 Hello there, my beautiful, lovely, talented, intelligent, and delightful internet friends. Welcome back to my channel. And welcome to a video that has been 16 years in the making. Many of you know, if you've been on my channel for a minute, that the reason I lost my leg and became a below the knee amputee is because of a horseback riding accident. One fateful day when I was about 13 years old, I took a tumble off of a beautiful chestnut mare, shattered my ankle, and as fate would have it, life would never be the same. A question that I am constantly asked when I tell people my story is, would you ever get on a horse again? And this video, my friends, is my definitive answer to that question. So we're gonna make some coffee, change into a cozier sweater, and I'm going to tell you a story of victory, something that I'm unbelievably proud to be able to share. Spill, don't spill, coffee. There is my spilling the coffee for the day quota, so we should be good moving forward. Now that I have delicious coffee that is also on my couch and my foot, I am incredibly excited to welcome you to a video that has been years in the making to a story that I am so freaking excited to be able to tell. 16 years ago, I had a horseback riding accident where I shattered my ankle and the course of my life was changed. That accident eventually led to me having to have my leg amputated. And after 16 years of surgeries and pain and suffering and adventure along the way, I was able to get back on a horse, and that is the story. As we dive into the story that I am especially excited to share with you guys today, I want to give a huge thank you to all my patrons over on Patreon for sponsoring this video, and so many of my others this legitimately would not be possible without you. If you're interested in joining Patreon or learning a little bit more about what that is and how you can help support this channel, check out the link on screen or down below. But also, I want to give a huge thank you to all of my followers and supporters on TikTok because without you, this would not have happened. This would not have been possible, and you'll understand what I mean a little bit further in this video. Any question I get constantly in like every comment section, every live stream is like, do you resent horses for causing this accident and would you ever get back on one? And my answer that I've always been, I don't resent them for a second, it's my fault I fell off, accidents happen, and secondly, oh my God yes, given the opportunity, I would love to get back on a horse. I was able to ride a couple of times since that initial accident, but health issues and financial issues precluded me unfortunately from really being able to stick with it, but since losing my leg, this has been something that's been like nibbling at the back of my soul, like this is the final bucket list thing that I really want to do when it comes to using my prosthetic leg for things that I really wanted to do that I couldn't do before. But since fully healing, I haven't had the opportunity, I don't know horse people, it's generally very expensive. So a couple weeks ago, I made this fateful TikTok. A horse and a horseback riding accident is the reason that this happened, so people ask me all the time, if I'm scared of horses or horseback riding and the answer is absolutely not. I was not a great rider, it was my fault. I fell off a horse, accidents happened. I cannot wait to get back on a horse again. After amputation, I haven't had the chance to just yet, but any opportunity given to me, I'll take it. And in the comment section of this video, a couple people tagged an account called Devon Out West and I took a look at it and it is this absolutely lovely gal who does cute little horse skits and shows us her barnyard animals and her horses and all of that and she reached out to me. We connected and I learned that she lived about two hours from me and she invited me to come up and meet her horses and go for a ride. And when I got that message, I tried really hard to like play it cool and be like, oh yeah, this sounds awesome. But internally I was like freaking out, like, oh my God, this is the best day ever. So again, Devon, thank you, you're a gem. Going up there, I wasn't sure if this was gonna be like an emotional experience, like was I gonna burst out crying the second I was around horses? Or, I mean, that wasn't super likely, but it's definitely a possibility. Or perhaps would I shed one single dainty, beautiful tear out of joy? I wasn't really sure what my reaction would be. And this past weekend, Brian and I hopped in the car and made the two hour trek up to go ride. What are we going to go do today, baby? We're gonna go ride a horse. Damn right, if I fell off a horse and broke my other leg and then had to get it chopped off too, would you leave me? valid question. I mean, how about those Buffalo Bills? Right? I mean, who would've thought that they would be? Let's go ride a horse. After meeting some of the characters of their little ranch, like their mules and chickens, and they've got a couple cows, and oh my God, it's so cute. I got to meet Hope, her horse, and Ray, the horse that I got to go on, and we brought them out to the crowd, and I got back on a horse. Life is a winding road No telling where it goes Driving through days and nights Won't stop for traffic lights If I'm falling down, I will keep on searching for my eyes You can say I lost my mind I will keep on holding my head high Even if the sky's falling down I'm not gonna lie, like on the way home, I kept watching this video over and over again just because I was like, oh, I did it. And that felt incredible. We just took the horses walking around the arena a number of times, and Ray got excited a couple times and started kind of trotting, and I had to pull them back. But even in that, I expected to like feel terror and like yank on the reins and like grab onto the saddle. I'm pretty sure I did grab on the saddle at least once or twice, but I felt really calm and relaxed and just natural being back on a horse. One of the weirdest things to me was I didn't feel fear. Like even when I've been on or around horses since my accident before amputation I was like really, really clamped up like really concerned and it was like a lot of that fear just evaporated and I was honestly comfortable being on the back of a horse again which made no sense to me. Maybe it's because Devin and her dad and her horses are absolutely incredible. I'm very willing to give them the credit for this because that's probably what it was. I absolutely had some concerns about getting back on a horse with my prosthetic. Like would it be uncomfortable for them at all? Would it be able to stay in the stirrup? Like do I have to have a special riding leg? And at least for the kind of riding that I did that day it was awesome. It was no issues. We did have to hike up the stirrup a little more on my right side which you can see in this video. I look a little lopsided because I can't bend my ankle right. So we have to have the stirrup a little higher so I can feel connection with it so I can feel that pressure. But it was like not an issue at all. Like I didn't even notice that I was wearing my prosthetic leg. It was a little bit sore and tender but it's like that many days and so it wasn't even a thing. It wasn't even an issue. It was like I had two legs again. Except I didn't. I've always known that getting back on a horse for me would mean a lot of different things. Like I said, I never held any resentment against horses or bitterness or anything like that. It was my fault I fell off. I always say that because it's true. But there was some inherent additional fear built in because of course this event that happened was something that was fairly traumatic and had a very serious impact on the rest of my life and being able to get back on one of these majestic creatures I think was just going to be like a sign to me that I did it, right? Like that I got through all of that and that I'm not carrying anger or resentment and also just being able to like reconnect with a part of myself that I know has been hanging out there for a very long time but I've not been able to access which is that of the horsey farm girl I am deep down. I also just want to point out the fact that I'm pretty bad at my job because making videos is a large part of what I do for my living. But when I was up there I felt like my brain was like on a different plane like on a different... I just was not thinking straight. I think I was just thinking in like horse terms and being wonderfully overwhelmed and I didn't even freaking get a picture with Devin. So this is Devin. She's beautiful and lovely and so generous and amazing and please go check her out on TikTok, on Instagram, on YouTube. You will not regret it. She is a delight and her animals are so sweet. So this is my confession that I actually am terrible at being a YouTuber and did not like get any video or audio or pictures with her and I feel really bad about that but my brain did not seem to be working in a direct line that day. So please go check her out everywhere because she is the only reason this happened and I'm incredibly grateful. Thank you again. I don't want to sound cheesy but it was just one of those quiet moments of victory for me that just brought so much joy of like yeah this didn't win. You know here I am it's been rough getting here but now I'm able to get back on a horse feeling a lot better and a lot less pain with a metal leg that allows me to do these things and how cool is that? Like how cool is it that I can get back on a horse that I am physically capable and mentally able to and damn I'm just really grateful. I think I will be a reveling in the afterglow of getting to ride for quite some time now and I hope I have the opportunity to in the near future as this is something I'd really love to safely get back into but especially to anyone who has watched many of my videos and been along for much of this journey, thank you for being a part of this journey too and for getting me here. It's because of social media that I was able to connect with Devin and connect with her horses so thank you for being a part of that and again to my patrons, thank you so much for supporting me over on Patreon. These videos are not possible without all of your support. If you're interested in what Patreon is it's basically a place where you can support creators that you care about or who you want to support and in return you get some cool perks like a community behind the scenes early access to things, things of that nature so check out the link on screen or down below there are also some other ways to support the channel listed down below if that's something you're interested in. However, most importantly to you watching this video right now, thank you so much for spending a few minutes out of your day here with me today you could be anywhere in the world doing literally anything else and you chose to hang out with me for a few minutes and I'm very grateful for that, thank you I love you guys, I'm thinking about you and I will see you in the next video bye guys