Living In Motion 359 Days A Year... because you get 6 days to be a couch potato!

Living In Motion 359 Days A Year... because you get 6 days to be a couch potato!

Living In Motion 359 Days A Year

LIM359 - Living In Motion 359 Days A Year...

because you get 6 days to be a couch potato!

Favorite 2014 Memory – By Emily H.

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One of my favorite memories from 2014 was Christmas because it was the first time Zach and I were able to share it with both of our families.  This was also the first time our families have really been able to spend an extended amount of quality time with each other and that was very special to me.  We have family on opposite coasts, so we usually spend Thanksgiving with one family and Christmas with the other.  This year, however, we managed to entice everyone to come to Colorado for Christmas.  Our crew included parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, and our niece and nephew (the cutest of the bunch).  In all, 22 people gathered together to celebrate Christmas and the bonds of family.  Before everyone arrived, I spent a few days in the kitchen preparing food for Christmas Eve, Christmas Brunch, and Christmas Dinner (including 10 pounds of mashed potatoes alone).  It’s a little ironic because I can go out and pound my residual limb by running with no problems, but standing in a kitchen for long periods of time or visiting a museum tends to make my leg really sore.  Despite this, it was all worth it because the food was delicious and our families got to spend time getting to know each other instead of cooking.  Two days after Christmas, we also went down to Colorado Springs to hike at Garden of the Gods.  It was an amazingly clear and beautiful day, and a great way to wrap-up a wonderful time with family in our beloved state of Colorado.

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Most of the family who spent Christmas with us, minus the 5 who were already out hiking.

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Learn more about Emily here.

Blessed with Amazing Friends – By Michelle S.

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I am Michelle. I am an able bodied member of LIM359.  Dr. Franklin invited me to assist herself, Emily H and Whitney in the beginning phases of LIM 359. It has been exciting to help them get the ball rolling because I knew what a great resource this would be. There have been many people in my life that would have benefited from this group.

One of my best friends growing up had Muscular Dystrophy. Troy had the best outlook on life.  With me in tow I walked and he drove his electric wheelchair, mile after mile in our own quest for the Holy Grail. Our Holy Grail was to fill the boot of one of the many firefighters who collect donations for MDA every Labor Day.  I never personally saw him walk but my sisters did.  My memories of him are in his manual wheelchair, then on to electric and finally one that fully reclined and had a controller that allowed him to operate his chair with his mouth. The disease ravaged his body but in all the years I knew Troy, there is not one time I can recall that he ever complained. He rejoiced when he went to camp and got to dance with his friends. I was always excited when he came home from camp to hear his stories. It was such a wonderful resource I remember always being happy he had that available to him. 

Troy never had the opportunity to achieve his goal which was simply to live until a cure for Muscular Dystrophy was found. His “expiration date” was the age of 17. He lived until he was 24. The support of his family was amazing. Not many people will ever endure what they had to do to support him in living beyond his expectation. “Disabilities” affect more than just the individual that is physically challenged. They require the love, assistance and support of their families and friends. To this day I still make sure to deposit what I can in the boot for MDA and collect my sticker from the Firefighters. Each year they not only come closer to a cure, but the money raised also assists in sending children to camp.

Kelly lived across the street. She was run over by a tractor by her father. Even though she was paralyzed from the waist down, she was a powerful force. She would ride her wheelchair up and down a city block in a wheelie. Then, plop out of her chair and into the grass and watch the neighborhood boys take her chair and attempt to ride a wheelie in her chair at all.  Nobody ever beat her record. Kelly was married and she and her husband started “Bear Steam Cleaning” which is still a successful business in Colorado.  Every time I have hired them, they have had employees who care about their job and the service they provide. Kelly would be proud.

Neither Troy nor Kelly ever complained about their situations. They embraced life… I was so young in knowing them that I did not appreciate the gift they provided me but in my adult life I understand what remarkable individuals they were and how fortunate I was to know them. 

My Uncle Harry and Aunt Helen were also very important foundations in my life that inspired me. My Uncle Harry was in WWII.  He lost his right leg by stepping on a land mine. He never discussed his injury and I never knew his full story until he was in his 80’s. He had his prosthetic leg for so long that he had to have reconstructive surgery on his left ankle due to “wear and tear”. My mother, sister and I went out to Arizona for the surgery. That is when we found his scrapbook.  My uncle was awarded the Purple Heart because he would not allow his troop to come to his aid. He knew they were at risk so he carefully backed himself out of the mine field to safety.  The communication of the time was telegraph. My aunt was informed that he was in a hospital “stop”. No other detail. She waited for over a month before she knew where he was and if he was alive or dead. Had he allowed his troop to get him more quickly he would have only lost his foot. He ended up being a below the knee amputee because of the time it took him to retreat from the mine field. He recovered and went on about their lives only to discover that my aunt was unable to bear children. Due to the laws of the time, they were unable to adopt because of his “disability” (it did not matter that he was disabled due to serving our country). My aunt and uncle’s misfortune happened to be a benefit to my sisters and myself. They were an integral part of our lives as we grew up. They had a cabin in Netherland, Colorado. When we went to visit them, as children of a single parent household, we had the opportunity to be children. We played many games during our stay and their cabin was always filled with laughter.  We were able to enjoy the black starlit sky and the sounds of the river flowing alongside the cabin. Skip rocks, hike and run around without a care.  Again, never to hear a complaint from the problems they endured, but always praise at our manners and encouragement to follow our dreams and never doubt our intelligence and talents.

Throughout the year I have served on the board, I have had the opportunity to be a part of a group that is available to enrich people’s lives. I have met amazing individuals through the group and I am proud that I have been able to be a part since inception.  I have heard the many stories that have brought our members together. Once again, I find I am so blessed to have so many amazing friends.

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Learn more about Michelle here.

AFOs for Shy – By Athena C.

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These last couple of weeks have been crazy. Shyanne has gone from doing just speech and OT therapy to now having PT and have a play specialist.

I am going to start off with the good part of this last week. Part of Shyannes play therapy is going out in the community and doing different activities with other children close in age and all with special needs. Well, this week’s adventure was to attend a gymnastics open gym! Oh boy, both Izzy and Shy had so much fun! Izzy walked all 3 different levels of blance beams. They also had a big trampoline built into the floor. I have never seen my kids have as big of smiles on their faces for this long! Shy loved bouncing on the trampoline and Izzy would jump into the foam pit with her Aunt! They even convinced me to get onto the trampoline.

Well, Friday was a very emotional day for me. Shyanne has to have AFOs due to bad balance, needing extra ankle support, and because she walks a lot on her toes. She has done this since she started walking, but the OT was hoping that she would outgrow it. Friday was not emotional because I was scared of her having AFOs, or as I call them braces. Why would I be scared of them? I have had them since I was tiny. It wasn’t because of her AFO doctor. I will only let her see mine because I trust him.  It was emotional because as a parent you never want to see your child, especially as young as Shy, going through some of the medical issues you have faced. I mean my poor little girl who has already gone through so much and she’s not even two! As I sat there holding her tight so that she could be measured I couldn’t help but to cry. She was scared of the doctor and what was going on. Meanwhile I was worried about blisters and if they would hurt her. I never thought that I would have a child that would need leg braces. So now we wait two and a half weeks and go pick them up.

Shyanne has also been having a lot of asthma issues and not letting mommy leave her. Izzy has gotten her first school pictures! I can’t believe how fast she is growing up! They turned out amazing and they actually caught a real izzy smile! She also has aid her first really big sentence “daddy I asked my mommy to watch Snowman.” When she says Snowman, she’s referring to the movie Frozen. It’s amazing how much preschool is helping her with her speech!!!!

Well I must go. Please feel free to ask questions as always and thank you for reading my blog!!!!

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Learn more about Athena here.

Amputees on Ice – by Olivia M.

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Frozen Dead Guy

Two Saturdays ago, I was finally able to attend my first Frozen Dead Guy celebration in Nederland, Colorado. Unfortunately we couldn’t get up there until about 5pm and most of the events were over but I didn’t care, it was an adventure.  We tore down the winding mountain slopes and parked in front of a cute train carriage coffee shop.  Once we had some hot, caffeinated beverages, we started to stroll down the path towards the festival street and immediately hit some impediments.  The sidewalks were completely iced, so I did my usual *shuffle like a grandma* walk and kept going.  I figured that with so many people there, the pavements couldn’t possibly be that bad.

Boy was I wrong.

I watched as 3 people slipped on the same huge patch of ice.  One girl stopped to help a guy up and then slammed hard onto the ground herself.  I sloshed straight through a muddy puddle rather than even attempting the slippery surface.  We made our way under the bridge and up the hill and I almost fell myself.  I passed a girl sitting on a rock, holding a blood-soaked tissue to her face whilst explaining to the police that she had just face-planted into the concrete and that was when I started to get worried about being there at all.  With my arm still splinted and healing from surgery, I couldn’t risk a fall.  I shuffled across the street, looked around and saw nothing but a minefield of ice-encrusted surfaces.  We managed to hobble into a couple stores, take a peek at the Dead Shed, and then we decided to leave before the sun set and everything completely froze.

Walking on ice as an amputee can be extremely difficult.  It’s one of the only things I have found few ways to improve.  I have practiced walking, climbing, jumping, running, and I have gotten better, but the moment I step on ice, I am back to baby steps.  With no foot or ankle to stabilize pressure on a frosty surface, if you slip, you’re going down.  I can’t even imagine how hard it must be for above-knee or double amputees.

yaktrax to the rescue

Ice doesn’t just make me walk funny, it makes me feel incapable and dependent, and I hate that.  When I got home, I immediately started researching and found that many people have had similar experiences.  There don’t seem to be many ways to combat this but one product that came with tons of glowing reviews was the Yaktrax.  I had thought of using something like this in the past and didn’t like the idea of needing another device to help me, but after this last experience, I’m going to be giving it a shot!

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Learn more about Olivia here.

Fear and Survival Traits – By Olivia M.

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The only experiences I have had in hospital have been extremely traumatic.  I thought that was par for the course.  “No one wants to go to hospital,” I thought.  “To be incapacitated, drugged, cut into.”  Some people elect to, for various reasons.  I am not one of them.

 After I was injured in the bombing, I did everything I could to avoid any further surgery.  I grasped at every advancement in my recovery as though my life depended on it, which perhaps it did.  When I was able to raise myself up in bed alone, nothing was going to stop me from doing that again.  With my first shaky steps on my new prosthesis, I swore that nothing within my power would stop me from walking again.

Some doctors talked about cosmetic surgery, some talked about refining my stump, or taking tendons from my remaining leg and placing them in my shattered hand.  “Hell no!”  I thought.  ”I don’t care what I look like…I function.”  And, to be honest, I was scared stiff of being hurt again and incapacitated in any way.

I fought to walk so well that I hoped no-one could tell.  I practiced piano with my broken fingers.  I got a guitar from a friend and learnt to play with the two fingers I could move on my left hand.  I wrote songs with two strings and sang my heart out on the back steps of our house.  I loved my music.  It was one of my greatest joys.  I wrote about my thoughts and feelings.  Sang about my loves and losses.  It was my way of processing every experience.  I would jam with friends, perform in their bands and at open mic nights and after 10 years, I was feeling pretty comfortable with a guitar.

Acoustic Guitar

Everything was always difficult.  I was used to it.  Walking long distances would make my stump throb and give me excruciating cysts.  I’d struggle to play piano and guitar with 3 fingers that I could barely move and couldn’t straighten but I always thought that this was “par for the course”.  So when I started having more trouble pressing those fingers down on the strings, I thought “You’re out of practice, Liv, you need to work harder.”  I took up hand drumming and when my left hand started to develop some numbness, I thought “This is par for the course, your nerves are damaged and you’re banging on them.  Keep pushing through.” But when I started waking up in the night with my arm numb and in pain, I started to realize that perhaps this wasn’t just par for the course.  I had tests done, met with doctors and, to my horror, they announced that I needed surgery desperately but that the damage was already done.  My hand had atrophied terribly, the nerve damage was extensive and I could have avoided this if I had fixed it years ago.  I sobbed that day in their office.  I cried that it was my fault, that I could have avoided it, that I needed surgery, and that there was nothing that I alone could do to make it better.  I had thought I was doing the right thing. Ignoring the protests of my body and pushing through had been my survival trait and yet because of it I had pushed through something I shouldn’t have.

My terror of surgery and sadness at what I had done was immense and I wallowed in it for almost a year before scheduling the procedure that I had to have but that would do so little now.  The day before the surgery finally arrived and I was literally shaking with fear non-stop.  Then I got a call from the doctor to say that, because of another health issue, they would have to cancel.  I cried for 3 days.  The terror of surgery still loomed but there was no relief in sight.

I procrastinated for almost another year before scheduling again and when the time finally came, I was still terrified but so desperate to have it over and done with that I almost felt ready.  I couldn’t believe it when I was finally sitting in that hospital bed.  I wanted to run away screaming.  I cried and shivered and then they injected me with their calming cocktail and that’s the last thing I remember.  When I woke up, I felt great.  I chatted with the nurses and with my boyfriend and asked the same questions over and over and, after an hour, I tumbled into my clothes and walked out of the hospital.  I sank into the car seat and kept intoning “I can’t believe it’s done.”  Years of terror over surgery, over being incapacitated, and here I had just WALKED out of the hospital.  The relief was more immense than I can express and here I sit, just over a week later, writing this blog with two hands, no pain, feeling fully capable and strengthened by the knowledge that I can do this again.

From now on, I want to listen to my body.  I know there will be more scary surgeries in the future.  I know I will feel that fear again, but I want to remember this moment, the “after” when it is done and there is nothing left to do but recover and feel the pride of having faced a fear and won.

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Learn more about Olivia here.

The Fragile Staircase – By Emily H.

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I posted this picture on the LIM359 Facebook page earlier today because I thought it provided a good perspective on tackling life’s challenges.  We so often reach the “I want to do it” step, but fail to attain the ability to say, “Yes, I did it!”  While it could be partially due to outside forces, I believe it’s most often caused by our own internal doubts about our abilities.  I’ve really had a chance to reflect on this recently as I’ve been studying to take the bar exam at the end of February.  (Despite how easy Elle Woods makes it seem in Legally Blonde, this is a monumentally intimidating task.)

My family and friends tell me I’ll be fine and that I’ll pass the exam with flying colors, but I continue to doubt my own ability.  I study for 8-10 hours a day and tell myself “I can do it.”  I’ve paid the $500 fee and been approved to sit for the exam, so I’ve committed to the fact that “I will do it.”  Yet, there are still many times when I find myself feeling like “I can’t do it.”  It’s as if I’m straddled between those three different steps, not fully committed to one or the other.

It’s frustrating to be sure, but I think maybe it’s also healthy.

If I was solely committed to and confident in my footing on the “I can do it step,” I might lose the drive to continue pushing myself.  I might start slacking, get stagnant, and next thing I know, I’d have inadvertently fallen back to a step not even pictured here, that of “I don’t even care about trying to do it.”  Sadly, I’d have allowed myself to tumble down the staircase before reaching the final stage of, “Yes, I did it!”

In contrast, while I’m straddling the 3 steps, I genuinely feel the fragile nature of the staircase.  I’m acutely aware of the fact that I could easily fall backwards.  Rather than comfortably resting on the “I can do it” step, I realize I have to work hard to push to that final rewarding step.  This is what drives me.

Rather than asking what step you’re on today (especially if you’re straddling multiple steps like I am), maybe it’s actually more important to be aware of the impact of your self-doubt so you’re able to defeat it and conquer that fragile staircase so you can eventually tell people, “Yes, I did it!”

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Learn more about Emily here.

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Living In Motion 359 Days A Year...

because you get 6 days to be a couch potato!