Amputation Was Just the Beginning: How Faith Helped Ronke Turn Her Pain into Purpose

"What do you do when you leave your house in the morning and wake up in the evening to a doctor telling you that he has amputated your leg? You either swim or sink."

In this powerful episode, Ronke shares her deeply personal journey of surviving a traumatic accident that led to the amputation of her leg. Through this raw and emotional conversation, she talks about the initial shock, the emotional and physical challenges she faced, and the impact this life-changing event had on her.

From the struggles of recovery to adjusting to her new reality, Ronke opens up about how she learned to live again, overcoming this life-changing injury, one day at a time. She reflects on her internal battles and the difficult road to healing.

Most importantly, Ronke attributes her resilience and strength to her unwavering faith in God and the peace which He gave her about the situation. She speaks of how her faith helped her cope and how it became the anchor that allowed her to forgive the person responsible for her trauma. Her journey of forgiveness is inspiring, showing the power of grace, even in the face of immense pain.

As the episode comes to a close, Ronke leaves listeners with a message of hope, urging anyone going through a personal challenge to hold onto faith, seek support, and never be afraid to ask for help.

Why You Can't Miss This Episode:

• Real talk about the emotional toll of a life-altering amputation
• How Ronke found hope and purpose in the middle of her pain
• How she moved from pain to peace and then forgiveness
• A faith-driven recovery that will inspire anyone feeling lost
• Practical advice for navigating trauma and finding light at the end of the tunnel.

This is not just another story but a call for anyone going through a challenge not to lose hope. 

Don't just scroll past—listen now!

You can get Ronke's book Impact here

Transcript

UNKNOWN: 0:00

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SPEAKER_00: 0:27

Today I've got Ronke Joseph in the house with me and I'm really excited about today's recording, today's podcast, yes. I'm so excited and I'm sure you understand why when we get into the topic of today. I'm going to ask Ronke to introduce herself briefly, tell us a little bit about what she does and then we'll go straight into it. So Ronke, please say hello to everyone and introduce yourself. Okay, hi everyone. My name is Ronke Joseph, full name Adi Ronke. But most people call me Runke. Yeah, I've lived in the UK for quite a number of years. I live in the UK with my husband. We've been here, like I said, for quite a number of years. My career background is IT training, although last year I took early retirement. So I actually don't work at the moment. And I am at the moment a Bible College student with Caris Bible College and enjoying life. Absolutely enjoying life. So I'm just going to go straight into it. I'm going to read the blurb of Ronke's book, just the first sentence, and then Ronke will take it from there and tell us her story. So it says, Ronke, tell us what happened. Okay, so I was on my way to work on January the 13th, 2015. I would normally go to work in the city through London Bridge, but that day I had to change my route because there were a lot of cancellations on the train due to some overrunning engineering works. So I decided to go through Shoreditch High Street And which is a route I take sometimes if there was like a problem on the train. So on the way to work, my husband had called me. He was in Nigeria at the time. So he had called me just to chat with me and to get me to arrange a taxi to pick him up from the airport because he was coming back the following day. But I didn't really want to share our conversation on the train, so I waited till I got off the train. So once I got off the train, I was making my way. It was a 10-minute walk to the office. So I was making my way, chatting with him. Well, I had headphones on, but it was at an acceptable volume, so it was nothing to do with the fact that I was talking to him. So I got to a crossing just on Commercial Road, and the traffic lights... sort of stopped us, so we had to stop at, you know, the pedestrian crossing. So cars were going, there were about 20 of us waiting on the crossing for the lights to change for us to cross the road. And, yeah, some cars were going, and then as I was talking to my husband, all of a sudden, this driver, for some reason, I found out later on that he was an epileptic driver, shouldn't have been driving. He had a fit, and he lost control of his car. So he came straight at me. He knocked me against the CCTV pole. And of course, understandably, there was a lot of screaming, shouting. The people around me sort of just tried to calm me down, tried to just let me know everything will be all right. knew he had hurt me but I didn't and I knew it was my legs but I didn't look you know I just thought I just couldn't look so um they called an ambulance the people around called an ambulance but my injuries were so bad that they had to call the London's air ambulance and Some people think the London's Air Ambulance are there just to quickly get you to hospital. It's actually the other way around. They actually bring the hospital to you because they know that most likely the patient will make it to the hospital. So they will bring things that a normal ambulance can't bring. So, for example, they had to anaesthetise me at the roadside because they knew I was going in for surgery. So they anaesthetised me at the roadside, took me in, Obviously, from then on, I didn't know anything that was happening. And the next thing I heard was the doctor just waking me up and saying he had just amputated my leg. Your leg. Yeah. So that was my day on January the 30th, 2015. 2015. Oh, my God. So what was your initial reaction to that comment when you had the doctor say that? I'm going to be honest and say... It was like, maybe if I take you back to the roadside, because if I just say I was fine about it, people would think, what is she talking about? So maybe if I take you back to the roadside. So in the midst of all that chaos and all that, the feeling of what's going on here and everyone trying to calm me down, by the time they had got me to lie down and I was still really shaken, just not knowing what was happening around me, I actually heard God's voice to me just say, don't worry, everything will be okay. And at that point, a great peace just came over me. I just had this peace from right within. And I sort of knew something had happened to my leg, but I didn't know how bad it was. So when the doctor told me, in all honesty, that peace just continued, I was like, okay. That's what's happened. And also, I was also, I had been anesthetized and clearly they had given me something very strong. Yeah. So when he told me in my head, I just, it was almost like I said, that's not news. That was the first thing that came to my head. Okay. And then I fell asleep. Okay. Yeah. So would you say that the anesthesia, apart from the peace you had from God, probably helped you to deal with it better at that point in time? I don't know because when I woke up, I still felt the same.

UNKNOWN: 6:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 6:57

And I still feel the same. I'm not still under the influence of whatever they gave me. That has worn off a long time, I'm sure. Okay. So where did this peace come from? Because I know you said you had peace from God, but can you explain that peace a bit more? Because just saying you had peace about it, just explain that a bit more for people that are listening. I think it's clear from some of what I've said that I have a faith. I'm a Christian. And I've been a Christian since I was 18. And I'm in my 50s now. So I've been a Christian for a very long time. And At the age of 18, I became what I would say a committed Christian. I gave my life to Christ. I became born again. And with that just came a desire to know God more, a desire to read his word more, a desire to spend more time with him. So as a result, certain fruits that come with having the Spirit of God, things like joy, peace, love, long-suffering began to develop in me. And that's what happens as a Christian when you delve into the things that concern God. He built his fruit in you. You just don't know when you're going to need to draw out on what's in you. And clearly, what God allowed me to do was to draw out from what was already in me. So that's, yeah, it was a piece... I say I had peace. It's not like during the journey, things didn't shake me. There were a few things that, you know, I was shaken about. But the bedrock of everything was just a peace of knowing that God had me. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I forgot to mention earlier on that Ronke is the author of the book called Impact, My Story, My Business, My Victory. And in this book, she tells us everything about what's happened. And I'm going to read something just following on from what you just said about certain things that rattled you during the whole process and which I just wanted you to throw some light on. One summer you said something about a creditor asking for money and you felt really upset because they kept pestering you, even though you mentioned that you were in hospital and they kept asking for the money and you felt that really made you feel so bad. Can you explain that a bit further? Okay, so what had happened in that situation? The accident happened in January. Now, the previous month, a friend of mine, there was a colt that a friend of mine knew that I really liked. And she said to me, rather than buy it for me, she said, oh, here's the money. I know you get it from a particular website. You get it from a particular website. So what I did, I thought, rather than, and it's a sort of website where you don't have to pay straight away. So what I did, I thought to myself, if I buy the wrong size, I don't want to have to pay and then ask for my money back and so on. I wanted to buy it. try it on, and if I liked it, I would pay for it. I mean, it was only£29. It was such small money, you know. So that was what I did. But before I got round to sorting that out... the accident happened. And I was in hospital and rehab for quite a long period of time. So I realized, there was a day I was checking my emails and I saw that they had asked me for the money. And I think they had probably tried to contact me more than once. And normally, it wouldn't be a problem because normally I remember my credit card numbers. I would have just gone on there, put in my credit card details and that would have been it. So what then happened was i tried to do that i tried to put it and i had forgotten one or two numbers and that sort of rattled me a bit because i knew that numbers like that i tend to remember so i then called them up and just explained okay this payment it's not a problem i can make it however i'm in hospital i was brought in here from the roadside and so on And the woman went on to say, oh, well, sorry, you have to make the payment. And I said, look, I'm in hospital. I was brought in here from the roadside. Oh, then we're going to have to put you on a payment plan. And I just thought she was being so insensitive. Yeah. what was going on around me and so on i just burst into tears and if i think about it it was so irrational because my husband was going to come that night i could have just said to him or a friend i could have called anybody yeah you know so eventually i called a friend of mine in tears and she goes what's wrong And when she found out it was just£29 that I was asking her to pay, she was like, oh, okay, okay. She didn't say, don't be silly. But I'm sure in her mind she was thinking, come on. I think it probably must have been a whole lot of emotions that had been bottled up. And maybe, I don't know, did you feel maybe helpless at that point in time? Maybe that's... Yeah, I think... I was aware that clearly something was happening with my memory because I forgot the numbers. And I normally wouldn't. And I was on a lot of medication. So it was making me drowsy. And I think it was also one of those mornings when the doctors were supposed to come and see me and hadn't come round. And yeah, it was just the whole combination of things. Of things, yeah. So how was your husband's reaction when he heard what happened? it hits him really hard it hits him extremely hard because first of all he was on the phone when it happened and because I had headphones on or like an earpiece they were knocked out of my ears when the car hit me and I completely forgot that he was on the phone so he didn't He could just hear screaming. He could hear people saying, you'll be all right. And then he heard the emergency services. And then the phone got cut off because the police had to take my bag and everything. And they realized I was on the phone and just cut the call off. For him, it was, first of all, the not knowing. He was meant to come back the following day. For some reason, due to no fault of his, he missed his flight. And he then tried to call my family, but they were so busy trying to sort out what had happened to me that they weren't returning his calls on time. So when he eventually got to speak to me from the airport, which was when he was on his way back, He just said, oh, I heard that, you know, you injured your legs. They didn't tell him exactly what they just said. Eventually, when they got him, they said it was a leg injury. So I said, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, just come home, just come home. And then when my brother picked him up from the airport, he told him what had happened. He was devastated, honestly. It really hit him. You know, I had to assure him that I was okay. I just... had to make him see the other side. You could have come back and I wasn't here. Yes. Sort of thing. But it took him quite some time to get over it. And I'll be honest with you, even sometimes now, he just looks at me and thinks, I don't know how you do this. You know? Yeah. But he's definitely come round. He's come round. Yeah, I can imagine it must have taken him a long time to come to terms with the fact that there would have been so many changes. Yeah. And I think it was more just the fact that he knows I must have gone through a lot of pain. Yeah. And I think sometimes when we see our loved ones in pain, it's very difficult for us because we can't do anything sometimes to help them. And if we could take some of the pain, we would obviously want to take some of it, but we can't even do that. So I can't imagine how he must have felt. Yeah. So how long did it take you to come to terms with the fact that you were going to have to learn how to do everything all over again? Learn to walk, learn to drive, learn to do things again. How long did it take you to come to terms with that? To be honest, I took one day at a time. So when they told me they'd amputated my leg, I was like, okay, the leg has been amputated. And it was like, okay, where do we go from here? Yeah. I honestly didn't sit there thinking too much about the future. I mean, some things you wonder about, like, oh, how am I going to wear shoes? Am I going to be able to play tennis again? You know, things that you do... Your brain does those things, yeah. Yeah. But it wasn't in a sort of hopeless way where I'm thinking, oh, my life is over. You know, I just took one day at a time. So for each time they said to me, oh, this is a limitation, but this is how you'll do it. It's like, OK, I now know that I'll be able to do this, but in a different way. So in all honesty, it probably wasn't a matter of how long did it take. It was just for each day. thing I was told would take a certain amount of time I was like okay let's work on it and let's get there yeah I'm reading something from your book and it says after dealing with the donor leg the doctor proceeded to undress my stump once she had taken the dressing off her next words left me speechless Ronke you need to start giving your leg some TLC looking at it there is no need for it to be covered anymore I peered over the pillow to look at her, making sure I did not look down at the stump. Why was it so hard for you to look down at the stump? Do you know? I think what it was, like I probably mentioned in the book, looking at myself with the white sheet over me, one short leg, one long leg, I was fine with that. I had no issues with that. But what it was is they had done all sorts of surgery. So they had reconstructed, it wasn't like a clean cut. Okay. So there was a time when they did something with it that it was like all just flesh and then after that they did something else with it. It was all just like black skin. So I think it's because I'm quite a... Squamish? That's the word. Yeah. When it comes to looking at wounds and stuff like that. So I didn't know what to expect when I looked. So I thought, I'm not going to look. The one time I did try and look, it was like I didn't understand what it was. I think what I wanted was for it to be completely healed and for me to just see it as a shorter version of what was there before. Okay. And I think that's what it was. Okay. So it wasn't actually just the stump. It wasn't the stump that was putting you off. It was just the fact that... No, no, no. Okay. When the doctor told me he'd amputated my leg and I woke up, I looked straight down at myself with the white sheet. So I had the sheets over me. And the look of one long leg and one short leg wasn't a problem. Okay. Okay. Do you think that humor had any role to play in your recovery progress? or process? Yeah, of course. Yeah, because I know that you're a very humorous person, so I was just wondering. Yeah, I mean, there were times when I could have like a really good laugh. I remember there was a time my friend came to visit me. We really do have a good laugh. Her name is Ronke as well. Okay. And she was the one who was one of the first people who was, you know, they contacted to say Ronke hasn't turned up to work. you know, on the day of the accident. So she was really a real part of my journey. And I remember one time she came to visit me and she said, oh, Ronke, I'd like to, I'd like to put some nail varnish on your toenails. And then she said to me, which leg should I start with? And she meant, she did, she had forgotten what had happened to me. And we, we could have, I could have been like, That was insensitive, but we had such a good laugh. And then in the end, I got her to take a photograph of her trying to put nail varnish on the leg that wasn't there. That wasn't there. Yeah, we had a good laugh. Some things, honestly. I just realized sometimes you can't take things too seriously. Too seriously, yeah. Yeah, you know, there were some humorous times. Times when... You know, I had some falls or near falls, as long as I didn't injure myself badly. I had a good laugh about it. There's something that I found quite, well, I found humorous in the book. And you said you found it quite humorous as well. You were saying something about how somebody called you on the phone and he was apologizing. And he said, I apologize in advance, but I need to ask you what you would like me to do with your amputated limb. And you found that quite humorous and you were laughing. I did because, like, what do you really want me to say? Give it to me. I'm going to take it home. I just found it. I didn't even expect that they would ask me. Yeah. You know, but then when I think back about it on reflection, some people might say, just see it a bit more sacred than I was taking it. This is a part of me. In order for me to come to terms with what's happening, I need to say goodbye properly and stuff like that. And I think that's the reason he asked me. But I just found it funny that I mean, I wasn't, like, belly laughing, but I did find it funny that he would ask me. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, some other people probably would have taken offence at that, you know, as in, why would you ask me such a question that's insensitive and, you know, but you laughed about it. Yeah, and I also think that the hospital have probably, it's probably something that they've... maybe they didn't do it in the past yeah and decided to do it because certain patients were offended by the fact that they just treated that part of their body in such you know because clearly they it's not like they were going to give it funeral rights yeah you know they were probably just throwing it away with other parts that they operate on but i think maybe the hospital they had had maybe they had had some complaints or something is the reason why he asked he asked okay There's something I wanted to talk to you about and it's this thing about phantom limb. In the book you said you still used to feel that your leg was there. Do you still feel that the leg, I mean that part of your leg is there? Can you talk to us a bit more about this phantom limb thing? So they do say that 80% of people who have an amputation of any part of their body still actually feel that part of the body. So initially they thought it was a psychological problem. A lot of people who were saying, I can still feel this leg, they sort of referred them to a psychologist or a psychiatrist. But now it's been proven that it's actually to do with activity on the brain. The brain still remembers that that part of your body was there. So it's sending signals there, not finding out that it's not there, so then the signals become distorted. So for some people, what they will actually feel is pain. I thank God that I don't feel pain. I just feel like, I feel more like the foot is there, but it's being squashed. You know, it feels like it's being squeezed a bit. Yeah, and like I said, everyone feels it differently. So some people, in my case, I feel, like I said, that it's there, the foot is being squeezed, but that the leg is also shorter than the other one. If I stand up on one leg, I will feel like it's bent at the knee as if I'm bending it at the knee somehow. But it's something that you just have to take your mind off. Okay. You know? Yeah, if you dwell too much on it. I don't know. I've just chosen not to. I just take my mind off it. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Is there anything that you actually struggled with in the process of your healing, going from how you used to be to your new normal? Was there anything that you really struggled with? When I was in hospital... I struggled with just generally feeling unwell. In terms of the actual amputation, I was fine with that. But generally, it was a combination of the medication, the numerous surgeries I had to have on the leg, and just the trauma. The combination of that made me feel unwell. And also, I... I had some reaction to one of my medications, which was quite bad. So that was my main struggle in hospital. By the time I got out of hospital and started learning to walk, and up till now, the things that I've generally struggled with is sometimes the prosthetic leg, although it's actually quite a good one that I've got, the prosthetic leg can sometimes rub. okay so yeah i it creates some friction and blisters and in that case there's nothing you can do you have to keep the leg off for a number of days which means being in a wheelchair okay you know just nothing i can do about that so that's something that you know can be a struggle sometimes in terms of self-esteem i'm fine with that i have yeah i've got I've got two prosthetic legs, one that looks just like my other leg. So it's covered with this silicone that looks like skin. And I've got another one, which is a sports leg, which actually it is, it's clearly a prosthetic leg, you know, and I have no problem wearing either. Yeah. So, and then also some things that I struggle with is just maybe one or two things that I've could do before that I can't do. So for example, I can't change a light bulb because I'm going to have to stand on a chair. And standing on something high, balance is difficult. To even climb on the chair, because the amputation was above the knee, it just makes it a bit difficult to do things like climbing. But most things now I can do. Previously, if I was going to travel, by air, it's a lot of preparing this, preparing that, when you get to the hotel, taking a wheelchair, because you can't always have the leg on, so if I'm going to the bathroom, but now I've sort of worked out, you know, I've got a lot of work around, so most things are pretty much back to normal. It's amazing the things that we... take for granted when you talked about changing the light bulb now you know it's just it just struck me that um these are things that we just take for granted yeah it's like we moved from our old house to a new one and the new house has an attic i've never been able to go in there so i keep saying to my husband what does the attic look like go up there and do a video suppose we decide we want to convert it i have no idea the size of the place yeah Because I can't climb the ladder to get into the attic. So it's things like that. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, in everything, we give thanks to God. Yes. You can still move around. Exactly. Did it take you long to adjust to the prosthetic leg? Or was it something that was easy for you to get used to wearing? I don't know. It took some time. So... Initially, they do tell you anyway, when you get the leg, that you... They expect you to keep it on during the day for about an hour. Okay. After that, it just becomes very uncomfortable. So I used to keep it on for about an hour or two, after which I would have to have it on and be in a wheelchair. And this was when I just got home, so... It was, when I first got home, it was a struggle, I'm going to be honest, because I was just used to going around doing what I want in the house. But now I was limited to most of the time being on one level, you know, so it took me time to get used to it. Another issue I had is when I, you know, sweating would make the legs slip, so it would slip down. And then another issue I had is because of the structure of the stump. It wasn't, like I said, the accident, no one's going to, when a car hits you, they're not going to try and make a clean cut. So if, for example, a person had their leg amputated by diabetes, it would be a proper operation with a clean cut. But they had to restructure my stump. So because of that, it's made it difficult for anyone who's going to create a prosthetic leg to create one that will sit well on it. So I really had to look for someone who would do that for me. And before I could get that, I had a very uncomfortable leg. But now, I guess, like I said, I've just sort of adjusted now. So it's a lot easier. Were there days when you were frustrated with the leg? Oh, yes, yes, yes. I remember especially when I first got home, it putting it on used to take about five or six attempts it will either i'd either put it on and it will the foot would be turned too far to the left or too far to the right and if you leave it like that obviously it looks awkward but it would definitely cause rubbing at the top which causes blisters i used to find it so uncomfortable and also when i first got home my stump was swollen some during the date was swell okay so if i try and wear the leg it would it would just get stuck halfway it was so annoying oh dear yeah did your husband ever try to help you put on the leg wear the leg oh he did okay he was so he was so kind honestly he would hold it for me he would Tell me all, you know, be patient. Remember what you were taught in rehab. I'd have a go at him. You don't know how difficult this is. I can't imagine. But he was very patient. Yeah. Oh dear. But what was the experience in rehab? Do you have any stories to tell about your rehab experience? Any funny stories or anything? It was like a halfway house. Okay. So... Although the rooms were a bit like hospital rooms, it was two people per room. You'd either have a room to yourself or two people per room. In my case, for the first two weeks, I was in the room by myself and then someone joined me. But then what they had was... didn't bring food to your bedside they would you would get up and go into a dining room and it gave it also gave the vibe of a holiday home as well so you go into this lovely dining room you know have your your meal after that your breakfast and then after that you would go downstairs for your walking practice physio They would have, there was a time they had some sort of celebration for all of us. I think it was around Easter time. They had a celebration for all of us. The people in rehab varied. So the funny thing is, with the sort of life I lived before this, the sort of people that I would come across are people I work with, people in church, you know, But in rehab, I met people from all walks of life. All walks. And it was a good thing. It was actually nice to just... The only thing that we had in common was for some reason we had to have a leg amputated. But this could be someone who I worked with or someone who was in the army. When I say all walks of life, I mean all walks of life. And the staff too... very supportive, rooting for us. And if you were one that really wanted to go far, they were so happy to support you for as far as you were going to go. And I was blessed to have a physio who was also a Christian. Not saying if they were non-Christian it would mean they couldn't do anything for me. But she just got me. She understood me and I understood her. So it was nice being there. It was A lot of people came in there saying, oh, I just want to go home. In my case, I was then, I said, I know this is where I need to be. As much as I would rather not be away from home for another seven weeks, I knew I needed to get as much as I could to be able to get back on my feet as quickly as possible. So you were ready to just go through the process and show you got the most out of that time there. And I think that's the way to look at it, taking one day at a time and just doing the work. Because for those whose minds are just focused on going home, there might be a bit of impatience in the process. Yeah, because people obviously missed home. Yeah, that's true. Honestly, for anyone who's had something life-changing like that, going home is... a real shock because you're back in the same environment with a lot of restrictions especially initially until you can find a routine so you need to get as much as possible in terms of how you can cope before you just say I want to go home so what about going out when you went back home if you had to go out to an occasion what were the things that you had to put in place? to go on? I know you said going on holiday, you had to think of so many things, but normal day-to-day outings, did you have to plan that as well? Yeah, so when I first got home, my first outing was to the GP. Okay. A friend of mine picked me up because the car I was driving, I couldn't drive before. The leg that was amputated was my right leg and I used to drive a manual car anyway. So the car was out of the question. Yeah. So my friend picked me up and honestly it was just to the gp all i had to do was walk to the car get out of the car walk to the gp and that was it i felt like i had i had run the marathon it was so difficult i was so tired and that was because my body had just been through trauma and wasn't used to any exercise yeah so once i then got myself into understanding what I need when I go out. I stopped using the trains. Trains, getting on buses and trains were too difficult because there were lots of steps, a lot of walking, and it just wouldn't work. So I just needed to have transport. Initially, I used to go get taxis everywhere. And then when we managed to get a car, I had to have it adapted so it's all hand controls. Things to bear in mind is wherever I'm going, preferably a ramp so that I don't have to use stairs. But if I have to use stairs, I can, of course. But there has to be a railing so that I can hold on to a railing to get up. Another thing that I always used to check was whether there was an accessible toilet. Because... I could manage to use a non-accessible toilet, but an accessible toilet has railings that you can hold on to, so it just makes it a lot easier. And funny enough, although it's a requirement in public places in the UK, you'll find that there are some places that either they don't have an accessible toilet or they have something that they call an accessible toilet. There was one restaurant I went to, didn't have an accessible toilet, And the actual area to the toilet had steps with no railing. So I had to say to this man, my husband has got to come with me to go into the ladies. And he had to let me. There was another place I went to, the accessible toilet was in the gents. In the gents? Yes. Oh dear. How did you deal with that one? I had to get my sister... to stand outside the door so nobody else came in. But why do they do that? Why put it in the gents? No idea. This is what I say. Sometimes it's just to say, okay, it's a requirement, we've got it. Yeah. Without actually thinking it through. Yeah, without thinking it through, it was in the gents. But generally now, to be honest, I just, I can manage most things. What I do is when I'm going out, I'll take a collapsible stick, a stick that you can sort of collapse and put in your bag so if I get into any tricky situations I can just bring it out and use it but yeah now generally as long as I drive I've got an accessible toilet stairs with you know a railing I generally tend to be able to manage yeah you mentioned trauma earlier and I just wanted to ask did they give you any like counselling to deal with the trauma any kind of Was there anything to help you go through the trauma from the emotional side of things? They do offer counseling. When I was in hospital, I did have an experience where I kept on hearing explosions in my sleep. I mentioned that in the book. And I couldn't explain it because it wasn't like I was traumatized. You know how... Some people might relive the accident and see the car coming. I really wasn't. I was fine in myself that way. So when I mentioned it to the doctor, they put me on sleeping tablets and I thought, I don't really want to use it. I think I used them for a couple of nights and that was it. But then they also said, do I want to see... someone, you know, a psychiatrist. I said, yeah, let me speak to him because he might be able to explain to me why this is happening. So he had a chat with me and just asked me a lot of questions. One of the main things he wanted to know is, do I actually relive what happened in my mind? Do I see the car coming at me? I said, no. He asked me a whole load of questions. He said, no, I don't think you're suffering any post-traumatic stress, I think all it is is that your body is trying to settle down after the trauma. And the honest truth is, two days of sleeping tablets and speaking to him, and it never happened again. Oh, good. So, yeah. So, I, you know, just write that one off. And then, when I was in rehab, I had this woman visit me, and she kept on trying to find a reason why I should be traumatized. She said... She's a psychologist, psychiatrist. She's come to see me. Okay, yeah, come. I welcome you. She's asking me these questions. I said, no, I don't feel, you know, that she's trying to find things that I should be feeling. And I was being honest. This wasn't even me saying, well, as a Christian, I don't want to confess negative. I was being honest with her. Eventually, I think she just got fed up. She couldn't find anything. She couldn't find anything. No, she never came back to my bedside. Oh, dear. I guess maybe because she was used to getting all kinds of things from people, so she thought maybe she would find something. Yeah, maybe, maybe. And at the end of the day, I always say to people... Such a traumatic thing. If there is any feeling of trauma or, you know, maybe it's playing on one's mind, seek for help. You know, because people might start saying, oh, because one person could cope with it, why can't you cope with it? Yeah, we're all different. Exactly. We're all different. Exactly. How did your friends react to seeing you with a prosthetic leg? Was there anybody who felt funny about it? Because I know that sometimes people feel funny when they see people who are less able. Not because... They're just a bit awkward. I think that's the word I'm looking for. They're just awkward around. Did you have any friends who were awkward around you because of it? Or were they all okay? I think when... the news about what happened to me sort of started getting around. I had loads of people come and visit. And I think what, for them, it was, they didn't know how I would be when they got to my bedside. So I think they came in sort of tentative. I know a friend of mine said she came to the door and went back a number of times. She got to the door, turned back, got to the door, turned back, you know, sort of thing. But once they got to my bedside and saw, oh, she's fine, they were okay. They were okay. So they were really okay, knowing that I was okay. No one was awkward around me. No one was like, oh, I don't want to be seen with you. Although I do remember one time, this was way after when I'd got home. Yeah. I was wearing my sports leg, which is the one that's an obvious prosthetic leg. Yeah. And my friend had come to visit, and I think we just wanted to walk to the shops together. And I was wearing these knee-length shorts. Yeah. And I was going to go. And she said, are you going to go out like that? I said, yes. Why not? Why not? I had no problem going out. You see, the thing is, what happens is people will look once and look away. Yeah. They'll see you the next day. Oh, that's the lady with the prosthetic leg. See you the third day. And the prosthetic leg becomes just part of the furniture. Yeah. You know, it really doesn't bother me. It really doesn't. Yeah. That's good. Okay, we're fast coming to the end of the show, but I wanted to touch on something quickly. You say in the book that you forgave the driver. Talk to me a bit about that. How do you forgive somebody who did this to you and who took something from you that was so important to your life? How do you forgive such a person? I guess, to be honest, it does take the grace of God. I think... um i don't know i i sort of just realized that generally people can be careless on the road and clearly he was very careless he shouldn't have been driving yeah and i i just chose to look at it that he had made a careless mistake he probably um is how is going to have to live the rest of his life knowing that he's injured someone so badly. And also, I just thought, you know, holding it against him probably is not going to do anything, is it? Although, the honest truth is, again, it must have just been a whole pass of that peace God gave me through the whole situation. Because from the minute it happened, I had nothing against him. you know it was just i just i don't know i can't explain it apart from it had to have been you know the spirit of god in me i just didn't he wasn't he was the least of my concerns at that point you know yeah i didn't i really didn't desire revenge or anything even when the police came to visit and asked you know if the case goes to court Would you want him to be sentenced? Yeah. I said, not really. I really felt that there are some things that people do that they regret so much that that in itself is enough punishment. Punishment, that's true. Yeah, and I really just felt he had put himself in such a terrible situation that he had had his punishment. Yeah. Did you ever get to speak to him at all? I didn't speak to him, but I saw him when we went for the court case. But I unfortunately couldn't speak to him. I did want to speak to him, but I got to speak to a relative who came with him, and I just told her that everything is fine. Just tell him that it's all okay. Okay. And what happened to him in the end, do you know? He was sentenced. Oh, he was sentenced. Yeah, he was sentenced. Do you know for how long? A couple of years. A couple of years. Yeah. Wow. Wow. I just want to say thank you so much for agreeing to do this. I mean, your story, each time I go through your book again, I'm like, wow. I just don't know. I guess it's just the peace that God gave you because I don't know how you could have done this without the grace of God and the peace of God, you know. I always like to end this show on a note of hope. So I just wanted you to say something to the people out there. If there's anybody going through some kind of challenge, what would you like to say to people just to give them some kind of hope, you know? I guess I would say challenges do come in life. That's a life without challenges. is impossible. But I would say no matter the challenge, no matter, there is always hope. No matter what happens, there is always one person that we can go to and say, I am going through this. Help. I cannot help myself. You can shout help and you will receive help as long as you allow him to help, rather than blaming him or accusing him. And one thing I will say, you know, people kept on asking me, well, why you? How could this happen to you? Almost like, how could God let this happen to you? I always say, it sounds like a very simple, simplistic philosophy, but if it's good, it's God. If it's bad, it's the devil. Don't blame God for what the devil has done. that's what I would say and always open yourself to help from God if you open your arms to him his arms are already wide open wide open wide open thank you so so much if you want to know more about Ronke's story please go out there and get her book it's called Impact My Story My Ebenezer My Victory I'm going to put a link to the book in the notes for this episode and you can go there and just pick up a copy and read the entire story it's a very very interesting book it's a Oh, no, it's more than 100. 285 pages. So you can imagine we have really not touched on a lot of it, but just a tip of the iceberg on this podcast. But thank you so much, Ronke. I'm really, really grateful for your time and for being vulnerable to come and talk about this. And hopefully we'll have you on the show again for something else sometime soon. Yes? Thank you very much. Thank you. Yes, definitely. Thank you so, so much. Really grateful for your time. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, everyone, for listening in to another episode of Navigating the Chapters of Challenge with Tele. We'd love to hear from you. If you've enjoyed this episode, please just go into the podcast and leave a comment. We'd love to hear your comments. And if you have any questions for Ronke, I'm sure she'd love to answer them. So just please put your comments in the chat. podcast and we'll get back to you. Thank you so much and hopefully we'll be with you again sometime soon on navigating the chapters of challenge. Thank you and God bless.