Archives for April 2007

Kerry and I joined the Stumps ‘R Us crew for a tour of the San Francisco Giants baseball park that Dan Sorkin (the Stumps organizer) had arranged. We’re not big baseball fans per-se, but, it was a fine afternoon and seemed like fun to go look around the ball park.

I highly recommend anyone take a tour if you’re in the San Francisco area, the park is absolutely gorgeous and offers views of the city and bay you won’t see anywhere else…particularly up on the top-level. We had a great time walking around the park, both inside and out, learning a bit about the history of the Giants and baseball. You never know maybe I’ll go watch a game one of these days, although watching baseball appeals to me about as much as watching cricket back home…

On our last day in Fiji Kerry and I took the opportunity to go diving, something I’d been wanting to do and hadn’t had the chance since my accident last year. I’ve been diving probably 17-18 years now, after learning at Exeter University back in the UK and becoming an instructor shortly thereafter.

Now, I didn’t expect to have any particular issues diving, since you don’t really use your hands much underwater anyway, but, it did feel good to get back in the water again…and I’ve never dived in water quite so warm, it must have been 30 degrees Celsius!

As you can see from the photos I’m using rental kit. Since I lost my left hand I didn’t really need any modifications to the kit (if I’d lost my right hand I’d probably want to invert the regulator so it came over my left shoulder).  I wore my prosthetic liner on my arm, which is a silicone based liner, for protection and to help keep my stump warm (since I don’t have great circulation). Obviously I didn’t wear my prosthetic, not sure it would fare too well under water.

The dive was great, not the most spectacular per se, but just great to be in the water again. I really didn’t have any difficulties diving, I could easily control my buoyancy with my right hand and otherwise everything was just as normal. So don’t let not having an arm stop you from jumping in the water…diving is too much fun to miss out on.

I was talking with Julian, our friend here in New Zealand, where we’re staying this week, and he reminded me of a dive trip we did to Jamaica a few years back, where a group of us helped this guy who was a quadriplegic go diving in the sea (since most of us in the group were instructors)…if he had the determination to overcome his disability and go diving there’s certainly no excuses for the rest of us.

Kerry and I have been on vacation for the last 2 weeks, we spent the last week in Fiji participating in the  Tony Robbins Life Mastery course and this week with our friend, Julian, in New Zealand.

We had a great time at Life Mastery, it’s one of Tony’s full immersion courses focused on health and well-being, and what better place to be than Fiji. It was our first time in Fiji and it’s a beautiful place, particularly where we stayed at the Namale resort (owned by Tony Robbins). Life mastery is part cleanse, part education and part relaxation, as you go through a process of  stopping the poisoning of the body,  cleansing and detoxifying and then rebuilding. It’s an incredible experience that teaches you the tools and techniques that you can practically apply in real life to improve your state of health and mind.

As is typical for Tony’s events the day we arrived we faced a physical challenge, in this case climbing a 50ft telephone pole and jumping to a trapeze 8-10ft away…all without ropes (only kidding we had safety harnesses on).  Prior to my accident this really wouldn’t have been a big deal, but only having one hand added a new twist to the whole thing.

Kerry ended up going first and showed incredible determination as she got to the top but couldn’t quite stand up. She must have hung on for 5+ minutes before she finally managed to push up and stand on the top. When she came down she told me how hard it was and wasn’t sure if I’d be able to do it…I knew I’d do it or if nothing else give it a damn good try.

As it worked out I ended up being the last one to climb, no additional pressure – since everyone else by that point had managed to at least nearly stand on top. I approached the pole calmly and knew that it was all in the legs (as with most climbing). I just had to find a way to hang on to the pole as I moved my feet to the next peg…hugging the pole with my left arm worked out pretty good…and I just keep stepping up one peg at a time.

Once at the top I had to jiggle around a bit to get in a position where I could stand and then from there I was on top of the world (oops, sorry I mean the pole). All that was left then was to jump for the trapeze. I figured it would be pretty unlikely I’d be able to hold on to the bar with just one hand, but I gave it a go anyway.

I reached the bar with my right hand but couldn’t hold on…but that really didn’t matter, as I’d conquered the pole. There’s nothing you can’t do if you put your mind to it!