This is my story of Miguel

My uncle was able to do something recently that I think is super cool. I am always amazed by people who are able to use trials from their own lives to be a blessing to others. I have many great examples of this in my family, which is truly humbling because it means I have a lot to live up to...where much is given, much is required. My uncle seemed so happy when he first told me about this experience, that I asked him to write a guest post for my blog. This is his story.

This is my story of Miguel.

I first saw Miguel on a Friday that I was picking up Lynda and her friends from Verrado High School. I have always been too early when I show up to get her form school, but on this day I was late. Being late means I was the very last car in the long row of vehicles parked along the sidewalk waiting for our children. This also means I was the closest to the area where all of the school buses park.

School is out and here comes the crowd of kids. One of the first kids to head toward me is a young man using crutches. No big deal I thought and kept looking for Lynda. As I take another look at him, I am expecting to see a cast or brace or something on his leg. Nope, there is nothing there. He is missing his leg! I continue to look at him as he walks directly past my truck and heads to his bus. He really impresses me with how smoothly he gets into the bus. Right up the steps without any hesitation…very impressive.

My interest and empathy is now piqued for this young man. I tell Jody about this as soon as I can and have such a strong urge within me to help this young man. At this point, I do not know anything about him other than what he looks like and the fact that he is missing part of his leg. As you well know, this is something we are very familiar with. The next day, Saturday, Trinity Lutheran School was having their annual fund raiser carnival and our whole family was there. Jody noticed a lady wearing a Verrado High School sweatshirt and struck up a conversation with her. She found out some information about Miguel (we still didn’t know his name at this point). We found out he was in a car crash about a year ago and had to amputate his foot due to trauma damage. His family is poor and they do not have insurance. They could not afford a prosthetic leg.

Now I have a mission to help this young man. I decided to go directly to the school principal to see what I could do. I started with an email, then left a couple of phone messages at the school and finally went to the school in person. All of these actions were left unanswered. I was impatient and a little frustrated. That afternoon, I finally got my response from Tom Huffman, who is the school principal. He had been working on getting information for me and also had Miguel’s school counselor on the line with a conference call. Cool! I set up a meeting with Miguel, his family and his counselor for the next week.

I now have to set up a meeting with my prosthetist to see what he can do to get a prosthetic leg. I tell Dennis, my prosthetist, this story of Miguel to see if he could donate any of his services or a leg and he says he will check into it and see what he can do. We set up an appointment for the same day I am meeting Miguel. We will all end up driving to his office on that next Friday. During this next week, Dennis lets me know that he will cover the cost of the prosthetic leg. Yahoo. I feel so excited to have helped someone else with my disability. I cannot explain this feeling that was driving me to help Miguel. I truly think God had this mission planned for me. His family was overjoyed that someone was going out of their way to help him. The story did get a little more sad when I got a family history from his aunt. It turns out that the family is in such dire need of help that he is living with his aunt and her 2 children while mom is in Mexico and his dad is working in California. This young man is going through this horrible life experience without his parents.

We got him a prosthetic leg and now I need to set up some physical therapy to get his muscles in shape for this new leg. I make another phone call to Matt Figueroa. He is a friend from my high school that was my physical therapist during my recovery. He also is ready to donate his time and efforts to Miguel. This will be the tough part because Miguel has done nothing with that leg for a year. I am sure the muscle has atrophied to nothing in that time and his knee has not been flexed in as long as well. I have not asked or heard about how this progress is going but it was all set up for him to just give Matt a call. He knows Miguel’s story and was ready for him.

I just got an update this week about Miguel and found out his new prosthetic leg is ready and he was getting it today. January 28, 2010. I am hoping to see him in about a week to talk to him and see his progress.