Amanda Sheward decided a long time ago that she wouldn’t be held back by hemiplegia, a paralysis that affects one side of the body.

“I’ve faced some small obstacles throughout my life,” said Sheward, a Villanova, Pa. resident who spends her summers on Long Beach Island. “But nothing really stops me from doing what I want to do.”

Since birth, the muscles on Sheward’s left side haven’t functioned as they would have had she not experienced a stroke while still in her mother’s uterus.