February 18th 2006, I came to sitting on the ground in my paraglider harness after having collided with power lines, a mis-adventure I was lucky to survive. A year later and I guess I can reflect a little on what has happened since.

It’s strange, that still, all I can remember prior to the accident was the moment I saw the power lines in front of me as I was headed in to land. I can’t recall the 10 minutes or so that it must have taken to fly from where I last remembered being in the air to this precarious location

You would think something like this would have a profound impact on your life; shake you up; make you realize what’s important; maybe find a new purpose to it all. Well, to be honest, not much has changed, maybe it’s too early to judge, but, life goes on.

Don’t get me wrong, I feel very fortunate to be alive and for me the fact that I’ve been able to get back to life, so fully, so quickly is pretty darn amazing. I don’t know if I need to find anything more significant than that.

I never imagined something like this would happen (who would?), losing a hand wasn’t at the top of the list of things I figured for my future . I’ve enjoyed participating in a number of “risk” sports and in hindsight part of that enjoyment required a suspension of disbelief that anything would happen…even though there were numerous people who it did happen to each year.

Do I wish I’d never gone paragliding that day? You bet! And at the same time, there’s  part of me that knows I have grown with the experience, I feel stronger for the experience. To face adversity and come out the other side smiling gives you a sense of certainty about life. So I’d love to have my hand back, but, I don’t want to lose who am I today. I’m a better person, a better husband and I’m happy.

Losing a limb doesn’t need to be the end of your life and how you handle it is down to you. You decide the meaning, the significance you attach to a situation. It’s all about your state of mind and the state it’s in is down to you.

Interestingly, searching google for the phrase “It was a year ago today” turns up about 16,400 results, I guess that’s 16,401 now…

It was my birthday at the beginning of the month and I decided that, since I failed to make some New Year resolutions, it was time to make some birthday resolutions. So I’ve decided I’m going to get back in shape and get down the gym again. I haven’t done any regular excercise since the accident nearly a year back now. I dabbled with Yoga again, but with my work schedule at Kaboodle I just haven’t been getting home in time to go consistently.

As of Monday though I’ve embarked on my new regime of exercising at least 5 times a week and abstaining from alcohol (at least for the next 2 months). My goal is to lose about 12lbs in weight and get my waist back to 32″ again. Now I’m not saying I’m fat, or particularly overweight, but with each passing year I do seem to have gained a little extra padding around the middle.

Using my “grip prehensor” attachment I’m able to work out pretty well in the gym using the machines, (for free weights I think I’d have to get a special attachment to lock onto the bars). It works well when I’m pushing, but, if I’m pulling (doing lat pull downs, for example) my socket keeps coming off…a little disconcerting to be pulling down to then have everything go “twang” and look up to see my arm hanging off the lat bar above my head. Probably even more disconcerting for everyone else.

You see, the problem is, my arm has shrunk now to the extent that it doesn’t maintain solid suction in my socket anymore. Looks like another trip back to my prosthetist for a new socket…let’s hope my insurance company doesn’t mind coughing up again.

So there I was, driving along quite happily on the freeway into work. Since I have car pool stickers for my Prius I was in the carpool lane and just going with the generally flow of traffic…when I happened to look in my rear view mirror to see a bike speeding up behind me…with flashing blue lights.

Oh great, I thought, as I pulled into the next lane only to be followed by the police bike. Me, in my little Prius being pulled over for speeding…the embarrassment of it all. Being pulled over in my wife’s M3 (which I have been), fine. Being pulled over on my Suzuki GSXR-750 motorbike (which I have been), I can accept…but in a Prius, please!

I pulled off the freeway and stopped. Officer Garcia gets of his bike, walks up and introduces himself, boy am I glad I got everything squared away with the DMV now!. Tells me he’s pulled me over for speeding and does the usual. Anyway, after he’s handed over the ticket he inquires how long ago I lost my hand.

So I told him and he then asks how I lost it, so I explained a little of the story. And he then tells me that he’s a skydiver and starts talking about how he was skydiving at night one time and came close to landing in power lines…imagine that. Not that it did me any good, he didn’t let me off the ticket.

So caught, not red-handed but one handed…nice to know some things don’t change, eh.

I haven’t been taking my long term pain mediation for several months now!!! It was prescribed to help with my phantom pain and whilst I still get phantom sensations, aches and pain, it’s at a level that it’s manageable without medication…which is great since I really didn’t want to be popping pills for the rest of my life.

I’d started to reduce my medication from 40mg and got it down to 30mg, but when I tried to drop it to 20mg or less the pain just became too uncomfortable (this was 4+ months back). I’d been undergoing QiGong treatment (read about it here) by Dr. David Smith during this time and I alternated between feeling that it was really helping to that it didn’t seem to make much difference at all. However, after about 6 sessions Dr. Smith told me I’d progressed to the stage where I didn’t need further treatment…all credit to the guy, he could easily have continued to take my money ad infinitum.

Anyhow, it was about a month later that I started to try and reduce my dosage again and was able to reduce it to first 20mg, then 10mg and finally nothing at all (I did this over 1-2 week intervals). I can only credit this to elapsed time, QiGong and taking Goji juice (read about it here) every day. Although, one thing I did notice was that wearing the silicon sleeve I use with my prosthetic also helped dull the pain and sensations.

It’s funny, but one of the unanswered questions I had whilst talking the medication was how I’d feel once I stopped. The medication I was taking was also used to treat depression and I wondered if the reason I felt so upbeat was due to the mediation (happy pills). I’m glad to say that that wasn’t the case and I still have the same upbeat demeanor that I’ve always had.