She Deals With 'What Is' And Focuses On 'What She Can Do'. It's Not Easy.

November 01, 2025 3 min read

Diane Stelpflug is “disabled.” You don’t say. This supposedly disabled woman trekked up to a spot over 9,000 feet in Sequoia National Park. So what’s her story? Please read below.

By Ray Glier

Diane Stelpflug, 65, felt a burn when a kindly man in the grocery store said the establishment had motorized carts for shoppers with her condition.

Fighting words.

She has been characterized as a “disabled woman.”

More fighting words.

It was suggested she get a handicap placard to hang from her car rear view mirror.

Still more fighting words.

Diane has a conspicuous limp, the result from a fall on her slick bathroom floor eight years ago. There was nerve damage in her left leg extending to the glutes. Not even the renowned Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN., could rid of her of the limp in three years of trying.

The limp is so obvious Stelpflug refuses to look at herself walking past a mirror.

This story is the story of The Push Back.

Stelpflug (Stelp-floog) may have a big limp, but she has two big messages for Geezer Jocks who have afflictions.

Deal with What Is.

Focus on What You Can Do.

Diane can do plenty with that limp.

Stelpflug is a shade under a 4.0 rating as a pickleball player because she uses superior anticipation skills to make up for a lack of quickness on the court. In Iowa this summer at The National Senior Games, Diane and a partner advanced three rounds in the highly-competitive tournament before being put out. In the Huntsman World Senior Games in October, Stelpflug and a partner advanced five rounds before their exit.

Diane apologizes to her husband Mark for being a ball-and-chain on their mountain back-packing treks because she walks, to be blunt, as if she is dragging a bowling ball chained to her left ankle.

“You see any other 65-year olds up here,” Mark says to her flatly.

Stelpflug, who ran five marathons before her injury, takes her dog on hour-long walks using trekking poles through the town trail system in New Berlin, WI. Twice a day.

“When you’re focused on what you can do that’s the thing that’s helped my self- confidence,” Diane said. “I’m doing things that maybe they’re not what I had been able to do as far as pace or skill level, but I’m doing things that I can do and that other people choose not to do.

“And being outdoors and spending time with people and my husband makes me so happy that I can pretty much kind of get beyond the frustration of the limp.”

Stelpflug, at first, didn’t accept the injury was permanent. She said she spent those first couple of years after the accident “trying to fix whatever was wrong.”

Diane saw “many” doctors and visited “many” clinics, including Mayo.

She was not at peace with “What Is”, not by a longshot. Many Geezer Jocks have the same experience. We are not 24/7 impervious to the albatross we live with.

“It was frustrating because when you’re young, you say, ‘If I break something or something happens to me somebody can fix it’,” Stelpflug said. “That first big challenge was, like, all right, so it’s not gonna be fixed.”

Still, she’s optimistic, yet not in denial. Diane does physical therapy every day with the idea that she needs to keep the muscles strong. It just may be the nerves will never talk to the muscles in her leg, or to the glutes, or hamstring, but she won’t close the door all the way.

In the meantime, she says, “I’m playing tons of pickle ball.”

Stelpflug has overcome the biggest challenge, which was a reluctance of being labeled “disabled”. After all, the fall was so severe doctors removed the anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee.

“I mean ‘disabled’ is a fair word, it really is the truth,” Diane said. “But it’s kind of like, when I’m anywhere, my goal is always I don’t want people to think I am disabled. Those are fighting words.”

It’s not a putdown, but a challenge.

And while she can’t run to meet the challenge, she can walk powerfully to meet it….

….and smile in the face of her albatross.