Flesh-Eating Disease Victim Continues to Amaze and Inspire

The latest blog post from the father of flesh-eating disease victim Aimee Copeland is sobering.

But in a good way.

"Aimee’s focus remains on one thing and one thing only: not being 'handicapped.' If hard work is any indication, I think we can all surmise that she is well on her way toward achieving that goal," Aimee's father Andy Copeland, a Spartanburg native and USC graduate, wrote in his latest blog.

A quick recap: Copeland, 24, earlier this year lost all of her left leg, her right foot, and both hands. The limbs were amputated after Copeland contracted necrotizing fasciitis, a disease caused by a flesh-eating bacterium that entered a wound on Copeland's leg following a zipline accident and a fall into a creek.

After an extensive hospital stay, the young Georgia woman is now undergoing intensive rehabilitation in her attempt to reclaim her life. And, her dad wrote, Copeland is attacking her circumstance — and her rehab — with gusto. 

"During each of her physical therapy sessions, Aimee does two hundred crunches in seven minutes," according to her father. "Wait, that’s not all. Aimee also has to do four hundred leg lifts in seven minutes, an untold number of pushups and something else that she calls 'planks' and 'sideplanks.'"

Copeland said the workouts are so that Aimee can get strong enough to shift her weight so that she can move in and out of her chair onto any surface.

"She’s getting pretty doggone good at it too," Copeland wrote.

The sobering part? Well, that would be Aimee's tenacity and her continuing capacity to inspire others, her dad wrote.

Despite the opportunity to purchase a specialized van to transport Aimee, his daughter would have none of it.

"No way! I am not going to be chauffeured around town like a handicapped person," Aimee declared. Her goal? To drive herself. "Where we saw value, she saw dependence. She wants to come and go as she pleases. She wants to drive herself wherever she wants to go…." Copeland wrote.

While Aimee's drive and brio is a constant inspiration to her father and the rest of Aimee's family, her story also continues to inspire others, her father wrote.

That includes a young woman the family recently encountered who is the victim of a failing heart. Aimee's strength has become her own.

"She hugged us and asked us to thank Aimee for her inspirational strength and perseverance," Copeland wrote.

"Aimee will soon know the full extent of how she has inspired so many people through her experience," he added. "She will soon discover the many people who have reached out to her with love and support. I have no doubt that each personal story of inspiration will serve to further strengthen Aimee’s resolve as she strives to better herself."

Read more here.