When people ask me for a bio, I never know what to say. There is the basic stuff like the fact that I lost my leg to Necrotizing Fasciitis, a rare flesh eating bacteria, when I was just 23 & had a 10 month old son at home. I could say that I got pregnant with my second child the same year I lost my leg, and then almost died 2 days after giving birth. And I could say that my life has been completely “normal” ever since then, but who knows what “normal” actually is. It’s hard to give a bio because my world is ever changing. What had happened to me doesn’t change, but what happened to me does not get to define who I am now or who I am going to be. As a person. As a mom. Or as a friend. So if I had to give someone a bio of myself, this is what I would say.

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What happened to me does not get to define who I am now or who I am going to be.

Hi, my name is Josie. Some of you may know me as “The One Legged Mom” from online. And whether you read my blog or watch my TikTok’s, I hope there’s that connection. A connection as a mom, as a person with a disability, or just as a person. Because even though my trauma is different than most, it’s crazy how similar our thoughts & feelings can be. You don’t have to lose a leg to experience pain. You don’t almost have to die to experience fear. And you don’t have to have a disability to be inspiring. And that’s who I am. I’m just a mom or a parent, just like many of you reading this right now, who never stopped being a mom despite losing a leg. And I know that so many of you think that you could never do what I am doing right now if my experiences had happened to you, but I promise you that you could if you wanted to.

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I know it seems impossible when you are looking from the outside in, but from where I stand, nothing is impossible. I beat a rare flesh eating bacteria where I was only the 4th person in the nation to ever have it & the only one to survive it. Where I had only a 5% chance of coming back out of that first surgery. I bled out after giving birth to a beautiful baby girl, to the point of almost death, but yet I came home from that experience just two days later. And, I know, that all makes me look pretty strong. To say I went through all of that & survived. But realistically? I didn’t do it. I did have the will to live, and the fight in me, but I didn’t do it. You already know who did all the heavy lifting. The Big Man Upstairs did! God gave me the strength. God guided the surgeons. God watched over the doctors and nurses. And God set me on this path that led me right here to you. So that you could read this. So that you could hear this. And so that you can realize that absolutely nothing is impossible.

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So there’s my bio. The story of what brought me from there to here, minus the gorey details of course. Like I said in the beginning, my life is ever changing. And my future is dependent on me, as a person, right now & not my past. And after reading all of this you don’t know the kind of person that I am, then I don’t really know what to tell you. Because all you really need to know is that I am Josie, and all the rest is just details.

Love,
The One Legged Mom
aka: Josie