Melissa, if you want a true "lemonade from lemons" story, here's mine. It's really more of a "necessity is the mother of invention" story, but it's a lemonade story too.

About 12 years ago I sliced the tip of my left index finger off while making a salad.   What was cut off wasn't enough to warrant reattachment surgery -- or so it seemed at the time -- so I just had the urgent care unit sew the skin on my fingertip back together. For a day or two I cancelled gigs, but then for the next week or two I kept my engagements but had to adapt my playing.   I couldn't play a C chord, for instance, the way I was used to playing it.

Prior to that time, I'd convinced myself that my fingers were too small and wimpy to do barre chords, so I hadn't really put in a lot of time trying.   But now -- and even today, to some extent -it was painful to play some chords the way I used to, so I forced myself to learn to play a barred C chord.   Of course, that meant learning a totally moveable chord.    (So I now could actually play a B chord, which had always been a problem, since none of my finger joints bend backwards and my hands are small.) Anyway, losing the use of the tip of my left index finger for while ended up opening up new playing methods for me.

DK if that fits with your "lemonade" theme, but I think of it that way.