Soon millions will make Medicare coverage decisions for next year, and UnitedHealthcare can help you feel confident about your choices. For those eligible, Medicare Annual Enrollment runs from October 15th through December 7th.
If you're working past age 65, you might be able to delay Medicare enrollment depending on your employer coverage. It can seem confusing, but it doesn't have to be. Visit uhcmedicarehealthplans.com to learn more. UnitedHealthcare, helping people live healthier lives. Hello. This is Hey Dude Shoes. This is an ad. But not for your ears, for your feet.
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Vanguard Marketing Corporation distributor. This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories. And we tell stories about everything here in the show, including your story.
Send them to ouramericanstories.com. Up next, Christopher Klein is the author of four books, and he's a frequent contributor to the History Channel, National Geographic, and American Heritage. You've heard Chris tell the story of how Johnny Carson saved Twister.
He's back with another one. Aided by Mark Twain, Ulysses S. Grant, former president and Civil War hero, raced to complete a literary masterpiece that saved his wife from destitution. Here's Christopher Klein with a story. Shortly before noon on May 6, 1884, Ulysses S. Grant entered the office of his Wall Street brokerage firm, a wealthy man. Hours later, he exited a pauper. Thanks to a pyramid scheme operated by his unscrupulous partner, Ferdinand Ward, Grant's investment firm had instantly collapsed, wiping out his life savings. Grant had all of $80 left to his name. His wife, Julia, she had another $130.
Kindhearted strangers responded by mailing Grant checks. Desperate to pay his bills, the former president cashed them. Still smarting from bankruptcy's bitter sting, Grant that summer suffered from an excruciating sting in his throat as well. When he finally visited a doctor in October, Grant learned he had incurable throat and tongue cancer, likely a product of his longtime cigar smoking habit. Grant had been no stranger to financial misfortune. Failing as a farmer and a rent collector prior to the Civil War, he lived in a log cabin that he dubbed hardscrabble and sold firewood on the streets of St. Louis to make ends meet.
However, now that he was confronting the terrifying prospect of leaving Julia a penniless widow, the grizzled general who fought to save the union undertook one final mission to save his family from impoverishment. Divested of his property and possessions, Grant still retained something of great value. His recollections of past glory. Although he appeared taciturn and reserved, Grant was a convivial storyteller who entertained friends such as Mark Twain with yarns of war and politics. For years, Twain has suggested that Grant pen his memoirs.
Now destitute, the former president finally agreed to cash in on his celebrity. In need of financial rescue himself after a series of failed investments, the debt-ridden Twain inked Grant to a contract with his newly launched publishing house and gave him a $1,000 check to cover living expenses. Engaged in a furious race against time as the cancer attacked his body, Grant dug into his writing with military efficiency, churning out as many as 10,000 words in a single day.
He pored through tall stacks of orders and maps that helped him to recreate his most famous battles with minute fidelity. Grant has stemmed to Twain with not just the quantity but the quality of his prose. Grant penned his manuscript until his hand grew too feeble in the spring of 1885, forcing him to employ a stenographer. Even speaking, however, became laborious as his condition deteriorated. Following the advice of doctors who vouched for the salubrious power of pure mountain air, Grant decamped at the onset of summer from his Manhattan brownstone to an Adirondack resort. In a cottage on the slopes of Mount McGregor, Grant launched his final campaign to complete his tome. With excruciating pain accompanying every swallow, Grant was unable to eat solid food.
His body withered by the day, the voice that once commanded armies could barely muster a whisper. While Grant's doctors gave him morphine only sparingly in order to keep his mind clear for writing, they swabbed his throat with cocaine to provide topical pain relief and used hypodermic needles to inject him with brandy during the worst of his coughing fits. Through it all, Grant persisted in honing his manuscript, editing, adding new pages, pouring over proofs in its first volume as he sat on the cottage porch on even the steamiest of days swallowed in blankets a wool hat and a scarf, covering his neck tumor which was now, according to a New York Sun, as big as a man's two fists put together. When his voice finally abandoned him, Grant scribbled his thoughts in pencil on small slips of paper. When Twain visited Grant at the cottage, he brought the good news that he had already pre-sold 100,000 copies of the autobiography. A relieved Grant knew he had succeeded in giving Julia and his children financial security. With his mission accomplished, Grant finally laid down his pen on July 16th after crafting a Herculean 366,000 words in less than a year.
Seven days later, Grant's pulse flickered and ultimately gave out. Employing an army of door-to-door salesmen, Twain sold more than 300,000 copies of the personal memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant. The two-volume box set even outsold Twain's latest work, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and resulted in Julia Grant receiving $450,000 in royalties, equivalent to $12 million today. Grant's memoir proved not just a commercial success, but a literary one as well. Although he admitted discussion of his presidency or sensitive personal matters such as his drinking, many scholars consider Grant's autobiography the finest memoir ever penned by an American president, and perhaps the foremost military memoir in the English language.
And a great job by Greg Hengler and a special thanks to Christopher Klein, and he's the author of four books and a frequent contributor to the History Channel, National Geographic, and American Heritage. And what a story indeed. Grant's last battle was against the clock, and it was for his family. And he held out, and as always, the warrior fought to the end.
My goodness, anyone who knows anything about Grant as a warrior knows that, well, now they know another side of his warrior spirit. 300,000-plus words in less than a year, and all to save his family. And he doesn't just pen any memoir. Read the book, pick it up, go to Amazon and order it, and just start reading it aloud to your family. It is indeed classic American literature, and it of course took a voice like Mark Twain's to discover it.
Both men, by the way, routinely in financial ruin throughout their lives. The story of Mark Twain and Ulysses S. Grant's race against the clock to save the great Civil War hero's family from destitution here on Our American Stories. Folks, if you love the stories we tell about this great country, and especially the stories of America's rich past, know that all of our stories about American history, from war to innovation, culture, and faith, are brought to us by the great folks at Hillsdale College. A place where students study all the things that are beautiful in life, and all the things that are good in life. And if you can't get to Hillsdale, Hillsdale will come to you with their free and terrific online courses.
Go to hillsdale.edu to learn more. Soon millions will make Medicare coverage decisions for next year, and UnitedHealthcare can help you feel confident about your choices. For those eligible, Medicare annual enrollment runs from October 15th through December 7th. If you're working past age 65, you might be able to delay Medicare enrollment depending on your employer coverage.
It can seem confusing, but it doesn't have to be. Visit uhcmedicarehealthplans.com to learn more. UnitedHealthcare, helping people live healthier lives. I know everything there is to know about running a coffee shop, but for small business insurance, I need my State Farm agent. They make sure my business stays piping hot, and I stay cool and confident. See, they're small business owners too, so they know how to help you best. State Farm is in your corner, and on it. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.
Call your local State Farm agent for a quote today. Doing household chores can already be time consuming and tedious, and there's nothing more daunting than facing piles and piles of laundry that need to be done. I mean, that can be overwhelming for anyone. So, if you want to get those larger laundry loads done right and get back to your life, try All-Free Clear Mega Packs. All-Free Clear Mega Packs are bigger packs with two times the cleaning ingredients compared to a regular pack so that you can tackle any laundry load without the worry. All-Free Clear Mega Packs are also 100% free of perfumes and dyes and they're gentle on skin, which is great for any family's sensitive skin needs. Which, my family, we definitely have sensitive skin. So, the next time the whole family gets home from long vacation or you get the kids back from summer camp or whatever the situation is that's caused this big pile of dirty clothes, just know that All-Free Clear Mega Packs, they have your back.
Purchase All-Free Clear Mega Packs today and conquer any laundry load for all fabric types. This is Our American Stories, and one of our favorite regular segments is our American Dreamer series. And today, Alex Cortez brings us the voice of an American classic. When I grew up, the word depression entered my vocabulary, entered my consciousness. And little did I know, I lived through it.
But I didn't know it was going on because I was well taken care of by loving parents and a family environment. We're listening to Donald Sturm, whose parents were German immigrants that settled in Brooklyn, New York. My father had some securities, owned some real estate in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn or wherever it is, and lost everything. And never recovered financially and wound up getting jobs in the restaurant business no longer as a manager because those jobs became few and far between and wound up being a waiter for the rest of his life. He worked hard to bring home money so that he could take care of his family, and he did so in a very heroic way.
I never heard him complain. He didn't achieve much financially speaking, but he had a great family and he was a great father. I grew up in a very dense neighborhood in the sense that there was lots of people, nobody had much money. There were five of us in the building. We lived on the, I think the third or fourth floor is a walk up, there was no elevator. We had one bedroom. I shared a room with my two sisters. They slept on a bed together and I slept on a cot. So last one in, first one out in order for people to move about. My parents had the bedroom.
We had one bath and you had to get along with everybody to get your turn in a reasonable time. Later in life, Donald wouldn't have such considerations, achieving financial success that his dad probably could have never dreamed for him. Donald helped lead the billion dollar conglomerate Kiewit, went on to own many banks and made several appearances on the Forbes 400 list. And yet he's never forgotten what life can be like for first generation immigrants like his dad. In about 1989, 1990, when I'm still in Omaha, it became apparent that there were very educated foreigners that came to this country and they were licensed, educated doctors, dentists, lawyers in a foreign country. When they come here, they're nothing because they don't have the license. They don't even have the proficiency with the language.
So they can't even sit for a test because they don't know the English language at that point in time. So that came to my attention in Omaha. So Sue and I decided that we were going to help a goodly number of these people. They will say like a hundred. I'm not sure.
I never really counted. So we started a English as a second language program so that we got these people somewhat proficient in the English language. And it worked. So people, a doctor, for instance, who was sweeping a floor in the jewelry store could take the qualifying exam in Nebraska to get his doctor's license.
The same thing with lawyers and engineers and whatever they were. It was a very successful program to help people help themselves and give them the tools to do that and succeed in life. We really felt good about it, but it was very small compared to what we did here in Denver. So after we moved here in 1991, we decided that we were going to try and do that in a much more systematic way. We signed up with the University of Denver to do that in a bigger way. So we provided money, we provided computers, we provided whatever we needed to provide because I had the money to do that. People were so thankful, so gracious about expressing themselves because we helped them get started in a new country, in a new way, in their old profession. Well, there's a lot of motivation. The thought that it's always with me that my father never had that opportunity.
He came over here at a very, very young age, was left with his aunt, and that's how he grew up and never had the chance of going to school. At the time of our interview, Donald was 89 years old, and he's still coming to the office each day for a full day of work. I don't want to retire because I don't want to feel like I have nothing left in my life. I got a lot going in my life now. Mentally, I feel like I'm 40. I know physically that I'm no longer 40.
I know that there's a termination along the way here. I'm not going to live forever, in other words. But I want to use my brain and take medication, whatever I need to stay alive and stay viable, to continue to see my kids grow.
I don't mean grow physically. I'm talking about intellectually, business-wise. I need to spend time mentoring. It is so boring to be contained in your apartment, and people like me are not supposed to go to the office. You're supposed to stay home and do what?
I don't know. So I want to continue to do what I'm doing. My doctors tell me I'm chronologically a lot younger than my age. My physical being is good. Notwithstanding the fact I have to take pills.
So I have a lot to look forward to. I have a little gym in my apartment across the street there. I work out every morning. Every morning I'm on the floor for at least 30 minutes, exercising, stretching and whatever. At least four, maybe five times a week in the afternoons, on the weekends during the morning, I work out. I have a bike, a recumbent bike, and I have weights, and I do all kinds of things like that.
That takes probably an hour and a half. So I try to keep myself in reasonably good shape. At this age I can't go as far. And the other thing you need to do is reconcile with yourself what your new limits are and adjust to them. Adjusting to things that happen or your environment is so important. And not being pissed off at it because I can't dunk a basketball anymore. I used to. So I can't be irked.
I use that as an extreme example by the way. So I want to continue to do what I used to do to the extent I can. I still want to figure out how I can get out of the house earlier in the morning.
Am I wasting steps? When I was five years old I was always concerned about how do I do things better and quicker. I still am that way. The other thing that I do is that I think when I'm sleeping. I still do that. I still get up in the middle of the night and my mind is running. Unless I have to make a decision on something that's important, I won't. Because I know that if I, I don't want to say muddle through because it's not muddling. But if I think about something whether it's I'm thinking about it. Most of it is I just digest it without thinking about it. I don't know if you know what I mean by that. Maybe everybody does.
I'm not sure. I come up with a better answer. And you're listening to Donald Sturm and what a unique voice and memory. Well it runs deep and he remembers what his own father went through and his own parents went through coming to this country.
I do. It wasn't my parents but it was my grandparents. I saw what a language barrier did to my own grandparents and they insisted that not happen to their own kids. A great American dreamer's voice and in the end a great American dreamer's story and always so many of our American dreamers grateful and always generous.
Donald Sturm's story here on Our American Stories. Soon millions will make Medicare coverage decisions for next year and UnitedHealthcare can help you feel confident about your choices. For those eligible Medicare annual enrollment runs from October 15th through December 7th. If you're working past age 65 you might be able to delay Medicare enrollment depending on your employer coverage.
It can seem confusing but it doesn't have to be. Visit UHCmedicarehealthplans.com to learn more. UnitedHealthcare.
Helping people live healthier lives. I know everything there is to know about running a coffee shop but for small business insurance I need my State Farm agent. They make sure my business stays piping hot and I stay cool and confident. See they're small business owners too so they know how to help you best. State Farm is in your corner and on it. Like a good neighbor State Farm is there.
Call your local State Farm agent for a quote today. Doing household chores can already be time consuming and tedious and there's nothing more daunting than facing piles and piles of laundry that need to be done. I mean that can be overwhelming for anyone. So if you want to get those larger laundry loads done right and get back to your life try all free clear mega packs. All free clear mega packs are bigger packs with two times the cleaning ingredients compared to a regular pack so that you can tackle any laundry load without the worry. All free clear mega packs are also 100% free of perfumes and dyes and they're gentle on skin which is great for any family's sensitive skin needs which my family we definitely have sensitive skin. So the next time the whole family gets home from long vacation or you get the kids back from summer camp or whatever the situation is that's caused this big pile of dirty clothes just know that all free clear mega packs they have your back.
Purchase all free clear mega packs today and conquer any laundry load for all fabric types. This is Our American Stories and up next a story about a girl whose life at the age of 10 changed in ways that she could never have imagined. Madison AC Well she's living proof that through faith and through perseverance you can overcome the obstacles that life throws at you. Here's Madison with her story. Madison AC I grew up in a very small Mississippi Delta town.
We had a population of 5000 people. I had a pretty normal life like when I was really young. I went to a very small private Christian school and we were all very close because there was so little of us in the town. And that made things kind of easier because when I was 10 years old my life kind of started becoming really an ordinary. I was at my best friend's house at the time and like most kids in the Delta were outside playing in the fields and we had been cleaning her dad's barn all day and then we decided that we wanted to go play on the tractor that had been sitting there for a few years. And we went over to and we started playing on it and I had on rubber boots and they got caught in the railing on the top of the tractor. So when I started to fall I caught myself on a live power line that was hanging on the side of the road and then electrocuted me with 10000 volts of electricity. Electricity exited from my hip and my back and then shot out of my hands and it completely killed my right arm and then my left hand and my friends sat there and watched the whole thing.
She was only 10 years old too so it was very hard for her to witness. So her mom then called the ambulance and it took them a while to get there but it also took them a while to get my hands off the power line because I was knocked unconscious so the farmhands came over and finally got me down. If I wouldn't have been wearing the rubber rain boots I would not have been grounded.
The electricity would have exploded out of my feet and my arms and back and that would have killed me so ultimately the rain boots are what saved my life. The ambulance finally arrived and I remember waking up and all I could see was clouds and a blue sky and looking around and seeing everybody and I remember hearing everybody screaming and freaking out and crying and so that confused me because I had no idea what had happened. And they wrapped me up in what looked like tin foil and then it was like a light switch went out and I remember waking up a month later. I was airlifted from Dundee, Mississippi to Le Bonheur in Memphis where they instantly amputated my right arm and then the next morning I was flown to Cincinnati, Ohio and they tried to save my left hand and it just kept making it worse and it was almost going to kill me so we had to amputate it at a little bit below the elbow. I was having surgery every single day twice a day and then after almost a month and a half I finally was good enough to where I could go home.
I was in pressure garments to keep my wounds sealed so it was like a skin tight outfit that was from my knees up to my neck that I had to wear all day every day. Then as soon as I got home from the hospital I had letters and stuff people had written me on my floor so I slowly found a way to get onto the ground and I started trying to crawl and since my balance was so weak I face planted onto the floor. Being so young it was really scary because I was like oh my gosh I'm never going to be able to do anything again. Then I broke my leg, jumped on the bed and it snapped.
That was because when the electricity exited my hip it had caused a hairline fracture in my femur that was just waiting to break and all it needed was a little push so I was then in a wheelchair for eight weeks and still had to go back to school. When my friends first saw me some of them were excited to see me because they were happy that I was alive but they were also scared at the same time because we were so young and we had never experienced anything like that. It was just really different my friends adjusting to being around me and they also had to figure out what I needed help with and when was the right time to ask me for help. Honestly that was my motivation to learn stuff so well when I was younger because I didn't want my friends to not want to be around me because they were going to have to do this and this and this for me just over and over. When you're a 12 year old little kid that's annoying.
You just want to be a kid. You don't want to sit there and help your friend do everything. So it kind of just taught me to learn to do stuff for myself. For almost a year after my accident I literally could do nothing for myself. I literally had to get help with everything.
My hair, brushing my teeth, changing clothes, eating, showering, everything. Slowly after that I was just like I'm going to have to figure it out because I can't sit like this for the rest of my life having my mom help me with everything. At first it was obviously very difficult relearning everything and trying to figure out life again at such a young age but slowly things just started falling into place. When I first had my accident obviously our big mission was to find prosthetics for me so I could start learning to use them and we ended up getting two prosthetics. It was one arm and then I had a hand that looked very realistic but the thing is we got them, took them home, everything and then we had to find the process of paying for them. And so we were trying to go through insurance and they denied us and said that hands were not medically necessary. So then things started getting really difficult. We were scared that they were going to take them away from us but we ended up finding a way to pay for them.
But they were very expensive so it took a long time. By the time I had finally gotten to where I could have the prosthetics and found some I liked and I was comfortable with, I had already learned to do just about every single thing. So it was way harder to try to relearn with prosthetics because then it was like starting back at square one. So I do still have prosthetics. I have a right arm and a left hand and they are currently in the bottom of my closet and they have been for the past three and a half years. Another reason I really don't use them is because they're extremely heavy and it's not a very comfortable feeling.
My arm is really squished in there and will lose circulation and fall asleep and on my right side it's a full two foot arm hanging off my shoulder made of metal and so it's really heavy and my shoulder starts cramping. Most of my friends will tell you it's just weird seeing me with them on. One time my friend and I were at my house and she wanted to see me with my prosthetics on so I surprised her and walked out with them on and it put tears in her eyes because she had never seen me with arms before and so it's just a completely different person you're seeing.
I just wasn't supposed to have arms and so all my friends know that. And you're listening to Madison AC tell her story and oh my goodness, what a thing to happen at the age of 10 and to wake up a month later and really understand the gravity of that and how you're going to live the rest of your life without arms and then to listen to her voice. Well you knew well and you're going to know soon that she made it through but my goodness put yourself in her shoes and always we like to do these things and tell these stories because the obstacles Americans overcome each and every day that humans overcome with their own perseverance and grit is just remarkable. My goodness that she said at a certain point at this young age, I'm going to have to figure these things out for myself. I don't want my mom doing everything for me and my goodness to hear from an insurance company hands aren't medically necessary.
Well how absurd but in the end Madison agreed and her story continues here on our American stories. Soon millions will make Medicare coverage decisions for next year and UnitedHealthcare can help you feel confident about your choices. For those eligible Medicare annual enrollment runs from October 15th through December 7th. If you're working past age 65 you might be able to delay Medicare enrollment depending on your employer coverage.
It can seem confusing but it doesn't have to be. Visit UHCmedicarehealthplans.com to learn more. UnitedHealthcare, helping people live healthier lives. I know everything there is to know about running a coffee shop but for small business insurance I need my State Farm agent. They make sure my business stays piping hot and I stay cool and confident. See they're small business owners too so they know how to help you best. State Farm is in your corner and on it. Like a good neighbor State Farm is there.
Call your local State Farm agent for a quote today. Doing household chores can already be time consuming and tedious and there's nothing more daunting than facing piles and piles of laundry that need to be done. I mean that can be overwhelming for anyone. So if you want to get those larger laundry loads done right and get back to your life try all free clear mega packs. All free clear mega packs are bigger packs with two times the cleaning ingredients compared to a regular pack so that you can tackle any laundry load without the worry. All free clear mega packs are also 100% free of perfumes and dyes and they're gentle on skin, which is great for any family's sensitive skin needs, which my family, we definitely have sensitive skin. So the next time the whole family gets home from long vacation or you get the kids back from summer camp or whatever the situation is that's caused this big pile of dirty clothes. Just know that all free clear mega packs, they have your back.
Purchase all free clear mega packs today and conquer any laundry load for all fabric types. And we return to our American stories and to Madison AC story of becoming a double amputee at the age of 10. Here's Madison continue with her story. It became a completely different household. Mom had to give me so much attention helping me that my younger brother would feel left out, but he was really young at the time so he was always worried he was like is this you're gonna die. It started to feel less like a home but more like a at home hospital so it kind of got difficult for a while but they brought me this little band that usually goes on people with arthritis that can't use their fingers, and it happened to fit the end of my arm perfectly.
You can insert like a pen a pencil a fork makeup brushes, my toothbrush. That's how I do everything almost is my cuff driving was one of the scariest things to learn how to do, obviously, but it was never really a difficult thing to do. I've always thought it's because that's the one thing I did not know how to do before I lost my hands.
So learning to drive with half an arm was the only way I knew. So I just went on doing high school I played basketball and I was a cheerleader, I did track did all kinds of things I traveled, and being an amputee gave me opportunities to go to the Bethany Hamilton retreat in California, every year starting in eighth grade. It's a retreat for amputees that we all get to get together and just bond on our what we have in common.
Going to the Bethany Hamilton retreat has been the greatest experience of my life. That is why I'm honestly so grateful to be an amputee. Every single girl that comes in is completely unique has a completely different story. A lot of kids were born without limbs, some come in about accidents. One of my best friends that I met there, she lost her hand when she was three years old.
She put it in a meat grinder, three years old. So it's just not it's just awesome to hear all these crazy stories and like, we can all just sit back and laugh about it because we've all been through stuff like that. It was always interesting meeting new amputees and seeing how they did things and how you would assume that we would be all more comfortable around each other. But sometimes I'm more comfortable around my friends with arms and all their limbs because it's not as intimidating as crazy as that sounds. When you're in a room full of girls that are every single one of them are an amputee, and you're seeing how different everybody does everything, it just kind of overwhelms you and you're like, Well, am I doing this wrong? Am I doing this wrong?
Should I be doing it like this? This one girl has one hand so she can do a ponytail makes me so mad. I'm like, I just need two fingers.
I just need two fingers. And so when you leave the room, you try to go do all these things and ways you saw these other girls doing them. And it frustrates you because you're feeling like you're having to go from step one. Even though I love all of my amputee friends, I wouldn't trade them for the world. It does get overwhelming shot, like feeling like you're doing things wrong because you're not doing them the same way they are. But then when I'm the only amputee, I feel like I'm doing everything the way I'm supposed to be doing it because that's my natural way of doing it.
Versus their natural way of doing it. Bethany has way more people that look at her than we do on average. And so she just gives good advice on how to not let the negative people affect you and just to keep putting your faith in God because he's done this to us for a purpose. I remember sitting in the hospital with my mom and one night her Bible fell off of her bed and it turned to Jeremiah 29 11. For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord's plans to prosper you and not to harm you plans to give you a hope and to give you a future. And it's just literally what has gotten me through everything because God has a plan for me. He knows what he's done with my life. He doesn't make mistakes. This is his purpose for me and his purpose was to prove to others God is going to bring you through it.
He doesn't do this to punish you, but to prove to you and to prove to others that everything has a purpose in life. You're figured out eventually. One of the scariest things after my accident that I always thought about was, oh my gosh, I'm never going to have a boyfriend like that was like the biggest fear of mine was I'm never going to have someone love me. I'm never going to get married and all that stuff and thinking about am I going to be able to take care of my kids. That's always been something that's been scary because obviously I have not experienced that yet. And it's just scary to think that what if I'm stuck being a mom and I can't take care of my child. And I know that I'm not even a mom yet. That's like the mom's biggest fear and simply like wanting to go get a manicure want to wear cute rings and stuff.
It sounds lame, but that stuff girls love to do and I don't get to do that. Obviously, at times I'm like, this is awful. It's hard to explain because of the mindset that I've created for myself. I don't get upset because if I would have had my accident, my life would be completely different than it is now. I would not have the friends I have. Nothing in my life would have been the same.
And so it's hard to be upset when looking at it like that. When I got to college is when I first started to really have to do things on my own completely. And there was a few things that I just really did not know how to do by myself. Well, I didn't think I knew how to do for myself.
The first thing was learning to brush my hair. I had never done that before and I figured out how to do it. And one day I was going somewhere and of course the shoes I wanted to wear at the places were untied. So I just figured out how to do it. I just had to use my mouth and tie my shoes.
And there's just so many things I really did not think I was going to be able to do. And as time went on and I was forced to learn how to do them myself, it became easier and easier. And now on I do it all by myself. When I'm in class I write my notes just like every other student does. I can load my backpack up just as fast as every other student. I'm usually the first person out of the room.
During school I don't feel any different than anybody else. After I graduate college in the spring I'm going to attend an online school to get my interior design license and become hopefully an interior designer. And I would like to remodel houses.
That's my favorite thing to do. But it's also a job that I can physically do. Most of this stuff is done on a computer so it just makes it really easy for me to physically be able to have an interior design job. There's almost no job that I can do right now at this age without a degree. So it's very upsetting when you're told that hands aren't necessary to live so you don't qualify for disability and stuff. When there are people out that get it, just any excuse and they take it and run with it.
I would love more than anything to be able to go out and work. I don't like sitting at home being lazy. I can't stand it. My brother's always like, well go be a cashier.
And I'm always like, well you want me to spit your change back at you? So it's just always a joke because I mean yeah there's things that people just assume that I could do and they just don't think about like how would I actually do it. Because people take for granted what they have in life and they don't appreciate what they do have. Something I always say is life isn't about what you've lost, it's about what you have.
That's just what I try to keep in mind and help people understand is you've got to get up and move on with your life because you were given this life for a purpose and not to waste it. I've ended up having really a pretty normal, extremely normal life just physically look different than everybody else. I've been very fortunate to find people that could care less and all my friends tell me all the time they completely forget that I don't have hands and it's really refreshing to hear. Even though my life has not turned out anything like I would have expected, I literally would not trade my life for the world. I feel that I was handpicked by God to be an amputee and to show others that you can do anything you put your mind to. And that's the main thing that I've learned is if you want something, you can achieve it no matter your circumstances. So I just am very thankful to be an amputee because it helps me stand out in ways that others may not and inspire others to achieve the goals they want throughout their life.
And thanks to our own Madison, Madison Martin, for bringing us the story of Madison Acey, who also happens to be, well, our Madison's friend. And what a story and what a story we can all learn from. I mean, that she formulated the sentence, I am grateful to be an amputee is really remarkable. And don't let negative people affect you, she said. And she also pointed out that her faith in God, as she put it, it got me through everything. By the way, is that a theme we hear on this show regularly from people who suffer great adversity? And we don't go looking for that answer, folks.
But we don't edit it out when it is. I think that's the difference between us and so many other storytellers out there. Moreover, when she said these words, well, I just started crying. The scariest thing she said, the biggest fear I have is that nobody will ever love me. And will I be able to take care of my kids? Yes and yes to both of those things, Madison.
Madison Acey's story, a story of courage, of grit, of resilience, of faith here on Our American Stories. Soon millions will make Medicare coverage decisions for next year, and UnitedHealthcare can help you feel confident about your choices. For those eligible, Medicare Annual Enrollment runs from October 15th through December 7th. If you're working past age 65, you might be able to delay Medicare enrollment depending on your employer coverage.
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