Athletistic/Figure skating. The 2006 Olympic ice dancing champion, Russian figure skater Roman Kostomarov, shared his experience of limb amputation following severe pneumonia.

“Now it is difficult to remember the feelings that I experienced while lying in a hospital bed. Of course, I had a grudge against fate, I considered myself unhappy. It seemed to me that life had treated me cruelly and unfairly. Then I blamed it all on fate. Why exactly? me? Why did all this happen? After all, I was working, doing what I loved, I had a family and children. And suddenly everything collapsed so suddenly. First an amputation, then another. At that moment At that moment, I cried bitterly and I realized that it was for me, like the end of the world. Even though they consoled me, they told me that everything would be fine, that I would have prosthetics, but how could I live without legs and without arms? I wanted to fall asleep and not wake up. I wondered why such people had to be left alive.

The support of my family was my support. You walk very slowly. At first you hope your legs will recover, then you try to get up, but everything is atrophied, you only weigh 60 kilos and you don’t know where to start. It took me about three months to sit up properly. Then they put me in a rehabilitation program and I got back on my feet for the first time. It was terrible pain, but the rehabilitation specialists were amazed that I could take my first steps.

At first, there was just a desire to lie down. There was not the slightest desire, there was apathy, and we said to ourselves: “It would be better not to wake up.” » But little by little, you find strength within yourself. I told myself I wouldn’t go home until I was back on my feet. I didn’t want my children to see me in a wheelchair. My wife prepared the children for the fact that Dad will now have dentures. My son asked, “Dad, is it possible that the head also rotates 360 degrees?” But I think it’s not worth doing that at the moment,” Kostomarov commented in an interview with RIA Novosti Sport.

  • Kostomarov: “It will no longer be possible to skate like before”


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