Powerlifter goes from wheelchair to winner's podium
By: Jamey Eisenberg, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 24, 2005

WEST PALM BEACH — Every time Jo Anna Wiersma picks up a weight she remembers the time she spent in a wheelchair because she was in too much pain to walk.

Wiersma, an Okeechobee native, is a senior at Florida Gulf Coast University and a member of the powerlifting club. On Saturday, she competed at the Tropical Games at the South Florida Fairgrounds.

Wiersma, 23, is not your typical powerlifter. She is a slender 5-feet-11, doesn't have a muscular build and wears nail polish when she competes.

More importantly, Wiersma has a neurological disorder — reflex sympathetic dystrophy syndrome — that causes severe pain in the left side of her body. Wiersma was diagnosed with the disorder when she was 8, and in 2002 she spent nearly six months in a wheelchair and then a year of walking with crutches and a cane.

Now she is a collegiate powerlifter. At the Tropical Games, which fell on the one-year anniversary of her first competition, she was the top woman overall, with a 105-pound bench press and a 253-pound dead lift.

"I hesitate to use the word miracle, but it's definitely awesome," Wiersma said.

Wiersma said the pain from the syndrome was manageable through high school, during which she was a swimmer for Okeechobee High and set the school record for the 200 individual medley and 500 freestyle before graduating in 2000. She went on to Florida Southern and was a member of the swim team until the disorder became unbearable.

Wiersma left Florida Southern in January 2002 and returned home in a wheelchair, unable to walk. Through the next six months, Wiersma went through eight procedures on her back with the hope of fixing the nerves on her left side.

She said her attitude toward her disorder needed the biggest adjustment.

"I had to make the conscience decision to fight it," Wiersma said. "This is the kind of disorder that if you give into it and you give into the pain you're going to keep getting worse. At one point I didn't want to fight it anymore. That's when I decided to start walking again. I decided I'm going to get stronger and forget about the pain."

Wiersma finally began walking on her own in June 2003. While in Okeechobee she went to Indian River Community College before transferring to FGCU when she felt better.

Because she doesn't like to relax, partly because the syndrome could flare up again, she joined the water-ski club at FGCU.

When the ski club's season ended, Wiersma turned to powerlifting. She went from not being able to lift the 45-pound bar and dead lifting about 95 pounds to finishing ninth nationally in the 148-pound class at the U.S. Collegiate Powerlifting Championships in May with a dead lift of 270 pounds.

"She's come a long way in a short time," said Jim Dundon, the powerlifting coach at FGCU. "It goes to show you that anything can be accomplished."