Archives for October 2006

I’ve been taking Goji juice twice a day since about June to aid in my recovery. It was something Kerry was introduced to by people she works with. She ended up signing up as a “Marketing Exec” with Free Life, the makers of Goji, and has been selling a little of it at her massage practice…although I think the two of us consume way more than she sells.

Anyway, the idea behind it is the molecules in the Goji berry “serve as directors and carriers
of the instructions that cells use to communicate with each other and aid in the smooth functioning of virtually every cell in the entire body“.

Whilst it’s hard to isolate the effect of Goji per se, (since I also switched to a vegetarian diet during this time), my recovery has been pretty fast. My skin grafts have healed well (scroll down to earlier posts for the before shots) and my overall health and vitality has definitely improved. I use to have quite dark rings under my eyes, nowadays you’d be hard pressed to see them, and my skin tended to be greasy and now it’s much clearer with a better overall tone.

Kerry has even been shipping some back to the UK for her mum who’s been having a few health challenges recently, hopefully if will help her also. If you’re interested, try some yourself – you can sign up via Kerry’s homepage (only if you’re in the US, UK shipping next year).

My guitar attachment from TRS arrived this week, so on Thursday I went and bought a left-handed guitar. Now I can start to learn to play all over again. It took me six years to get to the point where I could play a tune last time, hopefully it won’t take quite so long this time around.

Definitely feels strange to be making chords with my right hand, I have to imagine a mirror image of how I would normally make the chords with my other hand…which really threw me at first. When I was trying out the guitar in the shop I couldn’t understand why it sounded so bad, must be the guitar I thought. Then the guy in the shop asked what cord I was trying to make and pointed out my fingers were doing a back-to-front ‘C’!

Strumming is going to take some practice too, it’s a whole arm motion from the elbow now, rather than a wrist action. It’s tricky getting a smooth strum across all the strings, both down and up. I’m sure with practice I’ll finesse it, but, for the moment it doesn’t sound to good to say the least. Poor Kerry’s going to have to live through me murdering the guitar yet again.

The attachment from TRS is pretty cool, the pick is held in place with a couple of screws and the head of the attachment swivels as does the arm holding the pick, so I can position it however I want.

I restart my lessons again next week with Troy, whose been my guitar teacher for the last 4+ years. I’m looking forward to playing again, it’ll probably take a couple of years to get back to anything like I was, an opportunity to focus more on the theory this time around.

Now I have my prosthesis I can start to experiment a bit…no, not that kind of experimentation…my latest adventure is yoga (see photo opposite of my “downward facing dog”). Kerry and I had started going to yoga classes at our local gym in Danville last year and I had wondered if I’d be able to do it again. I really need to do something to get back in shape.

So the guys at Hanger ordered me a “Super Sport” attachment for my arm from TRS (they specialise in different attachments for upper limb amputees). This “hand” allows me to put full weight on my left arm – as you can see in the photo. I strip down my prosthesis, taking all the cables off and plug-in my flexi-hand and I’m good to go.

I’ve been a couple of times now and although I’m stiff as a board and completely unfit (you should have seen me sweating), I can do most things I used to (although haven’t tried a handstand yet). The one struggle I have is I can’t quite bend my left elbow all the way into a press up position since my socket digs in to my arm too much, I’ll have to see if it can be cut back a bit to give me more range of motion.

I now have my prosthesis, still a few adjustments to be made, but I use it everyday (kind of have to since I can’t legally drive without it). I thought you might be interested in how it all works, so I took a few photos to help explain.

My prosthesis consists of a “socket” that attaches to my stump. There are different approaches as to how a socket attaches to or can be “suspended” from a stump, in my case it uses suction to stay on (the nice part being there aren’t any extra harnesses or braces).

I first put a silicon liner on my arm, a bit like putting on a wetsuit. The liner helps protect my arm, but its main purpose is to create a seal inside the socket via the lip at the end (these liners cost about $450 a piece).

Next I slide my stump into the socket, there’s a bit of a knack to this since my arm is a little bulbous in the middle. I slide my stump in bit by bit, alternating between pushing it in and trying to pull it out again. The air escapes through the white, one-way valve you can see in the photo. Once on, the vacuum keeps the socket locked in place nice and secure, I just press the valve to release it.

Now I velcro the cuff around my bicep, which routes the cable behind my back (this is still a work-in-progress), and put my arm through the white loop which goes over my right shoulder. Using the movement of my arm forward, or a shrug of my shoulders, I can pull the cable and thus open the hook on the end. I’m still getting use to this system and most often just take the cable system off and use the hook as a “passive” device…which is just fine for driving.

I have several other attachments that Hanger ordered for me from TRS, Inc., each one connects to the end of the socket via a quick release, so it’s relatively easy to change the devices around.

The “Grip Prehensor” is what’s called a “voluntary closing” device, unlike the hook above, which is “voluntary opening”, pulling on the cable closes the hand allowing me to exert 100 lbs or more of force (the hook uses elastic bands to close and is limited to 5-10 lbs of force).

My plan is to use this for bike riding and weight training, there is also a lock pin that I can insert that allows me to lock the hand on to bike handlebars, for example. By the way, these things aren’t cheap, this attachment alone is in the region of $1200 (thankfully my medical insurance covers 80% of this).

My last attachment currently is the “Super Sport” flex-hand, which allows me to do things like yoga…but more on this later. I have also just ordered a guitar accessory that will allow me to strum a guitar again (unfortunately not covered by insurance), I’ll let you know how I get on with it.