Eye Borg

A few weeks ago while I was in Toronto I connected with Rob Spence, a one-eyed film maker (see if you can notice his bionic eye in the photo) who is making a documentary on today’s cyborgs as part of a promo for the new video game Deus Ex Human Revolution.

Bionic Eye

He wanted to interview me on my experiences with my i-Limb hand and as curious as he was about my hand I was just as curious about his eye!

Rob damaged his eye in a shotgun accident as a kid and decided to have it removed a while back. Recently he worked with a couple of engineers to take a tiny wireless camera and build a bionic eye…it doesn’t connect to his optic nerve or anything, but it is really cool.

His documentary compares the cybernetics available in the video game Deus Ex, set in 2027, with state of the art prosthetics today to see how far away we are.

You can watch the video below, Rob did a great job and you’ll see a few segments of the interview he did with me.

One Handed Wake Boarding

This last week Kerry and I were in Canada for our best friends wedding at Balsam Lake, Ontario. While there we got to play in boats on the lake and after my success knee boarding the other week I was up for giving anything a go.

I’d never wake boarded, even when I had two hands and wasn’t sure if I’d be able to pull up with one arm. After 2 attempts trying to hold on to the rope and failing it was third time lucky. With a slightly slower start I was able to keep hold and pull myself up and thanks to my years of snow boarding I was off to the races. What a blast!

Certainly tiring with only one arm, so for my next goes I donned my prosthetic hook to take some of the load, which helped greatly.

Waiting to Wake Surf

Then from wake boarding, to wake surfing – something entirely new to me. I was familiar with wake boarding, but I’d never heard of wake surfing.

Wake Surfing

You use a mini-surf board, your feet aren’t attached to the board and you need a wake boarding boat that has balast tanks to generate a huge wake…which you then surf.

You hold the rope and pull yourself up as the boat starts, then once the wake is established you surf it and drop the rope.

It’s wild, you’re actually surfing behind the boat as it motors along at 10 miles an hour or so.

You can watch the video below to see me in action…not bad for someone who’s never wake surfed before!

One Handed Knee Boarding

At the weekend I got to do something I’ve never tried before…knee boarding.

Now I’ve water skied a few times, prior to losing my hand and figured trying to get pulled up on skis behind a boat with just one arm might be a bit tough so had written off the idea of doing anything much beyond being towed around on an inflatable donut.

Well that’s before I discovered knee boarding…Kerry and I had joined some friends, who are avid water skiers, on a boating trip and as they merrily skied away I got talking to one of their kids who mentioned they knee boarded, “what’s that I asked?”

Basically it’s a bit like a boogie board (for any surfers out there) that you lay on while the boat tows you along and as you pick up speed you work your way up on to your knees and can then play around behind the boat similar to a wake board, I guess.

Sounded like something I could do so I gave it a shot and on my first attempt managed to maneuver myself up on to my knees (after much jiggling around). From there I worked out that by leaning (thanks to my years of snow boarding) I could direct the board across the boat’s wake…way more fun than just sitting behind the boat.

A most enjoyable experience, if somewhat tiring on the one arm. I’ll have to experiment rigging up some webbing or something so I can use my residual limb to take some of the strain, or maybe next time I’ll try it wearing my prosthetic. I’m looking forward to my next opportunity to knee board and it was just as well I got up on my first try since as I lost balance the rope went slack and then jerked, dislocating my shoulder…fortunately it’s an old injury so it jumped straight back in again…nothing a few days of rest won’t take care of.

Prepped For Surgery

Two weeks back I went in for what I hope will be my last surgery…EVER!

As some may recall back in 2009 I had a bike accident whilst training for my first Half Ironman that resulted in a broken clavicle and shattered left elbow (I don’t know what it is about my poor left arm).

The surgery patched up my elbow with various plates, screws and wires and I’ve been living with this for the last 18 months or so.

Elbow Metalwork

The challenge has been that I wear a prosthetic on my left arm everyday and when I go biking or compete in triathlons I put a lot of pressure on my prosthetic and arm. I was able to complete my recent 100 mile bike ride around Lake Tahoe, but not without a fair share of discomfort and pain in the old arm.

All-in-all the metalwork has made life a little uncomfortable, so I finally scheduled the surgery to get it all taken out. Now, I’ve had enough surgeries to last a life time so I promise this will be the last one…honest!

Fortunately everything went well…they cut along the same 6″ incision line as last time and according to the surgeon the procedure was just “tedious”…go figure!

I’m healing fast and earlier this week had the staples removed…a good friend called me the modern-day wolverine…now if only I could actually grow a new hand, that would be something!

Riding One Handed

Racing Around One handed

Before I lost my hand I loved to ride my Suzuki GSX-R750, amazing bike.

I used to have an earlier model back in the UK and bought another one in 2005 after getting my bike license in the US.

After I lost my hand I sold my bike and bought a Toyota Prius instead, great for my 90 mile commute, but not quite the same acceleration. I’d always said that one day I’d get back on a bike again.

Well at the weekend I finally did, although not quite what I had envisaged (need to be more specific on that old goal setting thing). We had a BBQ at my brother’s place on Sunday here in the UK to celebrate Kerry’s birthday, had some old friend’s around who we haven’t seen for a good few years and there were a number of children in attendance. Unbeknownst to me Sean had a little petrol powered kiddies bike…well, can’t say no to that. So after the children had all had a go it was my turn, i-Limb hand, bike and me. Look at that smile!

My GSX-R750

Well this got me thinking, really thinking, what was it I had learnt since losing my hand 3 or so years back that I might be able to share? For what it’s worth, here’s what I came up with.

First, right at the beginning my mindset was that whilst I might have a disability, I didn’t consider myself disabled. My disability wasn’t who I was, it wasn’t my ‘identity’ or how I saw myself. I decided to have fun with my disability, to challenge my disability and be playful about it with others.

Secondly, I refused to see myself as being any different. I knew that if I started to see myself differently then other’s would pick up on it and feel differently, even awkward, around me, which I would then pick up on, which would then re-inforce my own negative feelings and start a vicious cycle. If you see yourself differently from how you wish others to see you, don’t be surprised when you perceive that others see you thus. If you feel incomplete, or disabled, or disfigured or whichever way it is for you, then with that in your mind you’ll start to perceive that that’s how others are thinking of you, it’s all bullshit, but, that’s just the way the mind works.

Thirdly, I look odd, people will stare, it means nothing, it’s just a natural reaction. Hell, when I catch myself in the mirror I stare, my body lacks symmetry, the human mind is used to symmetrical bodies. The question is, what does it mean to you when you catch someone glancing your way? Whatever you think they are thinking, I can guarantee you are wrong, you have no way of knowing what the other person thinks, so I prefer to believe they find me so incredibly attractive that they can’ help but look my way. I just smile, be open to questions or just continue on my way. Forget the stories you tell yourself about what you think they are thinking, again it’s bullshit. Generally I’m oblivious to it, but occasionally I’ll catch someone and it makes me smile.

Here’s a great video on this very topic:

I hope that this might help someone in some small way, remember you get to decide the meaning you attach to an event in your life…why not make that meaning serve you rather than hinder you.

Deny and I

I met Deny (he’s 22) a few weeks back, I was introduced to him via TouchBionics since he lives in the Northern California area and was very interested in the i-Limb hand after losing his hand in an industrial accident, back in December.

He dropped by with his sister, Rebecka, on their way to his medical appointment in San Francisco. Deny’s hand was literally ripped of when his jacket got caught in a machine at work and for someone barely a month post accident, he’s recovering extremely well, and for someone only 22, has a great positive outlook on life. It was interesting to swap “war” stories, he was comparing the feelings and sensations he gets with what I’d described on my blog during my recovery.

It was great to meet Deny and hopefully, in time, he’ll be able to get fitted for an i-Limb hand and I hope he enjoys as much success with it as I have.

Terminator

For Halloween this year I simply took the glove of my i-Limb hand, put on a leather biker jacket and pants, added a pair of sunglasses and voila, Terminator!

This photo was taken at a friends party (they go all out decorating their house). Just after this photo was taken someone came walking past and as I spoke they turned around and said to their partner, “hey, this one speaks”, before she realized I wasn’t a manikin but a real person. So I guess it must have been pretty convincing.

Next year I’ll have to get into the gym so I also have the muscles to match the costume.

Closed Circuit Rebreather

While I was in Grand Cayman on vacation I took the chance to try out a closed circuit re-breather. This is different from normal open-circuit SCUBA gear in that you re-breath the same air.

I remember when these units first started to be available for recreational diving a good few years back, it always peaked my interest, so I couldn’t miss a chance to finally give one a go.

DiveTech run a re-breather experience course for an afternoon (highly recommend giving it a go if you get a chance), Steve Tippets ran the course, another Brit and really good instructor. To my surprise I didn’t get to try one in a pool, as I had expected, but I got to go on an actual shore dive with it. After spending a bit of time in the classroom on safety and dive theory we then got familiar with the re-breather. After some basic skill tests, to make sure I could operate everything with one hand,  we got kitted up for the dive.

We walked down the pier and climbed into the water, swam out a little way and then descended. That’s where the difference between normal diving hits you, the buoyancy control is very different – breathing no longer changes your buoyancy the same way it does with normal open-circuit gear. It’s not untypical for first timers to bounce around on the bottom or keep hitting the surface as they try to get accustomed to the re-breather. Fortunately, I bounced once, settled down and then got the hang of it…which meant we could then spend the whole time actually diving. The biggest difference you notice is how quite it is, with no bubbles escaping you can literally swim into the middle of a shoal of fish and have them swimming around you, normally your breathing would have scared them off.

The buoyancy control is quite different to normal diving, normally breathing out causes you to sink as you lose buoyancy, and breathing in causes you to rise. Well, with a re-breather it’s the opposite, although to a lesser degree. After a while you get use to it, but every now and then it catches you out as you try to breath out to stop rising, to only then rise further.

All in all great fun and many thanks to Steve. I might be back one of these days to take the full course.

Fun under Water

Kerry and I just got back from our diving vacation in Grand Cayman, 10 days of fun with 8 days of diving. I got in a total of 19 dives, we took a NITROX course and I got to play with a closed circuit re-breather (but more of that in a future post).

This was our first dive trip since my accident, although we did do a dive in Fiji last year, the diving was great as you can see from the photo (which is actually me!).

On the Boat

As expected I didn’t really have any problems diving one-handed. Kerry made an alteration to my wetsuit before we left, cutting the left arm and sewing up the end so I didn’t have the loose arm dangling around. It worked very effectively and kept my stump nice and warm. I got a new console dive computer so I didn’t need to wear my dive computer on my left arm, but other than that everything was normal.

It was good to be back diving properly, we stayed at Cobalt Coast and dived with DiveTech, that run the dive operation there. The owner and staff at the hotel where great, so was the food and the dock runs  right out from the dive shop at the hotel so the diving was really convenient. I highly recommend the whole setup if you want some serious diving. DiveTech run a great and friendly operation and are setup for any kind of diving you could want (we ended up diving NITROX the second half of the trip).