Jake Rak – The Inspiring Story of Overcoming Amputation

I was a pretty ordinary kid. I would go out drinking with my buddies on the weekends and then work a shitty job on the weekdays. I never really had much aspiration in life so I was content with just working and making enough money to afford a drinking habit, or gym supplements, or the next pack of cigarettes to be honest. I had grown up playing baseball and other sports my whole life, but I never really applied myself at school.

My dream died in school of playing high level baseball so I did the next best thing which was play in a Beer Softball League. It was fun and I had a blast! I traveled and met new people all while drinking, but it wasn’t what I wanted in life. Working out was my true passion and I always knew this. Yet I never took it serious enough to reach the kind of level I felt I should be at.

It wasn’t until June of 2015, when I started feeling ill. I had no energy to do anything and eventually I produced a bad cough. The last thing I remember is going up to my dad after realizing I was coughing up blood. There was something seriously wrong. I was rushed to Good Samaritan Hospital, to see a doctor. They initially diagnosed me with Bronchitis, which didn’t seem too bad at the time.

Next thing I remember was waking up in a hospital bed surrounded by doctors, family members, and my friends all in awe and crying. I had no idea what was going on. I had just regained consciousness and was wondering what was wrong and why everybody was in such a panic. I looked down and saw tubes all throughout my body injected in various locations. The doctor was pleading to me.

“I’m so sorry, I’m sorry will you ever be able to forgive me? My life is over!”

Then, he was swiftly pulled away by another doctor in the room. It was then that I was told I had just undergone an emergency open heart surgery to replace two of my heart valves. The heart valves had been eaten away by an infection called Endocarditis. I never understood why the doctor had acted that way until I saw my leg. It was swollen and white due to the circulation being cut off to it.

I spent the next month in special care with doctors watching my every move as I had Pneumonia to overcome next. I was doing various breathing exercises and was under a strict diet. I had a water limitation of 500 milliliters a day and could only eat what my doctors approved. I was under copious amounts of pain killers while going in and out of surgery to remove dead tissue in an attempt to save my leg.

The pain got so bad that I was screaming to just cut the thing off. I would watch movies with my nurses and have bad reactions with the pain medicine that was pumping through my IV. For instance, one time I thought I was a secret undercover agent like in the movie Kingsman. It was in July when the doctor walked in and said simply.

“Jake, I know this is hard for you to hear right now, but amputation is the next necessary step for you.”

I remember I instantly fell into a deep depression. I honestly never thought I would get out of it. I thought my life was over, how would I be able to support myself being handicap?

I got a visitor one day, my old baseball coach from DuPage Diamondbacks, his name was Dan Morel. This was the same man who took a young struggling kid into his arms and turned him into a man. He made me drop the excuses and I just remember crying in his arms saying, “Why me?” He simply responded multiple times to me something he would always say to me to get the wheels going.

“C’MON JAKE, C’MON WE BELIEVE IN YOU.”

It was after this point my head became a little straighter and the fog cleared. The depression and suicidal thought s had eased as I slowly came to grips with the fact that I can indeed do this. I started following fellow amputees on social media and watching every move they did especially in weight lifting. Saying to myself, “This will be me!”

I started my rehab process determined to crush it, giving it my all to get out of this hell I was in and back into the real world outside. As time went on I realized I had to start putting the weight I had lost back on since I had lost 50 lbs., in the hospital. I began eating everything I could. For example, my aunt would bring me two gyros, a chili dog, a large fry, and a milk shake (which she would sneak protein packets in to trick me).

It wasn’t until later when I was greeted by a visitor, Scott Darling. The goalie of the Chicago Blackhawks, Stanley Cup Champion team. He was a Lemont, native who grew up with my cousins. I was always a huge fan because of his back story and everything he overcame. That was when I knew I couldn’t let myself be a sympathetic pity story.

I was released from the hospital on crutches. I immediately turned to the one thing I could do when the doctors cleared me which was lifting weights. I had to be dragged into there by my friend Jimmy. He would grab me the weights as I slowly regained my strength and love for my passion of weight lifting. I would go everyday with him, each day more optimistic than he last. The progress began to show quickly as I was consuming so much food to regain the lost muscle I had.

As it became a habit everyone around me started to notice. I would get messages from Scott, telling me to keep it up. Eventually, I had the honor of meeting all of the Chicago Blackhawks in person. As the time went on and the fire in my heart began to grow, I got my first prosthetic leg in November. I was ecstatic because this was a huge process that I had in front of me in order to regain my independence back.

By the end of winter, I started to cut out all the negatives in my life and I put myself on a strict diet while maintaining to only drink water. It was when I regained my ability to walk in April that everything started shaping up for me. I was able to take care of myself and hold my own.

But then came a snag in the chain. I had acquired a bone infection that needed surgery. I just remember how let down I had felt. I was worried because I thought, with my luck, I would for sure be losing my knee. I then underwent the surgery and followed everything I had been told by the doctors. I was back on crutches for a couple weeks but that didn’t stop me. I came back from the surgery quicker than all the doctors thought. I was back on the road of doing what I told myself I would do while lying in that hospital bed barely able to sit up on my own.

As time went on I was starting to get my story out there as I had dreamed. A year later here I am doing everything I said I would be doing. I am back enrolled in college, in the best shape of my life, and have been inspiring those around me to fight whatever life struggles they are enduring. All while getting people to be more aware of their personal fitness whether that’s going to the gym or starting a diet.

I’m still not done though, I one day hope to help people going through the similar processes that I had in the early stages of my disease. Just like many people had done for me when I was at my lowest point. I hope to become a key player in the market of biomedical engineering while hopefully developing a way for people to have easier access to prosthetic limbs.

Amputation is not the end of the road. The worst handicap in life is a bad attitude.

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