(Editor’s Note: This is the fourth n a series of stories highlighting recipients of this year’s Inspiring: Women Awards luncheon. Read more here.)
The phone call came on a morning when Amy Dotson was too depressed to get out of bed.
“Would she be interested in attending an adaptive sports clinic – at no cost to you?” was the question from the other end of the line.
She thought about it. What did she have to lose? So she said yes.
The Air Force veteran, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) in 2014, had participated in adaptive sporting events such as wheelchair racing and swimming not long after she learned her prognosis.
“I did the Warrior games in 2016 on the Air Force team, and I was on Team USA in the Invictus games in 2017 in Toronto,” said Dotson of Gtovetown who received the Inspiring: Determination award at the Inspiring: Women Awards on Sept. 24 at Flowing Wells Theatre.
As the disease progressed, it not only took away her health, but it took pieces of her freedom. She was unable to leave her home, unable to participate in activities she once enjoyed.
“I felt my life had been held hostage to a degree,” she said.
MS had led her slowly into that prison.
She started having random symptoms in 2006, but it would take doctors eight years to put them all together.
“Multiple sclerosis is an unpredictable disease of the central nervous system. The central nervous system includes the brain, spinal cord and optic nerves. This system controls everything we do. MS disrupts the flow of information within the brain and between the brain and the rest of the body,” according to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society website.
Dotson experienced some numbness and tingling on the left side of her face in 2006. A trip to the ER ruled out a stroke. Doctors told her to come back if it happened again. It did.
Over the years, she had different symptoms, but no one linked them together until in 2014 when she fractured her hand in a fall after having vertigo. A doctor dove into her medical records and started looking for the source of her vertigo.
An MRI revealed some lesions on her brain and a spinal tap confirmed the diagnosis. That brought some relief to her.
“I finally had a name for what’s going on,” she said. “For years I heard I was making up my symptoms or that it was all in my head. It was all in my head. I had images to prove it.”
While knowing what she was facing was a relief, living with its reality was not.
“There was a period of time that I felt I was just existing,” she said. “I was no longer able to drive. I didn’t have an accessible vehicle.”
She had to rely on others to make doctors’ appointments. While food delivery is great, she said, she just wanted to be able to pick out her own produce.
“All my life I’d been the helper. It was frustrating for me. I felt relationships were lopsided,” she said.
And she didn’t know how to ask for the help she needed.
She’d heard of the Paralyzed Veterans of America, but she had no idea she’d ever need the organization. Before her diagnosis, she even volunteered for a bass fishing tournament the group sponsored.
“Paralyzed Veterans of America has become that sense of community,” she said. “It has a rich history. It started in 1946 and it’s the only veterans’ service organization that’s dedicated to veterans with spinal cord injuries and disease like MS and ALS. To me, that was important.”
In 2024, she said she got her life back because of someone with the PVA who looked into her records and found everything in them that she needed to get an accessible vehicle.
Then in 2025, she wheeled back into adaptive sports traveling to that winter adaptive sports clinic where she found another community. A few months later, she took part in the Valor games.
Her most recent competition was in July when she participated in the National Wheelchair Veteran games in Detroit. She brought home several medals including two golds in swimming, silver medals in rally, air rifle and air pistol and bronze in seated discus and seated shotput.
“I’m having a lot of fun,” she said in a message during the games.
She also spoke on a panel on the history of wheelchair games and the significance of adaptive sports.
And she knows how significant these games are to her.
“My MS diagnosis has opened up a lot of opportunity that I never had before. It’s a silver lining,” she said.
Charmain Z. Brackett, the publisher of Augusta Good News and Inspiring: Women of Augusta, has covered Augusta’s news for more than 35 years. She’s won multiple Georgia Press Association awards, is the recipient of the 2018 Greater Augusta Arts Council’s media award and was named best local writer by readers of Augusta Magazine in 2024 and 2025. Reach her at charmain@augustagoodnews.com. Sign up for the newsletter here
