I’ve started the process to get an i-Limb hand from TouchBionics! This week I met with Dr. Suzy Kim at Kaiser in Martinez. I had been referred to her by my general doctor so I could make a case to get an i-Limb hand. I hadn’t met Dr. Kim before, so didn’t know what to expect. Suffice to say, I was suitably impressed. She was very open to hearing about the challenges I’ve had with my conventional, body-powered device and after an examination of my stump said she felt I would be a good candidate for a myo-electric device.

I showed her the data sheet on the i-Limb hand and she agreed that it could make quite a difference for me and agreed to put in a referral so I can get one…the process is underway! I’m keeping my fingers crossed that Kaiser agree to pay for it.

Since I meet Stuart Mead, CEO of TouchBionics, earlier this year I have been able to get an i-Limb hand in advance of getting through the Kaiser approval process, so I contacted Rich Sire at Diablo Prosthetics & Orthotics to start the process of getting it fitted. The guys at TouchBionics and Rich have been great!

And the hand arrived this week. It comes in a heavy duty case, all sealed up, that contains the hand itself, cosmesis (the outer skin), battery & charger, instruction manuals and a cute, little toolkit.

So on Friday I met with Rich to start the process of fabricating a socket for the hand. The first step was to use a myo-electric tester to find the best sites for the electrodes. Once these had been identified Rich was able to mark up the test socket he’d built so he knew where they would need to be located.

The next job is to fabricate a full test socket that I can then really use to try out the hand before he makes a final carbon fiber one. If all goes well I should be up and running with in the next month!