Disability Empowerment Now: Dr. Yvette Pegues Part 1

August 12, 2025 00:48:31
Disability Empowerment Now: Dr. Yvette Pegues Part 1
Disability Empowerment Now
Disability Empowerment Now: Dr. Yvette Pegues Part 1

Aug 12 2025 | 00:48:31

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Show Notes

Season 4 Bonus episode 2 Part 1 Dr. Yvette Pegues is renowned for her captivating and insightful presentations that resonate with diverse audiences. Her ability to connect with audiences through authentic storytelling and evidence-based insights makes her a sought-after speaker at conferences, corporate events, and community gatherings. As a keynote speaker, she addresses critical topics such as: Inclusive Innovation and Accessibility, Exploring how technology and innovative solutions can bridge gaps and enhance the lives of people with disabilities, Disability Advocacy in the Workplace, Navigating Life Post-Rehabilitation and Empowering Disabled Communities through Technology. Keith and Dr. Pegues talk about her journey […]
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Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign welcome to disability Empowerment now. I'm your host, Keith Mevide Ginsini. This is season four bonus episode number two. Today I'm talking to Dr. Dr. Yvette pigeons. Doctor, welcome to the show. So tell me how you stumbled or how you found the podcast, what I do and what encouraged you you to reach out. [00:00:59] Speaker B: Wow, it's a really good question. I am really interested in the work you do and the work that you represent on disability empowerment. Now, of course, disability being in the name made it very easy to locate, to find and to follow because the work that you do is so important and I think it aligns really well with what we do at my organization, your invisible disability group. We empower, equip and encourage individuals with disability to be included in all facets of life. And your previous podcast does the same. So I felt like we were a really good match and I'm happy to be on your podcast. [00:01:42] Speaker A: Yeah, we were talking before. I was talking before. I'm surprised that name was was available and not already taken. I've had it for a number of years and I'm very, very blessed to. I designed the logo myself. Had to go through some growing pains of. I really don't like this logo and I feel cheap using it because I'm in wheelchair. But the logos not for me. Think about the universal symbol people think of when they think of the word disability and what do you get? So I'm very happy to have you on this episode. You have a incredible story we were talking about in the pre interview a few weeks ago. Please share as much of it as you can because I was really captivated with all the, for the lack of a better term, twitch in turns your life has taken you and where it finds you now as a doctor, as a mother, and adds the CEO and founder of the group you walk with and walk with the people you do. [00:03:54] Speaker B: Absolutely no. Thank you for that. One thing I love so much about the way you amplify disabled voices through storytelling. Personal storytelling is part of why I feel that we're such a good match. And storytelling is so underrepresented. It explores such amazing opportunities around disability story advocacy and empowerment. I never thought that I would be in this space because I was not necessarily living a life through disability lens until I started working at my dream job. It was right after college when I got recruited by IBM International Business Machines. It was the apple of its day. [00:04:43] Speaker A: And I was I Charlie. I think I've heard of them. IBM. That name, George, ring a bell? Preach. Continue. [00:04:57] Speaker B: Very good. Point. And yeah, it's funny, when I'm in front of an audience of 30 and less, I do have to go into some detail. But yes, at the time in which I was graduating from a really small parochial university in South Florida and got recruited by this huge organization, I just knew that I was going to live my dream as an engineer. Especially since neither one of my parents were well educated because they didn't have access to school. So I was first generation high school and college. And now I'm being whisked away by an incredible organization that moved me to Atlanta, Georgia. And I say all the time, IBM stands for, I've been moved because that's exactly, exactly what they do, right? It seems like as soon as they hire you, especially as a college hire, they move you somewhere. So it was pretty incredible because I hadn't really traveled very much, but here I am traveling the world. I met my husband at IBM, we had two little IBM babies and life was great. Until it wasn't. Seriously, Keith, I thought I was, you know, on a wing of an eagle, just really excelling. I will say though, as an engineer, I was pretty green about the world and thought that I needed to go back to school to be a better mom. [00:06:23] Speaker A: Hold on, let me stop you there because you said something really funny. We had two IBM babies. Have you ever called your kids that? And what would they bought? I much know. [00:06:49] Speaker B: You know, because we were both IBM nerds and computer techies. We always knew our kids would probably go into the arts or do something completely different. But because we felt like we both had blue blood at the time, that they could be nothing less than IBM babies. They were in my meetings with me because, you know, seriously, I thought six days, six weeks would be more than enough to bring a little human into the world and maybe I could just program them and they would do exactly what I asked them to do. I found out very quickly that that was not the case. But you know, I, I got the chance to stay home and still work with a lot of my clients remotely. And most of the meetings started out with how's little Isaiah doing? And is that him in your lap? And we had the whole cutesy thing at the beginning of just about every meeting. And so I loved being able to take advantage of technology and resources that made it really amazing to work at a company that recognized the needs of women and parents and time off and bonding and things of that nature. So we always talk about that, that and I ended up going back to school. So I was a mom. I was still working full time at IBM, and I went back to school to get a degree in early childhood education. It started, Keith, as maybe a MONOR certification. Just getting to know my child psychologically, physiologically, and what that meant, and being their first teacher, and it just taught me so much. And after the certification, you know, my professor was like, just hang in there. Let's just stay and get another degree. And so I did, and it was amazing. And my kids were kind of the. The. The. I had to use the word crash dummies, but they would crawl around in the classroom and kind of prove theory and. And go around the room. Every mom in the room wanted to hold my babies. I actually had my shower at school for my second child. So I didn't miss a beat. I was still full time, and life was good, you know, it really was. And, you know, while I was at IBM and I got this degree, I graduated with incredible scores. I was just in love with education. And I got recruited. You know, Harvard came knocking and said, hey, we have this amazing program in place. It was a school of education, the school of business in the school of law, coming together to create this EDL program for leadership, right? And I was such a nerd, and I loved. [00:09:37] Speaker A: So what is edl? So. [00:09:41] Speaker B: So EDL is Education Leadership. Education Leadership Program. [00:09:47] Speaker A: Okay. [00:09:48] Speaker B: Yeah. And I don't think it existed at that time. You know, we were just trained to be educators. But at the PhD level, they wanted to make sure that we were leaders who understand not just theory, but law and business so that we can focus on policy and make change from the top down. And they did a global search for individuals who were prepared to make that change in education. And so I was chosen. And that's when my life changed. Not because I was able to jump in with both feet, but because my right side started to cause numbing pain. It literally felt like fire running through my veins. So I always recommend that we listen to our bodies. And I did. And I went into the emergency room. And of course, Keith, this is the funniest part. Not that it was funny. After hours, you know, a neurosurgeon came in and said, don't freak out. [00:10:51] Speaker A: That's never a good sign when you hear the words don't freak out from a neurosurgeon. If I hear that those words come out of my neurologist mouth, I'm gonna do the exact opposite of what he just said. I mean, who thinks those words are comforting to him in the emergency room From a nerd? I mean, okay, yeah, I'll freak out of camera on your behalf. Please go on with the reds of your story. [00:11:51] Speaker B: Of course, Keith. But that's exactly what we did. We freaked out. And they told me that I was actually born with a congenital condition called Arno Chiari malformation, which pretty much says that the brain tonsils hanging on the back of my brain, My head, were too long. They were too long at birth. So they basically dropped into the spinal cord column, you know, and it was stopped. [00:12:18] Speaker A: Sorry, did you just say the brain tonsils? [00:12:24] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah. [00:12:28] Speaker A: Okay. All plead ignorance here. What are the brain tons swords? And how are they different from the throw tonsils that we all know are all the same? [00:12:54] Speaker B: Really good question, Keith. We all have brain tonsils. They hang on the back of our brain, and they have the same sensitivity. And the purpose of it is to just connect the nerves and everything to the spinal cord. And so it's very common for us to have brain tonsils. They're just not supposed to fall into our spinal column. They're supposed to stop pretty much at the top of it, because if it falls into the column, then it kind of takes up too much space. And the fluid in your brain that kind of nurtures the rest of your organs are supposed to flow freely. And when that drops into your column, then you're kind of causing a blockage, almost like a damage. And so the pressure in my brain was causing some of the numbness and the nerve pain that I was having as well. And so there was really nothing they could do to fix it, per se. It wasn't like a brain tumor where they can go in and take something out. The only solution was brain surgery, Keith, where they would go in and do road work. Really, they just had to move things around so that the flow of the fluid would be reopened. And so that's what brain surgery was supposed to do. They literally cut a hole in the back of my skull because the pressure itself could have broken through had we waited too long. And so by breaking that open and moving around some. Some spine, some spinal bone, like my C1 and C2, they kind of took the back of it out just to make more room, if you will. And in the process of that, my spinal cord was damaged, and so I walked in and never walked back out of surgery. [00:14:45] Speaker A: So when the neurosurgeon killed you and your husband in the emergency room. No, lads, don't freak out. [00:15:01] Speaker B: Right? Right. [00:15:03] Speaker A: What should have the rest of the episode be? Me frozen like that? [00:15:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:15:15] Speaker A: It's like, wow. So, wow. I Mean. And I'm not at all trying to trivialize everything you've gone through. Certainly not. It's just like how, how. Wow. Okay, so you walked in and you never really walked out again. What would the adaption like learning how to move again, how to play with your kids, how to do basically a hard reboot, to use a computer term. Yes. I think, Joel, Bridget, that how would you like, or what would you like to have to do a hard reboot of your entire existence? Around what age were you? [00:16:43] Speaker B: I'm in my early 30s. [00:16:46] Speaker A: Wow. So you're not even to mid life yet. And I just focus on that because it, it's like wow. So I mean that it would be life changing. [00:17:07] Speaker B: Yes. [00:17:07] Speaker A: To anyone at any age. But you still young, you married your mother and you have to rejoice. [00:17:21] Speaker B: Yes. [00:17:22] Speaker A: Everything. What was that like? [00:17:29] Speaker B: Great question, Keith. You know, I couldn't walk, talk or work. So I took about two years basically to refocus on reboot, much like you said, because we had just not been prepared for it. I will say that we were so. [00:17:52] Speaker A: Busy trying to get who is prepared. The vet. I mean, it's what the bridge go on. [00:18:01] Speaker B: I know, I know. It just seems trivial to say that, but I know for sure that it's not something that you can prepare for. But we do realize that we adapt every single day and during that time. [00:18:17] Speaker A: But better or worse. [00:18:20] Speaker B: Yeah, right. [00:18:21] Speaker A: Adapt or we die. [00:18:23] Speaker B: That's right. 100%. 100%. And we literally, much like you said, had to learn to do everything over. The one thing I remember is, you know, we had two small kids already and my husband was leading the household. By this time, of course, we went from making six to seven figures to owing six to seven figures. Brain surgery is not cheap. Being disabled is not cheap. Equipment is very expensive. It was a very difficult time for us financially and emotionally. But what I noticed and felt the worst about is that I was a baby bird just like my other two baby birds. And my poor husband now had a third child that he had to bring, you know, home food to. So I was in the nest with the babies, waiting for, you know, my husband to bathe me, to toilet to feed, to take me to and from hospital visits. And I was done with that. I felt like a burden and I felt like I needed to get up and do more. But there was a turning point, Keith. The turning point was when my oldest child came home with a note. He literally had like a note that he came home with from his teacher. And the note said, what Do I tell Isaiah when he asks me if his mom is going to die? That had to be. Yeah, that was it. [00:19:47] Speaker A: I mean, again, going back to what the genius neurosurgeon said in the emergency room. Don't freak out, right? I mean, how as a mother. [00:20:04] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:20:05] Speaker A: Are you not like the breath it's taken out of your body? Quite literally. How. How do you answer that? What was going through your mind in reading that note? [00:20:26] Speaker B: Well, the good news, Keith, is that I didn't have words because I had not gotten to that point yet. But I did know. And I did have a conversation with God to make sure he knew that he could break me. But please don't break my babies. In that moment, I was able to roll out of bed, tie myself upright in a chair, make sure that that numbing medication was not something that they saw every day when they came home from school and I wasn't laying horizontal like some zombie. And from that moment, neither one of my children, neither Isaiah or Elijah, ever saw me again, just laying there lifeless. And from that moment on, I said to myself, I'm not going to scare my children with what broke me, but I'm going to use this now to make them proud of me and make them stronger. And so from that moment on, I started to advocate. Learn for myself, learn about my condition, fight for my life, fight for my family. And those muscles help me to become an advocate for others. So IBM always talks about the T, right. We have to be deep in the areas that we specialize in, but also knowledgeable about the areas that connect to our specialty. So I started to learn as much as I could about traumatic brain and spinal cord injuries, which is what I lived with. But enough about every other disability that I can speak on behalf of those who don't have a voice, which I understand completely. [00:22:08] Speaker A: Joe, before you go on with your story, I hope it doesn't come to talk to anyone that I have a speech impediment, or what I refer to as the accent. And because that's what it is, I've lived with it so long that it doesn't fades me. But I didn't talk until age 7. So long. It's boot up in history of humanity. Major exaggeration there the region. I'm bringing that up. It's because we're at the point in your story where you don't have a voice right at all. And if I didn't know that, I. It will probably be the large thing on earth that I would get about you because you sound like You've never stopped talking. And I mean that in the most beautiful way. Again, spend the first seven years of my life and count. Let you dab though. [00:24:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:24:07] Speaker A: Honing this instrument that I have. What would you like? Regaining the voids and honing it to where again, I don't doubt anything you have said about your story. I would never, ever do that to anyone. But listening to you, it's like you watch your voice. I mean, I, I can't compute that. I mean, how did you lose your voids? I mean, we know how, but how did you regain your voids and hone it to the extent to where I mean, I get no hint of any vocal spasm. Did audio. Whatever. The terms don't matter, but I mean, it's like that's a very interesting topic to me personally, but also to hear about what you've gone through your post surgery. You're just beginning to get your life back. And so how do you begin to recapture and re. Engineer. [00:26:19] Speaker B: Yes. [00:26:19] Speaker A: Your vocal cord to work now? [00:26:29] Speaker B: It was an absolute miracle in my eyes. I don't know that it was something that was focused on as much as it was worked on because so much was going wrong. If I, if I, if I can just speak to that, because now I have a brain injury, I have a spinal cord injury. I don't have access to walking. I've been paralyzed not just from the waist down at T10 level, but also because, you know, I, I had moments of catatonia, comatose. Like, there was a lot going on in my body, rejecting some of the parts of my body that were not responding, you know, to a brain that had just been traumatized. So there was just a whole lot going on. Keith I do remember praying and saying, God, if you give me back my voice, I will never stop talking. So I'm very verbose for that reason. But I will tell you that in therapy, they used music therapy a lot for me to regain my voice. Prior to my injury at IBM, new newly hired college students were required to take Toastmasters. So I did return to Toastmasters afterwards to make sure I didn't have some of the breakups in my voice and the cognition, you know, there was a lot, in fact, that he was stopping me from speaking. Some of it was just processing and not really trusting my words or believing my words. I will say, of course, that after the injury I was diagnosed with idd, so intellectual and developmental disabilities. My IQ dropped in double digits. I was definitely not synthesizing information like I used to grasping it and understanding words. So I think that was part of what was holding me back. And so as I continued to recover and become more confident, I was able to speak more and I did stutter for a very short period of time and I stayed off the radar. You know, I wasn't out having discussions, but you know, even now sometimes there's processing. And I was told that I had lost executive function before it was such a common conversational term. But I pretty much had to start over as far as learning words. And since again, my husband was techie and you know, he was very aware of some of the patents that I'd written and white papers that I had written and he would read them back to me and we would have those conversations and I would be his water cooler while I was at home recovering and he was able to work from home. And he just wanted to remind me that, you know, I was still in there somewhere and that I had strong words to communicate. But I did have reams and reams of notebooks where I was communicating what I was thinking. And a lot of times through prayer, I was just writing down what I was feeling and communicating to family and to God. And I still have those. I'm such a good note taker. I'm just not good at figuring out where I put them. And so that is part of the process. And music, it really did save my voice. [00:29:57] Speaker A: Wow. Well, there is so much more to cover how. So you're going through this recovery, but not only you, you're going through the moat recovery, but also you'll family it's going through and that can't be discounted at all because and I hate to say this but but there, this is the type of Vince could be the type of event that would wreck on severely dam the foundation of a family or a marriage. And again that can't be discounted, nor should it. So your family is going through this recovery or similar recovery themselves. And pardon me for being presumptuous here, but it sounds like there were some very tough times. Certainly. But it sounds like instead of tearing the foundation apart and you've talked a lot about how your faith in God has helped you. It sounds like the recovery of the hard reboot had rebuilt or revagined that family foundation which lets be honest, it's the best case scenario we should all hope for. I mean I won't stop talking about that, stop asking those personal questions when that is the norm. Yeah, I mean it, it's like, it's amazing to me. Yeah. So. So how did you go Back to school. How did you become a doctor? Or were you a doctor already? Where in your story are we at this point? [00:33:09] Speaker B: You have such an incredible sensitivity to. To really dig deep. I have not been asked a lot of the questions that you're really finding in my story. So I first want to thank you for that. [00:33:25] Speaker A: You're in my curiosity. Pardon me? It's my curiosity. And when people ask me why I do what I do, it's that this was not in my wheelhouse at all. I wanted to be a fireman. I wanted to be a policeman. I wanted to be a dancer. I wanted to be an astronaut. Claude Cadstein. And when I started writing, I wanted to be a writer. Doing broadcast, doing podcast, doing a video cads, hell, even doing acting. None of that was remotely in my will helped. And so the region I do what I do and why I'm able to dig down deep. And I'm not afraid to get personal when expensively. When I feel that the other person is receptive to that. It's because I have the innate curiosity to know. Not only to know, but to understand another person and what they go through. And before I give you back the floor, you. You said that storytelling is very integral to what I do. But I also think the curiosity and the digging down deep is a major reason of why people are drawn to what I do. Because especially in this day and age, people are hungry. They crave authenticity, they crave understanding, empathy. They don't want a pity party. They don't want oh, you're such an inspiration. Next story. They don't want that and I don't want that. I will quit my job if anyone tells me, oh, that is what you have to do. I will use some very choice words that we both can probably get what those choice words are. But that, that is the pageant the shows that are enterprise system that I do. And so thank you for recognizing that. And I would say doing the. Our pre interview we did about a month ago and we tried to do the episode a month ago was very in depth, very detailed. We got each other like that. Yeah, I feel very, very blessed to run across and be introduced to people such as yourself. Not, not because of your title, your caliber, but because you are authentic. You are non afraid of sharing the good, the bad, the ugly of your story. And you just want to help others and have your story be a compelling example, not an inspiration, a motivation, job impelling example of you. You had to go through a very hard reboot when you. You were in prime of your Life, the prime that society views as it 20 twenties, thirties, it's. And your whole life change, and not only your life, but your family's life. And so, yeah, I mean, it's. It's. It almost brings me to tears that you have been through so much and it was at a very young age, and yet you've persevered through grit, but most of all through faith. Not only faith in God, but faith in your family and your tenacity to reform, reboot, and re. Energize. Yet you lost the ability to walk, you lost the ability to speak. But it sounds like God heard your prayer of, if you give me back my voice, I will never shut up. And I prayed a very similar prayer when I was like five or six, but I didn't have a voice yet at all. But so continue on with your destroy. And where do you go from that point? [00:40:55] Speaker B: Wow. Wow. First of all, thank you. Thank you for confirmation of the fight and what we had to grow through. And I don't think that we had a process. We were just fighting. We were always in fight mode. Like, my kids were being bullied at school because their mommy had wheels and everybody else's mommy had feet. Fortunately, they were strong and fortified in their belief in our family that they didn't get as affected. In fact, they turned bullying into a book. And we did dream boards at home. And so they were able to take their story, everything on their dream board, the fact that I brought them to therapy and recovery meetings with me, and I was able to say, well, son, you know, what would you like Mommy to work on? You know, what are the things that are important to you? And they were like, mommy, we just want you to make macaroni and cheese. So we cut out a picture of macaroni and cheese, we put it on the board, and that's what I worked on in therapy, learning how to make macaroni and cheese. And they were able to put all of those issues and, you know, experiences in a book. And they published it, and they called it, you know, my mommy had brain surgery, and I'm okay. The fact that they were able to say that they're okay really made me so excited. And they were able now to tell the kids who were bullying them, you know, and asking, what's wrong with your mom? They would say, buy the book. It's my college fund. So for them to be teenagers now and to literally be able to use the purchase of the book as part of monies, they were able to put aside to pay for their School was again, something we never planned. It just was some. It was just a way for them to tell their stories. Storytelling and writing it down and expressing it and not carrying it with them as some heavy burden. And I was able to now write the book that I wish was already available for me when I initially got sick. So the Art of Adaptability is a second book that I wrote on my own that helps newly disabled and diagnosed persons recover and live forward after a life changing event. So there's this thread that was created where we created what we didn't have because it didn't exist when we needed it the most. Creating this type of legacy is one of the reasons why I even thought about going back to school. So I did not have a PhD prior to my injury. I was on my way to doing that at Harvard because I felt like I wanted to get a terminal degree for my family, for the generation that didn't have access to school, to never be able to say to my children, we don't know how to help you and we don't know where to go from here. So I wanted to be able to finish what I started. And so going back to school after my injury was harder than I thought it was. Because I was such a great student prior to my injury, I didn't realize that I had to also relearn how to learn. And I could not pass any of the, you know, entry level courses, the GREs and all the testing to get into a PhD program. And so really, at the end of the day, you know, I was at my church and one of the pastors invited the president of a university to, to do a sermon while he was on sabatical. And since I was, you know, helping out at the front of the church, when he got off the stage, I said, hey, you know, I noticed that you're president of a university. My pastor went to your school. And I'm just wondering if, you know, there was a place for me at your university because I'm kind of too dumb to go back to school. And of course he looked at me the same way you looked at me. And his eyes filled with, with tears. And he gave me his business card and he said, call me. And within a couple months I had a presidential scholarship and an opportunity to finish out my academic career in a seminary where I ultimately started an office of Disability Services which didn't exist. They gave me a person, but we realized that wasn't enough. And I didn't want to hold doors open, I wanted to take them off hinges and finally get to the place where I'm advocating for myself through a means that would open doors for other students. And, you know, it took me a lot longer, of course, and I had to use a lot of local resources. But the good news is now, and the, the best thing I could have done there was to walk alongside administration and the president of the university to start an office of Disability Services. Because it was seminary, they didn't have a requirement. But after that program got started, 50 students that were already attending disclosed and started to use the services and were able to get help to finish out their college careers as well. So that was more important to me than a piece of paper with my name on it. It's a legacy and an opportunity which was full circle because now people with disabilities who are undereducated and don't have access to resources, you know, similar to my parents being foreigners and not having access to education, we're now being served in a way that was, you know, was dignified and recognized and supported. [00:46:45] Speaker A: So let's take a quick break and then come back and talk about your legacy, getting your degree, your organization, and where do you hope your story go from here? We'll be right back. You have been listening to Disability Empowerment. Now I would like to thank my guests. You are legendary and the disability Empowerment team that made this episode possible. More information about the podcast can be found at disabilityempowermentnow.com or on our social media at disabilityempowermentnow. The podcast is available wherever you listen to. Podcasts are on the official website. Don't forget to rate, comment and share the podcasts. This episode of disability empowerment knowledge copyrighted 2020 SAM.

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