Episode 22: Jordan Thomas

Yeah.

And so, like I said, I had never been exposed to this before.

I was this able bodied kid that was an athlete that was going about my life.

And so when I learned about the reality that families face and the struggles they have with accessing prosthetic devices for their kids.

I recognized that I was from a place of privilege and would never have to worry about getting the best prosthetics possible.

And so I started the foundation there in the hospital a couple of days after my accident.

And what we do is we provide prosthetic devices to kids until they're 18 years old.

And the reality is, is we...

So I play golf in a completely different set of legs that are specifically designed for golf.

And so it's not a thing where one prosthetic works for everything.

And so we have specific devices for specific activities.

And so kids are never given access to that.

They're deemed to not be medically necessary by the insurance companies, which is I can't imagine anything more medically necessary than giving a kid the device they need to run and play and walk and be a part of life.

So that's a lot of what we do at the foundation is we advocate.

We're a thorn in the side of big insurance, which is wonderful and a role that I take on gladly.

And so we provide prosthetics, mental health resources, scholarships, everything we can to support kids living with limb loss.

So as...

I've also heard you describe previously, too, as difficult as it was to heal physically, relearning to walk, much less to play golf again, You've described also the unseen wounds as being in many ways more painful, actually more dangerous than the physical ones.

As part of the foundation and the work you're trying to do, just how has that informed the mission and the purpose that you have? What does kind of the mental and emotional side of things look like and how did you overcome that?

Sure.

So, you know, for me, a lot of people put a lot of attention towards, as I did, getting back physically to doing the things that I love to do.

That was relatively, I wouldn't say easy, but in comparison, like you said, a lot easier than overcoming that emotional trauma.

I wasn't equipped, nor do I think anyone is to experience that level of trauma, especially at such a young age.

And so my personal experience informed what we were doing at the foundation about supporting not just the physical wounds, but those invisible wounds.

A lot of people think, oh, well, he's back to doing what he loves to do physically.