helpful to our community.
Welcome Cassidy
Welcome Cassidy
Hi everyone, my name is Cassidy and I’ll be blogging in this space regularly! I figured I would start off with a little introduction, so you know a little about me as you read future posts.
This is me! Happy to be here :)
I am 24 years old, have mild spastic hemiplegia cerebral palsy on my right side, and currently live outside of Nashville, TN. I was born and raised in Huntington Beach, CA with my twin brother, Tyler, who does not have CP. He and I were born 14 weeks premature, and spent 3 months in the NICU. Alongside my cerebral palsy diagnosis, which I received at 13 months old, I also was diagnosed with hydrocephalus while in the NICU and have had 3 brain surgeries as a result. The most recent one, and only one I have any memory of, was in October 2014 when I was a freshman in high school.
Miraculously, my brother and I both had very “typical” childhoods, despite our rough start to life. I have always had a love of sports, reading, and writing, and grew up playing soccer and cheerleading. My parents raised me to not let my CP ever get in the way of what I wanted in life, which has been a huge blessing. I often describe the way I grew up as having one foot in the disability world, and one foot in the mainstream world. Up until I was about 5, my occupational and physical therapy visits were so frequent that they were like school for me. Due to our weak immune systems from prematurity, Tyler and I didn’t start preschool until we turned 4, and we only did one year before starting kindergarten. Doctors told our parents that we essentially couldn’t leave the house for the first two years of life, so we became very close, since we really only had each other.
My wonderful parents, my twin brother Tyler, and I! I wouldn’t be where I am today without the support of all 3 of them!
We are still very close to this day, and it is a relationship that I am extremely grateful for! Despite being slightly developmentally behind in our early years (I walked at 18 months old, so a little later than “normal” but not too terribly far behind, thanks to all the early intervention on my parents’ part (Thanks, Mom and Dad!))Tyler and I caught up developmentally by the time we were four. I did OT and PT until I turned 21, had a handful of extra doctor's appointments, and a couple surgeries throughout my childhood and teenage years, and yet, I also felt very “normal” growing up. I did Girl Scouts, played mainstream soccer, did competitive cheerleading for a few years, and was always in mainstream classes at school.
After high school, I spent four years attending the University of Iowa (Go Hawks!) where I earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Therapeutic Recreation. It’s basically making OT and PT fun, which seemed like a perfect fit for a kid who did years of both therapies. I loved every second of my college experience and made some incredible memories and life long friends! During college, I was blessed to find a church community that led me to developing a strong faith in Christ. I was raised in a Christian home, but didn’t truly know Jesus personally until college. My faith is a big part of who I am, and has been a very large part of accepting the good, the bad and the ugly that can come with having CP, especially as an adult.
Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City…my absolute favorite place in the world
I’m currently trying to figure out what I want to do as a career after college, with hopes of either working in some form of adaptive sports programming and/or finding a way to write full time. I am very involved in my church, and have a passion for missions, and sharing the gospel whenever, and wherever possible! In my free time I enjoy writing, cooking, being outdoors, playing with my dogs, Scout and Sadie, playing board games with my family and going to sporting events or building Legos, with my boyfriend, Nick!
Some of the future topics that I’d like to cover on this blog include: faith and CP, dating with CP, sports and being an adaptive athlete. I can not wait to share more in the future, and would love to know some topics that you all would be interested in hearing about in the future! Thanks for welcoming me into this space!
