After losing my right leg in a chemical attack in China, I was left behind as a baby. I lived in an abandoned home until I was 7 years old. I was adopted by Michigan and moved to Michigan.
I struggled with my identity for most of my childhood. Being a girl with such a visible disability, being a minority, being adopted, being an immigrant—I’m all of these things that everybody else around me is not.
At 14 I received my first prosthetic sports prosthetic from The Challenged Athletes Foundation. The first time I ran, it was my first time running.
I had this freedom that I’d never had before and this feeling I was going to be okay—and that I could do anything. It just took my to a new place. Although I never had any ambitions to be a professional athlete, I knew that running would always be something I loved. I became passionate about the sport and joined the UCLA track team, then the Paralympics.
I felt more confident in my body and myself the more I ran. It was hard to find the right clothes for practice runs or the most comfortable shoes to race on race days. I didn’t find anything that made me feel empowered.
I can recall wearing ridiculous clothes as a girl to exercise.
I used to wear baggy basketball pants on runs, even during hot and humid Michigan summers—partially because I wasn’t ready to expose my prosthetic, but also because those pants legs were the only ones wide enough for my blade to slip through. Running tights were out of my reach. It was impossible to fit my leg through the tight on just one side.
In 2012, I saw a picture showing an Australian Paralympian. She was an amputee above-the-knee like me, and her running shorts were cut at the beginning of her prosthetic. I remember thinking how cool and sleek she looked. So I began to buy my own tights and asked local seamstresses if they could cut them. The first few places I visited seemed confused. “Oh, wait, you only want one limb cut?” I was repeatedly asked. Others said they didn’t have a machine to make raw material or work out apparel that wouldn’t get damaged or bunched. It took some time to find the right person but I now have a seamstress in San Diego who knows the drill.
People are often so unaware of the joy that little things like how you dress and how it looks can bring. I would have to take off my pants in public to change my prosthetic. It’s difficult to do this in open spaces. But with my altered tights, I can switch between my walking leg and my running leg at any time—at a park or the beach, from my car or at the track where there’s not always a restroom.
Able-bodied people put on clothes and shoes and they don’t even think of how a style or look could impact someone that has challenges with putting it on—or getting it to look a certain way. I had more options when it came to what I wanted. I didn’t have to wear baggy or large-legged pants or shorts all the times. I could wear something sleek, functional, and comfortable.
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Shoes were even more difficult to find.
I am a children’s 11 in sneakers. I have a balance problem because I’m missing my left bigtoe. In my early career, the smallest track spikes that I could find were for women’s sizes 5. To compensate for the difference in size and comfort, I used a nylon sock to stuff my running shoes to prevent my foot from flying out.
In 2015, Nike signed me and I was given my first pair Nike running spikes. I was already running 100m in 19 seconds. The difference was in the spikes. They were comfortable, fit well, and didn’t flex too much. I was able complete the same run in just 17 seconds. It’s crazy to drop more than 2 seconds in 100 meters. This is a testament to the impact adaptive activewear can have on your performance.
It’s not that our training was different or that we did anything different. It was just a benefit to have a spike where I wasn’t spending as much time on ground when I made contact. I qualified for and competed in the Paralympics Rio the next year, finishing fifth in 100 meter. I was made fun of by the same people who used to laugh at me as a child, but they now brag to everyone about how well they know me.
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Numerous brands are creating clothing for people like myself, and it’s only a matter of time.
Zappos has a range of brands and companies that offer adaptive clothing, shoes and underwear. Nike has a whole line if adaptive sneakers called FlyEase. You can slip these on and zip them around your backside. It’s much more convenient for my prosthetic foot to just tie them up than to do that. Now obviously, I’m not running in that shoe—I have a blade. It’s been really nice to be able to leave the house without having to wear two different shoes.
We still have a lot to do. My teammate is a high arm amputee. She wears long-sleeved shirts in the summer, because she can tuck it on the inside, so the arm isn’t hanging out as it would with a short-sleeve shirt. I hope the industry will continue to improve, whether it’s by providing more options for people like my colleague or creating better alternatives to the zipper and things that need tying. (For arm amputees, these actions are difficult to perform!).
It can be difficult to get a tight-fitting shirt on if your upper-body mobility and range of motion is limited. The industry needs more options than pulling your arm through your shirt or hanging over your head.
The image of adaptive athletes must also change.
Our culture has a way to portray men with disabilities as heroes and transformer-like. I’ve heard people say “They’re so cool that they have that bionic tech” or “Those blades makes them look amazing.” Although a man’s disability is cool, it’s not always the case with women. Society is taught to see a woman with a disability or other bodily impairment as weakness.
I remember my seventh grade ski trip. I had been considering whether or not I should go, as I had already missed the previous year’s. I was unsure how skiing with my prosthetic leg would work, but I decided I would give it a shot. When my turn came, I skied down the slope and saw a patch of grass with little to no snow on it—and I was heading right toward it. My skis didn’t have the ability to steer, so I skied down the slope and hit the patch. My leg fell off the ski, while my classmates stared in shock. They’d never seen anything similar. I was the girl whose leg fell off and I didn’t ski again for two more years.
I want to change the narrative and show that athletes with disabilities can be amazing. We are strong, powerful, and no less attractive than anyone else. This leg is not what makes me weak. My scars and burns tell a story about all the hardships, the struggles and the trauma I have overcome. I have overcome it all. This is my power—that’s what makes me strong. It is my desire that everything I put on the body reflects this.
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Source: Women’s Health Mag
