#WeTHRIVE Stories
These articles are featured in Amputee Coalition’s #WeTHRIVE story campaign to help raise awareness of the resilience, strength, and courage that people living with limb loss and limb difference have to transform their ordinary into extraordinary.
Pamela DeLine
IN 7 YEARS…. My life was changed in 2016. As I kept going to doctors my foot became more red by the day. I started with a toe injury and then the pain went into my right leg. 7 years ago, I lost my right leg below the knee. I had to admire the lady who was a beauty...
Chesley Bond
FOCUSING ON THE NOW. A near-fatal motorcycle accident, in August 2019, almost took everything important to me. The doctors did everything they could to save my leg. In September 2020, my right leg was amputated below my knee. I exercise five or six times a week. My...
Kristi Deighton
KRISTI'S STORY. Hi, my name is Kristi Deighton from Auburn, Nebraska. In October 2018 I started to have lesions. I went to a doctor's appointment. I walked in fine. Then they ran some tests got a wheelchair and took me to the ER. I was going into septic shock and...
Lucila Collado
SURVIVING A LANDSLIDE: MY JOURNEY AS AN AMPUTEE. My name is Lucila and I write from Argentina. In January of this year, 2023, I suffered a very serious accident, which almost cost me my life. While doing the most beautiful activity, mountain trekking, unexpectedly a...
Rustin Hughes
TURN YOUR PAIN INTO PURPOSE. Rustin is a veteran, Para Jiu Jitsu champion, and coach. He lost his leg from a massive blood clot in 2014 and has been utilizing the lessons he learned from the experience to convey a sense of hope and determination to individuals...
Tina Swyers-Hartshorn
STRONG LIKE ASHER! Asher was just 21 months old in July 2023 when he was a victim of violence that left him with a traumatic injury. Asher’s foot was barely hanging on. For a month, the surgeons in Cleveland Ohio worked tirelessly to save what was left of his foot....
Shonda Pryor
I’M A SURVIVOR. My life as an amputee all began when I was a baby, I lost my leg to a blood clot. Texas Scottish Rite Hospital in Dallas, Texas worked with me to get me up and walking with a prosthesis. it hasn’t been an easy road. I had challenges. I overcame them...
Thabiso Molopo
RAGE LIVED WITHIN ME. I never understood why I used to be temperamental at school. Even when I ponder on that, it is beyond my comprehension why I was so easily irritated. As you know, schoolkids like to provoke each other. The fact that I’m limping when I walk; it...
Ricky Bartlett
FILM: AMPUTEES IN THE FOREFRONT. Hi Everyone! I am incredibly excited to announce we just completed filming the psychological thriller, 'Intent Unknown'. I play 'Harold Pointer,' a double-leg amputee protagonist opposite Academy Award & Golden Golden actor Eric...
Devon Wethern
MY AMPUTATION STORY. I was in a bad wreck in June of 2020 and I had 17 surgeries on my leg to try and save it, but they said the risks were too high, so they let me decide to amputate my leg at 17 years old. The process was not easy at all. Having to wait so long to...
Rev Alfred Smith
STILL HAVE JOY. After a foot infection, it became necessary that my left foot be amputated in June of 2020 at the start of the pandemic. I was pastoring at the time and therapy helped me literally get back on my feet with a below the knee prosthetic leg. Infections...
Steven Duncan
SINGLE DAD, TYPE 1 DIABETIC AND RECENT LBKA. Hi everyone, my name is Steven. I'm a single dad from New Jersey and I am a lbka (left below knee amputee) as of July 26th, 2023. I am 40 years old and a type 1 diabetic that has dealt with foot problems and wound care for...