Season Four · Episode Twenty-Four · Hollis Pierce
What Can I Do?
Disability, Independence and a Life Larger Than Assumptions
What becomes possible when you stop letting other people define your limits?
Hollis Pierce has lived his entire life with congenital muscular dystrophy, but disability itself is not the change in his story. He grew up curious and funny, using adaptive technology and learning early that other people’s assumptions did not have to become his identity.
During the pandemic, respiratory decline left Hollis critically ill and facing a choice between a tracheostomy with ventilation or palliative care. He chose the ventilator—and discovered that the life he once feared would become smaller could still expand in unexpected ways.
Before · The change · What came next
Before
Hollis remembers a bright red childhood power chair with Hot Wheels flames, classmates who wanted rides and parents who helped him experience an ordinary childhood. He learned to meet difference with humor and curiosity.
The change
A respiratory crisis led to hospitalization, intubation and an end-of-life decision. Choosing a tracheostomy and ventilator forced Hollis to confront not only mortality, but some of his own assumptions about what life with greater medical support would mean.
What came next
Hollis travels independently around Ottawa, plays power wheelchair hockey, works with accessibility and adaptive technology and hosts 21st Century Disability. His life includes real medical and structural barriers, but it continues to grow around a recurring question: What can I do?
“Don’t make assumptions. Be curious.”
Hollis Pierce
Listen to Hollis Pierce’s story
What Can I Do? premieres March 16, 2027. Listening links will be added when the episode is released.