Empowered Patient Podcast

Patricia Panzarino, otherwise known as Pidgie, was born with spinal muscular atrophy, SMA, a severe progressive neuromuscular disease. As a singer and songwriter and one of the oldest women living with SMA, Pidgie is celebrating the release of her new album, Just Breathe. Her experience of successfully taking Evrysdi from Genentech has given her more energy and enthusiasm. Pidgie elaborates, "They didn't know as much when I was born. I was six months old and did not achieve the milestone of crawling properly. My mom took me to the doctor. I had an older sister who had it as well. She was 12 years older than me, so they said, "Here we go again." They called it Amyotonia back then. But as far as a solid diagnosis of blood tests and DNA and stuff, truthfully, that was three years ago. But SMA used to be diagnosed clinically. So I knew I had it, but it was a different way to diagnose it." "Before the medication, you're talking 61 years of lifestyle—great parents kept me active. My father adapted things for me to