In 2022 my life almost ended suddenly when my car slammed head-on into the end of a guardrail like we were jousting. I had been going 75 MpH on the interstate before my car and I were launched into the air and flipped upside down. My little blue Prius was destroyed but my car and my seatbelt kept me alive. My chances of surviving the crash were slim to none. Even after making it to the hospital I wasn’t out of the woods yet.

My accident caused a diffuse axonal brain injury. This is a type of brain injury that 90% of people never wake from. I did. My first memory of that time is about a week after my crash. I will never walk through life the same again. If I listen to logic, it says my name should be engraved in a tombstone. Instead of that tragic future, I woke up several days later in the hospital. I was unable to walk without someone helping me balance by holding the gait belt around my waist. The doctor said it could be 13 months before I walked again on my own. I could not speak very clearly and finding words was a challenge unto itself.
But I mean on the bright side, my eyeshadow in the hospital was fire! Maybe it’s a car crash, maybe it’s Maybelline?

I had spent my life playing baseball and performing poetry. This new world I had woken up in held no promise that either of those things in my future. I wasn’t sure where I would go with my life.
A truly wonderous moment came almost directly after my TBI. I was doing speech therapy at Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital where I found inspiration to write tongue twisters which in turn became Word Whizzes. The card game I created to help us all find our voices.