Kyle Carpenter

And so at first I didn't know if I could make it to that next breath or not, which a machine was helping me at first.

But when I got off that, didn't know if the 40 or 50 surgeries, every single one was

Going into it, you do the pre-op, you're there at 4 a.m., you do the pre-op, you do the surgery.

Some of them were nerve transplants or transfers, which take two to four months to make that connection regenerate.

So you have to stay persistent and you have to keep working at it.

Even though nothing is happening, you have to just hope and trust that your hard work and your focus and dedication will eventually allow that nerve to reconnect.

You know, then it was I didn't know if the next surgery would take.

And another aspect is when something catastrophic happens or you face extreme adversity, you know, a tough lesson is that the world keeps spinning.

Understandably so.

Yep.

Which which, you know, I understand it's the way it is.

But all of my friends who didn't go into the military were living their best life in college.

And all of my buddies who thankfully did not get injured were still in Afghanistan together operating.

But my life was a complete, you know, unknown, I guess.

Yep.

And so I guess as time went on, you know, I had to I had to grapple with that.

Yeah.

And, you know, although I realized that you don't have to have a perfect plan, you just have to, you know, be willing to say, you know, my I guess mantra kind of became just keep working hard.

Try to be a good person.

Do the best you can and help others around you.