Archives for December 2006

Guess what, losing my hand hasn’t stopped me hitting the slopes. Well, no big surprise there since I snowboard – which isn’t heavily dependent on the use of one’s hands. But, nevertheless, it’s great to get back out there after missing the end of last season.

I typically do day trips with my good friend Robert Greene. We’ll drive up to Kirkwood, or perhaps Squaw, Saturday morning and back again that evening. This way we miss that crazy Bay Area traffic.

Last year we use to drive up in my Jeep Wrangler, but, I had to sell that last year when I bought my Prius…luckily though Robert bought, so now it’s his turn to drive!

Whilst I didn’t expect loosing my hand would stop me from boarding I did use my loss as an excuse to upgrade my equipment this season. I wanted to find some boots that would be easy to manage with one hand and while I was wandering around a shop in Lake Tahoe back in September that’s just what I found.

These boots are just great, the dial allows me to easily tighten them with one hand…hell, even if I had two hands I’d want these boots. Of course, it didn’t stop there, new boots meant I’d need new bindings (my old bindings were specific to my old boots) and why not get a new board while I’m at it too!

So I ended up with a completely new setup but have had to wait until now to get back on the snow and give it a try. As they say, good things come to those that wait…

And the other good thing is, as an amputee, I get half price lift tickets at Kirkwood and at Squaw it’s only $25! Now, I don’t recommend you rush out and chop of your hand or leg just to get cheap lift tickets, but, I’ll take whatever upside I can get thank you very much.

…is a new left hand.

Seriously though, I’ve been researching over the last six months or so advances in upper limb prosthetics to get a feel for what’s out there and I truly believe that in the next 10 years, maybe even 5, I will get my wish.

I see 3 distinct possibilities:

1. I will get a ‘Luke Skywalker Hand’
2. I will get a hand transplant
3. I will grow a new hand

You see, I view the loss of my left hand as a temporary inconvenience, a bit like breaking your arm and having to wear a plaster cast. You miss the use of your arm, it’s annoying, but not the end of the world. Then after 4-6 weeks, the cast comes off and you get back to normal. Maybe it’ll be 4-6 years for me, but, based on my research I don’t see why this shouldn’t be the case.

So, theory #1, ‘Luke Skywalker Hand’:

There are some interesting advances being made in upper-limb prosthetics, I’m particularly excited by the hands being developed with fully articulated fingers. The closet I’ve seen that is soon-to-be-commercially available is from TouchBionics.

Theory #2, hand transplants:

I was quite amazed to discover that there were people who have received hand transplants, the first being over 8 years ago! And there have been at least 2 double hand transplants. I’m keen to learn what level of motor function can be achieved and what’s involved, but it looks promising.

Theory #3, growing a new hand:

This is the one that is perhaps the most ‘out there’, but in time it seems quite likely that we’ll be able to grow replacements limbs. I haven’t found as much concrete research in this area but I’ll keep looking.

Quite literally! I finally got my hand back from Hanger last week after they finished drilling a hole in it so I could insert a locking pin. The plan is to use it for weight training and bike riding…so I thought I’d give it a test ride.

I inserted the locking pin so that the hand was locked closed (I’d measured it before they drilled the hole to ensure the hand would fit over the handlebar). I then threaded the hand over the end of the handle bar and I was off. It worked pretty well. I’ll need to experiment a little with the angle of the hand since when riding there was pressure on the outer side of my arm, but it worked!

I also tried riding with the harness on and not using the locking pin, wasn’t too bad but the cable restricted my movement some and I had to keep constant pressure on it to keep the hand gripping the handlebar. The benefit being that if I fall off I wouldn’t still be attached to the bike since the hand would release.

The next step is to get the gear changer moved from the left side to a twist changer on the right, that way I will have access to both deraileurs on one side. I may also get both brake cables routed to one lever, TRS have a special lever just for this purpose.