Be-YOU-tiful Adaptive Warrior

  What’s holding you back from achieving your goals? What fears are keeping you from living your best life? Today I talk about creating baby steps to reaching the goals you have and how I faced a fear of my own yesterday. Baby steps to reaching your goals are still steps toward your goals. They need to be celebrated and you should feel great when you do accomplish them. So much of my past few...

Be Strong! You Can Get Through This! Pain is a tricky thing.  Each of us experiences pain multiple times in life. It comes and goes. It happens when we have an accident, when we’ve had surgery, and sometimes it is invisible to the people around us. It is always very real to the person dealing with it.  Pain is different for each of us, too. Some of us have a low tolerance for pain while othe...

“Nana korobi, ya oki”-Japanese proverb Translation- “Fall down seven times, get up eight.” Are you struggling with getting up and getting active?  Are you afraid to fail? To fall? It happens. If you decide to try something new then be prepared to fail, and fail again, until you finally succeed.  It takes trials and errors to make the necessary adjustments, in anything you d...

What You Wear Makes a Difference Did you know that as an amputee the type of shoe we wear can make all the difference in our performance and outcome of wearing a prosthetic? When I was learning to walk for the first time I needed a shoe that was stable and would help me be more balanced. Now, 2 1/2 years later, I need a shoe that is rugged and can take me to mountain tops. Depending on your newnes...

Set ‘Em, and Slam Dunk ‘Em! No better time than the present!  It doesn’t need to be a Monday or the first of the month or, even worse, January 1st to set and achieve any goal you set for yourself. Now is the time to get started on the path you want and desire for yourself.  What do you want from your life? Do you want to be healthier? Eat better? Quit smoking/drinking? Get moving...

Finding Joy in the Hard Moments My joy and why I do what I do. So not everyday is roses.  It may seem like that if you check out some people’s social media.  Don’t buy it!  We all struggle, and we all go through valleys.  I’m smiling in the photo above because I am surrounded by the people I love, doing something we love- together.  Today, however, as I put on my prosthetic, I re...

What drives you forward when you hit hard times?     When days get hard we look to find purpose, I think that’s human nature. Somedays we fall short of finding what gets us up and motivated.  Today, after a very hard hike in the heat and my prosthetic rubbing my leg raw, I pushed myself to a point that I wasn’t sure I’d make it back to the car but when I did, I sat ther...

Dealing with Phantom Pains, Part 2 As a continuation to last week’s podcast on Phantom Pain, and how my faith has helped me through, I thought I would add in other ways you can try to deal with these inevitable pains we go through, as amputees. If you experience phantom pains you know how unpleasant and downright horrible they can be. They can mess with your head, bring you down, and keep yo...

Phantoms and Serving Others: How do they fit together?   Ok, so maybe it’s not THAT easy to rid yourself of phantom pains, but it does help.   SERVING. When we distract our minds then we can free ourselves, even temporarily, from pain.  So why not help others while you help yourself?  I can’t think of anything better than serving where I’m needed, helping someone else o...

How do you deal when hard times come a knockin’?   Do you throw your hands up in defeat or do you reach deep down and find the strength to carry on? Do you belittle yourself into an out of control spin or do you use words of affirmation and pull yourself up by the bootstraps?   I have been realizing, of late, that I am struggling with motivation. I think the move did me in and I&#8...

How about that fit, though? Randy, my prosthetist, with the cast of my residual limb   This is the first step, for some prosthetists, when it comes to making their patient’s next socket. There are many steps, and it can be frustrating with how long it can take, only to realize you may need to make a bunch of corrections to the final socket over the course of the following weeks of recei...

I love my leg, what can I say. But it’s a love/hate relationship the first week of having a new socket put on. Like a new pair of shoes that need to broken in before you run a marathon, a new socket- even made perfectly for your limb- has it’s own personality that you need to get use to. It will hit your thigh differently, rub your groin raw, bump the end of your limb til it bruises, a...

Prosthetics 101-Part 2  Fitting Getting my fitting checked with Randy. (@limbmaster)   No matter how many questions I asked and how many people I talked to prior to amputation, no one can help you understand the things you don’t even know to ask in the first place…. for example, I knew it would take time, about 2 years, for my residual limb to shrink, change, and mature. What I di...

In the beginning…. This is me, with Randy West, in my first prosthetic and 50 lbs heavier! Yikes!!   This picture is hard for me to look at. I had been through years of surgeries and being laid up. I wasn’t active at all because I couldn’t. I was either in surgery, elevating my knee from surgery, in PT, or in just too much pain. Sadly, my mental game took as big of a hit as...

Have Grace With Yourself Through Life’s Ups and Downs The valleys in life allow us to see the beauty of the mountain tops   Moving has been the focus of my every moment this past 3-4 weeks and it has been exhausting. I have pushed myself to the max to get things unpacked and to make our new house look like a home. I have rubbed my residual limb raw, created some serious pains that have...

Moving is Tough Work! Even my dog is exhausted!!   I am BACK!!! I have missed being here and recording my podcast. So sorry for the temporary interruption in the broadcast but my family has been in the midst of a big move! I never thought we’d leave the amazing house we had but times change and new chapters begin. Our old house held so many memories for me and my family with family visi...

Changing Our Environment To Aid in Self-Preservation We’re moving!! It’s so real now!!! No turning back!   The end of another chapter. 😢   Well, this is it! I have been not been able to discuss this until now. As of 2 days ago we are officially new home owners, and of a ranch home. No more stairs for this amputee!! Laundry on the same level as my bedroom! Woo hoo!  I am not...

Run The Race Set Before You   It’s time to get off that couch and put your leg on. Let’s do this! If not today, then when? I will tell you that the amputation wasn’t the end of a journey but the very beginning of another. Life is a journey so I don’t know why I thought any different with amputation. Now the real work comes in. You need to heal, and then get your socket...

Traveling Home Once Again Me and Dad traveling back to Chicago after his stay with us.   Coming in for a landing, Chitown. City lights, oh how I’ve missed you!     O’Hare Airport doing it up right! Love this airport. God Bless America and the Veterans who fought for our freedom.   I am HOME!  Chicago will always be my home, no matter how long we may be apart. Every...

…and ROMP: Helping Others Gain Freedom of Mobility One Prosthetic at a Time This is me, July 2020 climbing Mt. Humphreys in Flagstaff, AZ. My highest and most challenging terrain thus far. I did this for ROMP’s #We Still Climb campaign.   OK all, I am here to tell you that if you haven’t heard of ROMP: Range of Motion Project Global yet you need to check them out!! Do you fe...

How My Faith Saved Me and Made Me Who I Am Today….. HIS! Faith: the assurance of what is hoped for, with the conviction of what is unseen.   This podcast goes deep as I share the other half of my story, the side of my story that I have only just recently shared with people outside my circle.  This story that gives you a glimpse into my Faith and belief system that has been in place all...

My support team through it all   My Support group This family!! I have been so blessed by each one of them!   The people you surround yourself with is a very important component to your success, I’d say it’s number 2 just behind your ATTITTUDE and MINDSET. Surround yourself with people who know you, can support you physically and emotionally,  and know when to give and when t...

Again, and Again, and Again….. Starting Line to my 1st race as an amputee, and as a St Jude Hero.   If someone asked you where your life began, or where you started out, you might answer, when you were born. Others may answer where they started their career or life as an adult, when they had to be responsible for themselves and maybe a spouse or significant other. For me, my starting po...

Plastic Surgeons and TMR Surgery: Tackling Phantom Limb Pain   Everyone deals with pain at some point in their life, but when you have an amputation you know that there is a possibility of living with a pain you can’t even touch! When the missing limb is burning, itching, throbbing, or sending sharp pains with every movement it can be unnerving -pun intended- and hard to get past. I, li...

Physical Therapy After Amputation is Vitally Important to Your Success as an Amputee My Tribe   Everyone needs a tribe. A group of people who are there for you, care about you, make you laugh when you want to cry and support all of your crazy ideas.  These are my people and I am so fortunate to have each and everyone of them in my life.  Some of them have been in my life since I was a teenage...