Still Here, Still Standing: Gini’s Journey from Tragedy to Triumph

When life changes in an instant, how do you rebuild from the ground up?

Gini Thomas faced this question head-on after a catastrophic motorcycle accident in 2012 that claimed the life of her husband and left her with devastating injuries—ultimately leading to the amputation of her leg above the knee.

Her story begins with love: meeting Joe, a musician twenty years her senior who brought peace and joy into her life before their world was shattered just seventeen months into their marriage. With remarkable candor and grace, Gini walks us through that fateful August day, the immediate aftermath, and the grueling three-year journey through limb salvage surgeries before making the decision to amputate.

What follows is a masterclass in resilience. Gini has endured 24 surgeries, navigated the heartbreak of losing her husband, cared for her mother through dementia, and learned to become her own medical advocate—all while continuing to show up with quiet strength. Through it all, her mother taught her a mindset that sustains her still: "You've told me everything that's bad today, now tell me something good."

Today, Gini serves as a patient ambassador for Integrum and Ottobock—companies that manufacture the prosthetic technologies that helped her reclaim her life. She has found new love, discovered joy in helping others on their limb loss journey, and reminds us all that while grief may change us forever, it doesn’t have to define us.

This conversation explores: 

• Becoming your own medical advocate
• The non-linear nature of grief and resilience
• How love, purpose, and perspective evolve after loss
• Raising awareness during Limb Loss and Limb Difference Awareness Month

Whether you’re navigating your own life-altering experience or supporting someone who is, Gini’s story offers a roadmap for living with both grace and grit.

Show Resources & Links: 

• Connect with Gini Thomas at https://linktr.ee/ginithomas
• Celebrate April's Limb Loss & Limb Difference Awareness Month
• Learn more about & support The Limb Preservation Foundation

Chapters

• 0:00 Meeting Gini: A Story of Resilience
• 7:52 Finding Love with Joe
• 15:07 The Day Everything Changed
• 27:36 The Long Road to Amputation
• 48:42 Finding Strength Through Loss
• 1:00:21 Becoming Your Own Medical Advocate
• 1:10:49 Rebuilding Life and Finding New Love
• 1:21:32 Creating Legacy After Loss

Transcript

Kellie and Erin: 0:08

Welcome to The P-I-G, where we explore life, love, loss and legacy through real conversations and meaningful stories. We're your hosts. I'm Kellie, and I'm Erin. We're sisters, best friends, sometimes polar opposites, but always deeply connected by the life, love, loss and legacy of an incredible woman, our mother Marsha. Today, we're joined by someone whose story has quietly moved so many Gini Thomas. In August of 2012, a tragic motorcycle accident claimed the life of her husband, Joe, and nearly took her own life. And yet, in the years since, Gini has become a steady and unassuming force of love, resilience and presence in the lives of everyone who knows her.

Kellie and Erin: 0:52

Gini may not have asked to be in the spotlight, but the way she has shown up for others with both grace and grit to recover from unimaginable hardship and carry on after immense loss. This is exactly why we asked her to share her story, and we are so honored she said yes to this conversation. So, whether you're here for the first time or you've been with us from the start, we invite you to settle in for a powerful personal story, one that will help you connect more deeply to your own and leave you feeling profoundly inspired. This is one of those life is so cool moments for me.

Kellie and Erin: 1:50

Gini is friends with my boyfriend, Jason, and honestly, I can't even remember how you two met, so you have to refresh my memory on that. But he thinks so highly of you and has shared a few tidbits with me over the last year or so about you and your life and your journey, and when Kellie and I decided to start this podcast, he was like you got to connect with Jenny and then the stars aligned last week, while Gini was in Austin for a speaking engagement, which I really want you to share more about today, and we got to have dinner. It happened to be the day after her 40th birthday and so we got to celebrate with her. We had such a beautiful conversation and now here we are with you as a guest on the podcast. I am absolutely ecstatic that you're here. I'm really looking forward to our conversation today and really looking forward to getting to know more about you.

Gini: 2:42

My name is Gini Thomas, as you said. My full name is actually Sarah Virginia Thomas. My parents decided to call me by the middle part of my middle name and just confuse everyone, so that's spelled G-I-N-I just lifted right out of my middle name. I am originally from Montgomery, Alabama. I spend a lot of time in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. That's where my boyfriend lives. That's where I am today.

Gini: 3:07

I was a communication studies major. I have worked in a vet clinic. I have been a medical assistant at a pain management clinic. It's weird how you bounce around from thing to thing. I am now a patient ambassador for Integrum, which is a company that makes bone anchored implants for prosthetics, and I am also a brand ambassador for Autobot, which is a huge prosthetics manufacturer. They make knees and feet and braces and all kinds of things that help try to keep people mobile.

Gini: 3:42

My day-to-day kind of depends on where I am, what my schedule is. I do travel a lot for speaking engagements, for educational events, for conferences. If I'm not traveling, I'm usually lounging around in sweats, kind of like I am today, catching up on laundry, hanging with the dogs, trying to keep up with emails. I do have a few social media contracts as well, so that's an easy thing to do from anywhere and it keeps me busy. I enjoy it.

Gini: 4:12

I do want to mention that April is Limb Loss and Limb Difference Awareness Month. So the reason that I was in Austin last week and able to have dinner with Erin and Jason, Jason's daughter, is I was actually invited to speak at the Ottobock headquarters in Austin as part of their Living the Brand series and to help them kind of kick off Limb Loss, limb Difference Awareness Month just by telling my story and talking about how their components, how their devices, have helped me regain my life and get active again. Limb Loss and Limb Difference Awareness Month, I think I live it every single day, but it's nice to have a month to try and highlight other stories, other successes, looking at other people's journeys, seeing how far they've come. I actually did a video with Ottobock showing some of the activities that I'm able to do now thanks to the components that I have, and it's important that we realize that these components are super expensive. I think that's something that people don't realize and that's another thing we try to draw awareness to is that there are still insurance laws in a lot of states that only allow for one prosthetic device every five years or so.

Gini: 5:27

That means you get your regular everyday walking around leg. That doesn't mean necessarily that you get something that's waterproof, that you can shower in, that you can take to the beach. That means you don't get automatically a running blade, an activity leg If there are other activities you want to do. These are typically things that people have to apply for grants for or raise money for. Some of the insurance laws are starting to change. In some of the states there's a movement called So Everybody Can Move and that's an attempt at changing the legislation to mandate that insurance has to also approve one other device besides just the everyday functional walking around device.

Kellie and Erin: 6:05

So just lots of things to raise awareness about this month. I thought it was so interesting that the limb loss and limb difference awareness month was established in April of 2012 by the Amputee Coalition.

Gini: 6:19

That was months before your accident, Right right, there are lots of weird little timing things in my story, I think. But yeah, I remember reading that for the first time and being a little bit blown away by the timing of it all as well.

Kellie and Erin: 6:35

So with that, should we take a dive into your story?

Gini: 6:40

Sure, I think the reason I'm here is I have experienced some major loss in my life and it's been quite a ride trying to sort things out in my own life and realizing the ripple effect that it's had on others in my life as well.

Gini: 6:59

I actually met my husband, Joe, when I was a senior in college and I needed one more credit hour for that final semester in order to graduate in the four years like I had planned. So I ended up choosing theater practicum for my one hour and that meant that I helped out with theater program may or may not be in a show. I actually did have a role in a show, not a speaking part, just a background kind of role, and every night after rehearsals the theater director would take the entire cast out for drinks wherever this one particular band was playing, and this band was called the Zig Tones. So Joe happened to be the bass player in this band and one night we were at a bar called 1048, player in this band, and one night we were at a bar called 1048. It's this old hole in the wall place. They had a window unit, air conditioner, and I was sitting right in front of that window unit, not wearing very many clothes like spaghetti strap, mini skirt type of thing, and it was this air conditioners blowing straight on me.

Gini: 7:58

So during the break, Joe immediately came to me and he said gosh, you've got to be freezing sitting right there and it was like instant heat and I just said, no, actually I feel really good. And we ended up starting a conversation. He was dating someone else, I was dating someone else. In fact, I was supposed to get on an airplane the next morning to go visit the person that I was seeing, and I ended up canceling that flight and not going, and Joe ended up breaking up with his person in the next few days as well. And the rest is history. When you know, you know. So we dated for three years, got engaged in a wild way. I'm going to have to go down a rabbit hole and tell you all this story just because yes, please do.

Kellie and Erin: 8:45

Yay. We love rabbit trails!

Gini: 8:48

So Joe was a musician at night, played in bars at least five nights out of the week, but during the day he was bored. So he went through this school down in New Orleans taught himself how to do picture framing. So he started a picture framing business that he ran basically out of our dining room. So early on in this process he called me and said that he had a new framing client in this house down in Lowndes County that's like 30 minutes away from where we lived and they needed a bunch of stuff framed for their hunting lodge there. And he asked me if I would go with him to check out just the vibe of the place so that when he was looking at frames and mats just to help him kind of decide artistically what was going to look the best. So I said, sure, I would get off work at noon on Fridays and typically I would pick up lunch on the way home. That was just the way we had always done things. So I called him when.

Gini: 9:41

I was leaving work and I said, hey, I'm on the way, what do you want to eat? And he said oh, I already picked up sandwiches from Porcino's, one of our favorite places, Great. So I get home and I'm like get in the car, let's go and he says no, no, no, we're going to take my truck today, which I thought was weird because we always took my car everywhere, especially long distance. I got better gas mileage, but whatever.

Kellie and Erin: 10:00

Didn't think too much of it. So we're eating our sandwiches in the truck.

Gini: 10:04

We're in the middle of nowhere in Lowndes County and all of a sudden this sheriff's deputy pulls in right behind us and he's riding our bumper for like five minutes. And I I've noticed it and I asked Joe like what is this guy's problem? Why is he riding your bumper? And Joe says I don't know, I'm not doing anything wrong, don't worry about it. Well, right, then lights and sirens went on and the guy pulled us over in front of this little church. So he comes to Joe's window and asked for his license, insurance, all of that, and he's like you're not from here, why are you here in Lowndes County? This is not where you live. And Joe's like well.

Gini: 10:36

I have this client here. I have a picture framing business. I'm just going to look at things. And the guy's like okay, get out of the car, go stand back by my car. And then he comes to my side and he asked for my license and the same things. Like you don't live here either. Why are you here? What are y'all doing here? So I give him the same answers. He makes me get out of the car and go stand by.

Kellie and Erin: 10:55

Joe.

Gini: 10:55

And I'm like what is this guy's problem? I've never had anything like this happen before. And Joe's like just go along with it, it's fine. Well then the cop asked to search the vehicle and Joe tells him, yes, that it's fine. And I'm like you, do not let them search the vehicle. What are you saying? What is happening right now? And he's like everything's fine. So the guy goes through all Joe's musical equipment, is questioning him on that. Every answer we give. This cop guy is just being a jerk about everything. He finally gets around to Joe's seat and he pulls out this little cinched up black bag from under Joe's seat and he's like uh-huh, what you got here. And at this point Joe stops looking at me, he looks at the ground and he says I don't know, it's not mine.

Gini: 11:36

And so he's looking at the ground and I squat down to get underneath him to look in his eyes and go.

Kellie and Erin: 11:40

What do you mean?

Gini: 11:40

it's not yours, it's in your truck, you better know what it is. And then the cop looks in it and he says yeah, I wouldn't want to tell her either, but I'm going to make you tell her. So he hands Joe the bag and Joe pulls out a ring and gets down on one knee and and proposes. This was a cop friend that he had known for years.

Gini: 12:00

They planned the whole thing. They did a dress rehearsal the day before to time everything out. But yeah, I thought I was going to jail and I got engaged.

Kellie and Erin: 12:08

Oh, that's such an incredible story. That was my like. You knew, that was the question. That was like pounding in my chest right.

Gini: 12:19

Was this planned or was this completely unplanned? Totally, totally planned. And Joe actually had a bottle of champagne chilling in the back of the truck, so we drove up a little bit further. There was an overlook over the river open. The champagne celebrated. It was all good. So that was. That was a good story.

Kellie and Erin: 12:37

That is a great story. It is a great story. Before you continue on with your story, I would love to learn a little bit more about Joe and why you fell in love with him, although I think I can kind of tell why.

Gini: 12:53

I really don't know what it was in that first day. Another small detail Joe was 20 years older than me, actually 19 years and 51 weeks older. There was a one week period where he was only 19 years older than me and originally that was my plan to tell my parents about him during that one week, cause I thought that 19 years sounded so much better than 20. That whole plan never ends.

Gini: 13:18

But anyway, I think it was just his laid back personality, his sense of humor, the way he could keep me calm. He used to say all the time I would be freaking out about something and he would just say don't panic. I don't have any tattoos, but I said if I ever did get one it would have to be one that says don't panic. Because I can still hear that in my head all the time when I start getting worked up about something don't panic. So he just had that calming effect on me. It made everything seem easier. He made everything seem fun, whether it was going to the grocery store or cleaning tree roots out of our pipes that caused the water to back up into the house.

Gini: 13:56

I mean something that's gross that you don't want to do, but he somehow made that fun, so we just always had a good time.

Kellie and Erin: 14:03

It sounds like you had a really beautiful relationship. As you think about what comes next down the road for you and Joe, and I'd love to have you continue sharing that story of where you were going, but also including any defining moments of what life was like before that accident.

Gini: 14:26

I think we had everything figured out. I am not a clingy person at all. I keep to myself a lot. I like to have my alone time, I like to have my space, and I think Joe and I worked so well together because he was a musician who was gone every night, or almost every night of the week. So I worked during the day, all day, he worked all night, but we always saw each other at dinner. We loved to be in the kitchen cooking together. In fact, when we registered for our wedding, like 90% of the stuff we registered for was kitchen stuff.

Gini: 15:00

And normally on our Friday afternoons, after I got off work and we had lunch, we would go to the restaurant supply store and his big move was to find something that they would have to order. So it would come in the following week and we would have to go back the next week and look around again while we were. So we really enjoyed being in the kitchen exploring new recipe, finding new things that we could enjoy to eat together.

Kellie and Erin: 15:25

That, right, there is a complete episode in and of itself, right. I relate so much to building a relationship around food and cooking. Erin can attest to this. But that's what my husband, marcus, and I did. I mean, we built our entire early relationship all around food and our number one favorite thing to do together is spend time together in the kitchen in the evening. So I love that you and Joe had that.

Gini: 15:53

Yeah, yeah, and I don't know that either one of us were necessarily any good at it, he was better at the, at the entrees, and I was pretty good at making desserts. So it all it all worked out. We could make a giant mess in the kitchen, but we, we had a system down. So it all it all worked out. We could make a giant mess in the kitchen, but we, we had a system down, so it wasn't ever. You cook and I'll clean. It was. We're cooking together.

Gini: 16:13

We're cleaning as we go. This is our experience together, which I really loved too.

Kellie and Erin: 16:18

I love that. How long did you guys date before you got married?

Gini: 16:28

We got engaged on our three-year dating anniversary weekend and then it was another like a year and a half before we got married, I think for about a year. So we got engaged in July of 2010, and then we got married in March of 2011. So yeah, not not quite a year, and we got married in March of 2011. So yeah, not quite a year.

Gini: 16:46

And we got married in Vegas. Actually, we did not elope, it was planned. We knew that we had a bunch of friends who were going to have to travel anyway, so we just decided we would go somewhere fun. We got married at the top of the stratosphere that space needle thing in Vegas, right at sunset. So we got some amazing picture. Did you ride the roller coaster? We did not. We did not. We saw a lot of people, but Joe's big joke was that he was going to do the big drop. He was going to take the plunge of marriage and take the plunge and jump off the building, but he didn't do it. But yeah, we got. We got married on March 12th 2012. But yeah, we got. We got married on March 12th 2012. Um, and we were married exactly 17 months when our wreck happened.

Kellie and Erin: 17:32

The wreck was August 12th.

Gini: 17:32

I think I said our date wrong. March 12, 2011 is when we got married and our wreck was August 12, 2012. So, 17 months to the day when the wreck happened. The day of the wreck, we actually this is the morning that we were cleaning tree roots out of our pipes. We, the day before he did not plan a gig because he knew we were going to be on the motorcycle the next day and he wanted to be well-rested, so we'd had a pretty lazy Saturday, which was rare for us laying around watching movies, cooking dinner. And then we got up early on that Sunday morning I went to take a shower and the shower didn't drain. So we immediately ran to Home Depot. We bought an industrial strength pipe snake, because this was something that happened to our pipes Every few months. We lived in an older house and normally we rented a pipe snake and we were tired of spending money on it every few months. So we thought, just bite the bullet and get one. So went to Home Depot, got that, came back home, cleaned out the pipes. We're both disgusting. Go take showers again and then we go to get on the motorcycle.

Gini: 19:04

We were headed to visit Joe's mother a little over an hour north of us and normally you would take I-65 to go see her and we had decided it would be better to take the safe route this time, not get on the interstate, take back roads. So we had actually just passed under I-65 on our back roads path and a guy pulled out from a side street, ran a stop sign and T-boned us and I remember like looking up and seeing a car coming at us but not having anywhere to bail out because of the way traffic was moving and I it was like it was slow motion. From there I blacked out on impact. When I came to I was sitting in the middle of the street. Sitting up in the middle of the street with my hands on either side of me and the first thing I saw was my femur sticking straight up through my jeans. And it's so weird, the thoughts that go through your head when something like this happens. I remember thinking that bone is really yellow. I didn't realize bone was so yellow. I expected it to be more white and then I thought my leg looks really, really bad. There were bones sticking out in other places, everything was crooked and I thought this doesn't hurt. As bad as it is, it doesn't hurt. So I must be in shock and I probably need to start telling people things because I might pass out.

Gini: 20:28

So I look up a little bit further and I see our motorcycle and it's destroyed. And I look a little bit further and I see Joe and he's laying face down in the street. His helmet was still on, mine had been knocked off. His eyes were kind of half open. I could see that his tongue was hanging out. And at this point there was a guy next to me wiping blood off my face and I kept saying can you go check and see if my husband is breathing? Can you check and see if he's breathing? And I think while I was still passed out, people had checked on Joe and knew that he was gone, because I never saw anybody checking on him the rest of the time that I was still on the scene.

Gini: 21:11

Eventually, paramedics got there and when I realized that they were the medical people, I just started spitting out information because I still was afraid I was about to pass out. I was telling them my date of birth, my allergies, my insurance, where they could find my purse, who to call, and then it took five guys to load me onto the stretcher, not because I'm a heavy person, but because my leg had also been detached at the hip and they were trying to keep everything from falling completely off my body. By the time they were shoving me into the ambulance. With the way the conversations were going around me, I never, nobody explicitly told me that Joe was dead, but I just I kind of picked up on it. So the stretcher clicked into place and it was like a switch flipped and all of a sudden I started feeling pain and I started to scream.

Gini: 22:06

And then I remember the medic saying I know, sweetheart, I know. And then a needle went into my left arm and I went out. I ended up on a ventilator. I was unconscious for about a week. A funny story to balance the sadness of that While I was in the hospital, people would come to see me and they said that I would do this, give them a thumbs up. And they would say oh, this is great, she's given us a thumbs up, she must be feeling okay. And then one day they said I had the strength to hold up my thumb but then also point to it with my other finger and they went oh, let's look at her thumb. My thumb was broken too.

Kellie and Erin: 22:44

Oh, hello, yeah. So, even though I was, unconscious in another world.

Gini: 22:49

on all the paralytics, with being on a ventilator, I was still somehow able to tell them that I had a broken thumb, which clearly wasn't a big deal. My leg was the major issue. I had a head injury because my helmet had been knocked off pretty nasty. They actually said it was a traumatic brain injury and I'm surprised I don't have any lingering effects from that. But I will blame stuff on it from time to time so I forget somebody's name. I forget to do something. It's that TBI.

Gini: 23:13

You know I can't help it, but yeah, I was really surprised when I did wake up that I still had my leg. Very surprised. And the trauma surgeon actually came in the day that I was fully conscious and he sat at the end of my bed and that was a Sunday and he said I'm here, I have nothing else to do right now, so whatever you want to know, ask it. And I said do you, you really think this

Gini: 23:37

leg is going to work again and he said well, yeah, I, I think you have about a 60% chance of being functional with it again. And he had x-rays that he showed me of all the hardware that he had put into my leg and I knew he'd invested a ton of time already. And he said it would take a lot more surgeries and if at any point I was tired of surgeries or I wasn't cool with the plan, to let him know and we could revisit the idea of amputation. So I decided, since he'd already spent so much time, since everybody else had made the decision to try to save my leg, that I would go along with it. And I did limb salvage surgeries for about three years, almost three years, before I started saying I can't do this anymore, I'm not getting any more functional. I was on so much pain medication, muscle relaxers, nerve pain medication, antidepressants, of course because I'd lost my husband. I had been through, I think, three or four shrinks. At this point I was just miserable with everything and I I wanted, I wanted to have a better quality of life and in my brain at this point in recovery my traumatic brain, injured brain I thought that if I amputated my time, that it would take away a lot of the pain and the trauma that I was still experiencing from the loss of Joe at the same time, because every time I go back to the hospital it's like reliving everything all over again. So I finally made the final decision to amputate my leg, and that surgery was August, the 18th of 2015. So just over three years after the accident, august is a big month for me, it sounds like it, yeah, yeah. So I immediately felt relief. I had some phantom pain issues early on, which I was expecting, because I knew I had crazy nerve damage and everyone told me to expect the phantom sensations that kind of died off.

Gini: 25:49

After about six months I was able to be fit with a traditional socket style prosthesis. That means just the cup looking thing that your limb plugs into socket, that you plug something into, and I was pretty active with that. For a while I was even able to work at a prosthetics clinic in Athens, georgia. I uprooted myself, moved to Georgia to work over there as sort of a patient advocate, patient ambassador. I met with patients before they had amputation. I was with them as they went through the process of healing, of physical therapy, of being fit with their own prosthetic device and sort of acting as a mentor for them. Along the way I also got to learn some of the technical side of how prosthetics are made, which I'm eternally grateful for. That knowledge as well it's been extremely useful in my life moving forward. Extremely useful in my life moving forward.

Gini: 26:43

After about I don't know 16 months or so, I started having a lot of pain at the distal end of my limb. I had amputated above the knee. So I was having pain at the end of my femur where things had been cut, and we went in for x-rays and noticed that there was a problem. When I had the amputation I still had hardware in my femur to kind of piece together how it was broken and that femur was still pretty weak. So the idea was let's leave the rod in her femur, we'll just cut through it. That rod will help stabilize things and as she starts to weight bear again, hopefully circulation will improve and the bone will get stronger. Well, the opposite had happened. Not to get too much into the weeds with prosthetic technology, but a lot of times within a socket you're not weight bearing on the bone and circulation can kind of be restricted.

Gini: 27:37

So the end of my femur had actually started to disintegrate and I had the jagged piece of that metal rod sticking into muscle belly with every single step that I was taking. So I had to go in for my 13th surgery at that point to have that hardware removed and for them to amputate a little bit higher to get up to healthy bone. So I was thinking, okay, 13, that's going to be the end of my surgical process. Wrong again. So a few months later, as I'm trying to start walking with a brand new socket that we've had to make to accommodate the new size of my limb, I'm having the pain at the end of my limb again and we go in for x-rays. And now I've developed an issue called heterotopic ossification, which is a fancy way to say that.

Gini: 28:22

I had bone spurs growing at the end of my femur and it was like a big hook that was again digging into muscle with every step that I was taking.

Gini: 28:31

So that meant having another surgery making my limb a little bit shorter, starting the process all over. And at this point I was dealing with scar tissue on the nerves in my limb too. Those are called neuromas, so I have to have a surgery to revise that as well. And over the next several years I was either having surgery for a neuroma or for a new bone spur, and every single surgery made my limb shorter and shorter until I got to the point that I really couldn't even fit a socket prosthesis anymore, because there was not enough leg left for a socket to grab onto. So then I had a new spur growing and my surgeon said I don't think I want to cut anymore. I think I'm going to knock you out of the running for this thing called osseointegration if I do that. So you've been living on crutches for a while, if you can stick with it do it and we'll revisit down the line.

Gini: 29:27

So I did, and I with all of those surgeries and everything. I lived exclusively on crutches for over three years before I found out about osseointegration bone anchored implants with this company called Integrum and their Oprah implant system and eventually I did get approved for this procedure. It's a two surgery process, so more surgeries, more recovery. It's a longer rehab process, but I was fortunate to be successful with this surgery and now I'm up and going again. I get to work with this company, Integrum, as one of their ambassadors. I get to help others in the process. So it's been quite the journey, quite the learning experience along the way, but I feel very fortunate to have landed where.

Kellie and Erin: 30:13

I am. Am I correct, Gini, that you've had 23 total operations since the initial accident?

Gini: 30:20

I'm at 24, now I'm at two dozen. I thought an even dozen was going to be it. Amputation was surgery 12, but I've doubled that. Most recently I've still had issues with neuromas on the nerve in my limb and there are surgical procedures that are supposed to prevent those from forming again. But I've learned that my superpower is regrowing things that I shouldn't those bone spurs and those nasty nerve balls of scar tissue. So we'll see. My most recent surgery was February 18th of this year, so I'm almost seven weeks post-op from that and trying to get my muscles strengthened up again.

Gini: 30:58

I'm walking with a significant limp right now, but we'll get better with that.

Kellie and Erin: 31:02

You know you described so eloquently, beautifully and poignantly, with such strength, the day that changed everything for you. And you know, on The P-I-G we talk about stories of life, love, loss and legacy, and you cover all four of those really profoundly. And we talk about loss of all kinds and I couldn't help but think, as you were sharing your whole entire story, that the losses have been so multi-layered for you. You lost the dream of the marriage to Joe that you had anticipated having for a lifetime. You lost your husband of only 17 months. You simultaneously lost a lot of life due to just the circumstances of the accident, the injury that you had eventually lost your leg. Because of that, you've lived through something that not a lot of people can quite empathetically wrap their whole head and heart around. Is sharing your story healing for you after all of these years, or is it something that you find that you're still carrying day in and day out?

Gini: 32:12

I definitely believe that it's healing. By sharing my story, I think I'm able to help others and provide a little bit of hope, and anytime I'm able to help someone a little bit of hope and anytime I'm able to help someone, it heals my heart a little bit and it helps give me the motivation to keep going, because there are definitely days where I really don't want to get out of bed. Even now I still have days like that. But if I can find a way, if somebody sends me a message on Instagram when I'm having a bad day and they say, hey, I'm a new amputee and I'm struggling and I don't know what I'm doing, but I saw your page and I'm learning a lot and it's really helped me, all of a sudden it just changes my whole mood around to know that I've helped somebody else just by sharing my entire story. So it's healing for sure to help others, to share my story.

Kellie and Erin: 33:02

That's really beautiful, Gini. P iggybacking off of that a little bit and maybe it's changed over time. But initially, after the accident, what or who really helped you kind of survive those first days and weeks and months? And now you know that we're years removed from it, are those same things and people still present and kind of your anchor, or has that shifted a little bit?

Gini: 33:30

This is where I might get a little bit teary. My mom was really the one who was there. She was the one in the room when I first came off the ventilator. She's the one that I looked at and immediately said Joe's gone, isn't he? And she just nodded and we cried, but she was there. She was the one who kept me focused on gratitude On the worst days. She would get home from work.

Gini: 34:00

I actually had to move back in with my parents for a little while, because the house Joe and I had was two stories bedrooms, full bathrooms. We're all upstairs, and that's just something I couldn't handle by myself. So I had moved back in with my parents and my mom would come home from work and of course, I'd be in a horrible mood or crying and doom and gloom. I was Eeyore every day and she would say, ok, well, you've told me everything that's bad today, now tell me something that's good. And I would say there's not anything good. Like, are you looking at my life? Do you see what's happening here? And she would say, okay, well, I'll start. You opened your eyes today. You have a roof over your head, you're laying in a nice comfortable bed right now. You have a good team of doctors, you have food to eat and the list would just snowball and get bigger and bigger and bigger. And still to this day, when I'm having a bad day, if I can bring it back to gratitude, I can list the things that were bad that happened today. But when I go to list the things that were good it always outweighs the bad, no matter what.

Gini: 35:06

My mom is actually the reason I moved back to Montgomery from Athens, Georgia. She had polycystic kidney disease. It's a genetic thing. I thankfully do not have it, but she also suffered with dementia. I think is kind of a side effect from the kidney disease and things not filtering properly is kind of a side effect from the kidney disease and things not filtering properly. So my dad was kind of struggling trying to take care of my mom by himself. I also have a younger brother with Down syndrome who lived at home with my folks, so he really needed the help. So I moved back to Alabama to help out and at that point that was 2020, late 2020.

Gini: 35:43

And my mom just wasn't quite my mom anymore. By late 2021, she had kind of lost all recognition of who we were. She knew that I was Gini. She knew that I was someone familiar, but she had no idea that we were related and it was a huge, huge struggle for me to kind of let go of her then, even though she was still with us. My dad, I think, couldn't let go of her then and he's struggled since she passed. She passed in February of 2023. So that was another big loss for our family.

Gini: 36:20

It's interesting, though I feel very fortunate for my wreck happening when it did. My dad and I kind of had a rocky relationship when my wreck happened and he ended up being the one who had to help me out with all of my doctor's appointments, because my mom was still working and he had just kind of semi-retired, so he had more free time and that gave us a chance to reconnect and get closer again. So he had more free time and that gave us a chance to reconnect and get closer again. So it was good that we had a much better relationship when I moved back to Alabama and I was able to communicate with him better on a daily basis and sort of hold his hand as he walked through losing the love of his life as well.

Gini: 37:00

I don't like being someone's grief mentor or grief coach, and that's still something that I struggle with seeing my dad break down and cry. I don't think I'd ever seen him cry more than two or three times in my entire life. Before my mom died, I told him I had decided to amputate my leg, which I thought was a happy thing, and he burst into tears, and I wasn't thinking about it from his perspective. I was looking at it from my perspective only and not realizing the effect that it would have on everyone else around me. So my dad was actually a big part in my recovery as well, and I still have him. I just I don't have my mom anymore, but her lessons of gratitude and idea of making a gratitude list still sticks with me to this day.

Kellie and Erin: 37:51

I love that so much. Thank you for sharing that. As you know, Kellie, and I can relate to that loss, you know for sure. And it's just as you know. As you navigate every twist and turn right, it just becomes a new, a new normal Right, learning to live without them them Right when so much of your life has been based around this person being in your life and all of a sudden, they're just lifted out.

Gini: 38:20

Yeah, and I've had conversations with people. I don't know if it's harder to lose someone suddenly and not have any creation for it, or if it's more difficult to watch them slowly fade away, like you can make all the plans for the funeral and pay all the bills for the cemetery and everything ahead of time, but you're still never truly prepared for that loss. So it's been interesting to see the differences in my dad's experience versus mine and just a little bit over two years since the loss of your mom and I'm really taken, jenny.

Kellie and Erin: 39:18

Quite honestly, aaron and I talk about this a lot in relation to our own purpose and reason for even starting this podcast and a project we're working on, and the many different experiences that we have throughout our lifetime that encapsulate stories of life, love, loss and legacy, and yours is so profound, I mean on so many different levels. We could have a conversation that spans five, six or 10 episodes. So we're going to have you back again for sure, because there's so much that I'd love to explore with you in relation to the loss of your mom's memory and the loss of that relationship between your mom and your dad, and even the loss of probably what your parents and you thought life was going to be like with your brother. Right, how much younger than you is he?

Gini: 40:13

He is two and a half years younger than I am, so he is 37, but he will tell you that he is 29. And every year on his birthday he says I'm 29 again, and you cannot argue with him on that fact. He is 29 forever.

Kellie and Erin: 40:29

So he just celebrated the eighth anniversary of his 29th birthday. I've been holding firm to that for, let's see, 25 years now coming up. I'm about to have the 26th anniversary of my 29th birthday, so figure that one out mathematically. What is your brother's name? His name is Will, and does he live with your dad or does he live independently?

Gini: 40:59

He lives with my dad. He's fairly self-sufficient. He sometimes struggles with some of his ADLs. Like, he's capable of doing laundry. Doesn't always fold it the best, it doesn't always get himself fully clean in the shower, but he can fix most of the foods that he likes to eat. He's very, very picky, so there's only a handful of things and he knows how to fix just about all of them and he can help out around the house. It just has to be his idea or else he's never going to do it.

Gini: 41:27

He will find every excuse in the book as to why he shouldn't do it and it will never get done. So yeah, he still lives with my dad. Eventually I will inherit him, so that'll be fun. He is not thrilled about that idea. I'm the drill sergeant and I'm the one in the family who makes him follow the rules. We have an older brother as well, but he's married and has three girls and has a full life of his own to keep up with. So Will will eventually come to live with me.

Kellie and Erin: 41:56

And how is your dad today?

Gini: 42:04

My dad today is doing pretty well, all things considered. Emotionally, I think we're doing a lot better. In the early grief process there were tears just about every single day. He went through a phase where he just really wanted to get the house clean after everything had happened, and that involved cleaning out the closet immediately and getting rid of the things that some people would hold onto for a long time. I did not get rid of a lot of Joe's clothes for a very, very long time. My dad was ready to donate everything Like it was. It was almost too painful for him to even walk into his closet to get dressed and have to look at my mom's clothes every day Look at my mom's shoes, to look at her curling iron on the bathroom counter. So we went through a major purge to get things back in order for him.

Gini: 42:51

In some ways this is going to sound weird, but I think it's easier for him to reminisce about things now Because when my mom was still here but didn't remember anything, my dad would try to reminisce with her, remember when we ate at this restaurant, remember when we took this trip, and she would look at him like he was crazy.

Gini: 43:10

I've never been there. I don't know what you're talking about, I don't know who you are, and that would have hurt his feelings so bad because in his mind he's going. This was such a pivotal moment in our relationship, this dinner that we had was such a big deal at the time. How could she not remember that? And I would have to say it's, it's not her, that's not even her in there anymore. So it's, it's not something that she's doing to hurt you, it's that memory just doesn't exist in her mind anymore. It's not her saying that she doesn't remember you, and I think that was really hard. So now he relives those memories, it's a little bit easier for him, I think, because there's no one there saying that didn't happen. I don't know what you're talking about, I don't know those people.

Gini: 43:54

So it's easier in some ways, harder in some ways. I took my dad to eat for his birthday last year and he broke down at the end of dinner just because that's something that he would have liked to do with my mom, not saying he didn't enjoy the time with me, but at the end of it he had the realization that this is something that I would normally do with my wife, not with my daughter, and that was painful. But he's doing pretty well physically. He's in pretty good shape. He did just have neck surgery back in November, so we've been rehabbing from that. Again. I was the drill sergeant. He didn't necessarily like me being the nurse and keeping him on task with everything, but at the same time he was thankful that I was there and got to spend a lot of extra time with me through that recovery. So it's it's good he's doing well.

Kellie and Erin: 44:41

I read in your bio or one of your articles that you were working as a medical assistant at a pain clinic and then you wound up at the same pain clinic after your accident when you were going through your recovery.

Gini: 44:57

Yeah, I did, and you know that's kind of a cool story too. I've always believed that everything happens exactly as it should and exactly when it should, and I had previously worked at a vet clinic. I didn't feel like there was any room to grow, it was just kind of stagnant, wasn't enjoying it after almost two years so I started looking for other jobs, put in an application at a temp agency and this pain management clinic hired me just as a receptionist. They unfortunately did not get my full resume so they had no idea I even had a college degree at that point. And after the three month period grace period, I guess of the job there I had a meeting with the office manager and they said something about college or that they knew one of my brothers from a class in college and I said, yeah, I went to AUM, Auburn University in Montgomery and they said, wait, you went to college and I said, yeah, I have a degree, and they're like what we didn't know about that.

Gini: 45:53

We need to have you doing more stuff than just answering the phones and making appointments and filing charts, like, would you be open to being trained being a medical assistant? So working in the procedure rooms, helping out with the follow-ups, working with some of the nurse phone calls just to help relieve their load and I was like, yeah, sure, so they trained me in all those things. I got to work in the procedure room. I got to learn sterile technique. I got to learn how to work the fluoroscope to take images during procedures. I got to help in the kind of recovery process. I learned a lot.

Gini: 46:25

My pharmacology game is real strong. I know about all the drugs. I think I was very fortunate to have that job when my wreck happened because, again, I knew every single drug that they were putting me on. In fact, when they were switching me from IV medication to all oral medication, they handed me this full cup of pills and I said I need to know what every single one of these things are and why I'm taking it. And they actually said, when they got to Lexapro, I remember saying I don't need that, I'm not depressed. This is like 10 days after the wreck and they're like, uh, I think you do need it, you just haven't your brain hasn't caught up to everything yet, so just go with it.

Gini: 47:02

Yeah, so learned a lot about pharmacology. I knew about all the bad things that could happen with taking pain medication. I was not initially on OxyContin, but down the road they had put, they put me on OxyContin and I cried that day because I had heard horror stories. I had seen what it could do to patients and I just did not want to be one of those people. But some people need that stuff and I took it for a short while. I also knew going into surgeries with that much pain medication in your system makes post-op pain recovery even more difficult. So I actually took myself off OxyContin a full two weeks prior to amputation in order to make my post-op pain control easier. And that's not something that I ever would have known about. That's not something I ever would have done had I not worked in that field beforehand. So very, very fortunate for that education. The doctors I worked for were incredible, in fact.

Gini: 48:00

When the wreck happened, they came up to Birmingham that's an hour and a half away. That's where I was transported and they told my parents we know she's already down half her income, losing Joe. We're not going to stop paying her. We're going to keep paying her like a day of work. We don't want her to lose her insurance benefits. Make sure everything's still covered. She can come back to work doing whatever she can do whenever she wants to.

Gini: 48:26

And I ended up going back to work in December, November, late November, early December of that year just working in billing and insurance. So I would sit at a desk with my leg propped up to keep it from swelling and I would input codes, procedure codes from the notes and help with putting those charges in. I didn't last very long with that because, again, I was still having surgeries off and on and eventually I felt like I was kind of doing them wrong by continuing to draw benefits from them when they weren't getting much from me in return. So I ended up leaving and filing for disability at that point, which is a whole other issue that we could spend another episode on. But again, very thankful for that pain management clinic for those doctors.

Gini: 49:12

One of those doctors is still my pain management physician for those doctors. One of those doctors is still my pain management physician Now. He treats my dad as well and is always there to help out. In fact, he lost his wife a couple of years ago as well, and he reached out to me and said how, jenny, I knew you were tough, but I had no idea how tough you were. Like I, I don't know how to get through this and I don't know how you got through it. So that was kind of surprising to hear from him as well, the one that I always thought of as being. You know, you think of doctors as being so high up that they don't ever have emotions, but they do. They do, and he still takes great care of us. So very fortunate to have him in my corner.

Kellie and Erin: 49:52

I was going to ask you, Gini, before we switch to life after loss and finding purpose again outside of your mom, because it sounds like she was so instrumental in your mental, emotional and spiritual healing immediately after the accident but was there anything else that really carried you through that time and, if so, that has also sustained you in the transition to the life that you've lived since then?

Gini: 50:22

We have always been a religious family, so I am a Christian, I do believe in God. I am also Presbyterian, so I do believe in a predestination, which can be controversial, but I do believe that everything is already planned out and everything happens exactly as it's supposed to happen, when it's supposed to happen. And that can be a good and a bad thing. It can be really frustrating. I think early on I questioned everything because I was like God why would you even allow me to meet someone to then pull them away from me so quickly? Like what was the point of that? Why would you do that? And it's taken space and time getting away from the accident to realize, okay, now I know why things happened the way they did. I know why things lined up the way they did.

Gini: 51:14

There are things I learned from my relationship with Joe, with Joe's family, our experiences together, that still help me in my life today.

Gini: 51:23

But it's it's a tough thing because you do question why, why do bad things happen to good people? And I think you do learn that God loves his children and he does allow them to experience pain, but he also rewards them with such great treasure as well, and I really have been so blessed at every step of the way. Having these amazing bosses at the pain clinic that helped to take care of me, having parents around me, having the time to foster that relationship with my parents as well those are things that I could not have done if I was still just rocking right along in my life. I would not have had that time, I would not have been free to help take care of my mom in the way that I was able to do before she passed. So I think it just it takes time and space to realize all of that, but our faith definitely played a role in keeping me strong throughout everything. Even though I was questioning it, I still had faith that all right one day I'm going to realize why all of this is happening.

Gini: 52:30

I may not get the full answers, but maybe I'll feel a little bit better about why things happened the way that they did. And I have to say my life is pretty good now and I'm happy with the way things have turned out, as weird as that may say, but life goes on and there are still good things to celebrate.

Kellie and Erin: 52:48

And I think that that is such an incredible point, because one of the things that I was going to ask you about was if there were any moments in time, any turning points in your recovery. Right, that felt like breakthrough moments for you, but I think, piggybacking off of what you just said, it's so beautiful. Your strength and your resilience and your perseverance and your faith is admirable.

Gini: 53:16

Thank you. It wasn't always that strong. It takes a village to do everything right and I have a great village around me to help. Looking for a pivotal moment in the journey, I think amputation really was a big turning point for me getting off all of the pain, medicine and feeling like I was starting to reclaim a little bit of my life and a little bit of my independence.

Gini: 53:43

Even though that wasn't the end of my surgical journey by any means. That was a big point where I started actually feeling like myself again and feeling healthy and feeling like I did actually have hope at a normal life moving forward. So big. It was a big decision, but it was one that needed to be made and it's it's paid off.

Kellie and Erin: 54:05

Yeah for sure. Well, and such a pivotal moment right, where you were going down one path right, and you gave it a real valiant effort right, years of you know attempting to, you know save that leg and all of that. And so I think that you know, just like we talked about in the loss, you know where, having conversations about, you know losing somebody suddenly, or you know having time to plan and prepare, but nothing can actually prepare you right, sometimes the hardest part is the anticipation, right, and what we do in our heads to build things up. And so I feel like there was also probably an element of that decision that gave you kind of some peace to close one chapter right that it just wasn't working.

Kellie and Erin: 54:57

You were trying and trying and trying, and sometime it was physically taxing, of course, but the emotional and mental tax that that takes on a person, and so I'm sure there was an element of it where you just got to kind of close that chapter and say, okay, we're going to, I'm going to make a different decision and we're going to switch gears and now we're going to go down this other path and then having the success that you've had with that surgery and new prosthetic right, like, just all of those pieces is a really beautiful thing, but that took a lot of strength for you to be able to look at something that hadn't been working for so many years and then to make a different decision moving forward, I think that does also play into my whole theory that everything works out as it should when it should and giving myself that time with all those surgeries.

Gini: 55:51

People have asked if you could go back and do it all over again. Would you amputate immediately? And a part of me wants to say, yeah, my leg should have been taken immediately because it was trashed. But a bigger part of me says it wasn't the right time. It just wasn't the right time and the way things have lined up since then, if I had amputated immediately I never would have met so many of the people that I was able to meet along the way during that salvage journey.

Gini: 56:18

The way I got to that prosthetics clinic in Georgia, my trauma surgeon in Birmingham ended up leaving and going to another hospital right outside of Atlanta and he put me in touch with the crew in Athens and that sort of helped me build my prosthetic network that I have today, which is a massive network.

Gini: 56:38

I mean, the amputee community and prosthetics industry is relatively small but I'm connected to a lot of people in it now and I never would have made those connections if things had not lined up the way they did in the timeline of everything that happened. So, yeah, I amputated right when I needed to, and I think I started to learn to advocate for myself at that time too. I kind of needed those three years of listening to everyone else to figure out this. This isn't working. I need to figure out what's right for Jenny and Jenny's life and start asking those questions and moving towards making my own decisions in that respect, and that's something that I still have to do when I get new doctors and they don't understand something. Nobody knows my body better than I do, and a lot of times I have to push for extra tests to be done to confirm what I've known all along. But I found my voice and I've had a lot of practice at it, so I'm good at it now. That time was necessary. That's a gift, yeah.

Kellie and Erin: 57:41

Yeah, it's a big gift, as you were and Erin were talking earlier.

Kellie and Erin: 57:45

Gini, I was thinking about you being your own advocate and the moment that you stepped into your faith and your confidence and your belief and also your awareness that things are not working the way that we had all planned, and therefore I'm going to become the advocate of my own journey, because I'm the only one traveling this road in these shoes.

Kellie and Erin: 58:10

Nobody else had the empathy to be able to sit in that space inside of you, next to you, yes, but not to be able to see it through your perspective and be able to make those really tough decisions. And I also appreciated how you spoke about your father's perspective, that you learned later that that was actually really difficult as a loss for him, but you didn't even learn that until you had conversation years after you had been an advocate for your own self during that time. So I don't know if you have anything more that you'd love to share about that. I just think that the concept of becoming an advocate for yourself in that medical journey is such an important message to others who haven't quite gotten there yet, who could be on this journey but don't know quite how to advocate for themselves.

Gini: 59:05

It's not an easy thing to do, and sometimes that might mean finding a whole new team of doctors, which presents its own challenges. I've had to go outside the state, travel far outside of my state sometimes, to find physicians who are willing to listen to me and willing to do the tests that I've requested. You just have to know that you yourself know your body better than anyone else. And if no one is listening to you, if no one is truly getting to the bottom of your questions, then it's time to move on and get another opinion, and I have left surgeons that I thought I was going to be with for the duration, or programs that I thought on the outside were the best of the best, and that's not always the case. They might be the best for someone else, but if they're not the best for you and your situation, I strongly encourage you, sooner than later, to seek other answers, seek other providers.

Kellie and Erin: 1:00:09

It's easier now a little bit, I think, in the age of social media.

Gini: 1:00:12

So there are tons of support groups for everything amputees, basically all amputees, for those with osseointegration, those with different issues after amputation so you can kind of gauge and find out have you had this before? Who's the doctor that you saw? Who do you, what do you guys think is the best surgeon for me to see for this particular issue? The doctor I'm seeing is brushing me off. Is there anybody else who's dealt with this? What else can I expect? So that helps in a way these days, for sure. But yeah, you just can't be afraid of going way outside your parameters to find those answers. Listen to your body and stay pesky and advocate for yourself as loudly as you can.

Kellie and Erin: 1:00:54

Pesky, I love that P word, I know.

Gini: 1:00:59

I'm going to use this opportunity to shout out another podcaster. I'm a huge, huge true crime fan and I followed the whole Murdoch murder saga in South Carolina closely. And there's a podcaster, Mandy Matney, who actually had a podcast called Murdoch Murders and she has since changed it to True Sunlight to shed light on other corruption and other issues and weird cases not only in South Carolina but elsewhere in the country. But her whole thing is stay pesky, because she was right from the very beginning. She was right about that whole case and nobody listened to her. Everyone wanted to shut her down and her whole motto was stay pesky, stay pesky, stay pesky. So I actually have a sticker on my leg that says stay pesky because I had to be quite pesky with some of these doctors along the way.

Kellie and Erin: 1:01:50

I love that. I love that you introduced me to this podcaster. I love that you introduced me to this podcaster. She's amazing she is she's remarkable?

Kellie and Erin: 1:01:59

And I do want to say, with what Kellie said, and then your response is you are such a source of strength and I know that you will continue to be for so many people and I think that, yes, everything in your journey happened exactly the way that it was supposed to, in the right timing that it was supposed to, and I can't help but think that a part of that is because of the effect and the influence that you will have on those coming after you through this journey, to shed some just perspective and insight and light into this is not a cookie cutter world, right and just like loss and grief and we talk all the time, especially on this podcast and through personal conversations that Kellie and I've had, that everyone's story is different, everyone's journey is different and it's really.

Kellie and Erin: 1:02:56

You are a gift to so many people in so many different ways. But there is no doubt in my mind that you have gone through. Part of the reason that you have gone through what you've gone through in the timing that you have is so that you can help others journey through it. You're doing a remarkable job. You're doing incredible work in this world.

Gini: 1:03:18

Gini, thank you. I'll hop back to how I met Jason, your lovely boyfriend. Yes, so through this whole amputation journey and then especially since I've had Osseointegration amputation journey, and then especially since I've had Osseointegration and that's a newer technology I've been documenting my whole journey on social media. It started out with mostly Facebook stuff right after the wreck, because I got tired of having to send a text to 30 people to let them know what was going on, so I just started posting on Facebook anytime something happened. And then I got more into Instagram and Instagram exploded.

Kellie and Erin: 1:04:16

And after I had.

Gini: 1:04:17

SEO integration, because it's such a novelty. For some reason my account just went nuts. I mean, I went from maybe over a thousand followers to 10,000 overnight and then it jumped to a hundred thousand and I kind of plateaued a little bit after that, which is fine. That's way more than I can keep up with. But Jason, somehow or other, saw one of my videos one day and, I guess, started looking around at my page and he at the time had a podcast called Talking During Movies. So he randomly sent me a DM out of the blue.

Gini: 1:04:53

Hey, this is weird, but I have this podcast and I'm always trying to talk to strong, powerful women. That, I think, would be a great example for my own daughter. So would you have any interest in being on this podcast? Here's some information about it. Talking during movies was just you watch one of your favorite movies throughout the podcast and you talk about different clips and weave your own story into it at the same time. It's a really fun setup. So I agreed. I think we had maybe a chat before the podcast. It wasn't very much, but then we talked throughout the podcast, of course, and we stayed in touch and I've become great friends with.

Gini: 1:05:31

Jason. We had never met in person until last week. Actually, I've gotten to know Harper, his daughter, really well. She will text or FaceTime me checking on me, which is amazing that this kid does that. She's absolutely brilliant and I love hearing from her all the time. Just makes my day. So yeah, we've, we've gotten to be good friends. I think that was maybe three years ago, two years. It was pretty soon after my Osseo integration, so maybe like two and a half years ago, two years.

Kellie and Erin: 1:05:57

It was pretty soon after my Osseo integration, so maybe like two and a half years ago, but yeah.

Gini: 1:05:59

I love that, While all the internet works. But another timing thing, because that has led me here today.

Kellie and Erin: 1:06:06

I love that so much and we're grateful you're here. So I'd like to transition to life after these losses and finding purpose again. In the aftermath of a trauma and a tragedy, especially as significant as the one you went through, there's this process of figuring out what life looks like now, spiritually, emotionally, mentally. We've talked a lot about that and you've shared some of the blessings that have come out of that and the relationships that have come out of that. But I'd love to just expand on that a little bit, if you're open to it how you move through that grief process to the other side, and what life looks like for you today and what brings you joy.

Gini: 1:06:51

I think with all of the surgeries that I've had, I wasn't sure that I was ever going to achieve true happiness again, that I was ever going to be in a space where I was comfortable even really seriously dating again, not just with the loss of Joe never had an issue with the body image or confidence there with dating but just knowing that I could potentially be having surgeries for a long time. How fair is that to put on to somebody else? I wasn't sure what my working life would look like. And full disclosure. Even though I'm working with these companies, I'm not fully employed by anyone, so I do still receive disability benefits for the insurance. If I can ever get to a point where I'm able to go more than a year without at least one surgery, then maybe somebody will hire me full time. But until then nobody wants to bring on that liability, so to speak.

Gini: 1:07:45

So, it's been a little bit of a journey to get back to this point where I even feel comfortable with what I'm doing. I think I started feeling better about things after I had osteo integration and I was moving well again. There happened to be a representative from Integra at my prosthetics clinic at one of my follow-up appointments and he said you know, I looked you up and at this point I had a little bit of a following on social media, and he said do you have any interest at all in being an ambassador with Integrum, a company that makes the osseonegraded implant? And I was like, yeah, maybe. What does that entail? And he said well, we've got a few people in mind, but we really want to start an ambassador program where we have a whole team of people who can speak to potential patients, who can walk alongside them through their journey, who can answer questions along the way and we'd also, you know, take you to trade shows. You get to be kind of the show pony.

Kellie and Erin: 1:08:44

And I said yeah, sure, I'm interested.

Gini: 1:08:46

So I hopped on board with Integrum in November of 2022. And I already had experience telling my story and helping other patients because I worked at a prosthetics clinic before kind of doing the same thing, but it was on a much larger scale. I feel like with Integra, like we're talking lots of travel, big travel, getting on airplanes and traveling a good bit to go not just to conferences but these educational events and showing up on FaceTime for these patients and being guests on other talk shows or podcasts to talk about this device and how it's changed my life, hosting webinars to answer questions for not only patients but prosthetists and physical therapists and possibly surgeons as well. So it was kind of a springboard into oh okay, what I'm doing actually does still matter and it's something that I'm kind of good at because I have a degree in communication studies. So I had all this practice speaking in front of people. So that's not even a thing I'm used to it. So I think that helped boost my confidence even more and make me realize that I do still matter and there's lots of things that I can do in this world. And once I got comfortable with that, I actually did start seriously pursuing dating again because I thought, okay, if I'm comfortable doing this, then I'm good enough to get out of the house and do things again, and maybe somebody else will appreciate what I'm doing as well and kind of get along with it.

Gini: 1:10:15

So I did start exploring dating again. It wasn't really the best thing or the most fun thing Initially. I had a friend who convinced me to join a dating app in February of last year and I'm not going to say which one. It wasn't always great either. There were plenty of weirdos on there and plenty of people who were already married and just looking for other things, and it just seemed kind of toxic. So by June of last year I was like, let me clear up some space on my phone, let me go through and delete some apps, see what I can get rid of. And I was going in to delete my profile and I had an inbox message from this one guy and I decided to answer it and see what happened. And we had our first date the following weekend. That was July 6th. We hit it off and I'm still dating that guy to this day. I'm actually in his house, right now in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

Gini: 1:11:14

I just met his entire family over the weekend. I had met a few of his siblings and his nieces and nephew, but, yeah, fully, fully immersed in the family last weekend and it's been a beautiful thing to realize that I can expand my heart a little bit. One thing that I was afraid of with dating is how am I ever going to feel those same things again? And what I've learned is I'm not going to feel those same things, but I can. I can hold onto those things that I felt and I can keep those safe somewhere and I can feel new things and I can find new joy in experiences with someone else. And it takes having the right person to understand that that part of my life still matters to me and always will, and there are pieces of my heart that will always belong to Joe, but everything that I have left I'm still willing to share with someone else, and I think that's something that Sachin understands somehow or other.

Gini: 1:12:16

I don't know how he understands that or how he gets that, but he seems to get me and he he balances me out. He also works in the medical profession, so he he's not an orthopedic surgeon, he's an OBGYN. So he doesn't understand necessarily all of the orthopedic things that I'm going with, but he's really enjoyed learning about it and having someone who can have medical discussions with him, who kind of understands the things that he's talking about day to day. So it's been really fun to explore and I feel very fortunate that he sent me that message and I didn't delete that app before I got that message from him. So lots of happiness here.

Kellie and Erin: 1:13:00

He sounds like a remarkable man and, as an OBGYN, his entire medical career is focused on the giving of life right and bringing life into the world, and that also comes with that career. Specifically and I know this firsthand I lost a baby late term in a pregnancy and it was my OBGYN who I met that day, who my nurse midwife brought in, who sat at my bedside and held my hand and cried with me, that allowed me to grieve through that process, and so I imagine that through his experiences in bringing life into the world and also helping people navigate the loss that can sometimes or will sometimes come with that hope of bringing life into the world, I'm sure he has a lot of empathy.

Kellie and Erin: 1:13:58

That's been really beautiful for the two of you to navigate together.

Gini: 1:14:02

He really does and he has so much patience with me. And when anniversaries of things with Joe come up, I'm open with him, like look, I might be in a bad mood this day, I might be grumpy this day, I might burst into tears at the smallest thing on this day, and he's right there and so patient. Whatever you need, if you need me to back away and leave you alone, that's fine. If you need me to bring you chocolates and coffee and cake and you don't want to get out of, bed, that's fine too.

Kellie and Erin: 1:14:28

I'll bring you whatever you want in bed.

Gini: 1:14:29

So he's very understanding and accommodating and he drove me for my last surgery and put up with me through that recovery process, which I know is not easy. I'm a good patient but also a bad patient at the same time. It's hard to make me sit still. So he had that task, which was not an easy one, but he handles it all no problem and I'm so fortunate that I found him.

Kellie and Erin: 1:14:56

That's a beautiful blessing outside of your relationship. What are some of the other things that bring you joy? And I also know that you're very physically active.

Gini: 1:15:04

I am. So one thing that I've been able to find a love for with this Osseo integration journey is working out at Hotworx, and everything I do there is in a 130 degree infrared sauna, which means I sweat buckets every time I work out. And if I was still trying to use a traditional socket prosthesis, there's no way I could do it, because with so much sweat inside that liner and socket my leg would just fall right off immediately, like within five minutes of starting a workout. So, having that confidence and security in my device now and knowing that it's there, it's not going anywhere, I can just get in the gym and crank things out without even thinking about my leg. So that's been really fun. It helps relieve all kinds of things. The infrared is good for so many things. Exercise is good for so many things. My dogs bring me a lot of joy.

Gini: 1:15:57

I had a dog throughout my entire recovery that I had gotten with Joe. His name was Scooter, we called him the Scootopotamus, and that dog was with me through all 23 out of 24 surgeries. He was an old man and he took care of me so well after all my surgeries. He was always so patient and gentle with me and I finally had to let him go in July of last year, which was a really tough thing to do because he was kind of my last living piece of connection to Joe and he'd been kind of part of my support system throughout all the surgeries and grief and everything else along the way, and now have come to love, such as dog Luna, and we have together gotten a Yorkie named Milo, and Milo has really become my dog. He steals my heating pad from me. He will sometimes allow me to share it with him, but he's, he's been my little recovery dog during this last recovery after surgery 24. And the dogs just make me happy. Anything I can do with them makes me happy.

Kellie and Erin: 1:17:03

I love it when you at dinner last week called him your Yorkshire terrorist. I absolutely is.

Gini: 1:17:13

He absolutely is. I actually picked both dogs up from boarding this morning and he has lived up to his name ever since then. I've already had to give him a bath since being home from boarding, but you know what, those snuggles tonight that he's going to give me in bed are going to be all worth it, so I'll be forgiven.

Kellie and Erin: 1:17:30

A hundred percent, and he knows it. Oh yeah, oh yeah. I love that. Jenny, one of the things we always explore here on The P-I-G is legacy Not just what we leave behind, but how we live right now. What do you think your husband's legacy is, and what legacy do you hope to create with the life you've rebuilt?

Gini: 1:18:03

Joe was a musician, like I mentioned, and he always wanted to foster young artists and help them improving their career or, you know, giving them an opportunity to play their own music, not just be a cover artist. And he actually started a songwriter's night while he was still alive. It was called a guitar pull and I think the idea behind that is in older times, people would be sitting around singing their songs and some guy would say, oh yeah, well, I've got this song, and he would pull the guitar to him and play his song. And then the next person would say, yeah, well, I've got this song, and they would pull the guitar over to them. So that was the guitar pull.

Gini: 1:18:38

Our wreck happened a few months after that event started and it now has Joe's name. They've named it for him. It still goes on in Montgomery, Alabama at the Cloverdale Playhouse. It's the Joe Thomas Jr Guitar Pull and I think that's a big part of his legacy. So this event gives local artists an opportunity to play their music to an audience that is there to see them. They're not going to a bar and there just happens to be someone playing music and it's background noise. People are actually going to see them. So I think that's a big part of Joe's legacy and I do try to support that event when I'm in Montgomery I haven't been to the last few because life's been crazy but supporting that any way I can and then, also finding other local artists wherever I am and supporting them as well.

Gini: 1:19:29

So big fan of finding new music and doing whatever I can to encourage them, and if that means kicking a few dollars towards them, if that means showing up to a gig, I'm always happy to do that because I feel like that's something that Joe would have done and I feel like that helps his legacy and his memory live on. If there's still good music happening, I think Joe's happy.

Kellie and Erin: 1:19:52

That is really beautiful. Thank you for that. And what about for you? Oh?

Gini: 1:19:58

My legacy? I don't know. I try to do whatever I can to help somebody along the way. I do think it's important that people see other people that look like them. I try my best to be a good example in the amputee community. Sometimes I fail and I get irritated with people who make inappropriate comments, but I try my best to be a positive role model in that community and I hope that people have been able to learn from me.

Gini: 1:20:28

I hope that people have been able to see that it's okay to share your story. It's okay to be proud of who you are. Whether you're missing a limb or not. If you're missing all 10 fingers or if you've got all 10 fingers, it's okay to be confident in who you are and to share your story. If it helps just one person, it's worth it. I hope that I encourage others to be open with their stories as well. It's not an easy thing to do and I understand if somebody does not want to share their story, but I've gained confidence in seeing what other people are doing With someone else sharing. That's given me a boost to say, okay, it's all right for me to share my story then, and maybe that helps somebody else along the way, so hopefully I'm helping people be more comfortable with themselves, whether that's their body or their mentality, in something moving forward, I hope that lives on.

Kellie and Erin: 1:21:25

I think it's so beautiful, Gini, how you have turned your life, your experiences of loss, the love you have for Joe and the love you have clearly for life and for your new relationship and for your family and your friends and I know you feel love for the people that you're supporting into your living legacy. Is there anything that surprised you in this whole journey?

Gini: 1:21:51

I think I really have been surprised at how differently people grieve. I mean, when you see grief on TV, it's always the same way. Once it happens and you're faced with those emotions yourself and the way I'm handling it is going to be totally different from the way my sister-in-law is handling it, the way my dad is handling it, the way my little brother is handling it and all of those ways are perfectly okay. There is no right or wrong way to grieve, and that's definitely something that I never thought of before and I've had to kind of learn and accept along the way as well.

Kellie and Erin: 1:22:29

We talk a lot here about grief not being linear. And it's so different for every single person. In fact, erin and I spend a lot of time talking about that as our relationship has grown as mature adult women and realizing how differently we have grieved different losses throughout our living, and coming to the realization and the point of not putting our own grief onto somebody else. Right, that's so hard.

Gini: 1:22:58

It is hard, so hard to do. There are definitely times where I haven't even realized that it was grief, putting me in a certain mood and then seeing the way that I've talked to other people while I'm in that mood and then stepping back and going whoa, I got to apologize.

Kellie and Erin: 1:23:16

That wasn't cool at all that's one of the things we're actually trying to bring to the forefront is how important it is to, with clarity and authenticity, be able to feel like you have a safe space and a safe environment to articulate these feelings and emotions that sometimes we don't even understand as grief until we're on the other side of it looking back with hindsight.

Gini: 1:23:41

Right, it's funny you talk about putting that grief onto someone else. That's another thing that I was really bad about early on, like when I started thinking maybe I'll go on a couple of dates. I was always looking for Joe and someone else, and that's so not fair of me to do to anyone that I'm going on a date with, and when I realized that I was doing that, I just backed away from it completely, like okay, jenny, clearly you're not ready for this, if that's what you're looking for, because you're never going to find it. So let's put that on pause for a little while, because it's crazy, the things you do that you don't even realize.

Kellie and Erin: 1:24:17

What beautiful emotional intelligence that you had developed through that process to be able to recognize that. But isn't that what life and maturity

Gini: 1:24:26

do to us? Right.

Kellie and Erin: 1:24:27

Yeah, that's what that time takes. Before we wrap up and we are so grateful for this conversation today we want to ask you a question that we pose to all of our guests, which is, "what's your PIG? And you and I talked a little bit, but when you reflect on what life, love, loss and legacy mean to you personally, our PIG right, our kind of guiding force on this podcast, is purpose, intention and gratitude, and it was so fun to hear all of the ways that you even wove our PIG into so much of what you shared. But today, what's your PIG?

Gini: 1:25:12

I'm going to say patience and I'm going to steal gratitude just because those are things that I always thought that I had a lot of and I learned early on that I really didn't, and I had to kind of shift my focus on things and think about where I want to be and how to get there and then looking at what's helped me get to these points and being grateful for those things along the way, I think you have to have patience in order to truly find gratitude, because you don't always find gratitude immediately. You have to be patient enough to sit back and see the bigger picture, to truly understand all the things that you should be grateful for.

Kellie and Erin: 1:25:57

I completely agree with that. I think that's so beautiful. What about your I word? Or it could be Patience In Gratitude. Oh, that's a good one. That's really good.

Gini: 1:26:10

That's good, yeah, you win. I love it.

Kellie and Erin: 1:26:16

I love it. T hat's so beautiful and I think that that resonates with me. That makes a lot of sense to me, everything that you said in the patience that it does take to get to that place where you can recognize gratitude and capture it for what it really is and feel every ounce of that.

Gini: 1:26:38

Right, right, it takes a lot of patience. For sure, for sure.

Kellie and Erin: 1:26:43

Gini, in closing, is there anything else that you would like to share with our listeners or any closing thoughts that you would like to impart on anybody who's traveling this journey, or any journey of life love, loss and legacy?

Gini: 1:27:00

Well, one thing I do want to do again, since it's Limn Loss and Limb Difference Awareness Month. There is a foundation, actually based in Colorado. It's called the Limb Preservation Foundation and they are hosting a symposium at the end of April. It's called the Hope Beyond Limits Symposium, and it's really a day where they have, they try to center it mostly around patients, patients who might be struggling with limb salvage, or patients facing an amputation, or patients who have already had an amputation, facing an amputation or patients who have already had an amputation.

Gini: 1:27:37

It's a place to gather and learn more about the field, learn more about options, learn about new surgical techniques, meet other people who might be in a similar situation. Maybe you can learn from their experiences. There are panel discussions. There are vendors there, physical therapists, different prosthetic vendors, the opportunity to maybe try different devices out. It's just a really, really good event that I think, helps a lot of people learn about the process.

Gini: 1:28:06

So I do encourage people to look up the Limb Preservation Foundation. One thing that they do is help patients going through all of these surgeries. They can help provide financial assistance to cover bills during the recovery time. They can provide little care packages to patients. They can get you connected to a network of other doctors. You're not happy with one doctor. They might know someone else that you can get in touch with. So they're doing really important work. It's a smaller foundation. I'm hoping to see it grow over the years. So I'll be at that event. That's in Golden, Colorado on April the 25th.

Gini: 1:28:40

Look up Limb Preservation Foundation. If you want to know more about it or you know, reach out to me. If anybody wants to reach out to me. I'm happy to talk at any time. And another thing in closing I just want to say I'm thankful that you ladies have this podcast. I think it's really important work. I think more people need to know how to deal with grief. More people need to know that it's okay to grieve openly, it's okay to grieve in quiet. However you grieve is right for you. So I think, with y'all highlighting the different stories of people going through similar things, I think it will help people see that that however you grieve is okay. So thank you for the work that you're doing.

Gini: 1:29:20

It really is important.

Kellie and Erin: 1:29:22

Thank you so much for that, Gini. We appreciate you, and today's conversation reminded us just how strong the human spirit really is. You are a remarkable human being. Thank you for sharing your story with us and with our listeners. Thank you For anyone listening who has experienced a life-altering loss, whether it's the loss of a loved one, a relationship or even part of yourself, Gini is living proof that healing is possible. Support matters and legacy is truly reflective of how we show up and live right now.

Kellie and Erin: 1:30:00

And, as Gini stated stated, April is Limb Loss and Limb Difference Awareness Month, a time to raise awareness and honor the strength of those who have experienced limb loss or are living with limb differences. This month and every month, we recognize the incredible resilience, challenges and triumphs of those who walk this path, including our very special guest today. If today's episode moved you, we invite you to share it with someone who may need to hear Gini's story. We wouldn't be here without your support. Please leave a review, send us your feedback and connect with us on social to keep the conversation going. You can learn more and find links to access all episodes and join our communities at the PIGpodcast. com and, if you have a story that needs to be told on The P-I-G or know someone who does reach out? We'd love to hear from you Until next time. Hogs and kisses everyone!