Tag: Chicago

Making a Difference- ROMP Global

Making a Difference- ROMP Global

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Range of Motion Project Global

What an amazing group of people creating opportunities for amputees who might never had the chance to enjoy freedom and independence that mobility brings.

Range of Motion Project Global is changing lives, one prosthetic at a time. I have had the honor of helping them fundraise and getting mobile for their cause the past 2 years as an amputee, because I know how my prosthetic has changed my life for the better.

I feel complete and know that I can do anything I put my mind to now that I have a leg to stand on (pun intended). I don’t take this lightly or for granted because even with amazing insurance coverage we had as a family, I almost didn’t receive a leg! There are so many people in the world that may never get one and that’s tragic.

What you may not understand is that losing a limb and then experiencing the fear of not receiving a prosthetic not only effects the physical nature of a person, it also impacts their emotional and mental health as well! We need to change this. We, as a world and one family, need to reach out and help those who don’t have a way of helping themselves.

This is what ROMP Global is all about. This is their mission. You can help!

Donate old parts from yours or your clients prosthetics.

Donate time and volunteer.

Get moving and participate in their events, like Mobility May, to bring awareness to this issue.

Donate money, any and all amounts are welcome!

We can all do something to help others feel the freedom that mobility brings. What can YOU do?

Check this podcast out, and make sure to listen until the end. The stories of the people they have helped will move you.

LP and David climbing their mountain

 

Want to get moving and help bring awareness to this project?  Join my team today and get yourself moving for the month of May, bring awareness to this amazing cause, and really appreciate your ability to move how and when you want. It’s a freedom we all take for granted, each and everyday.

Thank you for supporting ROMP Global and myself this Mobility May and all year long!

Join my team HERE

Donate to my team and ROMP HERE

ROMP Website

 

 

And as always:

Be Healthy,

Be Happy,

Be YOU!!!

 

Much love,

Angie

What’s your mountain?

 

I’m Back and All Moved In!

I’m Back and All Moved In!

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Moving is Tough Work!

Even my dog is exhausted!!

 

I am BACK!!! I have missed being here and recording my podcast. So sorry for the temporary interruption in the broadcast but my family has been in the midst of a big move! I never thought we’d leave the amazing house we had but times change and new chapters begin.

Our old house held so many memories for me and my family with family visiting, college students spending weekends, our Chocolate lab passing away during the pandemic, to years of homeschooling. So many good (and hard) memories to let go of but change is inevitable.  The perfect house caught our attention, and then WHAM! we were in the middle of 4 weeks of purging, packing, showing, closing, and unpacking. To say that June was a blur and a whirlwind is an understatement!

While we did all that we also had a trip to Chicago planned…not knowing we were going to be buying a house. Chicago was amazing, we celebrated my husband’s birthday with all of our family and went downtown to watch our Cubbies play and enjoy the sights and sounds of the city we grew up in. Oh how I had missed that this past year and a half.

Downtown Chicago, Michigan Avenue😍

 

Cubbies for the win!!!

 

As an amputee I have had concerns about a big move, after all, I am a packrat and 12 years in a home means there was a LOT of stuff to go through that wasn’t needed. Also, I have to say that unpacking was so very hard on my good leg, especially my hip. There was a lot of bending over to get stuff off the ground or out of boxes. After a while my hip would just ache as I laid in bed every night.  My suggestion for anyone moving, who is an amputee, get some help. Even if a few friends can come over and pull stuff out of boxes and place them up on a counter, it’ll save you from overworking your good joints.  I say this but I didn’t elicit any help that was offered….I’m stubborn that way, and I paid the price. I’m still unpacking and making this place “home”, and my hip is sore.

 

My Podcast/Craft room: Before

 

My Podcast/Craft room: After
(And Bella, my shadow, hanging out with me)

 

As you can see, I’ve come a long way. It’s not complete but getting there. So grateful that I’m totally unboxed.

Moving is hard to do, physically and emotionally.  We closed on our home yesterday so the night before we headed over one last time.  It’s so hard to say good-bye to a place you’ve raised your family and made amazing memories in, but as my friends have said, there are new memories to be made, and thankfully you can take memories wherever you go. I loved our home. It served us well, and it will be missed.

Our final good-bye to our home

I hope you know that finding a home that will suit your life and your journey is very important, I mean, that’s why we moved after all. A ranch home will allow me to preserve my good knee and hip for many more years. A new chapter has begun for The Heusers.  If you are thinking of moving or need a change due to your circumstance make sure you do your due diligence and find the right home for you and your family. I know for a fact that I don’t ever want to move again.

And on that note…..

I’m so sorry that I forgot to do a Call to Action 2 weeks ago. It was crazy and I was recording in an empty house while I should’ve been prepping it for move in. This week, however, I have something for you to do.

This week I want you to stop and take time for YOU!  Recharge your battery, do something for yourself, maybe that means doing nothing at all. Give yourself a break and let go. Enjoy some downtime. Go do something you love or do nothing at all. Watch a good movie, enjoy a glass of wine, take a dip in a pool, read a good book. Whatever you need to do to rest your body. I know I have needed some downtime. My body was quitting on me. I literally couldn’t pick up any more boxes, or unwrap any more glassware. I ended up taking about four days off for myself and my mental health.  I started to feel guilty about it then realized that if I didn’t rest I would be no good for anybody in my family.

Don’t forget to take care of you! You count! You are amazing! But everyone has a breaking point. I give you permission to take care of you!

Let me know what you end up doing for yourself. How do you take care of YOU? I’d love to hear, so send me a message and share with me how you recharge your battery.

 

And as always:

Be Healthy,

Be Happy,

Be YOU!

 

Much love,

Angie

Rise To The Challenge

Rise To The Challenge

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Run The Race Set Before You

 

It’s time to get off that couch and put your leg on. Let’s do this! If not today, then when?

I will tell you that the amputation wasn’t the end of a journey but the very beginning of another. Life is a journey so I don’t know why I thought any different with amputation. Now the real work comes in. You need to heal, and then get your socket fitted and THEN learn to walk all over again!  No one can truly prepare you for what’s to come with amputation but I will tell you that no matter what you are facing with yours, you CAN do anything! You just need to press on and learn to adapt.

For me it was about perseverance, distraction and goal setting. You will have good days and bad days, and knowing this will allow you to “bounce back” when the going gets tough. I didn’t realize this, at first, and when I began to struggle I thought it was going to be down, down, down, with no recovery…. that’s how my last 7 years had gone with surgeries, so why would this be any different? But then over the course of these past two years I realized that my residual limb changes size and shape and that will dictate how my socket fits, which, in turn, dictated some of my struggles and pains. But those bad moments, or struggles, were short lived and then good times would return. NOW that I know this I can take those “bad” days in stride, and not lose sleep over them (although, sometimes I do because of  the phantom pain 😉 Haha! Humor is good medicine, by the way.

Humor helps get through hard days. Don’t be afraid to laugh at yourself.

 

I started my journey, back to walking, by deciding to give virtual races a try. I am highly competitive with myself so when I set a goal, I will succeed. My 1st race was 175 miles in 3 months. I started this one just a couple months after getting my prosthetic! I figured, what’s the best way to get use to your new leg- use it, and use it A LOT! I would need to put in 2 miles everyday to catch up since I registered a little late. You know what? It was hard! But I stuck with it, logged all my miles and made the goal of 175 miles! And the pure joy of receiving my finisher’s medal stuck with me…so I registered for the next one, which was 150 miles! and then the next one- 150 miles! I finished all of those and then began smaller more condensed goals of completing 5k walks/runs, virtually.  The idea of doing a race within a day put more pressure on me to compete at my highest level. I had to complete 3.1 miles all at once and some days that was really hard. Some of them I raced for better and faster times, other times I had to be content with just finishing.  You need to know your body well enough not to do harm but also to know when and how hard to push.

My first medal as an amputee! I’m very proud of this one!

 

 

These are all that I have completed since July 2019!! Each one of them I picked with purpose.

 

I have enjoyed all the races I’ve completed. There’s a sense of pride and accomplishment seeing all of my medals I’ve earned over the past 2 years as an amputee. These races have given me a purpose, goals, and independence as an amputee. I look and feel better then I have in a long time, and my mental health is at its peak. Listen  in to my podcast to hear more about how to get moving and what hurdles I overcame to finish all those medals these past 2 years.

Now it’s YOUR turn!

 

Check out these virtual races and register for one of them. Take baby steps to get there but get there! Challenge yourself to do and be something more. You’ll be surprised what you can accomplish when you set a goal and get moving. I guarantee you will feel better about yourself, and you’ll start making strides in your physical, mental and emotional state, plus you and your prosthetic will become friends! 😉

Check these out:

Virtual Strides

Virtual Pace Series

Gone For A Run

Will Run For Bling and Charity

This last one is where I met some amazing people and did my first 3 BIG long distance races (175, 150, and 150 mile races over a few months) If you want a challenge, check this site out!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Each one of these holds meaning to me and I love every single one of my medals! They show me, when times get hard, that I can do it, I can succeed, and that my amputation doesn’t define or inhibit me!

 

Your Call to Action is to register to do a virtual race and do it by the end of June or if you need to, register now and build up to finishing by the end of July. Just don’t open that package until you’ve earned it. That’s how I did it because then I had something pushing me to finish. You’ve got this!!

You know I’m here for you! Send me a message, let me know how it’s going.

And as always:

Be Healthy,

Be Happy,

Be YOU!!

 

Cheers,

Angie

 

Enjoy the Journey

Enjoy the Journey

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Traveling Home Once Again

Me and Dad traveling back to Chicago after his stay with us.

 

Coming in for a landing, Chitown.
City lights, oh how I’ve missed you!

 

 

O’Hare Airport doing it up right! Love this airport.
God Bless America and the Veterans who fought for our freedom.

 

I am HOME!  Chicago will always be my home, no matter how long we may be apart. Every year my family travels back to Chicago, where most of our family lives, for visits; one in the summertime, and one near Christmas. The pandemic made other plans for us this past year. We were very overdue for this trip.

Since I haven’t traveled much for almost 2 years- no flights, at least, I was a little rusty on packing. I hate packing for trips as it is, but when you are an amputee or have other medical issues, then packing becomes a bit more time consuming and anxiety building. There are so many things to remember to bring, then having to make sure it all fits. Whew! What a task.

This podcast is very unique as it is the first one I have done away from my home setup. This one may sound a bit different because I used different equipment and actually recorded outside on the deck at my parent’s house-you may hear cars and wind in the background. But keeping with my “keeping it real” vibe, this shouldn’t surprise you, and actually I am pretty impressed with the quality of this episode, all things considered.

I hope you can feel the love I put into this one, as I was recording in a place my Mom and I use to sit and chat when I’d come visit. I recorded on the deck that holds many memories of BBQ’s with my whole family over, moments where my mom was standing and smiling down at me while I played with my boys in the grass below (grass was always fun to play in since we have none in Arizona!), watching her watch her hummingbirds flit in and out of the deck’s feeders, and so many more. I have laughed, listened, cried, and hugged the people I love on this very deck, it only seems fitting to have an episode done here, too, to add to the memories.

Being here in Chicago has been such a blessing, even through the pains I have been feeling in my residual limb. As I discuss in this episode, though, we need to see past these painful moments and live for the positive things going on around us, or we will miss the good in life. What I feel today, may be gone tomorrow and I don’t want to miss any more moments with my family, so I resolve to buck up and push through, knowing less painful moments are on the horizon. I pray you do the same. We are all on a journey, and this journey will be filled with endless ups and downs. We need to take the good with the bad and know that with every hard episode we go through, a better, more joyful one will be right behind it.

Don’t fret. Don’t think negative thoughts. Chin up, Warrior, life will get better.

Find the positive when it seems like it’s not there. Surround yourself with positive people and keep your chin up in the hard moments, realizing that this will pass and it’s just one moment in your life.  Your attitude will dictate your outcomes, so stay positive, happy, upbeat. Even when you’re hurting, find the strength to smile. You’ve got this, Warrior, you’ve got this!!!

 

As always:

Be Healthy,

Be Happy,

Be YOU!!

Chitown 2021- We Are BACK!!

 

Cubs win! Cubs win! Cubs win!!

 

Water Tower- Michigan Avenue

 

Much love,

Angie

Traveling Once Again-Tips and Tricks for Traveling

Traveling Once Again-Tips and Tricks for Traveling

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…and ROMP: Helping Others Gain Freedom of Mobility One Prosthetic at a Time

This is me, July 2020 climbing Mt. Humphreys in Flagstaff, AZ. My highest and most challenging terrain thus far.
I did this for ROMP’s #We Still Climb campaign.

 

OK all, I am here to tell you that if you haven’t heard of ROMP: Range of Motion Project Global yet you need to check them out!! Do you feel the need to give back, or help others? Do you want to get in shape for yourself but need motivation? Then this is the group for you to get involved with. ROMP is a non-profit group that helps get prosthetics to underserved communities here in the U.S. and abroad. Since their creation in 2005 they have been able to deliver 3,345 devices and visited 9, 249 patients! I became involved last year through Living With Amplitude magazine’s team for the We Still Climb initiative. We raised money as a team and went out and climbed our own mountains (usually they have teams go to Cotopaxi, in Ecuador, to climb the highest glacier covered volcano there to bring awareness and raise funds-but even though a pandemic stopped that travel it didn’t stop them from recreating the challenge to fit the times).

Today, I am now a team leader for the 2021 Challenge AND Mobility May.  I have an amazing team working with me to raise funds but also to log miles, anyway they can and want to, to bring awareness to the lack of mobility that some people have in the world. Everyone deserves to have the freedom that comes from mobility, and shouldn’t be stopped from having that opportunity just because of where they live.

If you’d like to join my team (No, it’s not too late!) or donate to my team: Romping Warriors, please click HERE

We will be charging forward to raise $2021 and log 2021 miles, as a team, by December 31, 2021.  Join us!!

 

This Friday I am traveling back home to Chicago!!! I can’t wait. I miss my family and my husband’s family, and it’s been too long! However, if you’re an amputee, you know that traveling can produce stress and anxiety. Trying to remember all the things you’ll need, and what you MIGHT need, if case of an emergency, can make traveling hard.

Listen in as I discuss the things I bring with me, how I get through security at the airport and make everything run smoothly so I can enjoy the trip. I sometimes need to remind myself that I need to enjoy the journey not just the destination, but that can be hard when there is so much to remember to bring. Don’t fret the small stuff, and know that you’ll be fine no matter what.

Enjoying my hike up one of our Arizona mountains. My happy place!

 

 

Today’s Call to Action is a simple one:

Check out ROMP’s website, Instagram and/or Facebook Page!

Range of Motion Project Global

IG: @ROMPGLOBAL

Facebook: Range of Motion Project

 

Get involved if you feel led. Join my team, donate. I promise you, that helping others gain their freedom of mobility and their independence will fill your bucket, making you feel great and wanting to do more. You can also take on the challenges, like joining my team, and getting out and active for yourself (which will produce endorphins-that will make you happy), and you’ll be a better person for it. It’s a Win-Win, in my book.

 

Join me! Take on a challenge! Change someone’s life for the better.

Mobility is not to be taken for granted.

Mobility means freedom

Mobility means independence.

 

As always:

Be Healthy,

Be Happy,

Be YOU!

 

Much love,

Angie

Kauai beaches and my first time snorkeling as an amputee…
..actually the first time to get in the ocean since my injury 8 years ago!!!
FREEDOM!!!

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