Pushing Limits With America's Strongest Disabled Woman | National Geographic
I'm a very strong person, and I'm not just talking like muscles. I'm a very stubborn person, and stubborn is a really good word for me because I just don't give up. I love when someone tells me, "Oh, you can't do that." Oh really? Watch me.
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So, when I was eight years old, I was diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma, which is a rare form of bone cancer. They decided they were going to give me chemotherapy for two years and amputate my leg from the knee down. I've been an amputee for 29 years. I work out five days a week.
A kind of typical day for me would be me getting up really early, getting up at 3:45 in the morning. I head over to the gym, I get about an hour workout, and then whenever I get home, I'm making breakfast, making my husband's lunch, getting my husband out the door, which can be a task some days. Sometimes I hit the gym a second time. I'm up to Refuge Barbell, which is my strongman gym.
Every person I've ever met in strongman is absolutely mental, but you know, this community is great. Then being able to spend time with my girls, I'm raising two girls who will understand what it's like for someone with a different ability level to be them.
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When I was a kid, it was a lot harder to be an amputee. Growing up, I had a lot of body issues because I didn't look like everyone else. When someone doesn't understand something, they tend to fear it. We all go through it; some of us just go through it a little harder because we're dealing with something extra. You never know; we're all going through something. Our two daughters, and they see me doing all this stuff, you know, lifting heavy weights and cycling and running, and they get to see me doing that. They're not going to put any misconceptions on someone else, and I think that's awesome.
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Uh, do you think that you're at a disadvantage? Yeah, sure, but we all are. I want to see what my body can do; why not? I want to push the limits. Putting limitations on someone before you can see what they're really capable of is denying that person of becoming stronger.
And so I want those individuals that are watching to realize, like, we're all absolutely abled; we just have different ways of doing it. That's it.
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So [Music] you.