Don't let your challenges challenge your limits!!

Several months back I went to a exhibit up in Salt Lake called "Dreamathon." They had different artists of all ages painting lockers and murals - every room of the exhibit had a different theme.  One room was of different athletes and sports.  At this time, my knee was probably in the best shape it'd been in a long time. My femur surgery had been a huge success. I was all healed and feeling very excited. On the walls of the exhibit, I read:

" DONT LET YOUR CHALLENGES CHALLENGE YOUR LIMITS."  - Travis Pastrana 

Travis Alan Pastrana is an American motorsports competitor and stunt performer. He has had crazy injuries including a dislocated spine, he has torn his ACL, PCL, LCL, MCL and meniscus in his left knee, broken his tibia and fibula, he’s had surgery on his left wrist twice, left thumb once, two surgeries on his back, one on his right elbow, nine on his left knee, six on the right knee, one shoulder surgery which left him with the only piece of metal he has in his body. You could say he is a bit crazy!  A cool crazy!  Injury after injury has not stopped him.

On my project happiness board, someone wrote the word: STRENGTH. Strength is the quality or state of being strong.  Think about that for a minute: the quality or state of being strong.  The last couple of months I have seen myself several times getting frustrated, upset, depressed, angry, and down about not being able to do the things I want like riding my bike more, playing basketball, walking up and down the stairs, or even just walking to my car.  I started getting frustrated when I would hear others talk about what they couldn't do for a period of time because of an injury. I started kind of boiling up inside, wanting to say: "I will never be able to do those things! Be grateful!" Yesterday, I took a step back and started studying strength, and alongside it, peace. I came to the realization that of all the things that have brought me strength, the greatest is God. I know I have a Savior that bled from EVERY pore, he has felt EVERY pain I've ever felt, and he has felt that despair and sadness I've felt.  

2 Nephi 22:2

" Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid; for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song; he also has become my salvation." 

I feel that strength from him but what do I do when those thoughts of anger or despair come in..... what do I do? 

Psalms 34:14 

"Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace and pursue it."  

We all make mistakes every day, but aside from those mistakes, we also have thoughts that we can't do something, that we are worthless, that we are not good enough, that we are a hopeless case. Those are evil thoughts that we need to depart from. They don't come from a God that is our LOVING Father. They come from someone that wants you to think your challenges will stop you from pursing something good.  Yes, we all have our limits, we all have our weaknesses, but we also all have strength in us. I know I have weakness and limitation, but I also know I can do so much! So tell that little pessimistic voice in your head to back off!  Here are a few pictures I wanted to share with how I feel I've pursued what I want to do and how I've learned what strength is. 

This is one my best friends Rachel Stratton. She has brain cancer. After she finished her treatment, we went to Disneyland. The Doctors gave her 9 months and next month she will have gone 2 years.  She has been the biggest example in my life that I can do hard things.  She lives her life and doesn't let her challenges challenge her limits. She has an amazing story.www.prayersforrachel.com

This was us at Disney - rollin it. Yes we had wheelchair races and Rachel really kicked my butt! 

 This is the bike I got last summer. I've never had good balance so I wasn't able to ride a bike.  I was always a little embarrassed about it, but then last summer I decided "Meh! Who cares! I'm gonna buy me this sweet bike!" Don't let your challenges challenge your limits. 

This is also one of my best friends Mic Fortie ( aka Michelle) five months ago she got in an accident and broke her back. Both of us love being active and doing crazy things like high rope swings, so last weekend we went to an epic rope swing.  For me it was too hard to get up to the level with my knee popping out and the impact on her back would be too much, so we decided to take a picture in front of it and show that rope swing that we would be back next year!  Don't let your challenges challenge your limits.

Here is my left-handed guitar. With Cerebral Palsy usually one side of the body is weaker then the other. with my old guitar I would get frustrated because my hand would spasm out or not move much to let me play my guitar so I got a left handed guitar this last christmas and Ive been slowly learning. Dont let your challenges challenge your limits

 Mud volleyball. I couldn't walk around in it, so I had friends by my side to help me walk. My contribution to the game was my serves. We scored 4 points with those serves fyi:)  

Then, last but not least, me jamming and rocking to my cassette player with my swag walker ;) 

I share these because I want people to know that regardless of the challenge you have, we can all challenge ourselves. Don't give up on yourself because of a limitation you may have. Just as real as that limitation, is your inner strength to challenge it. 

Lucky number 18!

    I say lucky number 18 because it sounds like I'm going from just having my 17th surgery and now I might be going on to lucky number 18. We will see what the doctors and I decide. Surgery has become routine for me, like brushing my teeth, as I've said in the past.  In October I had a major surgery where they broke my femur and straightened it up so that it wasn't bone rubbing on bone.  They put in a plate and 8 screws! I'm a crazy metal women you could say.  Since they straightened it all out it was doing great until this past month. I tried ignoring it. It first started getting really painful to walk up and down the stairs. Then my knee cap (patella and patella tendon) started popping and really weird feeling. I've had popping knees before but this is definitely a different, not normal, pop. Its been really painful.  Then I woke up with bad circulation in my leg, it started bruising in areas and turning a greenish color.  I would say its just me to turning into the mighty Hulk OBVIOUSLY but that's not so much the case.  My doctor at the University of Utah said months back since we fixed the alignment of my leg it was definitely a possibility of something like this happening. 
 This morning I woke up really discouraged and in tears because sometimes it just really sucks. I know I will make the best of it.  I always find a way to have fun but it doesn't make it easy. Pain is pain and pain is part of the game. Tomorrow I have a doctors appointment with one of my Provo doctors and then Monday I have a appointment with my U of U doctor . So I guess all I gotta say is bring it on my friends :)

" Happiness is not absence of a load."

- David Bendar

Happiness is understanding that the load is worth it because blessings and learning can come from pain. I've learned that even though it can really stink sometimes, the load is well worth it. I'll continue to walk. If walking comes with the cost of having more surgeries, then so be it!  Happiness is being grateful for the things you do have and for the things that you have to work at to get. 

A few cool pics of my surgery in October.  

(This is a X-Ray of both legs. You can slightly see the dotted line going up and down both legs.  You can see on the left that it is alright straight but the right one, with the screws from a past surgery, you can see is very off.  That is why they went in and broke the femur and aligned it.)

(Here is the femur from after the surgery. As you can see, they went through the bone, straightened it, and put a plate and 8 screws)  p.s don't worry I can still get through airport security without being locked up;) 

So you biffed it? Well, get back up!

        The other day on campus, I was going along with my HUGE artist board (no joke it takes over the whole right side of my body, Artist can understand;) haha)  and projects under my arms as my leg suddenly said, “Get ready Amanda, things are about to get interesting”. I have spasms in my legs at least once a day, if not several times a day, and they come so fast without warning. So there I was, on my butt, in the middle of the courtyard with paper scattered all around me. At first I laughed, and then I realized I had no way to get back up! It seemed on that day that campus was a ghost town – it being a Friday during the summer, people out doing their own thing.  So I climbed to my nearest friendly cement pole and it was happy to lend me some help.  Yes picture a girl crawling across the cement, in the courtyard, on a college campus.  It was quite an adventure. 

           It was pouring rain. I use to like rainy days, but as I’ve gotten older I’ve enjoyed them only when I could stay inside and lounge on the couch. All the operations they’ve done to enable me to walk have worn out my muscles, and with the arthritis, I fall in rain puddles, which you could call enjoying puddle jumping I guess. haha ;) 

I’ve really biffed it physically – whether it’s down stairs, upstairs, on drive ways, on cross walks, in the middle of class, or on a stage in a choir concert. Ha-ha.  But I’ve also had my share of biffing it mentally and emotionally. All growing up, I made it seem to my family and others around me that it didn’t bother me much that I couldn’t run or jump or hike much or a lot of the sports I wanted to. I tried soccer for a year, dance for several years, but It became clear to me I wasn’t going to stay caught up and it’s become even more clear how much it does bother me.

(Throwing it back to 4th grade)

The only sport that my physical therapist said was off limits was basketball.  Even the sound of the words off limits or limitations gets me super stubborn. The word limitation means a limiting condition, restrictive weakness, lack of capacity. I’ve thought but why not? Or too bad, I’m going to do it anyways but if you think about it, we all have our own weaknesses, we all have different capacities, whether it’s physical or mental.  Yes It’s been a dream of mine to play basketball, yes growing up I would beg my mom to buy me black Nike basketball shoes in elementary school, yes I’ve been obsessed with the NBA growing up. I dreamed of meeting John Stockton, the Mailman, or even Michael Jordan but I know that God blessed me with the ability to walk and with other abilities he knew I really would need.  I know that God is real and I know I am one of his children just like all of us are – no matter our abilities, limitations, beliefs, disabilities and even our struggles. We are not defined by or limitations. He blesses us with different abilities, so instead of playing basketball I decided I would coach it. Even though I did fulfill my dream coaching doesn’t mean it doesn’t still suck that I couldn't play or dribble or shot on the team. It doesn’t take away the pain of falling down. But the truth is – we’re all going to biff it one way or another - on campus, on a school test that you studied really hard for, a program we didn’t make it into, or in a relationship you SWORE was going to work out. The question isn’t whether you will biff it or not, it’s whether you’ll biff it and stay down, or biff it and get back up again. I used to think I had to hold back tears to be tough, to erase all evidence of my “biffs.” But now I know being tough isn’t hiding your weakness, it’s putting one foot in front of the other with a smile, and getting back up again.