Written by: Allison Weiss Entrekin
Posted: Tuesday, 15 April 2008
In many ways, Ronnie Dickson is an average college student. The 20-year-old juggles a part-time job with homework from his University of South Florida classes, spends his weekends bouldering and hanging out with friends, and trains for road races with his girlfriend. In other ways, Dickson's life is anything but normal. When he was 17, doctors removed his left leg just above his knee, and he now has the unenviable honor of being one of the few amputees who swims laps at USF's activity center and walks to class on a prosthetic. But don't feel sorry for Dickson - he's not feeling sorry for himself.
"I feel lucky," the 5-foot-10-inch, 150-pound junior says. "I've always had a great group of friends, people who were accepting no matter what my differences were. My life has been pretty normal."
His outlook may be sunny, but Dickson has weathered his share of dark days. When he was just a toddler, he was diagnosed with Trevor's disease, a rare bone disorder that stunted his left leg's growth. By the time he was in third grade, Dickson's right leg was much longer than his afflicted one, and he underwent an operation that helped with the discrepancy but further aggravated his shorter leg's growth plates. He began developing bone tumors in his left leg, which limited his range of motion, and a growth spurt in his right leg during puberty didn't help matters.
"I was okay until my freshman year of high school, and then I had a severe length discrepancy - but I knew I didn't want to have any more surgeries," says Dickson. "After a while, I had to walk on my tip toes on my left leg to compensate."
Despite these challenges, Dickson was a three-sport athlete, playing goalie for his soccer team, swimming the 200-yard freestyle and shooting hoops for his basketball team. He was voted homecoming king at Winter Haven's Lake Region High, and he excelled in his classes. But as hard as Dickson tried to kick away the disease gnawing at his left leg, by his senior year, he knew the malady wasn't leaving.
"I would come home from soccer practice and not be able to walk until the next morning," he says. "Soccer was my life, and realizing that I couldn't do it anymore - that was bad."
In June 2005, three days before Dickson's 18th birthday, doctors at Tampa's Shriners Hospital for Children removed his left leg and fitted him with a standard prosthetic.
"At that point, it was almost a relief to be done with it," Dickson says.
Over the next year, he learned how to adapt to life with an artificial limb, slowly realizing that his new leg was almost as ill-suited for sports as his old one had been.
"What they gave me wasn't a bad leg; but for the active person I was, it wasn't the answer," says Dickson.
Desperate to find something competitive he could do, Dickson took up bouldering, which required him to use his upper-body strength to scale daunting heights. Invigorated by the new challenge, Dickson earned second place in the amateur rock-climbing competition at the 2007 O&P Extremity Games.
"I'm in the zone when I'm up there," Dickson says of the sport. "I wouldn't give it up for anything."
As Dickson embraced the challenges of climbing, his mom researched options that would allow her son to do even more. She learned about a high-tech prosthetic called a C-Leg that would help him move with greater ease; problem was, the leg wasn't cheap.
"That's when my old high school came in," Dickson says. "Their marketing class had done a community project the previous year for a teacher's daughter who was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. They came up with ‘Amanda's Bracelets,' which were like Lance Armstrong bracelets, and sold them for $1 each. They ended up raising a lot of money for this little girl. When they heard about how I needed a new leg, they did a fundraiser to help me and raised more than $5,000."
It was the boost Dickson and his family needed to purchase the C-Leg, and suddenly the single-leg amputee had the tool he needed to run. Encouraged by his girlfriend, who had completed the 2007 Gasparilla Marathon, Dickson decided to train for and run in the 2008 Gasparilla 5K. He called the Challenged Athletes Foundation, which supports athletic endeavors for people with physical disabilities, and announced he was joining their team for the race.
"The race was in February, and I didn't really start training heavily until January," says Dickson. "I was training so hard, I was going through my C-Leg's socket liners every one or two weeks, and they're supposed to last six months."
The day of the race, Dickson, his girlfriend and other members of the Challenged Athletes Foundation gathered at the starting line, and the young man whose left leg had always prevented him from running more than two miles made it 3.1 miles.
"It was amazing," he says. "I've never been a part of anything that large. Just the feeling when you're running - I can't describe it. It's something you've had doubts you'll ever do, and there you are doing it."
Today, Dickson is still speeding past his former limits. He spent his spring break training with John Siciliano, a noted paralympian based in Los Angeles, and he's eyeing a fall triathlon.
"I want to find my niche and compete in the 2012 Paralympics in London," Dickson says with all the confidence of a man who does what he dreams.
This summer, he's headed back to the O&P Extremity Games and shooting for first place, but he'll have to squeeze his training between weekly volunteer stints at Tampa Bay Prosthetics and Tampa's Shriners Hospital. Dickson is there to help, but he's also there to learn - he's studying to become a prosthetist.
"It just makes sense," he says of his career aspiration. "I want to help other people in my situation, and there's no better way."
Whether he's climbing boulders, running races or lending hope to those whose paths mirror his own, Dickson maintains that his life is mostly a normal one.
"I've had a difficult life circumstance, but everyone has challenges," he says. "It's just a matter of realizing that we all have issues to face and fighting through the obstacles when they arise."
In my new role at Competitor Northwest I am beginning an adventure into something new, and my trepidation and excitement are both very high. I feel like it’s the morning after registering for my first Ironman. 
