On Friday, February 25, 2022, my daughter Gabriel (Gabi) Assoulin, 24, had a catastrophic life-altering event. After systematic planning and constant communication with the airline and its vendor to ensure they had a safe experience, I had one of the worst calls of my life.My daughter was already living with an extremely rare condition called Fibrodysplasia ossificans Progressiva (FOP) in which muscle tissue turns to bone, limiting her ability to move with each seizure. I got a call from the officer at the scene that she had a devastating fall at the airport and was rushed to the intensive care unit. Nothing could prepare me to see my daughter in that hospital bed, unconscious, with so many tubes attached to her, stabilizing her. Throughout the first week, we’ve been putting together bits of what happened together. Gabe fell on her head, fractured her C2 vertebra, severely injuring her spinal cord. She was in cardiac arrest and had to be intubated immediately after being resuscitated.She can’t talk because a tube is in her throat and she can’t move under her neck. The fear and pain she shows in her eyes when she wakes up in those short moments of clarity is too much to bear. She is still in the hospital. Since her injury, she has developed an arrhythmia that causes her heart to stop six times a week. It’s been nearly three weeks and there’s no timetable for how long she’ll be here or what her trip will look like next. Every day new complications appear.Nothing prevented her from living her life before. Not even FOP. Creating art with her own hands, she spent hours tending her growing garden and sewing beloved pieces of clothing. Gabe is able to make friends with anyone. She has faraway friends around the world that she spends hours upon hours talking to every day. Gaby is a fighter. She is intelligent, emotional, playful, creative and flexible. She makes everyone around her better, simply by being such a smart and adorable personality. She takes college classes online, and is an advocate for making life accessible to people with disabilities. She makes everyone laugh the kind of belly laugh that only Gabby can create in each of us. Gabe is a gem in our family. Gabby gives a lot to everyone she knows.Gabby’s medical bills throughout her recovery from a traumatic spinal cord injury will be significant, from day care in the hospital, to surgery, to medications, to treatments, and to countless other needs. Since the accident, she’s had major surgery to repair the broken vertebrae in her spine, a procedure to open her windpipe, and another to place a pacemaker in her heart to make sure it doesn’t stop beating.After the hospital, you will need to move to an in-patient rehabilitation facility where she will learn to live with her new reality. Gabe will need professional, verbal, physical, psychological, and many other therapies to get back what she’s lost. When, Jedi wills, she returns home, we need to renovate her entire space to make it accessible.

An injury of this magnitude requires a lifelong healing process.In this painful and uncertain time, help ease our anxiety about Gabe’s future with generous giving and an open hand. This is a call to help, a call to action. We need your support today. If you are unable to bid, please consider sharing this page. Thank you for taking the time to read Gabe’s story. Here’s a lifetime full of more books, more art, more jokes, and more love. We all want Gabe’s home, and enjoy her life to the fullest.

With gratitude and love .