Overcoming Adversity Like These Inspirational Amputees
- Above knee amputee Dani Burt, below knee amputee Chad Jukes, double below knee amputee Erin Ball, and quadruple amputee Kyle Maynard, all have something in common—their impressive resilience and determination to make their dreams come true despite what life has thrown their way.
- Overcoming adversity can seem daunting but having a plan can make it feel achievable. It’s important to remember that setting goals and breaking them into smaller steps is key. When going through a difficult time try setting a goal, making a plan, relying on others, and using positive self-talk.
- Resilience is an important trait to have in the face of adversity, such as becoming an amputee. SurvivorNet spotlighted this important cancer-fighting trait in the film “Resilience,” now streaming on SurvivorNet. It follows the lives of three athletes who are living with a health challenge yet overcame adversity.
For example, Dani Burt, continues to take part in her favorite activity of surfing 20 years after waking up from a 45-day, medically induced coma after being in a motorcycle accident. The incident resulted in her right leg needing to be amputated above the knee.
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Burt also often shares uplifting words on her Instagram account, captioning a recent post, “It’s interesting how one day can be so dark and gloomy and filled with so many hard moments. Then the next day is filled with so much beauty and new life. The day can just float by.
“Life is finite. Living by that lessens the burden of those hard moments and enhances the beautiful ones. The tricky part is remembering it. I’m fortunate to have this life to practice it.”
Burt, otherwise known as Dr. Dani Burt, PT, DPT, currently works as a Doctor of Physical Therapy at Sharp Memorial Hospital, the same hospital where she was a patient after her motorcycle accident, her website explains, noting she chose her career path to help show others how anything is possible with the right attitude.
Her website adds, “Dani Burt is also the first known female above knee amputee surfer in the world and one of the first to design a prosthetic surf leg. She has been competing against male competitors since 2010. In 2016, she was crowned the U.S. Adaptive Surfing Champion, defeating male competitors. In 2017, Dani competed in an all women’s division for the first time in the history of adaptive surfing. She was crowned the first ever women’s World Adaptive Surfing Champion at the ISA World Adaptive Surfing Championships. In 2018, Dani competed on Team USA for the fourth consecutive year and took on the role as Co-Captain of Team USA earning the Team their first Team Gold metal in history.
“The achievement Dani has been most proud of was advocating for gender equality in adaptive surfing. In 2018, she was able to encourage ISA to rectify it’s rules and regulations to exclude gender discrimination. She succeeded in changing the course of history.”
Meanwhile, veteran and below knee amputee Chad Jukes, endured a difficult climb up Mt. Everest.
He captioned a 2017 Instagram post, featuring a photo of him climbing in the snow, “One year ago today Dr @davohl and I stood on the summit of Mt Everest. It was an amazing summit after an incredible and difficult climb, and I’m glad I was able to share it with him!
“It has been an amazing and busy year, and I look forward to more climbing to come! #everest #disabled #climbing #veterans #himalaya #Tibet #mountains #adaptiveclimbing #travel #vacation #alwaysbetweenyouandtheground.”
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In an earlier interview with Paradox Sports, Jukes explained how he was patrol, running combat security operations in Iraq when his vehicle encountered an anti-tank mine, leaving him with a broken femur and a shattered, MRSA infected heel.
He ultimately chose to amputate below his right knee so he could return to his active lifestyle.
Jukes told Paradox Sports, “My relationship with Paradox [Sports] has had a lot to do with me getting to where I am today. A ton of my skills were developed and sharpened at Paradox events.
“It’s been a great experience to be involved with the organization for so long and to watch my role grow along with them. I started out as a participant, then became an Ambassador, and now I’m also instructing at the Paradox [Ouray Icefest] clinic.”
Paradox Sports adds, “In May 2016, nine years after first climbing with Paradox Sports post-amputation, Jukes summited Mount Everest”
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As for an amputee who enjoys other activities like running and aerial acrobatics, Erin Ball, known as @erinballcircus on Instagram, is certainly awe-inspiring.
“I’m also a double below knee amputee and I strive to live the Disability Justice principles created by Patty Berne and Sins Invalid. I highly recommend checking them out!” Ball wrote in an earlier Instagram post.
She added, “I am a circus artist striving to bring more awareness and change around inaccessibility and systemic oppression that exists in the circus industry and beyond. I strive to collaborate with community and consultants with lived-experience of Disability and various intersectional identities. This is so that I don’t speak for people as I create work that includes creative (and functional) access.”
Ball told The Active Amputee in a 2017 interview she had both of her lower legs removed on June 12, 2014.
She explained, “It took me 8 months after that to accept it and to imagine that a life was still possible. Then I had to wrap my head around believing that my life could be one that I actually wanted to live. Before my accident (March 2014), I had been a circus artist. My career was just starting to take off and everything that I did required feet, or so I thought.
“I never would have imagined that just a few months past my two year anniversary of getting out of the hospital (when I made the decision to live, to walk and to fly again), that I would be sitting here writing an article for an amputee resource page. When it happened, I did not know any amputees. I could not imagine living without feet because I had no idea what was possible or how resilient human bodies are. I could not comprehend how incredibly adaptable we are! Today, I perform on a regular basis. I teach aerial arts a minimum of five days a week and I train 6-7.”
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Ball also insists she loves her life now and “can do basically everything that I could before (of course some things are harder and some I avoid altogether and some are just different) and more!”
She continued, “I have a constant source of creativity and humor. I perform with and without prosthetic legs. I use all kinds of leg attachments (stilts, cones, confetti cannons, smoke grenades, running blades, and so much more) and I am constantly searching for the humor in situations.
“I make jokes all of the time. I take ridiculous photos with my partner of imaginary scenarios of how I lost my legs (check out my Instagram page @erinballcircus for some examples) and I hang out with his kids who think it’s awesome that I can change legs.”
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Also, 38-year-old quadruple amputee, Kyle Maynard, has done the unthinkable by becoming the fist quadruple amputee to climb up Mount Kilimanjaro without the use of prosthetics.
The No Excuses Crossfit gym founder and Jiu-jitsu enthusiast was born completely without arms and legs, a rare condition called congenital amputation, but he’s never let that stop him from achieving his goals.
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According to GDA Speakers, Maynard is “a motivational speaker, best selling author, entrepreneur, award-winning extreme athlete, and the first man to crawl to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro.
“Kyle is the New York Times bestselling author of ‘No Excuses’ (2005), which chronicled his life experiences, and is still in print and in demand today. He was also the focus of the moving ESPN documentary, ‘A Fighting Chance,’ (2010) which profiled his story and the pursuit of his first MMA cage fight.”
Not only has he competed in Mixed Martial Arts/Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, an impressive mountaineer who bear crawled 19,340 feet to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro in 2012. And in 2016, he made it to the summit of Argentina’s Mount Aconcagua.
Resilience Through Adversity
We love how these amputee’s maintained determination and hope despite having a major change occur to their body, impacting the way they move, which is why we’d like to point out how SurvivorNet specializes in covering the lives of people who overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Often, seeing the positive helps them maintain their resilience.
Dr. Zuri Murrell, an oncologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, previously spoke to SurvivorNet about the role of a positive outlook on survival rates, saying, “I’m pretty good at telling what kind of patient are going to still have this attitude and probably going to live the longest, even with bad, bad disease. And those are patients who, they have gratitude in life.”
Resilience is an important trait, but not the easiest to build. The ultimate goal is not to avoid tough times, but to be able to bounce back from them. And yet, when they are faced with an overwhelming, life-changing situation, how do people shift their view? How do they learn to see the problem as temporary, rather than permanent, and figure out a solution?
It’s complicated, because building resilience is more about your mental and emotional fortitude than anything else. According to the American Psychological Association, “the resources and skills associated with more positive adaptation (i.e., greater resilience) can be cultivated and practiced.” In other words, resilience is not something you’re born with, which should be encouraging. Instead, after every challenge in your life, you build more and more resilience to those hard times.
You can build resilience the way you build muscle – through patience and steady exercise of the skill. Here are some lessons taken from Fischer, Runkel, and Soller, all who have spoke with SurvivorNet in earlier interviews.
- Be willing to learn. If one way doesn’t work, find a different way. If an obstacle lands in your way, build a path around it or over it. In Resilience, one of the athletes says, “You always have to be learning. Otherwise, life gets stagnant.” The more you learn, the more you grow and growth is a sign of resilience.
- Spend time with people who inspire you. Our world is filled with people who overcome challenges, and their success can energize you to overcome your own. Think about famous people who hava faced adversity and did not give up Stephen King actually threw his manuscript, Carrie, in the trash because it had been rejected by publishers so many times. His wife encouraged him to keep sending it out, and he finally sold it in 1974 launching a massively successful career as a novelist. Take the time to read and learn about the lives of Helen Keller, Jackie Robinson, Bethany Hamilton, Nelson Mandela, and others.
- Allow yourself to grieve. Don’t push away or dismiss your frustration and sadness. Ben Fischer says that life can be filled with lots of crying, but “Those cries make us stronger.”
- Be flexible. Abandon the idea that there is only one solution or that you must stick to your original plan. The best solution or plan is the one that eventually works. You may need to change your original plan as the circumstances change.
- Lean in to your community. Your friends, colleagues, and family are invaluable, and when you’re feeling stressed or overwhelmed by a problem, their support can carry you. The Harvard Study of Adult Development is the longest study of human well-being. Many news outlets have covered its results, which show that maintaining strong, healthy relationships helped people live longer lives. Psychiatrist and author Dr. Samantha Boardman tells SurvivorNet that connecting with and contributing to the lives of other people are two of “the three wellsprings of vitality” (the third is feeling positively challenged).
Facing Cancer: How to Turn Stress into Strength
If you’ve been through a difficult health challenge or any type of adversity throughout your live, Dr. Boardman told SurvivorNet in an earlier interview that one way to get your mental health back in check after a diagnosis is to try to play up your strengths.
“I sometimes will ask patients, tell me about yourself when you were at your best,” she explained. “Using that story, trying to figure out what strengths come to mind. Is it patience? Is it appreciation of beauty? It is perseverance? [Then we can] use those strengths in constructive ways to navigate their cancer journey.”
Dr. Boardman says another way to approach harnessing the strength you already have is by tapping into your values. This could be family, close friendships, spirituality, or commitment to a healthy lifestyle.
Reminding yourself of what your values are and how you are living accordingly is another way to unleash that inner strength.
Lastly, patients shouldn’t underestimate the value of simply opening up, Dr. Boardman says. This could mean speaking to a close family member or friend, or it could mean seeking support in other ways by finding a therapist that meets your needs or looking into joining a support group.
Having negative feelings throughout a health struggle is to be expected, however, doctors will tell you that people who find a way to work through the emotions and stay positive tend to have better outcomes.
Contributing: SurvivorNet Staff
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