Dr. Jokima Hiller with Sabrina, the superhero she created from her own journey of limb loss.
By Rick Bontkowski
Somewhere along the way, a prosthetic leg became a superhero.
That sentence sounds impossible until you meet Dr. Jokima Hiller. Today, Sabrina lives inside the pages of two children’s books, Sabrina and Her New Shoe and Sabrina, The ShoeperHero. Young readers see an adventurous character overcoming obstacles with courage and curiosity. What they may not realize is that Sabrina was born during one of the most difficult chapters of Hiller’s own life.
When I spoke with Dr. Hiller, I expected to hear about her remarkable career. She is an entrepreneur, educator, author, speaker, and respected leader in hospitality education. Yet the most compelling part of her story wasn’t her accomplishments—it was what happened when life forced her to slow down.
Like many high achievers, Hiller spent years focused on serving others while placing her own well-being second. Then everything changed. What followed required far more than physical recovery. It demanded a new relationship with herself. That relationship began with an unexpected decision: she gave her prosthetic leg a name. Sabrina.
What sounds playful is actually profound. Naming her prosthesis transformed it from a symbol of loss into something she could embrace. Soon Sabrina became more than a prosthetic leg. She became a character. That character became stories, and those stories became books that now encourage children facing challenges of their own.
Listening to Hiller, I realized resilience doesn’t always look like grit or determination. Sometimes it begins with imagination. Sometimes healing starts when we stop fighting our circumstances and begin rewriting our relationship with them.
Children will see Sabrina as a fun and courageous hero. Adults may see something deeper—a woman who chose creativity over bitterness, hope over despair, and purpose over pain. In a world that celebrates the comeback, Dr. Jokima Hiller reminds us that the real transformation often happens quietly, long before anyone applauds. Sometimes healing begins with one small decision.
And sometimes, it begins by giving a name to a prosthetic leg.
-Rick Bontkowski, a Chicago native and amputee, is the host creator of The AMP’D UP211 Podcast. A drummer, cyclist, and advocate, Rick shares the stories of people with limb differences to inspire, inform, and challenge perceptions worldwide. Contact info: Ampup211@gmail.com, ampup211.com, youtube.com/@theampdup211podcast6, instagram.com/rick_bontkowski.
{Discover additional stories from Rick’s podcast on our website at thespringsmagazine.com/category/health-wellness/ampd-up211/.}
