A Life Changing Accident Blessing!

I never would have thought that being hit by a car at 20 years old would be a blessing in my life. It was a sunny January afternoon in 1997 when I was crossing the street from my office to the post office as I did most days, but this day was different. A car ran a stop sign and hit me head on in the crosswalk. The car stayed at the scene thankfully and called 911. At the hospital, I found out that I would need reconstructive surgery for my knee. I had to go into physical therapy for almost 4 months to build enough muscle to even have the surgery. The doctors told me after the surgery I would have tremendous atrophy in my leg and needed to build  it up as much as possible before the surgery. They were right. I looked like a peg-legged pirate after surgery with one leg down to the bone and the other with normal muscle tone.

Something changed forever in my life during the 6 months I spent in post- surgery physical therapy. You see as a child I was tormented for my weight all through school, especially in junior high. I didn’t know how to eat healthy or exercise so I just stopped eating. I was so embarrassed and ashamed of the way I looked.

When I started to lift weights for physical therapy, I started to see my body change. I felt healthier and stronger. After being someone who battled weight gain my whole life while using unsafe methods to lose weight including anorexia and bulimia, I finally saw things differently. I decided to join a gym after I completed my therapy. I started to read Muscle & Fitness and Oxygen to learn new exercises and nutritional plans. I was teaching myself how to be healthy.

Four years later I was on stage at the 2001 NPC NY Metropolitans in NYC as a middle weight bodybuilder. I went from a girl who was ashamed to wear a dress to a woman who was proud of her physique and not ashamed to be in front of a theater full of people. That was it. I was hooked on the lifestyle. I continued to train but did not compete again for many years. I took time away from the gym and had 2 beautiful kids Justin (2007) and Madison (2009).

In 2013, I was finally able to join a gym again. Two years later an amazing thing  happened as I was prepping for my first NPC Figure show. A few weeks into my prep I met a guy on the bicep curl machine and we started chatting about competing and training. About 4 months later I was onstage at the NPC Metropolitans and that guy who I was chatting with became my fiancé. He proposed to me the night before the show. The next day I placed top 5. It was truly an amazing 24 hours.

In closing, I look forward to many more years of training and living a healthy lifestyle, and hopefully one day maybe getting to share the stage with not only my husband, but also with my kids.