Archives for 2006

Due to the electrical burns on my right leg and the skin grafts on my right and left legs my plastic surgeon recommended I wear Jobst compression garments to help reduce scarring and help prevent hypertrophic scarring, and for my stump to help reduce the edema (swelling).

When he first suggested the jobst garments I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but it didn’t sound too bad for a short period of time. When I asked him how long I’d need to wear them for he said a year, oh and it works best if I wear them 24 hours a day!

Now that didn’t sound like fun to me. Where we live in Northern California it can get pretty warm during the summer months, temperatures over 100F aren’t uncommon…wearing the equivalent of a pair of thermal tights through the summer didn’t seem like it was going to be too comfortable.

Anyhow I went and got fitted for the garments and about 2 weeks later the first set arrived and I got to try them on. It’s like putting on a pair of thick lycra tights and they use special gloves (they look like very thick washing up gloves) to help pull them up because the material is quite shear and slippery. My leg garments are crotchless (very sexy) and I wear my underpants over the top, just like superman.

I now have two pairs of garments for both my legs and arm and whilst I wasn’t too sure at first, it makes an incredible difference to my wounds. I only wear the leg garment during the day and don’t sleep in it, but they have really helped flatten the skin grafts and reduce scarring, so I intend to keep wearing them for the year as instructed. The arm garment (or “stump shrinker”) I wear pretty much 24 hours a day and it helps reduce the edema, flatten the scarring and also provides some protection for my stump.

As you can see from the before and after shots, these garments really do work. I also have a twice daily ritual (morning/night) that I go through to help with the healing. I use vitamin E oil around the scarring on my stump and I use a coco butter-based hand and body lotion on my skin grafts. After this has been absorbed I use Mederma, which was recommended to me by my physiotherapist, it’s a silicone-based solution. Silicone has been shown to help reduce keloids and hypertrophic scarring.

Kerry and I attended Anthony Robbins’ “Unleash the Power Within” in San Jose at the weekend. It’s a four-day event focused on personal development. For those who haven’t heard of Tony Robbin’s he’s one of the pre-eminent personal success coaches in the world. I first came across him about 3 years ago when I saw his infomercial, not being one to normal go for this type of thing he piqued my interest enough that I ordered one of his personal development courses to check him out and have been a fan ever since.

When I saw he was coming to San Jose I couldn’t miss the opportunity to see him in person and I must say that he is 100 times more impressive in person than he is even on CD.

The whole experience was life changing and beyond mine or Kerry’s expectations. Friday night’s (the first day) finale was the fire walk. You can’t see too well from the photo but the glowing red spots are burning coals, between 1200 & 2000 degrees Fahrenheit! Close to 3000 people proceeded to walk across these burning coals that night including myself.

Might seem a bit daft for someone who already has serious burns and skin grafts to both legs to go fire walking, but hey, everyone else was doing it so what the hell! Kerry went first, she put herself into a peak mental state and proceeded to walk across the coals as if they weren’t there. Given she had quite a bit of trepidation about the whole thing it was amazing to she her just go for it. I didn’t fare quite so well and came away with a couple of minor blisters (which goes to prove it was for real), but all in all It’s amazing to see the power of the mind. It really was an incredible sight to see so many people fire walking, normal, everyday people.

To give you an idea just how compelling the event was, on the Sunday the doors opened at 8:30am, we didn’t break to eat until around 7:00pm that evening and Tony didn’t stop until 1:30am the next day…and all this time you are just completely enthralled in the process he takes you through as you transform your life and expectations. If you ever have the opportunity to see him live take it!

Kerry and I went for a sail on the 1891 Scooner Alma around the San Francisco bay yesterday with an amputee support group called Stumps ‘R Us, based out of Walnut Creek (just up the road from where we live). The Alma is operated by the National Park Service out of  Hyde Street Pier, San Francisco.

Stumps ‘R Us is a self-styled “whimsical support group of cheerful cripples”, an irreverent group of amputees, started by Dan Sorkin, who believe in just getting on with life and having fun. It was great to meet other amputees, mainly lower limb, and it was a fabulous day to be out on the bay.

We got to talk to different people during the cruise as the wind took us up to the Golden Gate Bridge and then back to Angel Island. I’m lucky Kerry was there since she’s so much better at making introductions to people than I am. We meet Alan, a quad-amputee with 2 prosthetic legs and 2 prosthetic arms and yet to look at him walking you’d never realise. His skill and dexterity in using his prosthetic arms gives me confidence that a mechanical prosthetic may not be as bad as I thought.
Angela lost her legs and nearly her life after a fight with bacterial meningitis, she has a spirit and zest for life you don’t often see…her’s was by far the loudest laugh on the boat.

It’s easy to look at many of these people and think of them as remarkable, but the remarkable thing is, I’m guessing that none of them see themselves that way at all, they’re all just people getting on with their lives and having fun whilst doing it! If nothing else we have that in common.

I used to joke while I was in hospital that if I went swimming again I’d end up going around in circles. Well I got the chance to test that theory and I can categorically state that I can still swim in a straight line!

We’ve been having a few challenges with our pool, nothing had been done to it while we’d been away and the PH had dropped to a level that it started to strip copper from the pipes. When Kerry took the water in to be tested while I was still in hospital in San Francisco they told her we’d need to empty the pool and get the pipes replaced…not something she really wanted to hear at the time. However, once I was home a couple of weeks later we started to try to sort it all out, apparently if we’d gone swimming in it we’d have come out with green hair! After practically emptying the pool and treating the water for copper we finally manged to restore it to its normal state and after a couple of weeks I got to go swimming.

I wasn’t quite sure how I’d fair with only one hand so I climbed in slowly, just in case I suddenly found I couldn’t swim anymore. I’m glad to say that I can swim pretty much as normal. Breaststroke is no problem, I’m sure I don’t quite have the same power as before but it doesn’t feel odd. Front crawl is a little lopsided, I think mainly because as I bring my right arm out of the water I don’t have my left hand to push down and back and so I submerge more than I used to…results in a slight bobbing effect as I swim. What I did find interesting though was when I jumped in I could feel the cold water all over my body except for my left arm, which doesn’t have much sensation. It was like the rest of my body was chilled but my arm was still warm…rather peculiar if I do say so.

So swimming is no problem, and neither is sitting in the spa with a margarita!