Humbly Courageous

Hello and welcome. Glad you stopped by! Growing up I had many hospital stays. After my extensive foot and ankle surgeries I would usually have to stay for about a week. At the time they didn’t send you home as quickly as they do now. I stayed so I could do rehab/physical therapy while I was there, and learn to walk with my crutches, or whatever it was that I needed to do. They taught me how to go up and down stairs with them and things like that. Because of my weak arm muscles using crutches was hard for me, and balancing on one foot was hard too because of my muscle weakness. However, they pushed me to keep walking, and I’m glad they did. Over time, I learned to master the crutches, and actually got to be pretty fast on them, getting better with each surgery. PT session as an adult Also, back in the 70’s-80’s private hospital rooms weren’t very common. I could always count on having a roommate. Sometimes they were good, sometimes not so good. Once I was paired with a woman that scream...

Hello and welcome back, or if you just found Humbly Courageous, welcome! I believe we all have humble courage that we have to tap into. Some may be new to it, or others may have been forced to practice using it their whole lives. So, what do I even mean by humbly courageous, and how did I even start growing my humble courage to begin with? Like I have said before, humble courage, for me, was inevitable because I was born having to face an everyday battle. I learned very early on that I needed this quiet, unassuming courage to survive and thrive. Check out the link below to read more about the meaning behind Humbly Courageous.  https://humblycourageous.blogspot.com/2021/01/the-meaning-behind-humbly-courageous.html?m=1 When you live in a world where everywhere you go, you stand out because of a physical disability, you have to find something to tap into, a place to go mentally where you can feel safe when everything around you feels scary and unwelcoming. If you don’t know me persona...

Hello and welcome back! If you are new here, I’m so glad you stopped by. I hope that after reading this post, you may go back and read more about the Humbly Courageous journey in previous posts.  https://humblycourageous.blogspot.com/?m=1&fbclid=IwAR0r6iGJYcK3IGKIieL7Ap5jMLcZw2XI-cxpOrkpOxCvxLHRwgHW8AzELlA Well, I made good on my promise to myself after my most recent stem cell treatment last week. I rested my body, slowed down a bit, as much as I could with a household and teenager to take care of! I took over a week off from my workouts, which I have not done since I put my therapy pool in three years ago. And I can tell you, I missed it like crazy! I did some stretching to keep my muscles from getting sore. Also, of course, the normal everyday household activities, which is like a workout in itself, living with a disability that affects my strength. I managed to let some things go, which is hard for this obsessive I want everything in its place type of gal!  The gift of...

Hello and welcome back to Humbly Courageous, or if you are new here welcome. My hope is that you will gain some insight on what it’s like not only physically, but emotionally as well living with a lifelong disability. There are happy stories, sad stories, stories of triumphs and stories of defeat. I do my best to tell my story from a place of vulnerability and hope for my future, as well as the hope that it may help someone else to not feel so alone in their journey.  In May I received my 4th SVF stem cell treatment. If you are looking for more information on my stem cell journey, I would suggest you start at the beginning, which you can find in a previous blog post titled "An Unexpected Opportunity" linked below. Now that my cells are banked, it’s just a matter of scheduling their delivery to my doctor, who gives me my infusion. Much easier than the initial process when they were retrieved.  https://humblycourageous.blogspot.com/2020/12/an-unexpected-opportunity.html?m=1 I d...

Hello and welcome back to another week at Humbly Courageous! Growing up, I had to tell my medical journey story over and over and over. I dreaded going to all of the doctor’s appointments and telling a new person my story and hoping for answers. I would tell my mom, “I can’t do this today, I don’t want to do this anymore.” Some doctors would blankly stare at me, some would show compassion and thank me for sharing. So, if you would have asked me then if I’d like to be an advocate and share my story over and over in order to help others, I would have said, “no thank you.” It was traumatic at the time because it was always a dead end. Each time I was told, “I’m sorry I just don’t know what this is”, my heart was shattered, and I had to start all over again each time for 44 LONG years. .  Now, nearly 4 years after being diagnosed, I am finally off of that diagnostic roller coaster.  My thoughts have obviously changed. Now, I’m eager to share my story, over and over in order to hel...

Hello, welcome to another week at Humbly Courageous. We’ve officially entered my favorite season, fall. I love everything about it. I don’t even care that it basically rolls out the red carpet for winter to arrive because it’s just too beautiful to deny! If I could bottle up the warm feeling I get from fall and dab it on when I’m feeling down, that would be fantastic! As a disabled person, I often hear, wow you did that in spite of your disability! You went snow and water skiing, despite your disability! You went to college, despite your disability! You had two kids, despite your disability! You’ve completed two marathons and are training for a third, despite your disability! While all of those things are true I suppose, I also like to think of those things as because of my disability. Seems more purposeful to me when I think of it that way.  I feel like my disability drives me in a way that maybe I wouldn’t be if I weren’t disabled. It challenges me on a daily basis, pushes me to...

Hello and welcome back! If it’s your first time here, I hope you may learn something new about disabilities, or maybe even gain a new perspective of your own through hearing mine as a person who has lived life with a disability. Thanks for being here! Many of my earliest memories are that of being at a doctor’s office, or recovering from surgery at a hospital. If you are someone who has spent time seeing doctor after doctor, year after year, you know the familiar feeling of feeling like you are just a number. Just someone else for them to check off their list for the day was how it often felt. Too rushed with their own agenda to have time to really listen to mine. Those experiences didn't exactly leave me feeling dignified, or promote feelings of self-worth. Neither did being referred to as unidentified for 44 years of my life. I did have a few heaven sent doctors over the years. The doctors who actually encouraged me to realize, I did in fact, have a place for self-worth in my l...