The first Monday of December was the 17th anniversary of my near fatal car accident that I survived with a life alternating brain injury. My accident was on the first Monday of December in ’06.

For the first few years after the accident my parents and I had some type of gathering, the first year we had a big party at my parents, everyone old work friends and new therapy friends. After that 1st anniversary my “life celebration” became less and less of a big deal and eventually turned into a jay of something green and a shot of something brown.

2 years ago a week before the 15th anniversary I walked down the isle to Dom and we vowed to be life partners. 😍🥰😍 His birthday is 4 days after my TBI anniversary, this year his birthday was on a Friday.

We’ll have a dinner and drink, toast to my survival on Monday turned into a bottle of wine, a few shots of rum, and I balled like a baby. It was great.

See I was 18 when I injured my right brain stem which has caused left hemiplegia ( left hemiplegia is the paralysis of limbs on the left side of the body), dysarthria a speech impeachment and bladder ISSUES so before I was independent with my transfers that really limited my independence.

Monday night I finally allowed myself to be weak and mourn all the things that I’ve lost/missed out on cause of me being disabled and focusing on surviving for my 20s and not living. I ugly cried, it was great. But thank God I had Dom’s surprise party to plan.

He knew we were having a pizza “party, just him and I at a hotel, that’s closer to Disney cause Saturday morning we’re going to the Magic Kingdom”

Thursday night (the day before his birthday and the pizza party) I told him, I was trying to get some people to stop by our room (he still wasn’t aware of the hotel, just knew we were staying somewhere) and throw you an actual party, but it’ll probably just be me and you, even though I already had RSVPs from his family and mine.

Friday, I did my makeup with the help of a/my occupational therapist, Jill. Then I got my hair done after therapy and decorated the suite with ma. His first surprise was me looking all glamorous, he didn’t know I was getting my hair done, second was a cake my aunt made for him, we were getting ready to leave for the hotel, you know going over the checklist, and I told him grab the cake 😁, then he was all “don’t we need plates and stuff” and I told him, didn’t I tell you I have everything under control? 😁

So we picked up 3 pizzas, his weird pizza, sausage and olives on white sauce for me, and a pepperoni just in case the weird pizza is nasty, and head to the hotel, he still isn’t aware of where we’re going, he’s just blindly following the GPS.

We get to the room, and we’re greeted by decorations on the door. I pointed out his bottle of crown and inform him that I put the apple juice he likes in the fridge as I finish setting up the food station and message our families to let them know we’re there. When I found out my parents “only guest” had to turn back cause kid bro’s blood sugar was low. But his family was close. So I told Dom that DJ needs ma, so nobody is coming to your party. Let’s just eat and enjoy your birthday together. He was content and proud of my effort.

We finished our pizza and he was talking about cutting the cake, and I was trying to figure out how I can stall, then knock knock knock on the door and it was his mama,
brother, and little sister. Then maybe 10 minutes later his other sister, rang the doorbell then 10 more minutes later his cousin showed up with chicken, he was the biggest surprise.

Party was great, we ate, drank, and had live entertainment: Junior put on a comedy routine talking about Dom’s drunk walk. It was great would have been a nice last night…… Yea, we almost died the next day while we celebrated life at Disney. Story to come.😁