Living Proof is a real, insightful, honest, and yet, strongly informative story of how a young woman's personal experiences through the U.S. public education system equipped her with the knowledge and tools that would unknowingly lead her later in life to recognize an issue of discrimination, resulting in the dissonance between the disabled and general populations. Where it has now lead her to embark on the road of sharing her story with YOU by writing this book to promote more awareness in regard to the lack of inclusiveness. From an early age, as she dealt with her "physical" disability, specifically visual impairment, she always had to adapt to each new situation as it came. For the most part, she remained to keep herself optimistic and live her life as ordinarily as possible. This book provides an original module that teaches and suggests how one can begin to bridge the gap, at any time, in reaching inclusiveness. It centers on the importance of self-advocacy through the importance of self-awareness. Foreseen as anything but ordinary to most, Living Proof gives way for individuals with and without disabilities to see how one's life is just as ordinary as another even if it may not seem like it. Currently as an entrepreneur, Ms. Cabrera is a dedicated disability consultant and life coach, compassionately bringing forth techniques and understanding to both the disabled and general populations in reaching inclusiveness on a personal and professional level. Living Proof Defined by the Ability, Not the Disability By Yvette Cabrera Balboa Press Copyright © 2017 Yvette Cabrera All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-5043-7921-2 Contents Purpose, ix, Acknowledgements, xi, Audience, xiii, Introduction, xv, Chapter 1 Living on a Prayer, 1, Chapter 2 Living Without a Care, 24, Chapter 3 Living with No Regrets, 38, Chapter 4 Living in the Moment, 47, Chapter 5 Living for a Better Tomorrow, 56, Chapter 6 Living by Faith, 65, Chapter 7 Living with Purpose, 70, Chapter 8 Conclusion, 79, Bibliography, 85, CHAPTER 1 Living on a Prayer You should have a pretty clear idea by now about what my life has been like over the last few years, since my graduation from high school. I will now give you a quick glimpse into my childhood based on what I can recall and what my family members have shared with me. As I have been told countless times, many people saw my birth as miraculous. I was supposed to be born sometime in December 1988, but I came into this world unexpectedly on September 9, weighing in at about one pound and four ounces. I was born at twenty-five and one-half weeks, which is about six months. My mother had been having some health concerns right before I was born, and so she was advised to be on bed rest for the remainder of her pregnancy. She recalls the terrible memory of having to be rushed to the emergency room to have me delivered because her water had broken early. Time was running out as she was dashed into the operating room to have an emergency C-section. That is the last thing she recalls until waking up from the anesthesia. And she awoke to hear that I had to be taken to another hospital for further treatment due to the severity of my condition. I was obviously not aware of what was going on and I cannot tell you how things proceeded. But I do know that my health was so poor, the doctors had estimated that I only had four days to live. My grandparents advised my mother to leave it in God's hands and to ask for a miracle. They were unsure of what was going to happen. In the days following my birth, I was placed in a room in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), where I was kept in an incubator to treat all the health issues that had arisen from my premature birth. As days and months passed, I was transferred from Loma Linda Children's Hospital to Children's Hospital of Orange County, where I underwent various medical procedures to help sort out the underlying issues. Through times of severe illness and medical intervention, glimpses of hope allowed my family to remain optimistic. And here I am today. I made it out alive with only the remnants of my scars and the visual impairment that accompanied the strain of my premature birth. This just goes to show that nothing is impossible through faith and perseverance. The doctors and nurses worked to keep me alive and to fix what they could, but I believe it was more than their effort that kept me going. By the age of five, I had already had four major surgeries. After my mom gave birth to me, she had two full-term, healthy sons. My brothers and I grew up in an old-styled 1950s home. It is in that house where we three kids had our moments of entertainment and dispute, and shared the things that any siblings close in age growing up together would have with one another. I attended four public elementary schools by the time I reached sixth grade because my parents wanted to place me in the right academic environment that woul