Shoutout to LP for this solid Miley Cyrus reference and metaphors and laughter – oh and also life changing trip. Thank you.

“The important thing is not to win – but to take part.”

This well-known quote from Pierre de Coubertin about the importance of showing up that is very familiar in the Olympic/Paralympic realm.

This summer felt like that opportunity was taken away from me. I had achieved national team standards, new regional records, won Paralympic team trials – yet did not hear my name called to compete in Tokyo. I was devastated. I felt robbed because of nuances in selection criteria and a dash of bad luck I would miss out on a chance to show the world my hard work.

The hardest part about missing this Paralympic team was that not only did I feel betrayed – I felt like the betrayer. I had uplifted not only my life but my partner, and family members lives so that we all made decisions based on this one goal. We moved states, endured a pandemic, spent time and money that took us away from other things all in support of my making it to Tokyo. I had done everything I could to keep up my side of the deal – to make everyone’s sacrifice worth it. I still came up short.

Not making that team given the circumstances felt isolating and deep down inside, I was afraid to say – I felt really guilty. There were even more people I hadn’t even known were cheering for me and proud of my hard work and I felt like I let everyone down. I didn’t feel like a failure, I felt like a victim and a villain. I suffered and caused suffering.

After a very public display of distress from the choices of faceless entities that chose my fate – I got a phone call.

LP (Lauren) Panasewicz was a friendly voice I had heard over the course of the years. I’m not sure of the inception of our relationship – either a running clinic years ago in Colorado or a social media connection. We had had a few passing conversations about Climbing for ROMP. I remember vividly talking to her in my apartment in Austin, and immediately thinking, “a trip to Ecuador would be amazing… but I would never climb those mountains. At least not until I’m done with track.” Those years prior – and like much of my life – the timing didn’t line up because of my track season.

“I don’t want to be insensitive – but I have a feeling your passport is up to date?”

This clever woman, she was right! It was ready to be stamped but now had no real destination.

“We would love to have you come and join us with an Elite Team Climb in an attempt to summit Cotopaxi.”

At this point – I was desperate for relief. I wanted to run away from the reality I had to face and galivanting off to Ecuador to skip on top of some mountains was the best opportunity to find who I was again – outside of the track.

With no plan at all, I agreed. I had had the best track season of my life and had figured I was in good enough shape I should be okay. Hiking is just walking, right?

The Range of Motion Project (ROMP) Global mission is simple – to provide mobility to underserved amputees. Currently they serve populations in the US, Ecuador, and Guatemala. The Elite Team Climbs are one of their largest fundraisers they do annually to provide prosthetic and mobility devices to people. It is actually astonishing that the numbers show 90% of people who need assistive technology do not have access to it globally.

I have a coach I worked with years back that was helping me, not just with technical mastery but in a weird time of my life where I was managing a lot of emotional turmoil. He asked me to help another teammate with a history of cancer. When I expressed my hesitation – I wasn’t in a good head space, I was going through my own stuff, I don’t know what to say – he reminded me that sometimes we fill our cups by filling others.

After team selection I felt broken, but I kept hearing him say those words to me. I had learned how difficult it is to advocate for oneself against giant systems designed to make you feel disposable.  But even in my own pain – I realized my life over the years has been decorated with privilege. To a non-disabled person this can seem confusing but to people who know what it is like to have to wake up and deal with the involuntary physical repercussions of your past – this makes perfect sense.

I had only had one bad prosthetic experience. That is basically unheard of. For the majority of my life I have worked with one clinician who told me early on “if there is one day out of the entire year that you are in pain because of your socket – then I am not doing my job correctly.” That was a statement we both took seriously and honored. I would tell him what I wanted to do and how I wanted to look. He would do everything he could – sometimes to the point of obsession – to make it happen. I was able to play and do every sport I wanted, including competitive cheerleading that eventually led to a Div I athletic scholarship. When I started track and field, I was never met with resistance of how I was going to be able to get equipment. I had such a strong support system that everyone in my environment was going to do their best effort to see I succeeded.

And I have. Regardless of the things I cannot control, I have been able to achieve every physical feat I wanted to. From cheerleading, to track, to wearing a machine gun and 6-inch heels to even moon walking dance moves just to show off – I have always been supported in a way that is incredibly unique to the average amputee experience. No one ever doubted my ability and there would be nothing that stood in my way.

Having this physical autonomy over one’s body is a human right. People are entitled to attempt whatever it is they desire for themselves and have control of how they can physically achieve that. It’s an unfortunate reality that this essential element of being is restricted solely by financial and/or geographical access.

What ROMP is doing and stands for is something I have supported in my heart through my years with the Amputee Coalition and working with their youth camp (as we lovingly call it “Amp Camp” now and forever).

This was a cause I could easily support. I had no experience in most anything mountaineering – despite being a Colorado native – but I knew my life experience, my voice, and even my pain could fill the cup of others while I waited for healing for myself.

I had no plan, but I agreed to go. Shortly after our confirmation I realized I had little to no chance of fundraising the amount of money in time of our deadline. Regardless of esoteric beliefs, everything seems to work out as it should. I shortly got a call after the myriad of Zoom meetings with LP from a friend named Kirstie Ennis.

Kirstie is basically a rainbow glittery unicorn that also knows how to shoot machine guns and fly a helicopter. If Rambo and Glenda the Good Witch had a baby it would be close to the embodiment that is Kirstie Ennis. I met her when I had to interview her for a prosthetic manufacturers video web series and was immediately impressed by this woman’s fierceness, intelligence, and empathy. We kept in touch over the years, swapping some tips and tricks for our amputation levels and prosthetics.

“I am going to sponsor you to summit Cotopaxi.” My brain didn’t even process her sentence to me. She has used her foundation, The Kirstie Ennis Foundation to help numerous amputees of all levels and from all reasons to create opportunities for them to enjoy the outdoors and simply move their bodies.

My agreement to do this trip was an understanding that I was going to use my experiences, my knowledge and my privilege to help others. I should have known that this was the introduction of my having to surrender my own pride and accept the help and support of others as I attempted these summits.

Hyper-independence is a symptom of a lot of things to many different people. I think when it comes to trauma and people who acquire their disabilities – it comes from guilt. The actual guilt of having something so extreme happen to you that you are forced to depend on others to take care of you. It doesn’t just disrupt your life, it disrupts everyone around you. As women especially, we are raised to be small. Not make noise, be as agreeable and accommodating as possible.

Genetically, I am not designed like that. Layer that on top of a disability that required the care and attention of others in order for me to survive – I spent decades of my life trying to ‘make up’ for needing help. Sometimes I call it, “super-amputee,” where I would prove to everyone – most importantly myself – that I didn’t need anyone to take care of me. That I was so “able” now that I could be forgiven of the sin of being dependent.

I played sports. I got good grades. I got scholarships. Graduated Cum Laude. Became a professional athlete. Became the best in the country. Performed on the biggest stage in the world. Started my own business.

The competitive drive to conquer has always been in me, but a part of it came from a place of shame. When the inevitable and uncontrollable life factors came my way – there was no muscling my way out of it. This is where my relationship with my psychologist became integral to my sport performance, sure, but also in my life and self-regulation.

The funny thing about mental health, especially after you have sorted through some deep seeded stuff – is it doesn’t every actually go away. You carry it around and just learn to manage it better while still moving forward with life. I came into therapy only knowing how to use a hammer when it came to smashing out my problems, and my psychologist helped me find new tools to handle life’s new complications. As it turns out, not every problem needs like a nail. Some are screws. Some are tacks. And some are even ropes attaching you to two other people on a glacial volcano in the Andes of Ecuador.

There was something almost spiritual about that trip. If you made it to the summit, it was driven by you, but you were chosen by something outside of you.

I found out quickly that a track and field background was not going to translate easily into summiting mountains. I was more nervous for our “training” hike as on paper – it looked longer. Quickly I found out distance to mountain people and distance to athletics are somehow not the same. The Ruminahui hike was just a taste of how hard it would be to make the summits this week. The sand would slide under my feet, and I would feet gravity try to pull me back down. Sarita, a woman who has transcended friendship and has now become my family was literally pushing me up at points so I could keep moving forward.  At one point a hand reached out towards me. My guide, Paul, who so clearly was the work horse assigned to the higher-level, lower skilled amputees was spending his time and efforts pulling me up this mountain.

I would love to assert that I handled that first climb with grace. Depending on your perception of elegance – I would argue that I did not nail it in the poise department. I began this trip, and this summit with the intention of just learning. I felt this summer I had tried so actively to take control of my life I wanted a change of pace and to just be the observer. There was a sponsor for the organization, Kaspersky, that was contracted there to follow me and the technology I use in my daily life and to summit these volcanoes.

Even being acutely aware of having my every word recorded – I still surrendered to the mountain. I learned quickly this was more than a hike. This was more than a climb. This was an opportunity to look into a mirror made of the earth when I was being pushed to a point of frustration and discomfort.

I can handle a lot of things. Many of them I have seamlessly navigated in my life but I realize the harder the challenge the uglier my fight. After months of feeling like I was being pushed back down after all of the hard work I had put forth for a dream – there were hands reaching for me pulling me back up. Physically pushing me up and forward. The amount of profanities I was shouting in between shallow high altitude breaths would even make my Italian grandmother blush, but when we reached the summit of the first volcano – I wept.

I didn’t think I would. I was overcome with emotion in a way that I was frustrated by how terrible the terrain was yet – I was supported enough by people surrounding me that I could still overcome those obstacles.

To them, this was a daily occurrence but in that instant my brain was like the spinning buffering ball on the computer trying to figure out what was actually happening. I have now spent a decade mastering a craft so that the execution of one sport would feel automatic – effortless. 8 hours on a mountain was just a condensed version of those efforts and it was a physical, visual, real reward waiting for me.

On the way back down – I felt electric. I was buzzing. I probably should have worked more on regulating my breathing as we dropped down in altitude, but I have a hard time regularly with not talking and after a big achievement like that – it was impossible.

Karl Egloff – casually the fastest man to summit these mountains spent time talking with me. Naturally, the conversation turned to the athlete lifestyle. For as different as mountaineering is from athletics, the mindset of the elite athlete is often the same. You spend most of your life either training or thinking about training. What I like to call “unplugging from the matrix” of sport is almost impossible. You miss important social and family events in a quest to conquer a vision that only you can see. There are few people who support the dream, but you’re the one left in the arena. There is something mystical that pulls you away from yourself in the mastery of one task not for any reason other than the task itself. You learn more about yourself in the meters, or centimeters, of progress than any formal school will teach you. It’s a gift and a curse. When it goes well, it’s the best high in the world. When it doesn’t go well, or go at all – then what do you have to fall back on?

We had a day and some change to recover and get ready for the big one – Cotopaxi.

You would think after my run-in with Ruminahui that I would heed the warning of the summit that wait for us. The distance was shorter, I felt like I had been acclimating to the altitude decently, and I now felt I had “experience.” There was a part of me that was hopeful that since Cotopaxi is a glacier, a harder, snowier surface was going to be more manageable than loose sand.

I panicked upon the realization as the gusts of wind were hitting me that we had to do a preliminary hike just to get to the refuge on the mountain. We packed only the essentials – which for me consisted of things including a nice moisturizer and a book from the airport… just call me madam mountaineer. We had to carry it up about a mile to the refuge from the parking lot. The bus ride to the lot was, like most of our rides, hilariously an inconceivably bumpy but fun. Filled with laughter and singing along to Vanessa Carlton – I felt myself vibrant with anticipation of what was to come. This group of dynamic people – a mix of disabled and non-disabled people who care about something greater than themselves – felt like family.

Before this trip, I was hesitant to see if I would even enjoy the company of “mountain people,” as I knew this was so far out of my element I might as well have been an alien from another planet. Oh boy, was I wrong about that. I’ve invited people to the track from time to time to train with me. In their discomfort learning drills and basic technical models of running, they would laugh and be silly. Of course, I am not one to shy away from a good time, but I always felt an annoyance in that. Rarely do people have an opportunity to go to someone’s work just to try it on for size – and then make a little joke out of it when they turn out to be bad. I often took it as an uncomfortable disrespect. I felt shame that the tables were turned and now I was someone who entered a sacred space for these people – and didn’t honor it the way I knew that they did. But they welcomed me anyways. I was clearly the slowest, weakest, and loudest person to climb along (behind) them – and they made me feel cared for and important.

As I struggled and complained on the way to the refuge, Karl offered to grab my backpack. When he took the load from me, I almost felt like I levitated. I didn’t understand, in any of the contexts from most of the week – how hard this has been. I felt a shock run through me as I was reminded of a quote I used to love, “it’s not the load that breaks you down – it’s how you carry it.”

That was probably the most moving part of the entire trip. Of course, it feels overly broad to say ‘the people’ were what made this trip so memorable. But I had lost a sense of faith in my fellow humans that these mountaineers helped me find it along the way. I was carrying so much guilt and shame of things beyond my control that I didn’t realize how heavy it felt. As a professional athlete, it’s virtually impossible to separate your value as an athlete from the value you bring just by existing. Being alive is enough to be celebrated and cared for – this is something that ROMP abides by in their cause to bring mobility to everyone with needs who simply exist.

The night before the Cotopaxi summit – felt a lot like a competition to me. There were nerves. You could sense dread in some of us. I was nervous mostly in that I didn’t even know what to expect at this point. The refuge was at about 16,000 feet in elevation so our sleeping and eating routines were definitely not optimal. The guides had a meeting to decide who was assigned to which guide and what time they would leave.

So much of this trip had forced me to feel like a little kid. I constantly needed help, explaining and now I felt like I was waiting to be picked for teams again in primary school. I really can’t remember a time in my adult life where I had been forced to be so vulnerable in every sense of the word.

I texted my dad – who is my coach – after summiting Ruminahui. He was so excited for me to be on this trip, proud of me for being adventurous and trying something new which part of me didn’t understand. We come from track and field so the idea to being open to other activities is pretty much off-limits. There are certain times, in our one-month off-season or in this instance, in my emotional recovery of the Games that never came for me – I needed something drastically different. Even though LP assured me I would make it on this trip, I think TJ understood the assignment better than I did regarding the level of difficulty I was going to be exposed to.

My name was first – we had to leave at 10p. Our rope team consisted of:

1) Paul – inconspicuously the strongest and most patient man alive

2) me – none of those things

3) LP – who made this trip happen as seamlessly as our newfound friendship. I was looking forward to having her enthusiasm alone.

I walked downstairs before we got our gear on to see Paul. We both laughed as we shared that we slept a total of zero minutes before this attempt. In a track setting this would have completely derailed me. At this point, however, there is nothing to do but keep moving forward. As we started and I began to feel a sense of dread well up inside of me – this entire hike was going to be fucking sand. If there is a hell for amputees, it’s covered in sand and ice. This sucker has both. I wanted to enjoy being able to see the lights of Quito, the silence of the cold air around me but all I could think about was how annoying that for every single step Paul took – I needed about 6 as the sand pulled me back down with every movement. LP realized that she could use her ice ax to help leverage my back foot, my prosthetic foot, so I had something to push off.  She also slept zero minutes so for the amount of brain power she used to try and find my rhythm is something holy.

Physically, my nervous system was shot. I didn’t present as tired, but I felt something on a cellular level feel like burning with the amount of energy I was putting out to keep moving forward. The air was thin. I am crazy claustrophobic so the cute little thin fabric ‘buff’ I was given to protect my face remain unused as I tried not to panic about my oxygen levels. If I exerted a lot of energy in a movement, I would feel nausea. At one point, I became hopeful that if I moved enough and puked maybe Paul would let me quit. Not only is Paul an amazing mountain guide, he could moonlight as a mind-reader because at some point of our summit he turned around, looked me in my eyes and said “okay, we are not turning around now.”

Somewhere in my exhaustion and general hopelessness, freezing on the side of a glacial volcano, I recognized in his face that we were not going to give up. Of course, I loved flirting with the idea of somehow ending back up at the Four Seasons where I was just weeks prior to that moment filming a national commercial. When I wanted to stop he would let me rest – but then we had to keep going.

I realized quickly that climbing an icy mountain in sheer darkness with no experience was going to require one main thing – mental toughness. Panic is the enemy. Thinking about how bad it’s hurting or will hurt is not helpful. Worrying that you cannot or are not getting enough oxygen is not a productive thought. The only thing I could think of telling myself in these moments was what my dad texted to me after our training hike – “you’re tougher than you think.”

This worked for maybe 85% of the summit. The time laid suspended in darkness and it really seemed to last both forever and pass in an instant. However, when the sun started to rise and I realized we weren’t close (according to mountain people, we were close) to the summit – it started to feel impossible. At this point, Karl had probably done his full calisthenics routine up and down the glacier 3 times and decided to check in on our rope group. My foot kept sliding and he started just grabbing my feet trying to place them onto something more substantial. Of course, at this point I’m catastrophizing thinking I am about to puncture the foot of Ecuador’s favorite mountain hero with my rented crampons. Between Paul, LP, and Karl, I was pushed, pulled, nearly dragged for what felt like an eternity once the sun rose to get to the top.

I couldn’t help but laugh at how hard it felt just to move. One pull and my arms had lactic like I had just tried to do 20 pull ups in one minute. It was shocking. I almost didn’t recognize my own body or how it worked. When we would take breaks – we would try to eat. I remember taking a bite out of a protein bar, or a jerky and my mouth was immediately like “I will not be swallowing this.” At one point, Karl literally fed some energy goo to me like a child (remarkably accurate consistency in this theme here) while comforting to experience a very strong dad moment, it was slightly aggressive to the 32-year-old woman hanging on to the shred of dignity I still maintained.

The thought of reaching the summit, even by being able to see it at this point – seemed impossible. I have never experienced the amount of energy and exhaustion I felt just to do one or two steps. In any other circumstance, including this reflection of it now, I am kind of mortified by that. I have spent my entire life trying to compensate for something that happened to me that was out of my control. It was a theme I keep running into but I had no pride, no guilt, no shame in this moment because I literally had no other option besides to keep moving forward.

At one point I think I was even bargaining with native-Spanish speakers using very estadounidense cliches saying “listen guys, I don’t have a dog in this fight. The sun is already up, the view is still really beautiful from here I’d be happy to call it if you guys are cool, we could totally stop.”

Slowly. Painfully slowly – we made it.

Reaching the summit, I was surprised I didn’t cry. I didn’t feel much of anything in any singular way. I cried and panicked the night leading up to the summit. I was petrified by the fear of failure – not in myself but in the way that I would have let everyone around me down. Again. I was so tired of this being on this road of hyper-independence I felt obligated to follow in the pursuit of not ruining peoples hope in me that I forgot that it isn’t the actual success that people support it’s the effort. The continual and collective effort. When we reached the top, I looked at my guides face. He had tears in his eyes as he looked around. As I took steps back toward the group waiting for us – I felt myself dissolve into something bigger than me. These people who quickly became my family. This group, this energy, the whole meaning behind ROMP was my existence in that moment. My success relied solely on the strength and perseverance of others. I wanted to cry – I had literally cried every day on that trip except in that moment I didn’t feel a release from frustration. I felt joy.

It was simple, subtle. It was the same as the years of mastery in the long jump – a humbling and quiet joy.

I know Cotopaxi is a glacier, and ROMP’s motto is “what is your mountain,” as the summit itself is a metaphor for overcoming life’s challenges – primarily access to mobility devices – but to me Cotopaxi was something different entirely.

An iceberg is part of a glacier that is floating off somewhere in water –made famous to more recent generations by the 1997 film Titanic starring Leonardo DiCaprio. The icy body you see above water usually pales in comparison to the amount of substance underneath the surface of water. The base of the iceberg is made up of the things that have happened to us, that we believe about ourselves – that which we carry around. Even though all you see is above the surface but just as Karl took my backpack – it’s the way you carry that load that makes it heavy. Cotopaxi, to me, is an iceberg. Everything that had broken me, made me hard, preserved, and frozen in time over the years of my life were attached to the roots of who I am today. The summit wasn’t what was important that day, or even in that moment. What was important was finally getting on the other side of the water for me. I had spent so much of my life building and believing so many things about myself that when life inevitably knocks us down – it’s hard to see we are attaching ourselves to the unhelpful part of the iceberg that sits below the water’s surface. Getting on top of that iceberg isn’t be done in solitude. When you get pushed down it is several things, often people, who extend a hand, offer to carry your bag, and help pull you back up.

It took a whole trip to Ecuador with strangers to help me forgive myself and finally break the surface of that water and take a breath of fresh air.

As I looked out around me on top of the glacier – it was like standing on a different planet. We were tens of meters (ask the mountain guides they might say anywhere from 4cm to a kilometer I have no idea) above the cloud line. You couldn’t see Quito, you couldn’t see much of anything other than blankets of bright white rolling hills, smiling faces. It felt infinite. It was actualized peace. We were above the surface of the iceberg and it felt like after all of these years – life still offered something new. Something fresh. Above the line where you were unrestricted by the accumulation and gravitational draw from painful events and unproductive beliefs. The struggle, the exertion up the mountain existed as a test to see how far you needed to go to break away from the things that pulled you down daily.

I came on this trip to offer my experience as a professional athlete and offer the resources I had that I thought would be helpful. Consequently, in sharing myself, I was helped more than I could have ever imagined. The experience on the mountain, with the iceberg, climbing for ROMP and essentially in life outlines one certain fact: we rise by lifting others.

(I put a “too long didn’t read” break if you want to get through some of the numbers and intracacies of team selection and just want the essence of the story. Just scroll down below and look for my TLDR break)

I am working with my friend at his start up right now. We help freelancers with structure, accountability, productivity, and performance. He is a former pro basketball plaer so he has been able to ride the waves of emotions and competitions with me this summer. For that, I am grateful. It’s called The Process – you can check it out here. One of our members was going over some of his own growth and work productivity and he said, “don’t write when you’re bleeding – write from your scars.” That was exactly what I needed to hear, and perhaps fully heal before I found a good way to talk about Tokyo and what happened with my role – now missing – at the 2021 Paralympic Games.

I have competed at a Paralympic Games. Just barely, though. Both the Olympic and Paralympic teams for Russia were denied a chance to compete in 2016 due to state sponsored doping. Well, not due to the doping more due to the outrage of the doping. At trials 2016, I knew I had not performed well. I had given every part of me to the sport – long jump in particular – and fell flat the day that it counted. I decided to run away. Booked tickets to exotic places to escape any reminder of what I was missing.

         Then I got a call. Because Russia was no longer competing – our team was afforded more slots to compete at the Paralympic Games. Of course, I agreed to go, “the important thing is not to win, but to take part,” as Pierre de Coubertin so famously said. I didn’t love how I performed at my first Games, I made finals which was good, but I made a promise to myself for the next quad – my story would be different. After that experience, who I became as an athlete was completely different. I learned to enjoy the training and fall in love with the technical aspects of my event. I crossed a threshold of good to great – proven by my promotion to the US National Team. Besides random team gear and an strikingly modest stipend, we got great benefits like health insurance. And as any adult in the United States knows, is expensive even BEFORE having any extensive medical history.

         I felt like my hard work and results were finally validated. I was going to be one of those athletes you saw in the commercials, next to the new cars. The year I made the National Team – I wasn’t selected to World Championships. I was hurt, but I understood how the scoring system worked at a team selection meet. In the US, Para track and field at one point decided to have a trials-style track meet where your mark at only one meet counted. Which, on the surface seems fair. We have a drop-down percentage system where your mark compared to everyone else of your gender is put into consideration compared to the top 3^rd mark in the world of your disability class. If your class does worse than it did the year prior – the standard will be averaged so that it doesn’t “get easier,” in any progressive year. I hope I didn’t lose you there. Basically, you need a high percentage to show likelihood of you finishing on the podium for the US. To make a National Team, you essentially need to have a PB (personal best) every year. All of this is completely objective and on paper makes total sense. The numbers don’t lie. I should have gone to London 2017. I watched girls in my class, who I regularly beat win medals with marks I easily surpassed. That hurt me deeply.

         If we have learned anything since 2020 – it is my greatest hope that ewe collectively understand quality and equity are not the same thing. Para does a great job in an attempt to consider this within disability class. I have spent a lot of my young life and way too much effort avoiding classes like advanced math and physics just to learn it in application in track and field.

         The percentage system is not equitable as it is compared to all events. This also means that some athletes in different classes can be omitted all together if no one scores high enough. A higher affected long jumper will have a smaller A-standard than a lower affected 400m runner. This is the simplest example I’ve been able to use to explain our system.

My A-standard for 2020 was 4.44 meters, that is my 100% number. Let’s say another woman in another disability class is a 400m runner and her standard is 60 seconds – that’s her 100%. Anyone that runs and finishes a 400m is a hero in my book because that is one hard event. She could run 62 seconds and score 96.7%. 2 seconds in a race like that is an eternity. It can range depending on speed but when 1^st-3^rd in a sprint is typically in the span of half of a second – 4 times that is a long time. For me, 4.29 meters is 96.7% While 15 cm could be a significant distance, it’s roughly the length of my smartphone.

This drop-down system makes some events, like short sprints, shorter throws and jumps much more difficult to hit high numbers without basically already being third best in the world. Because this is fairly known, there is also discretionary selection. In hindsight this is almost laughable – because logically why would there be any discretion if we are objectively choosing the team? Or why even do this objective selection when it is known who is good and competitive in their own class?

For Tokyo – things were different. After missing out on London, my training group decided to dissolve our jumps and multi crew. We were a mix of disabled and non-disabled elite athletes that essentially had no place to go. I decided to move to Texas from Phoenix to chase after a few professional opportunities as well as be close to the coach that wrote my programming but essentially train on my own. I had matured in the sport, so it wasn’t a bad temporary solution. Turns out, most of us are terrible at coaching ourselves. I had to hit my standard twice that year as my sporting organization had a leadership transition and things like – sanctioned meets, dates and paperwork were improperly filled out at their training facility, so I had to do more track meets in that off year to secure my National Team status and more importantly – my health insurance.

2019, things started falling apart fast for me. I needed a new prosthetic since I was training on one that was 6 years and 15 pounds ago. I had never had my leg made by anyone than the man who got me through a Division I athletic career and my first Games. I had worked in the prosthetic industry throughout my sporting career. Because I was successful in my physical endeavors, I had repeatedly heard I would be an “easy fit.” My experience getting a prosthetic with a new 3-D printing system proved otherwise. It wouldn’t stay on; I couldn’t put good force through the ground and after 20 years of being an amputee my skin would turn purple and become inflamed with boils. Painful and definitely not cute at all.

I lost my National Team status that year. I lost a gold medal at Para Pan American championships, and I didn’t make finals at World Championships. Of course, I can’t only blame my equipment. I lost my confidence as an athlete. I had no one helping me in training and my approach work all fell apart. It was time to go back to what worked. I moved home, I didn’t want to work with my dad, but he has extensive and successful coaching experience. Coming home felt like I failed. Like I wasn’t “good enough” to do it on my own. Which, of course, is a complete charade. No athlete, elite or otherwise are successful on their own. Between recovery, facilities, equipment, and talent it’s statistically impossible to do it alone.

After the onset of COVID, we lost facilities. This isn’t unique to me, but a hurdle, nonetheless. I lost my prosthetic sponsorship – not due to bad performances but due to their marketing schedule. After 2020 they were phasing out athletes.

I am so blessed to be so supported back in Colorado. My prosthetic clinician shaved my old blades down so I could jump on them better than how they were originally manufactured. I have a leg that fits – really well. I have access to facilities and a great rehab team. Most of all, I have coaching coupled with programming that helped me make up – and surpass – years of loss in performance.

I promised our director of para track and field I would get back on the National Squad if she let me keep my insurance to get that prosthetic. I came through on my deal this year – even with a standard so high very few women have been able to hit them this year. I am the best jumper I have ever been – and 5^th best all time – in the world.

Trials was not my best meet. Most people did not do well on the runway we were provided. In 2017, we weren’t given an official board but rather white tape down on the track. This year, a runway where some people had to shorten their approach. My event for some reason is always the first event of the meet and with that comes kinks like, the officials getting the call room sorted. The officials that couldn’t remember where I jumped from off of the board because they hadn’t been asked that yet. Small things, that lead to big stress. At our long jump event, we had combined classes because we had some TV coverage – which I thought was cool!

But it was an accumulation of stress. People were mad that we were not afforded support with fans yet the non-disabled athletes were. Why were we at a high school track and the USATF guys got Eugene? None of this mattered to me because I just wanted to jump. I felt a big one was close and if I was lucky it could happen at trials. After a few jumps, an interruption with the anthem (which skipped and started over the speakers in a perfect and comedic fashion) It felt like a battlefield out there, girls were sobbing, and we were losing the war. I refused. I have done this long enough to know how to take the power back. Even if you’re in a storm you can become the storm and use it.

The conditions weren’t great, but I won trials. By a lot, almost over a meter from the next girl in my class. But the number I got I knew might be low. It wasn’t my best meet and our team events rarely produce a good environment for breakthrough performances. I could have been stronger mentally – but that was the strongest I had ever been in a meet like that. The unfortunate thing was – no one even knew our team size at that time. We hadn’t been given our final slots, but I knew as it stood, I wasn’t quite as secure as I wanted. I passed my USADA test, and the waiting began. We had to wait about a week before we knew who made it.

The day before team selection – an email arrived. We got 6 more female slots. 26 in total. I felt relief. Everyone had running spreadsheets of percentages, and each one had me around number 24. I was so excited to fight for a medal at Tokyo.

The day came. In an attempt at making the announcement as ceremonial as it had been years passed, we were asked to keep our cameras on for the giant Zoom call. Our team director starts listing women’s names, in alphabetical order by first name. We start getting closer to my name…

Kelsey. Noelle.

God himself had come down to refrain me from turning myself off mute to say, “Hey you forgot the L names!”

I stayed through every name in case she had realized she missed my name. As soon as gravity came back into my brain, I ended the call.

I write in a text message, “I am just confused as to what number I was?”

“Lacey, you were number 27.”

Unlucky. I am told with COVID, there was potential that the IPC could release more slots and, in any case, even if someone were to get hurt – I would be next in line.

“So, you’re telling me there’s a chance!” I was channeling my inner Lloyd Christmas from Dumb and Dumber in his optimism and cluelessness and kept training. Of course I had to go, I was the best long jumper, by a lot in my category. I could get a medal! It would happen I could feel it.

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TLDR;

I knew waiting would be hard – I can confidently say it was harder than I anticipated. The amount of interviews and speeches I had to give while carrying the weight of uncertainty was heavy. Watching other countries announce their teams during this athlete purgatory. Girls I competed against I knew I could beat. I was blessed to meet a young guy who lived close to me that ran at trials who was a collegiate athlete. We decided to train together and it was truly a saving grace for my sanity and sadness each day I dragged myself to the track.

I got my official team alternate email. Filled out the paperwork, started getting the team COVID tracking app and even their at-home tests sent to my house. Emails that seemed promising including a marketing waiver that I thought was “the email,” until I was corrected by being told IPC started reaching deadlines before the one the US team gave us for alternates to know our status.

Over a week before that vague date they gave us, I see on social media, where all of us seem to get our information now that there was a “final list.” They had added two more guys – no additional girls to the team.

I write our director of sport to make sure they use the word “final” the same way that I use the word “final.” It was earlier than they told us, but it was pretty clear that the team was final. Those additional slots came directly from IPC to those specific individuals for “event viability.” Basically, their event had low numbers, so they needed to fill the lanes in order to keep the race viable at the Games – it didn’t matter if they were ranked 12^th or 20^th they were able to receive a direct invitation.

That was when I decided to fight. Not because I had anything against that – I love disabled sport and support the growth of this community. And I had nothing against the athletes going. But I knew, being ranked 5^th in the world that surely it was an oversight if they were sending other numbers and I was entitled to compete at the games. I was the literal next person! I was the only person on our National Team not going! They had to send me!

I did something I’ve never done – a last ditch social media video complete with crying. I was desperate. I didn’t know how to get a hold of who I needed to get ahold of. I wasn’t given much direction from my immediate powers that be except that IPC could only give out slots now and USOPC couldn’t ask for a slot for one athlete in particular otherwise they would have to do it for every athlete on the list.

I hate bad PR and attacking anyone online. I think it’s tacky and all it looks like is you’re complaining. Life isn’t fair – this is something I know too well.

I hated that I did that, but my video at least got the attention of enough people that I got better emails than they ones casually thrown on these respective websites.

I was talking with people, it started to feel like I had hope. I had a bunch of non-answers, emails that had been directly copied and pasted from questions I didn’t ask. I started to feel panic. I was being told this isn’t “sitting well” with certain people at the higher levels in charge.

Sitting well?! Hope was a weak strategy at this point, and I couldn’t just sit back and let everything I had worked for – and sacrificed – go down without a fight.

         I lost.

The other day, I was sitting on my outdoor sofa in my back yard. It’s a peaceful space. I am truly grateful for the beautiful life I have worked hard enough to be able to afford – and only with and by those in my life who support me. I was reading and erupted into laughter. It wasn’t the feeling of losing my mind like I had felt earlier this month, like during my video. No, not maniacally laughing. I was just laughing was from funny a story I remembered with my dad that reminded me of the same reason why I did what I did.

Sometime in 2020, my dad called me really fired up about something.

       “Lacey, me and a bunch of other guys are going to the capital to protest.”

Protests were happening at the Denver capital building almost daily at this point and I was impressed at his sudden interest to express his civil duties.

“Oh!? What are you protesting?”

“Mayor Hancock wrote some proposal to replace Columbus Day with Mother Cabrini Day.”

Sarcastically I go, “Oh no! Mother Cabrini? Not a woman!”

He didn’t catch my joke, “can you believe it?! Mother Cabrini Day? Yeah, well, we are going to protest as it is an infringement on our identities as Italian Americans.”

I didn’t have the availability – either by timeframe or emotional capacity to fight with him about how problematic Columbus is for our country. I couldn’t seriously support his counter-protest to a good cause. I took a breath and asked him a question – “Dad, have you thought about the outcome of this protest not ending the way that you want it to?”

“Lacey, there is no way – Mother Cabrini Day?! Come on!”

“Okay Dad, I just want you to consider the outcome just in case this doesn’t go your way.”

That was an impossible scenario in his then 74-year-old-Italian-American mind.

Let me just say, I was proud to celebrate my Italian heritage last October with the inaugural Mother Cabrini Day on the 21^st in Denver.

While I do not need to go into some of the unspeakable atrocities that Columbus committed that my dad has decided to ignore. Columbus was like, on loan to Spain because even Italy, his own motherland, was like “eh, he sucks” – my dad’s protest and mine are similar in that they are fights for something greater.

         As each day passes – my father recognizes this world less and less. I truly believe we are moving in a positive progressive direction – but that still must be scary to experience when the security you’ve known all your life is being threatened. When you feel that your identity is being threatened and removed by someone else.

         Being a professional athlete, you dedicate your life to your craft. We move, a lot. We found training groups, then would have to find new ones if they dissolved or decided they only wanted to work with one particular group.

         I made the numbers required of me. At trials, no one knew our team size, so no one knew what was actually required at the time. I agreed to the selection criteria – for both Tokyo and the National Team. I achieved everything I said I would, and honored my side of the agreement as an athlete within an organization.

         Because of how the powers that be chose our selection criteria – I was unintentionally betrayed. It is pretty unfair to hold an objective team trials when the actual team size is unknown. To even call it objective when there are still discretionary slots and all the language in these official documents “may but are not required to” and “subject to change.” Who, besides the athletes left behind, can be held accountable?

The responses I received from the powers that be made me feel small, silly and stupid. I was embarrassed and encouraged to stop, to be quiet, to be complacent. But I thought of the people I have mentored and known for so long – and how I would have easily fought for them. I had to give the same love and fierceness to myself that I would give anyone I cared about.

         I saw behind the curtain in the past months and was deflated to find that the athletes’ performances or even wellbeing are not always the top priority of the organizations to which we subscribe. That was a big bummer. We are merely pennies among higher priorities like corporate, multi-national sponsorships and agreements. The costs for top athletes to go, and even do well on our own is pocket change in the grand scheme of things.  

         Consequently, it’s the athletes who pay. The feelings of resentment still linger, because even though I suffered a betrayal – if I had not put up a fight, the greater betrayal would have been to myself.

         How dare any of us, especially in the disabled community call ourselves “advocates” if we do not have the courage to stand up to something systemically flawed? That is how the Americans with Disabilities act even came to be. Our civil rights have been born of fighting for ourselves and it would have been wrong to ever show my face or my words in a public sphere without honoring the work done before us and that which we still do. I have a humble public following, and it would have felt insincere to continue as if I agreed with what happened in regard to the Tokyo selection. When it happens to the next athletes, are we all intended to stay silent? Imagine during Title IX if the women had just been happy to be allowed to play sport instead of fighting for better facilities, equipment, and treatment over all? Would women’s sports even have evolved if there wasn’t a fight?

         I love disabled sport and I support the development of it to an elite domain, but when you love something – and I mean really love it – you hold it accountable and encourage it to improve. You want to see it get better. If we do that work on ourselves to become better every day than we should expect and hold these organizations to the same high standards regularly. A continual effort to reach our best potential is a true act of love.

         I love the Olympic and Paralympic movement. As a former director of sport recently alluded to – these athletes show that no matter what, they have chosen to bet on themselves. That’s what makes these events so incredible. A world record breaking performance is great but the spirit of someone who truly believes in themselves is what creates global movements. Shit, look at how much noise Columbus did by believing in himself! We can’t go back and fix the past. But we can correct our course and aim for something better. We do better because we love what the movement can be.

The other evening my anxiety alarm had me up at like 3am. I laid in bed tossing and turning and just couldn’t get comfortable so I finally conceded to looking at my phone which is always the worst possible thing to do if you want to go back to sleep.

I went over long jump film, thought about my approach, went over other jumpers film and just leaned into the chaotic noise my brain was pumping out.

I ended up on my own Instagram page and was going through old posts. Recently, I’ve just been tired yall. Too tired to read other people’s long captions, and definitely too tired to write them. (Some of my posts from just a few years ago were thoughtful and deep af tho)

Since the pandemic hit, I’ve been feeling like I’ve been stuck in a very boring, dark and quiet void. 2019 was an exciting year for me, stressful in its own way, sport was falling apart but I had creativity to help anchor me to who I feel I am.

When the world ends, we always picture it as an abrupt and final ending. A period at the end of a sentence. My experience during COVID and consequently the constant bombardment of racial injustice was not a final, significant moment. It was more like an ellipses rather than a period…..

Like not being able to catch my breath. Like missing the last step at the end of a staircase. Any distraction was welcome because at least my brain could grab onto something which is better than absolutely nothing. Even while writing this, I’m on a plane ride home and the unwelcome interruptions of the attendant trying to explain safety protocol I find derailing.

*Shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up*

My creativity has hit an all time low with an impressively long duration. I haven’t felt any profound thoughts or emotions that have pulled me to write or create until very very recently. And it comes in snapshots…. and leaves just as quickly as it arrives if I don’t immediately make a point to write it down.

But I guess the best part that even in a fleeting moment, it’s a glimmer of hope. It’s seeing that while our brains can’t actually process this amount of stress, it is adapting and surviving and finding ways to dish out some comfort in a new way.

I’ve lost A LOT of faith in what I’ve built for myself over the years from this event. I got a job I really don’t need because I was afraid all my work had just… disappeared. Everything I’d worked towards just seemed to drop down through a trap door. Feeling like it didn’t even leave a trace of evidence that it ever existed.

The faith was gone. A perfect shape to be filled by fear, uncertainty, textbook anxiety yada yada yada.

Hopelessness isn’t as fleeting in the moment when it seems that things floated away rather than were ripped from you.

A good dramatic ending is better than a boring one, right? And whewwweeee if we’ve learned anything it’s that while a pandemic is terrible and dramatic; for the majority of us it’s pretty boring.

Boring is boring. Drama is exciting.

My creativity and hope weren’t blown out like an excited toddler attacking a birthday candle but rather faded away when no one was looking, when no one noticed or cared until after the moment had passed. The smoke had passed. No sign of the flame existed at all.

But the spark is still there. It’s dormant. It’s resting. But it is still flammable and when it’s ready

🔥

This isolating feeling is important for me to finally recognize and assign words and a place to exist. Mostly just for myself but also for those I know are feeling the same. This year has been hard for so many reasons.

For the privileged few like myself though, it’s felt uncomfortable at worst. People can endure pain, because we have painted that as a noble thing. But discomfort or dullness, is excruciating. It’s stifling. It kills creativity and hope and motivation and I will be the first to admit that I am not immune to boredom.

I’m grateful for these few and far moments of life re igniting somewhere deep inside of me again. Like a feeling of deep laughter building and even though it still passes, it’s building velocity. I can feel it. I’m excited for it and I welcome it.

If any of this resonates with you, please know, you are not alone, but I think more importantly you are not stuck here forever.

Even if the moment comes, and you can’t grab it as it passes, it’s still a sign of a new horizon, a new day, a new light peaking above the dark and welcoming itself to join you.

Being human is complicated. Progress is not linear. And life isn’t really about winning.

We exist with and for others, just as they exist with and for us.

And maybe, just maybe, in really super hard and terrible times…. it’s good to just be enough. ♥️

L.

Hey gang-

After the tumultuous year that will forever be famous- I will be sharing *even more* content from 2020.

Here is a video I did in partnership with Hylete and Native Ground Media. This baby turned out beautiful and I want to push it before we show you an even newer project.

Enjoy!

Y’all… today is Global Accessibility Awareness Day AND the day I get to finally share how honored I am to be Microsoft’s In Culture Podcast host for their newest season all about accessibility. I got to sit down with X Ambassadors keyboards player Casey Harris, former NFL athlete Steve Gleason and the founders of Unified Robotics, Kendall & Delaney Foster; who live, breathe, and fight for accessibility every day. In this new series “Accessibility for all” we covered some topics that moved me, some that made me laugh, and some I hope give you a new way of thinking during these times.

 

Check out the episodes here or wherever you get your podcasts!

WOW-

What a time to be alive and be a professional athlete. While I am readjusting (and hopefully revamping) my life while we are all holding our breath during our century’s pandemic…

Let me know what kind of content you’d like to see!

I’ll start releasing some of our Picked Last in Gym Class videos as blogs before I give this site a full face lift and create a home for the show here.

 

Thank you as always for your support, wash your hands and get some rest!

L.

Let me start off by saying, this post is NOT associated with Netflix in any manner (however I would not be opposed to any movie offers tbh) but I watched the movie, “Dumplin” on a recent average night and, my friends, I was ABSOLUTELY BLOWN

AWAY.

The movie is set in the fictional town of Clover City, Texas and the protagonist is a high school girl named Willowdean Dickson, daughter of a former beauty pageant queen (played by Jennifer Anniston) who also runs the pageant every year. As the self proclaimed “resident-fat-girl” of the town, Willowdean decides to run in the pageant after finding out her recently deceased Aunt Lucy, with whom she identified closer than her mother growing up, had aspirations of competing in the pageant the same year that her mother won. Willowdean claims her participation acts solely as a protest, but creates close friendships, and finds out strengths about herself and more fun things about her Aunt Lucy.

As excited as I am about the film, I’m going to do my absolute best not to ruin the entire plot and spoil the movie for those yet to see it. (Unless, you know, you want me to because I really do have a serious talent in ruining surprises and endings of movies…) What made me so aggressively into this movie was how many parallels I saw and felt of myself as well as most people I know.

I mean, I guess minus small-town problems, beauty pageants and drag queens but let me try to tidy this thought process up…

At it’s introduction I found the setting alone to be serendipitous after almost rounding my first year living in the Lone Star State myself. Texas has been, quite literally, nothing but incredibly welcoming and warm to me as a small business owner, a member of the athlete community, a speaker and generally as a human. My experience has indeed been “uniquely Austin,” as I’m told, but I do think that there is something to be said for that “southern hospitality” I’ve experienced more recently than most of my previous cross country/continent moves.

Enough about me and back to Dumplin…

Dolly Parton is a constant presence not just by providing the soundtrack to movie, but also as a beacon of inspiration for the protagonist. I mean, who can blame her? Dolly is an absolute, timeless legend and also a pillar of strength for women of all ages for generations. She’s got a lifetime of wisdom bombs to share, herself:

“Find out who you are and do it on purpose”

So, pretty much immediately I felt inspired to write on some themes in this movie solely based on Willowdean’s chosen idol, and BOY am I glad I did.

The first question “Dumplin” made me ask is “what does it look like to own ‘our thing,’ whatever that thing is?”

Dolly Parton and Aunt Lucy are characters that act as sources of strength and inspiration for Willowdean. She never shies away from who she is or what she looks like when being blatantly and constantly reminded. In a few fleeting moments of vulnerability, moments that have NOTHING to do with people criticizing her body but rather offer a new type of closeness she wants to bolt ASAP.

It seems that we look outside of ourselves, to other people, Dolly Parton or otherwise, to admire and to aspire to be. When the light is reflected back on to us and we have to come face to face with who we are- we want to run.

As some body who objectively has a “thing” with body confidence and image- I can say that in my experience I identified myself as separate from my bodily-status for a REALLY REALLY LONG TIME. I think Willowdean, and a lot of people also experience(d) this phenomenon.

People who have known me for a long time can assure anyone that, rarely, if ever, they have seen me be anything other than confident. I agree, I’ve always felt an insane amount of confidence with who I am (sometimes bordering delusion) and what my body can do. Only recently the idea of combining WHO I am on the inside and WHO I am on the outside has been a theme.

So, I’ve always LOVED watching beauty pageants (very un-woke of me but I’ve had a long time affinity for any event/production/presentation that celebrated women and beauty and also maybe I should write about figure skating competitions next…) I feel like my career in cheerleading, and subsequently judging cheerleading competitions has a few parallels. My coaches over the years had always given us advice, but my college coach would constantly tell us to “fake it ’til you make it.” (Side note/humble brag: I gave that advice to some of my campers when I first started working AmpCamp and that particular group of girls have grown into influential women, doctors, multiple Paralympic gold medalists and overall impressive humans. Sorry- let’s continue)

Dumplin’ has a LOT of layers that I could gush about for infinity, however I think the concept of confidence as the main vein is what struck home for me and one that I believe everyone has encountered and had struggles. Honestly, fakin’ had been pretty sound advice for most of my young life…

That is, of course, until I needed to start showing up for myself in new and different ways. It’s easy to be confident on arbitrary levels, but when you haven’t taken a good, deep look at yourself, and I mean ALL of yourself.

It’s hard to be confident when you realize you maybe don’t even know who “you” really is.

Where do “you” begin? When you start looking, do “you” even have an end?

I’ve always thought the word “courageous” had obnoxious marketing. The word “courage” always seemed like it needed to be followed with grandiose gestures, and unabashed confidence and security in who one was in order to demonstrate their great, often public, acts of courage.

Courage, like confidence, always seemed like it was on the outside and seldom coming from within. The two also seem to have similar responses by their respective audiences. Whether it is an authentic and true confidence, or a false one; it can be received in unfavorable ways. When someone seems confident, and have a “thing” that should objectively tear their courage down- more often than not it is not received well.

“How is it possible that hot guy can like that fat girl?”

“How dare that girl with the disability feel good about her body?”

These are some pretty hateful questions we find ourselves asking when we compare our issues, our pain, our “thing” to someone else and can’t conceptualize how they could have the audacity to still find happiness and peace with themselves DESPITE the struggle.

It’s easy to continue to be judgmental when we have spent the majority of our lives judging ourselves. I think that’s what makes it so easy to concede to other people’s criticisms of us but what makes their compliments so hard to swallow.

Is it in fact, more courageous to believe the *good* things people tell us? To believe in the *goodness* of ourselves, to tell the critic to be quiet and do something that honors ourselves in a *good* and loving way?

We need to stop agreeing that we don’t deserve good things or to be treated well.

Real confidence starts with the courage to believe that the good parts of ourselves will always be stronger than the bad or weak parts. That we do indeed deserve goodness rather than believe otherwise. When we decide to show up for ourselves, be kind and compassionate to ourselves it is a simple and strong kind of peace we create. It’s a place where happiness and contentment can exist, not by comparing and tearing anyone down, but building ourselves up. This kind of foundation allows us to authentically make space and create environments that are compassionate and loving to everyone. We love ourselves enough to know that we are no different than anyone. That is what true inclusion really is, and that’s really my whole schtick.

I’ll tell you what, Texans may talk funny but they got some mad wisdom to share!

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I hope everyone had the happiest of holidays with their loved ones. This movie has been out since early December on Netflix so if you need to escape your family for something uplifting I think it was cute as all get out. Now, apparently it’s time for me to get fully creeped out by BirdBox while I continue to hide for the next few days until I fly back to the Lone Star State.

Happy New Year, y’all!

Howdy!

October is known for being a spooky time of year, but regardless if you’re afraid of ghosts and ghouls it is shaping up to be a pretty busy month. I want to share all of the events I am fortunate enough to be a part of with everybody and if you’re lucky I may be stopping in your town!

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20th of October:

AUSTIN, TX

I am super stoked to kick off the ATX Amputees Fall Fitness in the Park series. While we are munchin’ on all of those sweet holiday snacks; it’s our goal to do enough activity to be able to maintain volume, stay healthy in our prosthetics, and have a little fun too.

Click here for more info on this event.

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21st October:

AUSTIN, TX

I am humbled to have been asked to participate on a panel for the event Woke Beauty: An Intimate Discussion with Celebrated Austin Women. We will be going straight to medium talk and there will also be drinks.

You can RSVP to the event here.

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27th October

LOS ANGELES, CA

Yo, v hype to be a part of Story Smash, a Story Telling Gameshow at the famous Hollywood Improv. Hosted by Christine Blackburn, host and producer of the podcast “Story Worthy” Celeb judges, you know how it goes… and y’all know I’m always down for a little competition.

More information including tickets are available by clicking here!

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29th October

SALT LAKE CITY, UT

I am teaming up with Hanger in the Great Salt Lake City area to play in the part and have a casual C-Leg Celebration. If you are a Hanger patient, please inquire with your CPO about this event!

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Then it’ll be Halloween and I think I’ll be on a plane that evening but if not I’m definitely dressing up as Venom this year.

 

See you in November!