BOGGIONI Monica

Classification
S5, SB4, SM5 (IPC, 13 Mar 2021)

Origin of Impairment
Congenital (Athlete, 03 Dec 2017)

Impairment Details
She has a neurological movement condition named dystonia, which causes repetitive muscle spasms and contractions. The condition was first diagnosed in her legs at age three before also starting to affect her arms at age 17. "I underwent two surgeries that allowed me to walk. It has always been very normal and natural because having a leg problem from an early age meant it's always been my normality. I owe a huge thank you to my family because it has never stopped me. Nothing has ever weighed on me, they have always spurred me to do everything normally without my disability being a limit." (Athlete, 09 Sep 2019; Giorgio Di Misa YouTube channel, 20 Oct 2019)

General
DEALING WITH SECOND DIAGNOSIS
Having dealt with dystonia in her lower limbs from an early age, she began to experience the condition in her upper limbs at age 17. She says she struggled to deal with the condition more at that age than when she was a child, but found that swimming helped her come to terms with her impairment once again. "I experienced more difficulty when I was 16 or 17 in high school and started having limb problems. I started to ask, 'What's happening?', but in reality mine is a pathology that is still little known. I was a little lost because I had to regain my normality again. The competitive swimming greatly helped because I still felt very good in the water. In fact, I still feel better in the water because I have more movement in the water than out of it." (Giorgio Di Misa YouTube channel, 20 Oct 2019)

STUDIES
In July 2020 she graduated with a bachelor's degree in biotechnology from the University of Pavia in Italy, and she plans to study for a master's degree in medical biotechnology at the same university. Her bachelor's degree thesis was affected by the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic. "I had structured a programme for my studies around the 2020 Paralympic Games in Tokyo, allowing me to graduate in July 2020. But then the world froze. So my plan B was to run systematic literary research and then return to my laboratory research that had been carried out before the pandemic. I developed an experimental thesis. I was not able to complete all the laboratory research, however, I feel very satisfied with the work I was able to present." (finp.it, 23 Jul 2020; nuoto.com, 22 Jul 2020)