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Tara Pyfrom, is a writer from the Bahamas now living in Canada.

In 2019, Hurricane Dorian hit the Bahamas as a Category 5 storm. Her wife, their six-year-old daughter, their five dogs and her, ended up trapped in their attic for over 24 hours while nine feet of ocean came into their house. They lost about 90% of what they owned.

However, they were incredibly lucky. A lot of people didn't make it out.

Six weeks later, they moved to Canada and started over. That's where the really fucked up part began.

Everyone understands the immediate disaster. Your house is gone. You're rescued. People check on you. There are cameras. There's news coverage. People bring things. And then, eventually, everyone goes home and gets on with their lives.

Except someone who has gone through such terror, doesn’t necessarily get to.

Tara developed PTSD. She was trying to be a wife and a mother while also figuring out how the hell you rebuild a life when the one she had is gone. They moved countries, brought five dogs across an international border, started over with very little and tried to function inside a completely new immigration system while dealing with everything that had just happened.

At one point she was so overwhelmed by the paperwork, the constant decisions and just trying to keep everything moving that she completely lost it, over dinner!

This was one of the first times Tara really understood that she wasn't okay. She’d survived a Category 5 hurricane, but it was her kid refusing to eat dinner that finally pushed her over the edge.

There was also a weird pressure to be grateful because they had survived. She I was grateful. But gratitude doesn't magically make everything that happened disappear.

Tara eventually wrote a memoir about the whole thing, The Ocean in Our Blood. While the book is heavy on surviving the hurricane, what happens when the adrenaline is gone and you're left trying to figure out how to be a person again?.

This is an epic episode with a blow by blow account if their survival!

Site: www.tarapyfrom.com

IG: www.instagram.com/tarapyfrom

FB: www.facebook.com/tarapyfromwriter

Order on Amazon:

https://a.co/d/35OHhcV

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Jodie Herbert brings a lifetime of lived experience caring for family members with complex disabilities, including raising a son with Level 3 autism. Navigating significant support needs and disability systems became deeply intertwined with her own life and eventually shaped her work as a disability advocate.

Life can change in the blink of an eye, and with the birth of her first son, things would never be the same again.

This is an amazing episode filled with hope, humor, and triumph over the most life changing of events!

Business: https://www.abilitypathways.au/.

Media: https://www.guestsonair.com/profile/jodie-herbert

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At fifteen, Joshua Waldron was told he would never walk again. After five years of rehab he destroyed his wheelchair and decided that not walking, was not an option. Join us this week to hear his extraordinary story!! Joshua has spent the decades since testing one idea: difficulty chosen deliberately is the most efficient route to a life worth having. He calls it Hard Is Fun, and his book on the philosophy launches in January 2027.

Thanks Joshua we loved having you on the show!

Site: https://hardisfun.com/

Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify

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