Over the holidays I ran across some photos from a presentation I did shortly after I was amputated in 2005.
I went from being a normally active person that ran and cycled to an above knee amputee cancer survivor.
I remember this was an ‘in-between’ time for me.
You can’t go back and forward was dark and unknown.
Laying in my hospital bed after the operation I really didn’t know what to do and thought ‘Well, this isn’t going to grow back, so I better get used to this and see what I can do..’.
I soon realised that I almost had to forget about the person I was before and the things I was able to do. I had to pretend it was never me. I am afraid if I had not made that realisation, my frustration with re-defining myself with one leg would have turned into something much harder to recover from.
I was lucky enough to be invited to participate in a study at the Swedish Sports College run by Lee Nolan (thanks Lee!) that aimed to train leg amputees to learn to run again (with a cool new leg as well). I was carefully positive to this but the achievement seemed insurmountable. After a number of months of training multiple times a week I found myself running on a treadmill indoors.
I felt like superman.
It didn’t stop there. Based on the training program we developed a book that outlined a training program for other amputees to follow. Since then I have coached and mentored a number of new amputees which has been very rewarding.
I developed a host of self-limiting thoughts of the things that I could no longer do. The challenge was to give up perfection and find the energy from these activities that I could experience this in other areas.
Everyone has a unique gift and when you find that and you’re able to put your full efforts behind this then you are living on purpose.
Your purpose is not always dependent on your physical situation in order to be fully lived.
Good luck and be kind to yourselves,
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