Thank God for everything!
My name is Bohdan and I’m 23. I live in Odesa, work on freelance. I was born not the same as all my brothers and sisters. I’m “special”!
I was born in a Christian family, in Kherson. Since my childhood I remember we were moving from a place to a place all the time until God presented us a detached house! I was the first child in the family, in total 8 people if not counting the father and the mother.
Parents told me that when I was born the physicians offered to pass me to a residential child care facility because of my physical disabilities. But my parents refused to do that as they followed Christian principles. After hearing this I decided for myself that I wanted my parents to be proud of me and I would not let them down, although I was not obedient in many things, but I still wanted to achieve a lot in life to make them proud of me!
So, as I said above, I was born with physical disabilities: missing my left lower and upper limbs, phalanges of fingers on my right hand. Since I didn’t have a leg, I had to get a prosthetic arm and leg replaced every year (since I grow fast) to at least walk. And my dad had to travel with me for a month or even more to Kharkov, as there was a big prosthetic institute there, and leave the whole family behind. Thanks to his attention to me, I learned a lot. I think that I am what I am now is solely my dad’s merit!
Since my childhood, God gave me a wonderful family that always supported me! Unfortunately, my parents passed away 4 years ago, but I have 3 brothers and 4 sisters. God also gave me wonderful friends, I almost always did what they did: went for walks, permanently “hanged around” some place or other, where one should not, played different games, went to visit each other, walked from morning till evening, etc. My friends never felt sorry for me, never looked at me with sympathy! And now I realize that it was a good life lesson.
To be honest, I rarely thought about my “flaws” because my friends didn’t think of me as such. To this day, when they see me without a prosthesis, they are surprised.
The school I attended was also kind of a blessing to me, I still miss all my classmates, teachers and more. God always gave wisdom in communication. I remember having a good relationship with everyone. Although looking at Nick Vujicic, a man with no arms and no legs and his childhood, I would say I was very lucky to have such environment because he didn’t have one, he was always being bullied and picked on. There are all kinds of people around.
Once I running along a corridor during a school brake, it was the 4th grade, and suddenly I felt something wrong with my prosthesis. It just fell off my leg and fell out about two meters away from me. A lot of kids gathered around to see what they were seeing for the first time in their lives. I honestly don’t remember their faces because I didn’t have time to look at them, but I could definitely feel their shocked looks. And they looked at me, who in a few seconds stood up, jumped to his “leg”, put it on and went on, while remaining standing still being confused by what was happening.
After graduating from high school, in town I met a familiar guy, he said hello to me and said he remembered me. I jokingly replied that I wasn’t hard to remember, and he said he did. Of course, I was confused, but he reminded me of the above story. That’s how people get memorized!
In the 4th grade I really wanted to go to artistic gymnastics, as my classmate did it professionally. Now he is a member of the Ukrainian national team. I often looked at his training and I really liked to watch him. I told my mom that I really want to train, but then I did not understand that I cannot, but I really wanted to.
We were persuaded to go to table tennis and try it, as I used to play it not badly, according to my dad. At that time, I couldn’t even imagine that tennis would take up half of my life in a good way. It was the best school of life!
In 2012 I went to the championship of Ukraine for the first time, frankly speaking I played then not very well, but thanks to my coach Yurii Oleksiiovych, I was taken to the training camp to train with the national team of Ukraine. 2 years passed and my first tournament was held in 2014 in Romania, I also played not very well, but thanks to the team in three we took first place. Years went by, I trained, improved my skills, visited many countries.
My biggest achievement in sports was the team victory at the European Championship in Slovenia, we then took first place with Misha Popov and Maks Nikolenko, who is now playing at the Paralympic Games in Tokyo and took the honorable 3rd place and the team is going for the gold medal!
After graduating from school, I immediately enrolled in Kherson State University for physical education. I went to the extra-mural form of education.
We had 3-4 sessions a year and almost always I was away at tournaments during a session or exams. Teachers went to meet me as I had high achievements in sports. And here again God blessed me with an environment, and especially my groupmates, great guys! I finished my studies at university, got a bachelor’s degree.
Almost 6 years passed after graduation from school and university, we still communicate well with many classmates and classmates. It was even a little sad to write this. Life has scattered us to different corners of the country and the world.
And also after graduation I decided to end my tennis career and at the end of 2020 I didn’t sign a contract, although it wasn’t an easy decision, but I did it! I just wanted to change something in my life as I had already been playing tennis for 10-12 years. Honestly, I still don’t regret it!
One of the highlights of these two years is that I moved to Odessa. It was gradual, but it all started with my first tennis tournament, it was in September, if I’m not mistaken. At the place I played there were admin girls sitting, they monitored the correctness of the score, broadcast the match, etc. While playing matches, they noticed I had a bracelet by the four on my arm and asked me if I was a believer. And of course my answer was yes.
Since that time I began to come to Odessa more often and more often went to visit the girls. One Saturday I went with them to a service at LED church, the atmosphere was inexpressible, to be honest, I have never met such an atmosphere at any place. Gradually I began to join the company, more and more often I came to visit, managed to get to different parties, etc. But back home in Kherson, the situation was different. I could neither work nor develop. I don’t know why, but I felt that the atmosphere did not allow it. And I decided one evening that I was moving. In a couple of days I packed my things and left for Odessa. I rented one of the best budget hostels, as I am not a millionaire yet, and I started to learn English without realizing that, just by communicating with people from different countries. And in short, from that moment on I loved my life! And it’s all thanks to my surroundings and the people around me.
God has always blessed me and blesses me with people I have ever met or talked to!
One day I saw a man walking by and noticed that he had something wrong with his leg, I decided to go over and get acquainted, and it turned out that he also had a prosthetic left leg and it also turned out that he worked as a trainer at one of the fitness gyms. We talked for a couple minutes and he invited me to come to the gym, as he works with people like me!
I didn’t join the gym right away, but about 1.5 months after our conversation. I started going 3 times a week. It’s been many months since our first meeting and now I realize that it was definitely not a coincidence. In 4 months I can already see the results and that makes very happy. The trainer does his best for me, comes up with all sorts of, as he says, “tricks”, we work further!)
If I lived my whole life and I was asked if I regret anything, I would unequivocally say NO! About quitting professional sports, about moving to Odessa, it was all worth it!!!! I am happy with my life, Odessa, people around. Thank God for everything! And I’m only 23 years old and everything is just beginning!
I learned about the Tellus Center when I lived in Kherson. I was offered prosthetics and I agreed. They made a prosthetic hand, I liked its design very much, I wear it almost every day. In the center, most of all that I liked was the brand new technologies and free housing for visitors. I plan to get further prosthetics from the guys, we have already submitted the documents. The attitude is wonderful, you know, I come to the center like to my friends).