Stupid fun happy photo time
Yes, that’s me clutching a soccer ball between my leg and my stump whilst doing a handstand under water.
I just thought it would be fun to share š
This is officially my shortest blog ever. I hope you’re enjoyed it š
My foot no longer squeaks :)
I’ve been having problems with my artificial foot for a few months now – whenever I’ve been walking around, it’s been making loud squeaking noises – sounds like squeaky shoes cross with a squeaky floorboard. I thought it might have been to do with the foot enclosure, but when that got changed over, the problem persisted. I had to drop by my specialist’s rooms on Monday to get a new silicone liner for my stump, and while I was there he had a look at it – we thought it might have been the spectra sock (the sock that goes over the artificial foot mechanism, which in turn goes into the foot enclosure – protects the actual foot mechanism from damage), so we plonked another one over the old one after the existing one didn’t show any wear-through. Problem persisted, and so we took off both, and put only the new sock on – worked a treat!
Turns out the problem was that that fine amount of carbon fibre that had gradually rubbed off the base of the foot and into the spectra sock had caused a ‘sheen’ to form on the sock, and it was the rubbing of this synthetic sheen against the base of the foot that was causing the problem. So yes, no squeaky foot any more, which makes me happy š
For those interested, the following are what a spectra sock and what my foot looks like/similar to:
Click for more info, or check out the ‘Leg stuff’ gallery, it’s all in there. Both products are from Ossur, and their prosthesis section on their website is here if you want to find out more info on either of those pictured above. I’m not sure if my gear is actually Ossur stuff, but it looks similar š At least, as far as those pictures go anyways š
I mangled my stump dancing to 80s Michael Jackson
I think the title pretty much says it all š Last Saturday my little brother, Tank, got hitched (yay!!! :D), and as a member of the wedding party (the best man actually :)), we were kept busy running around, having photos taken, that kind of thing. Now, one of the things with good weddings (and weddings with a good DJ especially!) is that I’m bound to do something stupid, like dancing to Jacko songs from the 80s. It gets worse if I’m in familiar company, like my brothers, other family friends, McAdam, people like that – in fact, particularly with McAdam, we have an unspoken pact that that incidence of 80s Jacko is a requirement to jump onto the dance floor and be idiots. With Wifey, if its a classic 80s tune (e.g. Wham!, Foreigner, Journey, etc), then dancing will also be required. Saturday night featured a lot of this, so understandably there are repurcussions as a result š
By the time we got home and I had a shower, I took a look at my stump and I have to say, even by my standards I did a pretty good job mangling my stump. There was torn skin, breakdown around the main scar tissue across the front, and stress along other tracts of skin where the pressure from suction caused the skin to shrivel and stretch. I ended up staying off my leg for Sunday and Monday, and used my walking stick at work on Tuesday and Wednesday to help it heal as much as possible. To keep it from getting infected, I also slathered on some antiseptic cream on my stump each night before going to bed. Ended up having yesterday off work (I’m still fighting a cold, but was feeling pretty crappy yesterday so took it off to recover), so I went without my leg again, and my stump’s almost back to normal (yay!).
As a result I haven’t been able to go to karate this week, which is a bit annoying as I don’t want to fall behind, and I intend to grade in July so I have to get the quality of my form up to scratch in order to pass. I’m planning to squeeze in some extra classes over the next month and a bit to get there. Will also try and fit in extra training between classes when doing my usual weight training/etc, also.
But in the grand scheme of things, I’m actually kind of happy I mangled my stump on Saturday night – I had such an awesome time that I wouldn’t have it any differently, as I’d rather have a blast and celebrate something as important as my brother and sister-in-law getting married with crazy enthusiasm and gusto (and then spend a week recovering), than have played it safely and not have any physical worries afterwards at the expense of having so much fun š
Amputee shark attack victim returns to the surf
Wifey passed along a story to me this morning – published in The Advertiser (13/5/2009, page 12), but originally published in The Daily Telegraph, it’s a piece on Paul de Gelder who had his right hand ripped off in a shark attack while testing equipment for the navy; due to the nature of the attack, he also had to have his right leg amputated below the knee. The awesome thing is that he’s back in the water now, and has started surfing again which is amazing considering the attack only happened a couple of months ago. Well done mate, good luck and keep it up!
If you want to read the full story and see some more pictures, the story on The Advertiser’s website (AdelaideNow) is available here, and the original source (The Daily Telegraph) is available here. The text is similar between the two (they’re both News Ltd publications), but The Daily Telegraph has an image gallery attached to the story. If you want to skip to the gallery itself, here’s the direct link.
Huge thanks to Wifey for passing along the story from The Advertiser to me š
I’m on a boat
Last week Wifey and I popped up to Noosa to catch up with her family. Now, my father-in-law and Hamez (brother-in-law, look up some of the archives as I’ve dragged him along to karate in the past) are particularly keen fishermen, so in due course I went out with them in their boat to do some fishing. Not having fished since I was a wee tacker, this was all very new and interesting for me; granted I was a bit rubbish at it, but it was awesome fun.
Where I want to go with this, though, is how being on the water on a small boat works on your balance. Between the three of us sitting down, standing up, casting, drinking beer (well, my father-in-law and I, Hamez is still under 18 and was our driver since he now has his boat license) and motoring around the river, there are plenty of opportunities to fall over and mangle yourself (and I’m quite adept at both of these generally). I’m sure with two legs its tricky working out your balance, but I had a bit of trouble adjusting given the lack of a knee on my left leg š What I eventually found out was that I had to adjust my whole method of standing or moving on the boat… it’s hard to describe, but the best way I could put is that you have to learn to be far more flexible with how you control your walking/standing motions to go with the flow of the boat and the water, rather than resisting the natural flow of movement with a sense of rigidity. Once I got this sorted, I found I was having a much easier time moving around the boat without stumbling so much. Sure, I was never game to stand on the bow, but I was reasonably confident standing in the recessed areas by the time we ended up leaving to come back home.
It actually reminded me of the montage scene in The Karate Kid (aka greatest movie of all time), where Daniel is standing on the bow of the boat practicing his forms. Except I didn’t do any karate, because I probably would have looked like a bit of a tosser with all the other fishermen around š
You know what? I think this calls for a (widescreen) trailer to the original Karate Kid movie:
Awesome. Note the boat scene around 1:03. The only way that movie could have been better is if Chuck Norris was in it as a referee or something, like his awesome cameo in Dodgeball.
Anyway, the principle of this is the same for martial arts – be flexible, learn to move with your scenario and don’t oppose it with unnecessary, strict rigidity – as the mighty Bruce said, “be like water”. Even beyond the principle there’s the question of using the boat as a tool for teaching you to have good balance, which is an essential technique in any committed martial artist.
If nothing else, it’s definitely something to think about.
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