#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.
Jack Thomas
DETERMINED THROUGH IT ALL. On September 4th, 2015, my right arm was torn off at the elbow by a conveyor belt at the recycling plant I was working at. I was in the hospital for only 6 days before being transferred to GF Strong Physical Rehabilitation Centre to regain...
Candace Robinson
DETERMINED THROUGH IT ALL. I have been a below-knee amputee since August 2021. I also have three fingers on my left hand partially amputated. I am thankful to GOD, family and friends for the prayers and support I have received over the past three years. It has not...
Kimberly Gonzalez
ACHIEVED SELF LOVE. At the age of 12 Kimberly was diagnosed with one chronic illness and one autoimmune Scleroderma and Raynaud's which caused her to have seven fingers partially amputated. At 21 she had two strokes and was diagnosed with anti-phospholipid syndrome....
Gary Trenkelbach
UNDIFFERENTIATED PLEOMORPHIC SARCOMA (UPS) TO BKA. This whole ordeal started about fifteen years ago +/- five years. I kept going to my PCM for a knot (size of a quarter) on my right leg about 6 inches above the ankle. The PCM kept saying if it was not bleeding and or...
Heba Morsy
INSPIRED. Why do people try to inspire others? Is it because we genuinely care about everyone's life, or because we need to feel that we can motivate and empower others? By inspiring others, we help them believe they can achieve anything they set their minds to. And...
Robert Jones
LOST IDENTITY. I have been a soldier for 35 years (20 years active and 15 years as a defense contractor), and when I lost my leg the military was taken away from me. I lost who and what I was. I spent many nights trying to figure out what will I do now that I don't...
Jeff Soelberg
MOST USED LEAST RECOGNIZED. My WeThrive story begins July 6, 2016. The day that I became a 3 finger partial hand amputee. I remember laying in the hospital bed missing 60% of my right hand, wondering what life was going to be like going forward. I was the father, the...
Abbey Frantz
IT IS WHAT IT IS. As a traumatic upper limp amputee I decided to let the bad thing that happened to me define my in a good way.
Staci Andrea
TRYING TO WRITE THE WRONGS. Hi! I am a thriller author who was working on my third book when I had my right pinky finger severed by a faulty pontoon gate design on my dominant hand last summer. After four surgeries, I have had what was left of that bone removed in a...
Larissa Camp
CUTTING HAIR WITHOUT FINGERS. My name is Larissa Camp and I am a domestic violence abuse survivor. I was shot twice at close range with a shotgun by an ex-boyfriend who later turned the gun on himself. The incident resulted in me receiving a partial hand amputation...
Jeff Keene II
HEY, FELLOW AMPS! I lost my foot in the line-of-duty fighting a fire in NY in 1989. Here is my story: “When the Other Boot Drops.” I pray it inspires those who need to triumph over their own traumatic tragedy or that of a loved one. About the book: Firefighters...
Frank Zingale
NEVER GIVE UP! On January 19th at 1am I went to hospital with calf pain in my right leg. I woke up on the 29th at noon with a right hip disarticulation caused by necrotizing fasciitis. On the 19th, 5 hours before I went to hospital my brother-in-law died in a...