Still Fighting

A Journey of Grit, Grace and Growth

Tammy Cunnington

• Publisher: Life Sized Publishing
• eBook ISBN:
  9781997730187
• Year: 2025

Still Fighting is an extraordinary memoir of resilience, courage, and the relentless pursuit of possibility. At just six years old, Tammy Cunnington survived a catastrophic plane crash at the Ponoka Fly-In Breakfast in 1982, an event she remembers in fragments of running, impact, and being rushed away as her heart stopped twice in the ambulance. Her survival led to months in the ICU, 17 surgeries, hyperbaric treatments, and nearly a full year in hospital as doctors worked against impossible odds to save her life. But this is not a book about tragedy. It's a book about transformation. Through intimate storytelling, Tammy brings readers into the raw reality of recovery, learning to move again, fighting through nerve damage, enduring painful rehab, discovering freedom in a lightweight purple wheelchair, and meeting the world with a spirit far stronger than the body that survived. More than a reconstruction of what happened, this memoir captures what it means to rise: Finding identity again after life-altering injury Navigating childhood with a visible disability Being underestimated and choosing to prove people wrong Carrying trauma quietly while building a life of joy and independence Tammy's journey takes her from a hospital stretcher to competitive wheelchair basketball, to discovering triathlons, to ultimately representing Canada at the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games, a path shaped by grit, humour, stubborn optimism, and the belief that progress is worth celebrating, even when it begins with something as small as a pinky twitch. At its core, Still Fighting is a story about choosing to live boldly, even when life gives you every reason to pull back. It is about grief, family, identity, independence, athletics, and the unspoken emotional battles that come with being visibly different in an able-bodied world. Above all, it is a reminder in Tammy's own words that: "No matter how hard things get, I don't quit." Raw, uplifting, and deeply human, this memoir will resonate with anyone navigating adversity, redefining themselves after loss, or looking for proof that even when life knocks you down, you can rise stronger than before.

Table of contents

• Full Page Image
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• A Personal Word from Tammy
• 1. The Crash
• 2. Recovery
• 3. Home
• 4. The Basketball Years
• 5. Breaking Free: Finding Myself Again
• 6. Discovering Triathlons
• 7. The Road to Rio
• 8. Racing in Rio
• 9. Peaks and Setbacks
• 10. Hard Choices and Tokyo Trials
• 11. Tokyo and the Final Race
• 12. Beyond the Finish Line
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Full Page Image