Forward Motion: Navigating Workers’ Comp and Limb Loss with Jeff Johnston

Welcome back to the Alliance Goal Digger Podcast!

In this episode, we’re diving into a powerful conversation about resilience, responsibility, and rebuilding after life takes an unexpected turn.

Our guest, Jeff Johnston, experienced a life-altering injury that resulted in the loss of his leg. But what defines Jeff isn’t what he lost; it’s what he chose to build in its place.

He’s a husband, a father, a goal setter, and someone who kept moving forward when everything could have come to a stop.

Together, we talk about navigating the workers’ compensation process, adjusting to limb loss, staying active, and leading your family through seasons of change.

Jeff’s story is honest, inspiring, and a reminder of what’s possible when you refuse to give up.

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Guest: Jeff Johnston, Patient of Alliance Prosthetics & Orthotics

Host: Rachael Auyer, Co-Owner of Alliance Prosthetics & Orthotics

Producer: Laine Johnson, Alliance Prosthetics & Orthotics, Marketing Coordinator

Transcript

Rachael Auyer  0:00  

Welcome back to The Alliance Goal Digger Podcast. Today's conversation is about resilience, responsibility and rebuilding. Our guest is someone who has experienced a life altering injury that resulted in the loss of his leg. But what stands out most is not the loss, it's what he chose to build afterwards. He is a husband, a dad, a goal setter and someone who chose forward motion when everything could have stopped. Today, we are talking about navigating workers compensation, adjusting to limb loss, staying active and leading your family through change. Welcome to the show Jeff Johnston.

Jeff Johnston  0:42  

Thank you so much for having me. I'm honored, and I hope I don't embarrass you or me during this podcast.

Rachael Auyer  0:50  

Well, the goal is to inspire others, so we'll see what happens. I'm excited to start from the very beginning, if you wouldn't mind, Jeff, tell us what happened, why you now live with limb loss, and we can pick up in the middle, or however you feel comfortable navigating the conversation today.

Jeff Johnston  1:10  

Sure. So first of all, thank you again for having me, and I'm honored to do this. I like you said, I'm a husband, I'm a father. I have been in ministry my whole career, I was a youth pastor and helped start a church in Las Cruces, New Mexico. And then in 2004 helped start a Christian school. I've been a youth pastor Christian School principal for you know, going on 20 years, and in 2019 my family decided to make a little bit of a change, and one of the things I had really gotten into to help support my family, because you don't always become a millionaire in church work, sometimes you can. I never did. And so what I did was I would get into design and marketing, and I had a little creative studio called Triple J creative, and I was doing freelance work. Long story short, I got connected with a missions nonprofit that was based in Dawsonville, Georgia, and I came part, became a part of the team, moved across state lines to just help change the world with the gospel and with different nonprofit activities. And so for 2019 to 2020 it was a big life change for my family. So everything was different. Where we live, where the kids went to school, my job, my wife's just schedule in life in general, you know. So there's a lot going on. I kind of joke around with people, because I was talking to somebody a while back, and they were complaining that 2020 was hard because they couldn't go and decide a Starbucks. They're like, Oh, it was the worst year ever. I couldn't go inside of a Starbucks. And I'm like, Yeah, I said, I don't know how you made it through 2020 was bad for me too, but all I did was lose my mom, because my mom passed away in 2020 lost a leg, hit a dump truck, but hey, you know, you couldn't go in Starbucks, so we just, Oh, good job to right size it my wife, my wife will tell you, my mom did a good job in helping me learn how to do guilt trips, yeah. And so I think that's a spiritual gift I have. Oh, that's a wonderful Yeah. So we moved to Georgia, and you know, we were going through the motions trying to make everything work with this new and not everything was exactly how I thought it would be at the at the job at the ministry that I was working for now. And so fast forwarded to October of 2020. It's the day before my dad's birthday. My dad's birthday is October 22 I'm supposed to drive and pick up a co worker, and we're supposed to head to Baltimore for a conference. And so I knew I was leaving that morning of my dad's birthday. So the last thing I remember is I text my dad, Hey, Dad, Happy Birthday early. I always call him on his birthday, but I said, Hey, happy birthday early. I'm going to be with somebody in a truck really early in the morning. We're driving to Baltimore, but I want you to know I love you and I haven't forgotten you. I'll call you later in the day. And the next thing I remember. It was 13 days later, and I was in the hospital, and my leg was, all you know, bound up in this crazy padding and and medical instrumentation. And I had my wife on my left side and this nurse on my right side, and they were talking to me almost like I was a child. They're like, good job. You did it. Good job. I'm like, What do I do? Like, what are they talking about? And I looked at my wife, and I said, What? What's going on? Why am I in the hospital? And she, unbeknownst to me, she's a I've asked this question dozens of times in the past 13 days, really the past seven or eight days, because there was a few days I was on life support, and, you know, comas were induced and all that stuff. And she goes, Well, you you hit a dump truck head on, and you know, you've been in the hospital ever since. And I looked at her, and I'm like, what and before this, so what had happened was, and I'll. I'm back to this moment, but before I picked up my co worker to head to Baltimore, the same route that I drove to drop my kids off at school, only like five miles from my house, I hit a dump truck. To this day, we don't know how or why if I saw a deer in the road, if I swerved, they don't think I fell asleep because I don't have what I didn't have, what they call bracing injuries. They thought maybe Did I did I pass out because I I didn't. I wasn't wearing my seat belt. They say that. That's probably one of the things that saved my life, because the whole and everything's just crushed from the from the outside in. You know, I went through this little hole in my wife's Toyota Highlander. She gives me a hard time. That not only did I put her through the hardest time in her life, but I wrecked her car as well. And so I went through the the windshield my leg, and spoiler alert, I lost my leg. Ended up losing my leg, but that was kind of a blessing in disguise, because they believe that I went through the windshield, my leg got caught in the wreckage. And without getting caught in the wreckage, I probably would have faced planted on the dump truck, which I've not done it before, but I heard it's uncomfortable that that tracks for me. Yeah. And so then when my wife's Highlander bounced off, by witness reports, I kind of just got flung in the woods to the side, which was another blessing, because I didn't land on asphalt. I landed on like, kind of cushy, muddy grass. The negative there is there's a lot of bacteria in that grass that I found out about later, with some infections the sheriff's office gets there. I had a friend of mine that actually worked for the sheriff's office that's seen like the dash cam footage and stuff. And the sheriff's deputy gets there, and the dump truck driver, you know, she gets out of the dump truck. And the there's people you know, looking at everything witnesses, you know. And the the deputy checks my Highlander for other passengers, like, is there anybody else who needs they need to help? There's no one else in the car, just me. And from what I understand, she's like, where's the where's the driver? And a couple people point to my body, and she looks at me, and she goes, where's the dumb truck driver? So she then she goes and checks on the dump truck driver. Just because I look like a dead body, my scalp was peeled back, showing my skull on my and it was like on the left, the entire left side of my body was tore up. It was like I was two faced from Batman, and I had my left leg was broken at the femur with an open fracture. My knee was crushed. My tibia, my fibula were all crushed, multiple fractures in both of those, my going down into my ankle was crushed. We really can't count how many breaks. My wife laughs at me because it changes. I'll say like 22 or 17 or 35 like, I have no idea how many breaks there actually were. If you look at an x ray after the wreck, when they tried to save my leg, my knee almost looked like a magnet, like where it was picking up screws. But anyway, so then I had my right arm was behind my body, and it looked like to them that I'd lost my arm right, and my my collarbone was like poking through my skin. So I looked really bad, and they just assumed, you know that guy's dead, like that guy was ejected through a wind chill of a dump truck wreck. He's done. So then, then a another officer shows up at the scene, and then somebody, some good Samaritan, goes down to my body and holds a mirror, I believe, from what I understand, to my mouth, and notices I was breathing. There was fog on the makeup mirror, or whatever it was. And they scream like, He's alive. He's alive. And so then they were like, dude, they do a helicopter, you know, what do you call life flight? And they were going to do that, but then they realized they'd already called an ambulance that was almost there for the dump truck driver, so they just repurposed it for me. I was a level one trauma patient, which I've heard from nurses like, those are the fun ones, you know? Those are the ones that, you know, it's, it's an adventure, and unbeknownst to me, I don't know what's going on. Obviously, my wife was driving the kids to school the same route again. Remember that I take my kids to school every day. She comes up on a bunch of traffic, and so she goes a different way to school. She drops the kids off for school, and the co worker that I was supposed to pick up calls her and says, Where's Jeff? He was supposed to we're supposed to ride together to Baltimore. It's not like him to not be here. I can't get a hold of him. And my wife immediately thinks, oh, wait, that wreck, or that the wreck the traffic was that Jeff. So she goes like this back road, and believe it or not, the back road actually took her right to the accident site, even though there was traffic in both directions because they had closed the road, she actually got to the accident by driving this, this little, tiny side road that she decided to go up. And she gets out. And then a couple of my other co workers followed with her, and they're there with her, and they say that they saw the Highlander and how bad it was. They just knew it was not good. But my wife cannot remember seeing it. I still think God, like was like, No, you don't need to see that right now. So anyway, so she asks Georgia State Patrol officer, and she's like, the GSP guy. She goes, I think this was my husband's wreck. And he goes, No, we don't. You don't know that. And he goes, No, I really do. She goes, he and he says, what was his name? What's your husband's name? And she goes, Jeff Johnston. And when she said it, she. Said she could tell by his face, oh, man. So she went. He went off and talked to people. He went off and told her it was your husband. He went to the hospital, and my wife just said, Is he okay? And his phrase was, he was alive when he left. And so her heart kind of drops, and she tells the story that she just went numb like a weird tingly feeling. So she just sat down in the middle of the road and she got her strength back, and then she people wanted to drive her. You know, she's like, No, I'll drive myself. So she drove to the hospital, yeah, but the officer followed her. He was a really nice guy, and he just, I think, talking to him later, he wanted to be there if, when she got there, it was a bad a bad result, bad announcement. So she goes to the hospital. When she gets there, there's a whole lot I could go into. They bring the chaplain in when she's like, Would you like to see her husband? Yes. So that's why the chaplain was there. They wanted the chaplain there for her to interact with me for the first time, because I didn't look too good. She took took her to my room. She saw me for the first time. It was pretty hard on her, obviously. And then not long after that, they were looking at the CAT scan results. They CT scan whatever they were worried about, losing my leg. They kept losing the pulse on the way to the hospital. They tell her he's got to go to emergency surgery right now, he has an aortic aneurysm, and that aortic aneurysm, if it blows, he's dead. The vascular surgeon said that she'd never seen an aortic aneurysm that big without rupturing before, and she got to it probably within five minutes of it, of my life ending, because apparently your aorta ruptures, you bleed to death, like, within a minute, um, no matter how tough you are. So then they put me on, like a life support situation. I spent the rest of that week in the ICU as I could. They would take me down for a surgery to fix my leg, fix my collarbone. They were doing it like one piece at a time, trying to balance the pain. The doctor was able to save my leg for the time, and he he said I used to do smart races and CrossFit and just a lot of working out, and I was in decent shape. And he said he'll he felt like I'd put in the work for the rehab for the leg. So 13 days later, here I am. I had a brain bleed, aortic aneurysm, almost all of my ribs were broken in multiple places. I lacerated my spleen, something to my liver, messed up my gallbladder. I had a whole bunch of internal type stuff. Collarbone was broken. They thought that I broke my left arm, but it ended up just being a huge gash. So there's a lot of injuries. The biggest one they were keeping an eye on during most of the time after the aortic aneurysm, was the brain bleed, and I was just just so close to them having to take out a piece of my skull, and they didn't want to do that. So all that to say there's a lot of injuries, but, but I was acting kind of crazy. I was I was acting like a small child at times, if they told me something, and then I fell asleep. When I woke up, I didn't remember it. And so that's why my wife had to tell me what happened to me over and over. And I would say crazy things like, no, no, no, no. I was carrying a refrigerator up the stairs and it fell on my leg, or No, I was at a go kart park and I got ran over and, like, all these random, weird explanations for what really happened to my leg and so, but this is the first time she told me, and I remember it. And then that started my journey. So I, I stayed there in the ICU, in the PICU, for like, another four or 5678, days, and then I went to rehab for like, a month. During this time, workers comp picked up the case, and now we're going to talk about workers comp.

Rachael Auyer  13:25  

Yeah, I kind of wondered, How did you know that you would qualify for workers comp, or if you could educate our audience, sure, what were the steps? Yeah, and kind of the process?

Jeff Johnston  13:36  

Well, I was on a work trip, and so the big things for workers comp picking it up, and there's all these different obviously, if you get hurt at work doing a work related job, you're going to qualify, right? Or you should, can't say anybody will qualify. But with mine, it was, I was on a work trip. I had left outside of normal work hours, even though I was driving the same path I normally would drive, I would have never been on that road had I not been scheduled to go to go to Baltimore, and I had to leave the house a couple hours early, and so, because it was a work related trip, that put me on that road at that time, and I was carrying work equipment. We were doing audio, video and doing some stuff for this conference. So I had my laptop and some other things in my car that I had to take to Baltimore with me, and had to get it there at a certain time. Pick I'm picking up a co worker. There's all these things that prove that, you know, I was, I was on the job. Basically, we didn't my wife, and I didn't think about workers comp. Honestly, it was actually a really, really good co worker. The guy I was supposed to pick up, I was kind of the creative director, you know, the make everything look pretty guy. And he was the, he's the nitty gritty, money, bells and whistles get everything done, person, right? And he thought about it, so he immediately, he's like, we have nothing to lose. We got to put this into workers comp, because he didn't know all the ins and outs. So it was really him that did it. And workers comp, it actually went to because it was such a outside of work hours, but he was in his own car, blah, blah, blah. It went to a board decision. So we had. Wait a few days for them to actually get to the decision point and but when we got that, that's how we were able to stay in the hospital, rehab and all this stuff. But yeah, so I always say, if there's any, if there's any question, if you were hurt at work, you know, ask somebody and again. And I've at churches working as an admin pastor, I've had to put workers comp claims in before myself as the boss or the guy who does it, it doesn't hurt you to put it through and let them decide, or, you know, and then you can go from there. But if you never try, never ask, you know, you never know. So that's the first step. Is just, you know, call your boss and submit it. Just submit it. And a lot of times we don't submit things because we're like, we don't want to be a bother, but really, that's what it's there for. It's there to make sure that people are safe and taken care of and can heal after a situation you never would have been in unless you were at work, you know. So, yeah, so I spent 30 days in the hospital, went home, and this is where it kind of gets complicated, because I had my leg and all the prognosis is it'll be tough. It's going to be a lot of rehab. We got to be careful about scar tissue build up and different and different things. But I should be able to use my leg again to what extent. We didn't really know. And no one wanted to say, yeah, you'll run Spartan Races again. You'll do Spartan beasts in South Carolina and run 22 miles. But I should be able to walk to some degree. It should be able to use go home. A lot of things start happening. My leg, it just kind of froze. And they thought it was because of scar tissue. I'm sure there was some of it. And I would go to therapy trying to bend it, and it just wouldn't bend. I think it's like 110 degrees. You got to bend to sit in, like the back seat of a car, and my leg, instead of getting to like 110 degrees, which was kind of our goal for a long time, it would only get to about 15 degrees. So it's barely bending, you know, but I could move it. I could lift it up. And, you know, I couldn't move my knee, but I could move it from my my hip. I could, like, pick it up and, like, jump in a walker, and, you know, get to the restroom and do things on my own. And, you know, I think I, I felt like I took it as a challenge with physical therapy in the hospital. And every time my physical therapist would say, to do an exercise. I was like, what's the record like? He asked me, stand up. He's like, he's like, your your case is so random, there's no way to compare you to other people. I'm like, I don't care. Just give me a number, you know when? So I felt like I was taking care of myself pretty good. My wife could leave the house, my kids, you know, didn't have to be home for me. And then I went into the hospital in December, a couple days before Christmas, and because the scar tissue and it wouldn't bend, they wanted to bend my knee under manipulate. It's called manual manipulation under anesthesia. They're gonna put me to sleep and just make, like, make my knee bend and break through all this scar tissue, they told me. And I'm like, that doesn't sound, that sounds painful. And they said, Well, that's why we put you to sleep. Like, okay, so I go in the hospital, they actually end up taking my gallbladder out and doing that surgery. On the same day, I had damage in my gallbladder from the from the wreck, and it was causing a lot of pain. So they just decided, let's take it out. I do both surgeries, and I get back to the room, and every time, my blood pressure was just dropping, like, really low. So they thought it was because the pain meds. They thought I was allergic to, like, you know, narcotics, pain medication, and which I'd had it before. So that didn't sound right, but whatever, as soon as you get this manipulation done, you have to be in a machine that bends your leg for you so you don't build the scar tissue back up. It's got to be in a lot of motion. And it was just killing me to do it like incredible pain. And they told me it should be more like a really serious case of soreness after therapy. I'm like, this is beyond that. Of course, no one knew me in the hospital floor, so they're thinking probably like, I'm just a baby, or maybe I just want pain meds. Yeah. And so for three days, all I was allowed to have was Tylenol. My blood pressure would still drop almost every time I move my leg. And it was just a weird, really weird setup. They almost discharged me from the hospital, saying I would, you know, recoup better at home. I had a really good nurse that tested me, and she's like, because I couldn't even sit up without getting dizzy, and so she said, Why don't you try to get in your walker, and I'll help you. And if you can get in your walker and take a couple steps, you know, maybe go home. Well, I didn't even make it to the end of the bed, and I just passed out and so and then the physical therapist that day was a different physical therapist than I had, and she's like, I'm not touching your leg. It's way too swollen. My leg looked it was huge. It looked like a tree trunk or a table leg, where there was no knee joint, nothing. My the scars from previous surgeries look like it was just gonna, like rupture. And my leg. My orthopedic surgeon finally got wind of all this and said, Let's get him down to a CT scan. When they did that, they found out that, when they had, for whatever reason, my quad muscle had attached itself to the femur, and when they did the manual manipulation, it tore my quad all the way from my hip down to my knee, almost, and so I was bleeding to death. Didn't know it, obviously, but by that point, I had a third of my body's blood in my leg and, and so he took me into an emergency surgery, gave me a huge scar that I still have on my residual limb, and took out the hematoma, packed it with, you know, a bunch of gauze type material and, and really, probably, you know. Day my life, they say if I would have gone home without getting that taken care of, I would have just bled to death at home, probably passed away in my sleep, so that that was another big point in my in my journey. But I still had my leg, and I was still determined to keep it and work hard. And I thought, Okay, now that we got past this, I just gonna learn to bend the leg. Everything was dependent on me bending my leg. So every therapy was go to therapy, and they bend my leg. I try to bend my leg well. Then from January going into February, my leg just got more and more painful. I lost all use of my quad because it was all torn. So I couldn't get out of bed or in a car without my wife or kids or a friend picking my leg up and slowly putting it on the ground. And then once it was like that, I could get in a walker, and I would like just hop on my right leg and let that leg dangle. But it had gotten so painful by beginning of February that I could only move the walker about two inches at a time without it just being excruciatingly painful. And the pain would be so bad I'd have immediate nausea. I would throw up. I would pass out my my right leg would get weak and I couldn't move when I went to therapy. They would put a trash can beside my my table, because they would bend it themselves as much as they could. And as soon as I would get out, get a wave of nausea and just turn my head, you know, it was really rough. Well, I went into the surgery and they knew I had infection. So the combination of landing in a soft, muddy ditch with grass and everything else, plus the blood that had gone on my leg, blood is a great breeding ground for bacteria, I found out, had made it to where my leg was just, you know, rife with infection. So my doctor said, Let's take you in. We're going to take out the infection, and also kind of explore to see why you're in so much pain, because you shouldn't be in that much pain, even with your infections. So he goes in there, and I go in. I'm the first patient for surgery. I think I have to get there like at 3:30am

they take me back at five or six for the actual surgery, and then later that day, it's like 10:30 at night, and my surgeon, the head orthopedic trauma surgeon, comes in to my room, and I'm like, did you just come out of the or? He's like, Yeah, I've been here all day. Why are you in my room? That's not normal. He goes, I need to talk to you. And I'm like, Okay. And apparently, when they did that exploratory surgery, and they were cleaning out the doing the debridement, and they were cleaning out the infection, they found out the cause of most of my pain was the fact that my muscle tissue is turning to bone. It's a very rare thing that happens. It's called heterotopic ossification. And this heterotopic ossification turns my soft tissue into bone. And he said, from about the about three inches, like the bottom three inches of your quad going through your knee is just turning to bone. And I'm like, well, that's not good and we made some jokes and but I could tell by his countenance in his face that this was really not good news. And I remember that was the first time it dawned on me, I'm probably gonna lose this leg. Like, I don't know how, like, if my muscles bone, how does it work? You know? And it sounds cool in the comic books, but it is not worth it in real life to have muscle turn to bone. So that started a a long process of, again, just trying to bend my my knee. I had times, and if, if there's any listeners out there that you've ever tried to bend your knee, and it won't bend or bend a joint, and it's frozen from scar tissue or whatever, you understand what it's like, because you know, you can do it, you've done it before, but it won't. It just won't work. And at therapy, it was getting to where we would tie straps, three straps together. I would hold it, throw it over my shoulder. They would put the strap under the bench and tie it to my foot, and with all of my weight pulling the strap across over my shoulder to try to bend it like under the table, it still wouldn't bend more than like 28 inches or 28 degrees. So then in May we found out I was kept getting infections. Kept getting infections. In May we found out that the infection was actually in my femur, and it was leaking out the plate that through a screw hole on the plate that was on my femur. So they took off the plate, hammered an antibiotic rod into my femur, which, by the way, that feels just like it sounds. They hammered a rod into my femur, but that finally took care of the infections. A couple more months, three or four more months of just trying to bend leg, it still wouldn't bend the muscle tissue. Oh, and by the way, the muscle tissue, my IT band, had turned to bone and had grown like a second kneecap that was a little bit smaller than my, my, my original kneecap, but it was, like, spiky. Think, like, a like a mutant, yeah, yeah. 

Rachael Auyer  24:27  

I don't want to be grotesque, but I think the part that I wanted to like transition to is like, all of this is unexpected, none of it, yeah, all of all of this is not routine. All of the physicians and nurses that were treating you. It's not something that typically happens, right? So to show respect to the nurse who saw something's not right, yeah, and saved your life. Oh, yeah, the physicians who said we have to get them in to see the contrast and see what's going on, saved your life. Mm. Hmm, you have had, I mean, we're listening to the story maybe four or five times that someone noticed, yeah, something wasn't right, yeah, mentally though you, you were like, I'm just gonna do what they tell me to do. Oh, yeah. What did you learn from going through this long journey of your own personal health care that things are not going as expected? I'm going to have to start advocating for myself, because it shifts. Yeah. And like this next part of the story, because I know you, I know what's going to happen, yeah? And that's how you're our patient, that you decided I cannot continue to do this, yeah?

Jeff Johnston  25:34  

So that's a really good observation, is that multiple people throughout the journey kind of was like, something's off, something's not right. And then they would take me aside, because the nurse that noticed that I was passing out, even just getting out of bed, and what was happening was the general surgeon that took out my gallbladder, he was making the decision, and I think in his own heart, he was like, he'll recoup better at home. He doesn't like being in the hospital, and I didn't right. So when they said you can go home, I'm like, Yeah, let's go home. Like, I'll just, I'm tired of the therapy. I'm tired of no offense to any hospital, but the food is not as good as my wife's, you know? 

Rachael Auyer  26:06  

As it should be, right? We all want to be home. We all that's a normal want.

Jeff Johnston  26:11  

Yeah, but she knew, if he goes home, this might not be good, so she has no power to, like, obviously, veto a surgeon's decision on discharge, but she just told me, she's like, you have all the rights. Because I told her, like, should I go home? And by the way, this was during covid, so my wife couldn't be at the hospital all the time. I never once have had my kids visit me in the hospital, because all of this happened during 2020 and 2021 so I didn't even have my wife like advocating for me for this in a way. And so I I'm like, maybe I should, I don't know. I'm like, but they're telling me to go home. And she told me, she's like, well, you as a patient, it's up to you. You can, you can refuse. And and that honestly put enough backbone in me to be like, No, you know what? I refuse? Yeah, yeah. And I said I refuse. And then when the physical therapist came in later that day, and I'm like, I don't want therapy, but something wasn't right in my leg, and I knew it and and so with her, when she walked in, though, I said, I can't do it. I not only can I, am I saying I can't, I won't do therapy today. It hurts too much. Something's wrong. And I pulled my gown up and showed her my leg, and her face just was like, I'm not touching that leg. Something's not right. And she walked out of the room, and then within an hour, I was on my way to get the CT with contrast die. So yeah, and what I've learned for sure is, and because I'm a people please serve by nature, and I don't want to be the guy that needs extra help. I definitely don't want to be the guy in the hospital. I want to be the guy helping the people in the hospital, if that makes sense. And so it I just wanted to all over with, but what I've learned is take a breath and clearly and specifically state what you're what, not just what you're thinking and what you're feeling, but what you know. Because sometimes you know something's not right. It wasn't even like an like a, well, maybe something's not right, like, I knew something was wrong. And then even with the pain later that January and February, where they're like, you have an infection and it's going to be painful, but I'm like, this is different, like, I know it's bad. Well, I had a spiky sea urchin looking kneecap that was literally cutting up all the soft tissue that still hadn't turned a bone yet in my leg, which was causing more bleeding, which was causing more swelling, which was causing more food for bacteria, and I kind of started advocating there for myself. When I'd go see the doctor, I'd be like, something's not right, like, it's It hurts so bad all the time. I mean, this was when, this was the height of my pain. Was before they found the bone in my leg and my muscle tissue turning to bone. I remember I was laying there. We had a couple of good friends move my bed to my living room. And so from the time I came home in December or November until man August of 2021 I lived in the bed in my living room. My wife slept on the couch beside me, because, number one, it hurt so bad if she rolled over in the bed, it hurt my leg so much I would scream, you know. And so she had to sleep on the couch. So my wife slept on this little, tiny therapist couch we got on Facebook marketplace that was, had to have been the most uncomfortable thing in the world just to be there in case I needed anything, because I couldn't get I couldn't move my leg to get up to go to the bathroom. I had to have her move my leg, and it was just a mess. Well anyway, I am laying there and it's nighttime, and I wasn't sleeping good. You can imagine the pain just everything. And it's like 3am and my leg hurts so bad, and it got to the point where I just wanted it to stop. And I kind of looked up at the ceiling, and I'm talking to God, and I just said, God, either take my leg or kill me, but I can't keep doing this. It was that bad. And my wife was really good. She was such a She's an advocate, she's a caretaker, and she just loved me. And so one of the things we decided on early was my pain was so bad that if there were pain meds within my reach, I would have abused them like there's just no way. And so we had a rule that she took care of all my medication, and I didn't even know where it was. Because I just didn't trust myself. I mean, if I had, you know, a bottle of Oxy within reach, I would have taken eight of them just to see if it helped, right?

Rachael Auyer  30:07  

Because you're in excruciating chronic pain

Jeff Johnston  30:09  

Yeah, horrible pain. And so she was really good to it was on a schedule or, you know, and my wife's a rule follower to the T so she, you know, if there was a typo on the prescription, like, she'd go by the typo, like it's what it says. So but yeah, I was just so done with the pain. It hurts so bad and and so then I think the pain, the experience seeing there, if I'm the nice guy all the time, and always just listen to what everybody says. People don't always listen to that guy. And so finally, when I said I'm not going home, I'm just not going home. And one of the doctors that was on rounds, it wasn't even really my doctor, came in to kind of see, like, what's going on. Most patients want to go home. And yes, the day before, I was excited to go home, but it's like, something's not right. And yeah, that nurse probably saved my life, because if I would have gone home, I would have died in bed, yeah, bleeding to death. A third of my body's blood was in my leg. That's a lot.

Rachael Auyer  31:04  

That's a lot. And then to continue with the chronic pain and to continue, and you tell this story really well, and I'll set you up so you can tell our audience you made the decision, yeah, to have your leg amputated after all this chronic pain. And that is not an easy decision to make. And I think what's hard is Jason and I get to see people living with limb loss in a lot of success, but that's a very small population. Not a lot of people know people with limb loss, and so that's even to have an imagination to know is this going to be better? Because it sounds like the worst, but I kind of wanted to give you the freedom to tell how did you come to that conclusion, and what were your steps to say, I can't live like this anymore. 

Jeff Johnston  31:49  

Yeah, so in May, so we found out about the muscle turning to bone in February. In May is when they went in and finally took care of the in a the infection. For the final time, pretty much they took all my hardware off my leg, and, you know, put the antibiotic rod, hammered that in my femur. And so they did all that. And I think the concept and the hope was that now that the infection is gone, maybe that's some of what's stopping him from bending that knee. And so I just again, bend the knee, bend the knee, bend the knee. It was always try to bend the knee. And I'd be in bed trying to bend the knee. I was, I was always trying to bend my knee, but it just wouldn't bend. And then it was just pain. You know, it wasn't as bad as in February where, like, even moving in an inch. And it did get to where I could use a belt or a strap that I could put on my foot and get myself out of bed. It got to be where I was able to, I found a way to go upstairs. And, you know, I've been athletic to some degree my whole life. So I played high school basketball, you know, I, like I said, I ran a lot of races, and so I've hurt myself a lot. I've been on crutches quite a few times. And so I had gone up and down stairs with crutches a lot, but going up and down stairs with a leg that won't bend is very different. And so I was really nervous about stairs for a long time, but I finally figured out how to navigate the stairs, and so we put the bed back up in my bedroom, and I was living life as normal as possible, but I had this leg that was almost like a tree trunk that wouldn't bend that at the beginning, from the beginning of the day to the end of the day, as the day went, it just got more swollen, and by the end of the day, by bedtime every night, It would almost look like a volleyball, like that big people would even comment on it when they see me out and about, like that knew me. And like, Wow, your knees swollen, and my jeans would be like, taught around where my knee was, because it just kept swelling, kept filling with fluid. There was all this trauma. And so that was May we tried in, you know, June, July, August, all through the summer, to bend my knee. Every time we went to the surgeon's office for a follow up, we were holding, holding our breath, because up until May, almost every follow up was another surgery, yeah. And so finally it got to where I was doing surgery. I was doing appointment follow up appointments, and they were just like, come back in three weeks, come back in a month. So I'm like, Okay. And then I started thinking, is this what my life's gonna be like? Am I always gonna have crutches like and we were trying to get it to where I could maybe walk with a cane, but because of the damage to the quad plus the knee, so we didn't know this until the amputation, but every ACL, MCL, PCL, you know, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, C, l, they were all like they had disintegrated. They were gone, like they had turned to, like bone, and then, like, kind of crumbled, and then I had no cushioning. So even if I ever were to get that knee to bend, it would be incredibly painful, because there was no soft tissue left in my knee, and I was trying to walk on that. So you can imagine, as soon as I put my weight on it, the amount of pain in that knee was just horrible. And I got to where I could, like, put my knee on the ground and, like, do this weird hop step jump thing with, like, all of my limb, like, all the other limbs, my left arm, my right arm, my right like, Would all, like, do this weird, like, shocking jump, and I would make it, like, three inches and I'll do it again but it wasn't

Rachael Auyer  34:57  

But that's not what you wanted. 

Jeff Johnston  34:59  

 no, and it wasn't feasible. To live, yeah,

Rachael Auyer  35:00  

and you have two children, beautiful wife, and you are thinking, Gosh, I don't want to live like this. And so catch us up to you, meet with your surgeon, and you decide. 

Jeff Johnston  35:14  

So August of 2021 I talked to the surgeon. I just bring it up. I said, Hey, what about amputation? Just like that. I just said, Hey, what about amputation? Is that an option? And he said, I've been waiting for you to bring that up. And he goes, obviously, we didn't want it. I tried to do everything I could to save it. And then he told me kind of a story about how much pain I was in with the leg. Right after the surgery, he came to visit me in my room after one of the other surgeries he did, and the nurse was having trouble getting me back in the bed, so he helped her, and he realized how much pain I was in with the leg, and he didn't say this, but I almost feel like he was wondering if he should have just cut it off right then. And his pas have told me if it was another surgeon. Of course, I know that they're loyal to their their guy, but he, they said any other orthopedic surgeon would have cut your leg off, you know? And so I think he but he did. He saw that I was in shape, and it was important to me my health. And so he's like, hey, yeah, let's let's try to save this leg. So he goes, I've been waiting for you to bring that up. It really needs to be your decision, not mine. And he said, but I do think you'd have a better quality of life. And once he said that, My decision was made, he said, Why don't you go home and pray about it, think about it, and in a month, we'll meet and decide for sure. So that was like end of August, we go home, and I think we set the appointment instead of September. Was like early October, and so, well, I hate to say it this way, but I didn't. I almost didn't pray about it, because I knew it was the right thing. I was just like, right when he said, better quality of life, and no one knew, like I did, how it felt like this knee was never going to bend. It wasn't right. This was, I'm going to have to figure out something else. And so we went back to him in October. Said, Yes, you know, we're going to do it. He had me pray for it, if I remember, right? He had me pray for it. Like, let's do another month. We came back again.

Rachael Auyer  36:54  

Because there's no going back. 

Jeff Johnston  36:55  

yeah, there's no going back. 

Rachael Auyer  36:56  

And this surgeon is, like, one of the best surgeons.

Jeff Johnston  36:59  

Oh yeah. 

Rachael Auyer  36:59  

And he's an incredible asset to our community. He did everything to make sure you could keep your leg. And so that was his goal always. And so I do want to give respect to the work that he did and to save your life and to make sure that you had everything you need. And he wanted to make sure when you make the final call, it was yours. It's done, and it's your choice.

Jeff Johnston  37:21  

Yeah, and, and it was. And so, because of the way things worked out after the wreck, you know, the wreck happened on my dad's birthday. I barely got out in time for Thanksgiving, but then I spent Christmas in the hospital again. I spent Mother's day in the hospital. I spent my wife, maybe my wife's birthday in the hospital. There was all these like holidays I'd spend the hospital. And it was kind of a running joke between my between my family and the surgeon. And so he said, Look, if we do it now, you're gonna be in the hospital or have to deal with a lot of this during Christmas. You've been through so much and and he's like, let's meet back first of January and we'll set the date. And I, I still believe he was giving me another out. Like, okay, I changed my mind. Like, but then January, we met and we set the date, January 24th, I had my leg amputated. And so, yeah.

and you were sharing before we jumped on the headsets and podcast. And I think people need to hear the truth is that that was a hard choice the day of the surgery.

Oh, yeah, so and I'm I like to joke by nature. And then sometimes it's when I'm nervous, I joke a lot, or I'm, you know, I goof off and but I was in good spirits. I was like, trying to, and I wanted to be in good spirits, because my wife was there, and I wanted, I didn't want her to be sad and be hurting for this. And I was, in a way, I was kind of excited, because I'm like, Finally, this is over 15 surgeries, pain and suffering, countless days in the hospital. I felt like this was the beginning to the next chapter, and in a lot of ways, it was. But when they came in, and my wife and I always joke about this too, every time they had a I had a leg surgery, they'd have to shave my leg. So so they came in and and, and I thought they were going to shave my leg, but they had a marker in their hand, and it dawned on me what that marker was for. And sure enough, just like in the cartoons, like, they drew an X on my my leg that was supposed to be amputated, and I remember I was gonna make some jokes about it, like, make sure it's the right leg, you know, or whatever, or know that I was gonna mess with him, like, that's the wrong leg. What are you doing? But my wind kind of went out of me, and I locked eyes with my wife, and the realness in that moment was like, it's gone. Like, oh, lefties gone. Like, I'll never see it again. It's over. Like, and I didn't second guess myself, but at the same time, I'm like, That's grief. Wow, it's gone. It's this is actually happening. I almost pushed off all these emotions of it really happening, until that moment, and I looked at my wife, and we locked eyes, and she teared up and started crying, and I teared up and started crying, and I just kind of looked away and gathered myself. And then, you know, they came and gave me some relaxation meds, and you know, the next thing I know, I I went under surgery, and I'll never forget this, too, the weight of having a leg where you can't use your knee or your. Your ankle, everything to move it or to adjust it, or to, like, get up out of bed or a chair. Your everything's coming from your hip, right? It's very heavy, like, if you think about that. And I'll never forget when I woke up from surgery, you know, I remember I woke up and they, you know, is still in the or and they were still giving me pain meds and whatnot. When I finally got to my room to recover from the amputation. And I asked a nurse, you know, it was there, but they had almost, like, formed the blankets to make me think the leg was still there. I think maybe that's a strategy, I don't know, but a nurse came in, and then one of the PAs came in for the surgeon. I'm like, Can I move it? I don't know if I'm allowed to move it yet. Like, oh yeah, go ahead and move it. And I'll never forget, I picked up my left leg, or what's left of it, and it was so light. You know how when you think you have coffee in a mug, yep, and you go to pick it up, but there's nothing in it, and it's like, really light. That's how it felt. And I'm like, Whoa. That was weird, you know? And I just remember when that happened, going back in my mind to the or or the pre op and not, it wasn't like, this is about to happen. This is real. It's like it's done. It happened. And then my mindset from that point on is like, okay, let's figure this out, you know? And so then in the hospital, I had actually been talking to different prosthetists and stuff. And in the hospital, Jason, an employee came by from you guys and talked to me and and so that made there was a couple other options that they had presented to me, but I'm like, oh, no, these people like it was the young lady. It was her day off or something, or no, no, she sounds like an alliance employee. She had stopped work at like five or six or whatever, and this was like, eight o'clock at night, and she had gone to on a date with her husband or her boyfriend or a friend, and she decided to swing by the hospital because she just wanted to make sure that I was, you know, I could, she could answer any questions. And I remember thinking, if that's the kind of people that are gonna be taking care of me, that's who I'm gonna go with. And so then I remember they actually gave me, I won't say the name, but they gave me a pamphlet for another clinic. And I'm like, That's not Alliance. And they, they, they said, Oh, yeah. Well, that that's who a lot of time, like, no, no, no, yeah. 

Rachael Auyer  42:03  

And that's what I was just going to point out, as a lot of patients don't know, you get to choose you work with. 

Jeff Johnston  42:09  

Yes, yeah

Rachael Auyer  42:10  

 and with workers comp, though there's actually less of a choice. 

Jeff Johnston  42:13  

Very true. Yeah. 

Rachael Auyer  42:14  

That is something that I feel like you would be a great person to talk about the team you had to build because workers comp for all your surgeries and then to do prosthetic care. 

Jeff Johnston  42:24  

Yeah

Rachael Auyer  42:24  

you you got an education pretty quickly. 

Jeff Johnston  42:26  

Very much. Yes. 

Rachael Auyer  42:27  

So why don't you tell our listeners who was on your team? How did you decide to put them on your team? Did you have to kick anybody off your team? And I know our team worked well with your adjuster and how we worked together. We do workers comp pretty regularly here. There is some nuance with it, and no two situations are the same. Everybody has different situations, so you're free to feel in the blanks.

Jeff Johnston  42:52  

Man. So it was an education, and a lot of this was my wife trying to take it at the beginning, because I was on copious amounts of pain medication. I had come through surgeries. I was loopy, and so at the beginning, she was handling everything right. She had to take over. You know, I normally took care of the bills at the house, because I can be kind of a numbers geek, and she's not a spreadsheet person. And so when I had the wreck, I actually had a document on the computer, or no, actually printed out that I always keep. I shouldn't say this, because now some burglars gonna find it, but where my wife can get all the passwords that she needs, if, in case, I'm, you know, whatever, and that came in real handy, because she was able to pay the bills. And, you know, nothing changed with that. So she was trying to take care of all that was going on. And when workers comp picked up, basically, what they did with us is what they probably do with everybody, is, you just have this advocate that's with the workers comp insurance. And they're gonna, they're gonna, like, tell you where you can go and what to do. I had a lot of bleeding during the surgeries and whatnot, and some blood issues. And they thought maybe it was gastric or had ulcers, or blah, blah, blah. And so they sent me to this, another guy who you talk about, kicking someone off the team. This doctor came in. He was really rough. My leg was very painful. This was actually right after they tore my quad. We're establishing care with this guy. And he just, like, grabs my head and pulls me down forward to pull my shirt up, and, like, without warning me kind of a thing, and it like, incredibly hurt my leg. And my wife was like, Get your hands off him. What are you doing? Like, we told you his legs hurt, and he just didn't realize how bad it was. And I don't think he was trying to necessarily hurt me. But then it was very much like, 

Rachael Auyer  44:26  

Not on the team.

Jeff Johnston  44:27  

 Like it was weird situation. I'm like, No, you're not on the team anymore. And we found out that just because, but workers comp only gave him he was our only option, they said. But then during that time, so we had this, like, advocate person, and then the longer I was worth workers comp, you're going to get bumped up, usually to someone who handles catastrophic cases or cases that are going towards catastrophic. Because from what I understand, once you're labeled catastrophic, like that, might be workers comp, insurance for life and care for this and that and so.

Rachael Auyer  44:55  

There's a lot of legal stuff with this.

Jeff Johnston  44:57  

There is.

Rachael Auyer  44:57  

So they need to make sure the people who understand the process are on your case.

Jeff Johnston  45:01  

Yes. So then we get bumped up. Well, then I have a surgery, and what finally got us to take this next step that I'm going to advocate for everybody to really do, is we got, we had the surgery, and then all of a sudden we get like, a $68,000 bill in the mail from the hospital. Well, we weren't supposed to get any bills. It was supposed to be covered by workers comp. And there was, it was literally a billing error. Where? So we called and we called workers comp, we call the hospital, we work it out with them, and my wife does where, oh, it was just a billing error. We'll just put it back through the system, and it should go to workers comp. Well, like, two weeks later, we get the bill again. So I don't know what they did or, you know, and hospitals, I don't know how exactly it works. I'm sure you know more about this, but, like, it's almost like you go in a stack and they're just going to keep billing you until you pay. And but it scared us, like we didn't have $68,000 just laying around randomly pay a hospital. And so that's where we had our kids went to school with a young man whose dad was a worker's comp attorney, and so we just called him up and was like, can we talk to you about our situation? And he was really nice, and he's like, I've been waiting to see if you'd want to talk, but I didn't want to, like, put pressure, and so we went and talked with him, and I had no idea how it worked. And this is good for anybody to hear. If you're in a very complicated worker's comp situation, and if you're listening to a podcast about amputation and the before and after and all that, it's very possible that listener is, then you might need legal advice. And if you need legal advice, I don't know how every lawyer does it, but the one I did doesn't charge you anything. And so he didn't charge us anything until, you know, and then there's a percentage of once we settle out and do some things. But he was great. And there were things that would happen, like around Memorial Day, I had a surgery that may surgery, I came home and I ran out of pain medication. Well, I had just had a surgery where it was incredibly painful. I could barely breathe without pain, and I needed some pain meds. But because it was like Memorial Day weekend, they were really slow to get the prescription, like written the hospital and different things, and they just weren't taking care of it quick. Well, I didn't want to be a bother, so I just dealt with it for like, a day, and then my wife finally decided, oh, let's call our lawyer. And so she called the lawyer, and within two hours, we had a prescription. Because when the lawyer sent something, he probably knew how to word it. That scared him, I don't know, but like, you know, we had a prescription. Errors are awesome. It took three days for them to even, like, recognize that we needed a prescription, and then they put it on, like the to do list. When the lawyer got involved, it just got done. So, you know, every case is different. I can't tell you for sure if you should get a lawyer, but I know that without that lawyer, it would have been, I can't even explain. And then what ended up happening is the lawyer, and I don't know how we ended up getting the team we did with our adjuster. I just don't know, I don't know if. So it was incredible. Our workers comp, adjuster, man. She was amazing. And, and it gets weird because she goes to all my appointments, all my major appointments, right? So it's like a little buddy, it is, and, and me, I'm gonna, if someone's gonna tag along with me, I'm gonna, like, try to form a relationship and have some fun. And she was a very good person, and she just really and she was very much an advocate for what we needed. And there were times I was at doctors, I was at a primary care doctor, and they were giving me results on blood work, and she asked them so many questions like, what does he need this? What does he do now? What about this? What about this? And things I didn't even think to ask. So at the first when she's coming to the appointments, I'm like, Oh brother, like, I have a babysitter. But then as she started coming, and I realized she knows more about what's going on than I do, and she knows the next steps that I haven't even taken yet. And so I just started listening to her, listening to my lawyer, listening to her. And then after the amputation, the most important medical professional in my life became Jason, and it became learning to walk, and then, and then, of course, therapists were a lot of my life, so I had a set, a team of therapists before my amputation that I had a different team take over after, because of dealing with the prosthetic. But I'm telling you, you know, I wish everybody had the team that I had, you know, and I can say, I think everybody that has the opportunity to work with you guys at Alliance should do it. You guys are great, and I know you're not necessarily doing this for that reason, but I'll never I'll say it this way with with you guys and other medical professionals that my both therapy teams were great, but there were doctors that I couldn't stand going to, and the reason why was all of them treated me with dignity. All of them, for the most part, treated me with respect, and when they made a mistake, it was just that a mistake. It wasn't on purpose. But few medical offices treated me like more than a patient, like they treated me like a person and like when I walk in the doors of alliance and my therapy offices, when I was going to therapy, the way they treated me was, I was a human being, I was a person, I was a friend, and they cared about, like, not just my health, but like, How's your wife doing, and how are your kids? You know, I remember the first time we went in to get measured by you guys. Just the culture was they, they didn't just, like, treat my wife like she was, like, a nameless attachment. She they were like, Do you want any water? Are you okay? How have you been doing? And like it just made me feel like, you know, I'm a person, I'm a human being, and so I think that's important too. But as far as the team goes, the lawyer was massive for me, even now I know me, and when we went into because it for my situation, it got to be where it was. I was labeled catastrophic, and I had amputation, and I was going to have to have medical bills the rest of my life that workers comp was going to be a part of. And there were decisions that I had to make legally that I never could have made without the lawyer the right way. And if I would have done them myself, I know me, I would have made mistakes. I would have been like, Well, that's good enough. You know, I can make that work. But the lawyer kept pushing like, no, no, no, it, no, no, that's not right. They should do this and and it just worked out in the long run.

Rachael Auyer  50:45  

I think that's an important piece for people to understand, is that when you are in this kind of big decisions, that having wise counsel to help you navigate those and to put the right people who treat you as a person notice that you are not one dimensional. You, You're a father, you're a husband. At the time you were working. I mean, you, you got back to work fairly quickly. I want you to talk about, like, the goal setting that you did and all of that, but that came with a team of people that helped you know what is a reasonable goal? What are some things that you you can do? I know you're a high achieving, put it all down on paper kind of guy, and I'd love for you to talk about your first goals. And for our audience, you might not know he was Goal Digger of the year one year, and it was a pretty impressive set of goals that he achieved, and continues to pursue those. And you can also talk about the highs and the lows of all that. 

Jeff Johnston  51:39  

Yeah, well, meeting Jason and the Alliance team. They do this thing called goal diggers. Like in the whole concept, I think, is like, dig deep, get the goals done, you know? And it really jived with my personality, because I do like to set goals. And so I'm like, yeah. And so I started thinking, what are my goals? Well, one of the good things, and this is a good segue here, is that the workers comp adjuster I had. She'd been, she'd worked with amputees before, and she knew how long it took to, like, learn to walk on on it. And I was getting a Genium, which was wonderful, from what I understood. And now I know, you know, I've tried on a couple of different ones, and, man, the ginium was great. And I was told it had a running mode. Well, in my head, it's like, yeah, I hit this button and I'll be able to run again. And so I set a goal at first of running a 5k in three months after my amputation. That's a little bit 

Rachael Auyer  52:33  

Ambitious.

Jeff Johnston  52:33  

A little bit ambitious. And so now I would tell people this, and people had no idea at all about what amputees go through and how hard it is for recovery. The people that didn't know and just kind of knew me, they're like, Oh yeah, you'll do it. I'll run it with you. And I'll never forget. She's like, Yeah, this running mode is not exactly like where you can run miles on it. And I'm like, Okay, I said, Well, okay, well, I understand that. Well, maybe just like three miles or a mile, and she's like, No. And I'm like, What do you mean? Like, she's like, it's, it's more like, Oh, I've got to run away because my car is going to explode. Like, it just helps you move a little faster when you need to. It's not like to run for miles. And I'm like, Oh, okay. She's like, they'll get you a running leg with its mechanical that'll do that. And I'm like, Okay, well, because I didn't know. So that was a goal that was there and I took off. I mean, it was written down, 5k you know, 5k 5k by, I think it was like 5k by June 1. And so then I'm like, and Jason helped me. One day he goes, No, think through like, let's start small and get bigger. And I remember realizing that because I've had crutches or a walker ever since the wreck, and then once I had the amputation, I was back on crutches or a walker, and then crutches, and then a cane. I hadn't walked holding my wife's hand in forever, and so my first goal was walk unassisted, holding my wife's hand. And I don't know if Jason knows this, but like, I got my leg on April Fool's Day, which is so adequate, so appropriate for me, but I got my leg April 1, 2022 and the next day we leave to go to Hilton Head for vacation and and I had crutches, and I was in the condo we had, and I'm watching my favorite basketball team ever, Duke lose to UNC in Coach K's last game ever. 

Rachael Auyer  54:21  

Oh, man. 

Jeff Johnston  54:22  

Which was brutal. And I've I lost my leg, and I'm trying to use my leg to walk with these crutches. And it wouldn't work like I wanted it to, and I wanted it to be where I walk a couple back and forths in the condo, throw my crutches down and say, I don't need them ever again, you know. But it wasn't working that way. And I got mad. I was like, I was angry. I was I just felt so, you know how, like you want traffic to move and it won't move, and you're just like, pent up, yeah, and that's how I felt, like the leg won't work, like it won't come forward, like I think it's supposed to come forward, and when I put my weight on it, it feels like it's gonna collapse, and blah, blah, blah. And I just, I made the that night, on that vacation with my wife. Wife and my son and my daughter, and my son was, what was he a sophomore in high school at the time, my daughter was a freshman, and so they're old enough to know dad. He's having a bad night, and they were just got quiet, and I just made the night miserable. And then the next day, I'm reading a book. I'm reading meditations by Marcus Aurelius. You know, I remember he told my surgeon told me, he goes, I gotta wean you off the pain meds. And I'm like, Okay. And I was like, in my heart, I'm like, how am I gonna survive? Like, but he goes, and he kind of just sat down in front of me, and he says, look, your life is always going to have a measure of pain, and you've got to figure out how to deal with it without meds.

Rachael Auyer  55:38  

What a good doctor. 

Jeff Johnston  55:39  

And I'm like, wow, he's right. I'm never not going to have pain. I don't, you know, the couple nights ago, my Phantom Pains were through the roof, and no pain meds could really take that away. And so anyway, so all that to say, I decided I wanted I started reading about Navy SEALs. I started to read about, like, the ancient Stoics and how, because a lot of them had some mindsets that really dealt with pain very well. And so I was reading, you know, all these books and studying. And so I was reading meditation by Marcus Aurelius, and it was after this horrible night of just being terrible and grumpy and and just throwing a fit like a four year old because it wasn't working the way I wanted it to. And I read this line. It says, Don't ever he's writing a diary, basically to himself. And he says, Don't ever be overheard complaining, even by yourself. And I'm like, oh, man, I just need to stop complaining, you know, and so, and that's not like, that's the last time I ever complained, but that day, I'm like, I'm just gonna do what I can do if the leg won't work, the leg won't work, but I'm just gonna keep trying. And it was that day later in the day, we were in this condo that had like, a really long balcony with all the like, the doors and the rooms, and I just put my crutches to the side, and I took like five steps without any assistance. And I'm like, Karen, come here, come here. And my wife runs over, like, give me your hand. And we take like eight steps with me holding her hand. And I'm like, goal number one, done, you know? But yeah, so that is, that was the first goal. And so the first year of my amputation, I really did, because there was no other option. I had to really focus on my walking and my health and just learning how to do it. I remember, I'll never forget it was, I think, July. No, it was August when my physical therapist said, Okay, I think we're gonna you can get rid of the cane if you want. And that was the first time, like I'd finally gotten to the point from April to about the end of August where now I didn't need crutches, walker, cane, I could walk like a human being, like I could, I could just do it and just me, just me and and it was such a huge milestone for me. So so the goals were just a part of it, right? Like, I wanted to be able to go up the stairs by myself. I wanted to be able to hold my wife's hand, you know? And then I ended up taking a job and working and working a lot of hours, and the job I had was just very involved. I needed to do a lot of work, and I actually, like, kind of put my health and my, honestly, my rehab, which hasn't stopped yet, because I still haven't been running, and, you know, I put it kind of on the back burner. And so it was, like, it's kind of interesting. I went from being Goal Digger of the year my first year to the last couple years not even accomplishing goals, right? So I'm in this period right now where I'm, like, setting more goals, and I just walked around a park by my house, and it sounds so silly for me to say, walk two laps, and it'd be a little bit over two, about two and a quarter miles, and that'd be a massive goal, but I've been trying for the past year and a half or so to walk two laps, but it just I get too low in my socket, or I'll have a blister that shows up, or I've been dealing with and blah, blah, blah. Well, the other day, a couple weeks ago, I actually did it, and I can't tell you, I never thought I'd be happy to walk around a park twice, but I'm sending screenshots to friends and family members and and so, yeah, so I'm this year, my wife and I decided that, because of some changes in my life and what I'm doing, we're going to, I'm going to focus on my health, and so who knows, maybe, in you know, by the end of the year, I'll actually finally make that 5k but, yeah, so I'm trying to, I've taken up swimming. 

Rachael Auyer  59:13  

I know it's a big deal! 

Jeff Johnston  59:15  

Yeah, they told me that my hip and my right my good knee, my right knee and my right hip are like, three to five times more likely for knee and hip replacements now. And so they're like, you know, you need to find something non impact. Like, everything's impact. But then I thought of swimming. And so, yeah, I jump in, and I've been swimming. I've swam as little as, like, you know, 10 minutes, and proud of myself to where I've done dares to swim across Lake Lanier, which was probably not smart, but yeah, I've really fallen in love with with the act of swimming. So, I'm trying.

Rachael Auyer  59:45  

I love that something about your family as you guys, don't give up. It's just a core value that I've seen knowing your family, and it's kind of we're shifting gears. Not about your health, not about the mental space, but about leading a family, because most of our guests have been females, and they lead in their respective spaces, but from your perspective, you have been at your lowest, and you have still been able to lead. Tell us about that.

Jeff Johnston  1:00:18  

Well, I, that's humbling to hear, because I don't feel like I did a good job of it most of the time.

Rachael Auyer  1:00:26  

But you didn't quit. 

Jeff Johnston  1:00:27  

Well, I have, I have a wife who she won't quit, and I'm afraid of her so.

Rachael Auyer  1:00:34  

Scary wives are real helpful. 

Jeff Johnston  1:00:35  

I say it this way, yes, the wreck and that event, and the year before that wreck, the wreck, the year after that wreck, that two, two and a half year span of time was some of the darkest we've ever faced as a family, and hopefully ever will face again. But looking back and there's, you know, I've had times in my life where I look back and I'm like, I wish I could change things. And I learned the hard way that that's not a healthy way to live, because you can't, I can't. Yeah, I could look back and say, I wish that wouldn't happen, but if I get focused and, you know, just obsessed with I wish this didn't happen, I wish this didn't happen, it can drive you crazy, really, right? So I look back at the wreck, and my wife hates hearing me say this, but I've decided that I'm going to look at what the rec Yes, I'm going to acknowledge what it took away from me. And it did take some things, so to speak, but I don't want to look at the Rec in just that negative side of it. I'm going to look at the Rec. And of course, the rec entails a lot. It's the surgeries afterwards, it's the quad tear, it's the heterotopic ossification. It's all these things, my bone, muscle turning to bone. So when I say the wreck, it's it's encompassing a lot, but I'm going to look at the wreck and not just see what it took away, but acknowledge what it gave me. And for instance, my leg, yeah, my legs a terrible thing. I hate the fact that I can't do what I used to do. One of the things that breaks my heart is I used to play basketball, and my son grew up, and he became the captain of his high school basketball team, and he loves playing basketball, and well, after the wreck, I've never been able to actually play one on one with him again, you know, I've shot some horse with him, but it's not the same, you know, and I needed to be able to humble him, because he thinks now that he's better than me. And so, yeah, it took that away from me in some ways, but the wreck also gave me things. For instance, my leg, right? It's terrible, and it's gone, and I hate that, but if my leg would not have gotten caught in that wreckage, I probably would have died. And so the fact that my leg is missing is sometimes a symbol to me that I'm alive, and at least I'm alive, you know, and then, you know, with the wreck, one of the things it did for me, and this is the most powerful thing, I think, that it did for me, is I've watched and I've had the ability and the opportunity in ministry to watch people take care of their loved ones who are sick or hurting or have surgeries or trauma or, you know, cancer or all these things. And you've been that now, I've been that person, and I've watched it, and a lot of times it happens with older people. I saw it with my mom and my dad. My My mom was in terrible health last five years of her life. My dad basically took care of her hand and foot. She passed away July 4, 2020, you know, a few months before my wreck. And, man, it was hard to watch my dad go through that, but there was a love that my mom and my dad had that you can't really like. There's no way to quantify it. It was just 

Rachael Auyer  1:01:21  

You can't measure it.

Jeff Johnston  1:01:33  

Yeah, and they would have never, and my dad will tell you he would have never had that love for my mom without having to go through the things that they went through. And I've seen older people. I've seen people that go through this, and then now, so now my wife and I have been through these dark times, and I have felt that love from my wife. I felt a love deeper than I ever would have felt come from my wife without the wreck. If I didn't have the wreck, I would have never had that opportunity, and we're closer now than we ever possibly could be without the wreck. Right? My kids, it was hard. I can't

I can't imagine what it was like for them, those first couple nights where dad's on life support and they don't know what's going to happen. And you know when, when the wreck happened? My son was ninth grade. My daughter was eighth grade. That's a lot. They just moved everything was new to them. Still. They're still trying to establish themselves at their new school. It just so much. But I've watched my kids become the strongest they could have ever been, and they wouldn't be as strong as they are now without the rec right? So, you know? So I always say this way, like I wouldn't change it. If I could go back in time and have a time machine, I wouldn't change it. Karen, my wife, she hates saying that, saying that, because she's like, I would change an Art Beat, you know? I would change it and ban all dump trucks from the road, you know? But I really, I really feel that way. I yeah, do I have more challenges now than I used to? I don't know if more they're different. Mm. Different and so, yeah, so, so with my family, the best thing I could do. So there's a there's a story that I'll tell that really says a lot about where we were at. It was the surgery after they found the bone growing in my muscle tissue was incredibly painful because he basically cut out, like pieces of fiber, muscle fiber that turned a bone they were cutting out. And it was very painful, like, so I always say it felt like a bunch of Keith elves were inside my leg with a pick ax, like, constantly, yeah, and they released me from the hospital, but it was incredibly painful. You know, they had to take me out on a wheelchair. Well, the only way to go out on the wheelchair was with, like, a little, like lift or rest for my knee, but as it moved, it would bounce, and every bounce hurt. And the nurse was like, you know, just a bundle of nerves, because she knew how bad I was hurting. And my wife just driving home if she hit, like, any kind of a bump or like going through intersections, I've learned this intersections are not always level, like you go through an intersection, it's like a little bit of a bump, it would hurt, and I'm screaming and I'm in pain. And I get home, and I'm FaceTiming my dad, who lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and I'm FaceTiming him, and I just lose it. I had finally gotten in bed at home, and there was finally that feeling of but the pain of going from my hospital room to the lobby, to the car to, you know, the 40 mile drive home, into the house, into my bed, was so excruciating and so painful, I kept thinking, it's always going to be like this. It'll never get better. And it did get better, but you know, when you're in the moment, it doesn't feel like it. And I was talking to my dad, and I said, and I just ball him like a four year old baby. I'm just like, I can't and I just was screaming and crying and, like, losing it. And my son, who, at the time, this is his ninth grade year, you know, spring semester of his ninth grade year, my son is not a very touchy feely, like, hugger, you know, he's not going to be like, Oh, I can't wait to hug a stranger, which I'm kind of glad about now that I say it out loud, but he, um, he just comes over and he I'm still talking to my dad, and I'm like, heaving, you know, those like sobs that you just can't like. I'm almost hyperventilating, and my son just wraps me up, and he's hugging me. He doesn't even say a word. He just hugs me until I stop. And my dad's on FaceTime crying, and I'm over here crying. And my son, you know, I'm sure he was crying, but he was just hugging me, and he kind of calmed me down, and he walked away like I was, my 14 year old boy, just calmed his dad down. And that's not the only time he's ever done that. You know, my daughter right now, she's in college. She just switched her major to biblical counseling, and when she told me about it, she's like Dad. We've been through so through so much as a family, and I've watched so many other people go through hard times that I think maybe I could help them, and I want to help people like and so, you know, yeah, the wreck was hard, the surgeries were hard, the recovery was hard. Sometimes every day can be hard, you know, and but it's made our family just stronger in a lot of ways. You know, there's a bond there. So I think, I think the thing that helped our family the the most was not just like I said, looking through what the what the rec took away from us, but what it gave us. I'm able to, you know, being in the ministry, I end up doing hospital visits often, and I used to hate him, not look forward to him, because I felt awkward. I did. I never had a surgery before, like, and, and I just didn't, you know, but once you've been on that site, like, now there's a come a comfortable nature. I have to walking in a hospital, and I'm like, Oh yeah, hey, by the way, you know they DoorDash here. So if you don't like the salmon, you know, that tastes like Play Doh, there's Jimmy Johns down the road. And, you know, you just walk in and you're able to kind of, hopefully, encourage people a little bit more with your story and but yeah, so my my wife is she's always been resilient. She's even more resilient now, and I've watched my kids, you know, become some pretty amazing people, and I don't think that would have happened without the wreck.

Rachael Auyer  1:09:03  

That's so beautiful. I think we've really like encompassed our goal, which was to talk about rebuilding. And you all have chosen a path towards rebuilding and creating a dynamic and a culture in your family and your community. I wondered if you would do the honor and the privilege of thinking of someone who might be in the same spot or a similar spot you were in, if you would pray for them. And we can close our podcast with that.

Jeff Johnston  1:09:32  

oh yeah.

let's do that. Lord we thank you so much for this opportunity to be on this podcast and And Lord I thank you that alliance is willing to do this and go to the extra effort to try to encourage and make a difference in people's lives, and Lord, I pray you help them as they serve, and I've said it already in the podcast, but I've always been impressed that they love people and they find their gifts as an avid. Do to help people, not just make money, not just make a living, but to make a difference in people. And Lord help them, bless them for doing what they're doing. But Lord, whoever's out there that might hear this podcast and hear my voice and hear my story, Lord help them to realize that every day is a gift, and it might not be that we're able to do what we used to be able to do. It might not be that we're going to have days that are pain free. It might be that we have more of a challenge than we used to have, but at the end of the day, Lord, help us to realize that today is a gift and we can do something to encourage someone else, whether it's just a text message a day, or whether it's just a smile, or whether it's just a if the only people they even interact with, it seems like is medical professionals. Maybe we could find a way to brighten a doctor's day or a nurse's day, or we can do something to help someone else have a better day, because we had the opportunity to live through one more Lord, I pray you help us all to be strong and help everybody who's going through a trauma or a tragedy, whether they're at the beginning, the middle or the aftermath, or help us to realize that we might not have what we wish we had, but we still have something called opportunity, and we can make it count for our families, for you, for others and for ourselves in Jesus name, amen.

Rachael Auyer  1:11:27  

Amen. Thank you, Jeff for joining us today, and Laine, my amazing producer, will link this all, and any of the things that you're working on we will continue to connect.  

Jeff Johnston  1:11:37  

Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you for having me. 

Rachael Auyer  1:11:41  

Were you inspired or challenged today? If so, connect with us. Follow the links in the description box below. We want to hear from you until next time. Thanks for listening to The Alliance Goal Digger Podcast.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai