Every life has a chapter that tests its structural integrity — the chapter where pressure builds, cracks form, and the walls that once felt steady begin to shift.

For me, Part 3 is that chapter.

It is the season where my body failed me.
Where careers I loved slipped away.
Where identity, confidence, and stability collapsed all at once.
Where I learned what it truly means to rebuild from nothing.

And yet, looking back now, this is the part of the story that changed me the most.
This is the season that taught me resilience, patience, and a kind of strength I didn’t know I had.

This is where I became the woman capable of leading a firm.
This is where I became the mentor I am today.
This is where I learned how to rebuild — not just a knee, but a life.

After leaving CFE Federal Credit Union — a job I genuinely loved — the decline began with physical pain I didn’t understand.

It started small: tightness, swelling, discomfort.
Then came imaging, doctor appointments, and a surgery that was supposed to fix everything.

Except it didn’t.

Because that first surgery led to another.
And what should have been a routine recovery spiraled into one of the most physically and emotionally traumatic experiences of my life.

Surgery #1 — November 2008

I went in hoping for relief, hoping to get back to life, back to work, back to normal.

Instead, I woke up to more pain than I’d ever felt.
But I was determined — stubborn even.
I pushed through physical therapy.
I followed every directive.

Nothing improved.

Surgery #2 — March 2009

A total reconstruction and realignment.
A long procedure, longer than expected.

The doctor was confident.
I tried to be confident.
But the truth was — I felt something wasn’t right from the beginning.

One month into recovery, it became undeniable:

Something was wrong. Very wrong.

My leg wouldn’t respond.
I couldn’t lift it.
I couldn’t bend it.
The pain was excruciating.
Therapists pushed me to the brink.
I called them physical terrorists — half joking, half crying.

I was at a 10-degree bend.
No improvement.
No healing.
No answers.

Finally, a nerve conduction study revealed the truth:

My surgeon’s response?

He looked at me — puzzled, defeated — and said:

“I’m flabbergasted.”

Then he walked away from my case.
My doctor abandoned me.
My body abandoned me.
My plans abandoned me.

And then, the next blow came:

I physically could not drive.
I could not sit in a car normally.
I could barely walk without assistance.

Returning to CFE Federal Credit Union became impossible.

And just like that, a job I excelled in — a job where I was thriving, contributing, and growing — was gone.

Not because I failed.
Not because I did anything wrong.
But because my body simply could not do the commute or the work.

Losing that job broke something inside me.
It meant losing:

• income
• professional identity
• routine
• direction
• confidence

I questioned everything:

Who am I without my work?
How do I rebuild?
What do I do now?

I wasn’t just grieving a job.
I was grieving a version of myself.

Pain changes people.
Chronic pain steals your sense of control.
Nerve pain — the constant burning, shocking, stabbing spiral — is unlike anything else.

I’d wake up to pain.
I’d move through the day with pain.
I’d go to bed with pain.
Sometimes I cried more than I breathed.

On top of the physical suffering came the emotional weight:

• fear of permanent disability
• fear of financial instability
• fear I’d never recover my independence
• fear of being a burden
• fear of being “less than”

Facebook memories now show me moments I wish I had never recorded — raw posts where my hope wavered, where the pain screamed louder than my optimism.

It was a dark time.
A lonely time.
A time where even the everyday tasks felt impossible.

And yet — I kept going.

Recovery wasn’t linear. It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t quick.

I had to relearn:

• how to put weight on my leg
• how to take steps
• how to roll heel-to-toe
• how to balance
• how to trust my body again

Falling became part of my therapy.
We discovered that each fall broke up scar tissue — ironically helping more than hurting.

A new doctor prescribed a knee brace just in time for my wedding.
That brace became my companion for over a decade — every day, every outfit, every season.

I thought that brace would be part of me forever.

I thought running was off the table forever.

I thought “normal” would never return.

But slowly, in tiny pieces, my life began to rebuild.

When EvDevo wrapped up operations and closed, I found out I was pregnant.

This news came at a moment when I needed something to soften the harshness of the previous year — something to look forward to, something to anchor myself to.

It was the beginning of hope.

Physically I was still struggling, but emotionally something shifted.
I wasn’t just rebuilding for myself anymore.
I was rebuilding for someone else.

That brought purpose back into the picture.

LRA Insurance hired me temporarily during this time — a gift from an old high school friend who saw my potential and offered me stability when I desperately needed it. It was work I could handle while pregnant, something I could succeed in during a very fragile season.

And then motherhood arrived.

Becoming a mother changed everything.

It forced a slowing down I didn’t know how to embrace.
It forced introspection I had avoided.
It forced balance — something I had never practiced.

For almost a year, I stayed home with my son.
It was healing.
It was grounding.
It was restorative in ways no medical treatment had been.

For the first time in a long time, I wasn’t fighting for survival.
I was building a life.

Motherhood didn’t just change my daily routines — it changed how I saw my career, my purpose, my boundaries, and my capacity.

It set me up for Part 4.

For 13 years, I wore that knee brace every single day.
I believed it was permanent — a physical reminder of a hard season, a limitation I’d carry forever.

But years later, I found an independent sports physical therapist — someone who didn’t see a lost cause when he looked at my leg.

He saw potential.
He saw possibility.
He saw strength waiting to be reclaimed.

Through his methods, I regained:

• muscle stability
• range of motion
• balance
• confidence

And one day — for the first time since 2008 — I ran.

No brace.
No fear.
Minimal pain.

It felt like reclaiming a piece of myself I thought was gone forever.

This chapter — the pain, the loss, the uncertainty, the rebuilding — became the load-bearing walls of my life.

From it, I gained:

Resilience
I learned I could break and still rebuild.

Compassion
I learned what struggle feels like from the inside.

Strength
I learned I am capable of far more than I realized.

Empathy
I learned how to support others walking through their own hard seasons.

Perspective
I learned what matters — and what never did.

Boundaries
I learned that my worth is not measured by overwork or exhaustion.

These walls now support everything I’ve built — my family, my firm, my mentorship, my mission.

This is the chapter that prepared me for the leap into entrepreneurship.
This is the chapter that made me a thoughtful leader.
This is the chapter that made me a mentor who sees people for who they are, not just what they do.

This is the chapter that set the stage for Part 4 —
The Build-Out.