Louis Anderson

“There is nothing I can’t do now. Now I have a stronger will. I didn’t have total strength before like I do now,”

On a beautiful Sunday afternoon in May, Louis Anderson enjoyed a 32-mile bike ride on Big Dry Creek Trail. That enjoyment came to a screeching halt when Louis was thrown from his bike at 35 mph. When he hit the ground, he broke his wrist and skinned his knee all the way to the bone.“I was laying there, and I could feel all these pains I had never felt before,” Louis said.

He thought he could get back on his bike and ride home, but the reality was something different, “I couldn’t grip the handlebars,” he said.

While his riding partner went to get help, Louis managed to get to a shady area where he would wait for his partner’s return.

The irony of this accident stuck out in Louis’s mind. A few months ago, Louis had begun his recovery from a low point in his life. “We all have ups and downs [in life]. I came out of my down with God’s help. A few months before this accident, I felt God tell me, ‘I’m gonna make you stronger.’” Louis said.

How is this making him stronger?

It was in the next couple of hours that Louis found his reassurance and strength. To help pass the time and take his mind off the pain, Louis retrieved his iPhone and started reading his biblical daily reading from one of his favorite apps. “In the reading for that particular day, it said, ‘whatever happens to you today that you think is a big deal, just treat it like a bump in the road …’ from that, I regained my strength,” Louis said.

By the time Louis reached the ER, his pain was indescribable. “The first thing Dr. Leonard did was look at my wrist and tell me what he was going to do. After that, he told me I was going to be fine, no problem.”

Dr. Leonard reset Louis’ wrist with a titanium plate and screws. After the surgery, Dr. Leonard told Louis, “By the way, you’re going to be stronger now than you were before.”

Louis is at 99% six months later, but he has no doubt he will reach 100%. “There is nothing I can’t do now. Now I have a stronger will. I didn’t have total strength before like I do now,” Louis said.

A few weeks ago, a friend told Louis about a metal he was reading about. It is rare that the more stress you put on it, the stronger it gets … the metal is titanium. Louis laughed as he said, “It is titanium in my wrist.”