A North Texas teen finally got some pep back into her step just in time for her final year of high school.
Rockwall-Heath High School senior Brooke Walker has made a triumphant return to cheerleading thanks to a custom-made prosthetic.
“It feels so great to get up and walk around and be a part of the sport that I watched for so many months, go on without me,” Walker said, according to NBC 5 DFW. “And now I’m out there on the mat doing it with my teammates.”
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, Walker went to the hospital in late February with a sore foot and ended up losing her lower left leg due to an arterial blood clot.
“This is something that came fully out of the blue and almost never happens to anyone my age,” Walker shared on Instagram on April 13.
It was a severe setback for someone so active and passionate about cheerleading. Yet throughout the ordeal, Walker maintained a positive outlook.
“You never truly know how your kid will respond to adversity until they are faced with it,” said her mother Kerri Walker, according to the Rockwall County Herald-Banner. “She has blown me away. She has taken the unthinkable and risen to the challenge. She continues to fight for what she wants.”
Walker’s cheerleading teammates and the community at large also showered her with encouragement.
“Both friends and those unknown to me were extremely generous. I accumulated right around $40,000 to help with prosthetic expenses,” she said, according to the Herald-Banner.
“We still haven’t heard the final total on the specialty prosthetic but any remaining funds will stay in an account for further needs,” she noted. “I will go through at least three socket changes this first year as my leg adjusts its size and each of those is an additional cost.”
Through this generosity, Walker recently made her comeback, cheering on the sidelines of the field at the first football game of the new school year at Wilkerson-Sanders Memorial Stadium.
She hopes to continue to improve her tumbling and more in order to pursue cheerleading at the collegiate level.
“I’m getting better every day as I keep practicing,” said Walker, according to NBC 5. “No one can control what happens to them, but they can control how they deal with it, and how they come back and how they show themselves to the world and how they trust in God’s plan through it all.”
