I thought the man of my dreams ghosted me — the truth was worse than I could imagine
It was a real-life “50 First Dates.”
A California couple nearly missed out on their chance at being together after a gruesome accident left one of them in a coma and without any knowledge of the bond they had previously built together.
Cody Bryant met Haley Woloshen while she was on a family vacation in Hawaii in 2022 and the pair instantly hit it off.
Their relationship further blossomed when they discovered they only lived a mile away from each other in their home city of Los Angeles, according to a TikTok video posted by Bryant last week.
The lovebirds spent the next few weeks together, kindling the fires of romance — but the bond they were building was about to come to a screeching halt.
Bryant abruptly stopped answering Woloshen.
She figured he just wasn’t interested in her anymore and had ghosted her.
But she never could have expected the shocking truth of what happened to Bryant.
Woloshen, 27, turned to the internet, and discovered a GoFundMe campaign set up for Bryant by his family, sharing how he was hit by a car while riding a moped in Ibiza.
The accident left Bryant in a coma, suffering from a traumatic brain injury, he wrote.
Months would pass before the couple would be together again — but sadly, due to Bryant’s brain injury, he had completely forgotten their time together.
“I actually had no memory of our pre-accident connection,” Bryant wrote in his TikTok.
However, their love knew no bounds, and the two began rekindling their relationship.
“Neither of us expected it, but feelings started to build,” Bryant wrote. “I joke that she won me over a second time.”
Once he returned to Los Angeles, Bryant still had to undergo various rehabilitation therapy treatments since the accident left him partially paralyzed, and his doctors even worried that he would never be able to walk again.
But Woloshen was determined to stick by his side.
“Navigating boundaries between a relationship and caregiving was a challenge, but I couldn’t be happier with where we are,” Bryant wrote.
“We’ve built a strong foundation in the most terrible of situations.”
With Bryant’s determination to heal and Woloshen in his corner helping and cheering him on every step of the way, he revealed that he did something that may have seemed impossible when he was first injured.
In March, they both attended a wedding in Guatemala, and Bryant summited the Acetenango volcano with Woloshen by his side.
“From being told I would never walk again 18 months ago to completing a world-class two-day trek up a volcano in Guatemala,” he wrote in an Instagram post. “This hike was a dream of mine even before my accident, so doing it now is even more meaningful.”
Bryant shared that he struggled with his balance and muscle coordination, “so descending on slippery, steep, uneven ground resulted in a lot of slips and falls,” but he credited his girlfriend with helping him complete one of his lifelong goals.
“Thankfully, Haley’s cheerleading skills came in handy to minimize the impact.”
“Each step was a victory, and reaching the top meant more than I can express in words,” he wrote in an update on his GoFundMe page in April.
“I am determined to continue to summit mountains like this (literally and figuratively) in my recovery.”
In the update, Bryant shared that he’s still in “full-time recovery mode” and is undergoing daily “Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), psychotherapy, physical therapy (private pay), memory/cognition exercises, meditation, and breathwork.”
Bryant shared that his memory is still an issue, but he’s “retained most of my long-term memories.”
“There are gaps in the recent years. I’m missing a lot of the entire year before my accident, including my whole Europe trip, and the year following,” he wrote in an update on his GoFundMe page.
“My brain doesn’t ‘auto save’ anymore so I use notes for everything. In order to accomplish a goal, I avoid multitasking and each step must be small.”
Nevertheless, he’s all in on recovering with Woloshen by his side and has even started sharing content raising awareness about traumatic brain injuries with her help.
The pair has been together for over a year and appear inseparable.
