My name is RJ Ryan. It was June 30th when I lost the lower part of my leg, in June 2018.
It's been a tough year. A lot of surgeries. There's been a lot of complications. My leg was actually ripped off by the bumper of a Jeep.
I've talked to a lot of other people and their stories are pretty similar. It's a lot of problems. It doesn't just happen overnight, so I'm looking forward to next year and the year after.
Brian is great. I would say he's more my friend. I can talk to him about anything, text him. He's great. He's honest with me. He tells me what I want to hear and whatI don't want to hear, a lot, so I have to deal with that. The truth sometimes hurts, but it's great to hear it.
Everyone here is great, and they've been really good to me.
I walked on my prosthetic right away. I've hit the gym every day. I've done a lot. I have had some setbacks. I started to learn how to run a little bit, and then I ended up having surgery, so that set that back.
I have a lot of goals for the future. I want to learn how to surf. I want to go back to work. There's a lot of things that I want to do that I'm going to do, but this year's been tough, and I have accomplished a lot more than you would think.
I know a lot of people who've lost their legs who've dealt with similar stuff that I've dealt with, like changing the socks if they're not fitting right and it's uncomfortable, and then they give up.
But don't give up. Find someone else if that's the problem or if that's the case because it gets better. You get used to it.
Find someone that's going to work with you more on a familial basis, and someone you can call and say, "hey this isn't right, what do I do?" It gets better, and there's a lot of things they can do and a lot of things that change.
If you lost your leg, and you refuse to get a prosthesis, I would check around, and I would advise doing so. You've got a lot of life to live, and you're going to shorten it by many years by not wearing one.
