Even after having to have her leg amputated, retired U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Annika Hutsler went on to become a medal-winning athlete.
During her military training, she began to feel pain in her leg, but she didn’t say anything about it. If she had an injury, her recruitment would’ve been pushed back, and she didn’t want anything to affect her training.
Eventually, she couldn’t ignore her pain any longer and she was put into an adaptive walking device.
At first, they thought she had a stress fracture, but when her foot still didn’t heal after two months in the walking boot, they ordered an MRI for her.
The MRI revealed that she didn’t have a stress fracture and never did. It turns out that the pain in her foot was caused by a tumor.
Hutsler underwent several surgeries, but her tumor kept growing back. She was physically and mentally drained and couldn’t possibly have any more surgeries, so she made the most difficult decision of her life.
She told her doctor that she wanted to just amputate her foot so she wouldn’t have to worry about the tumor any longer, and her doctor agreed that it was the right move.
After a successful amputation, Hutsler began rehabilitation and met other wounded warriors like herself.
She was encouraged to stay active, and that’s when she fell in love with different sports. It gave her a reason to wake up in the morning, something to look forward to.
She excelled and became a competing athlete in the Warrior Games and Marine Corp Trials. She won multiple medals in track and swim events.
She has since medically retired from the Marines, but never stops telling others her story.
She wants people to know that although she is disabled, she’s living her life just like everyone else.