lifebeyond4limbs.com

“It’s not the disability that defines you; it’s how you deal with the challenges the disability presents you with.” –Jim Abbott-

We don’t realize the value of our legs until we can no longer use one.  Most of my life I walked, ran and jumped without giving a thought to my legs.  It wasn’t until I was faced with getting around on one leg and crutches that I realized the true value of having two healthy legs.

Six summers ago I experienced my first ankle surgery.  The recovery required eight weeks of non-weight bearing on the operative ankle, which meant using crutches to ambulate.  I had already been on crutches for six weeks, so I’d had good practice.  I was a teacher so had the summer off to recover, however three weeks in I attended a three day reading conference.  This would be the first time I would be in unfamiliar surroundings with no one I knew to assist me.  It was then that I got the first taste of what it must be like to have a permanent disability that compromises your mobility.

How would I manage?  How much walking would be required?  How would I carry materials?  Would the building be accessible?  Would I need to climb stairs?  Would I be able to elevate my leg?  Would anyone offer assistance?

I was among 300 able-bodied teachers and oddly felt completely alone, while at the same time feeling as though I stuck out like a sore thumb.  I struggled by myself all three days to do the things everyone else did without a thought.  While everyone else socialized each morning with their coffee and danish, my focus was on getting seated in a spot where I could easily get in and out, rest my leg comfortably and not be in anyone’s way.  While all 300 people moved from workshop to workshop, I hobbled among them invisible and focused on every step I took.  Yet if I had to get up and leave a room to use the bathroom I felt like every eye in the room was watching my struggle with the crutches.  As I left the conference at the conclusion of the third day I couldn’t help thinking about the experience; I had been temporarily disabled and had a whole different perspective of what someone with a permanent disability must face every day.  Mine was temporary so I still could not even start to imagine what they went through, but the respect that I felt for them at that moment was tremendous.  To have to face every situation the way I’d faced the last three days and be able to go on and live a full life is a true testament to the human spirit.

Almost six years and six surgeries later I am now that person with the permanent disability and use crutches full time.  The crutches have become somewhat natural extensions of my arms and are tools I value highly.  For the past year I have adjusted my life to this reality and have come to live a full and active life with the use of crutches.   For walking purposes I find them quite efficient and comfortable to use.  However, without the full use of my legs so many of the things we do every day without thought become a challenge.  The reality I discovered at the reading conference six years ago has become my everyday life.

Since that conference I have been so many places and done so many things on crutches that I have become a very independent and experienced crutch user.  Not having the full use of my leg and using crutches is just a natural part of everyday life, but I don’t think I will ever not envy those who have two healthy legs.  It’s the ease of everyday life that is now daily challenges that were taken for granted.

Using crutches to walk each day takes an enormous amount of planning.  The main reason for the planning is because your hands are now an essential part of walking.  The average person picks up whatever it is they need and leaves for work.  If they want a cup of coffee they grab it and go.  This is not the case when you need your hands to hold on to your crutches to walk.  Think of all the daily tasks that involve using your hands to pick something up and transport it, and then imagine finding an alternative way to accomplish each of those tasks.  Therefore I am always planning ahead and have numerous methods of managing life’s tasks, however many things I avoid because they become uncomfortable or unpleasant.  Example: Just as I didn’t participate in the coffee and danish at the reading conference six years ago, I would still avoid that situation today.  Why? It’s simple – it would put me in a vulnerable position.  Moving around a crowded room, with no place to sit, while juggling a cup of coffee, donut and a pair of crutches doesn’t make for a pleasant time.  I would either draw attention to myself trying to manage on my own or by asking for assistance with something as simple as holding a cup of coffee and danish while mingling in the crowd.  Even if I simply chose not to take anything and just hang out and talk, people ultimately start questioning, offering and making a big deal, which once again only accentuates my disability.  So, if it is not a necessary event, I decline.  The risk of having people pity me is something I cannot allow.

Six years later every time I face an unfamiliar situation, I still find myself asking many of those same questions I did before the reading conference.  Will there be stairs and how many?  What if the floors are slippery?  How far will I have to park?  What if it is raining (can’t run and can’t hold an umbrella)?  Will the building be accessible?  How will I transport items?  Will there be a seat that is easy for me to access and where I won’t be in everyone’s way?  These are all questions that have become part of my everyday life and things most people never give thought to.

The healthy legs that I once took for granted are now considered every minute of my days.  I am aware of every step I take and every surface the tips of my crutches hit.  Every day I try to be normal but the challenges of daily life are constant reminders of my disability that makes me different.  As far as I have come in accepting my situation, I still find myself feeling envious of people who seem to walk without giving it a thought.  I also wonder if they appreciate their legs and realize how quickly the ability to use a leg can be taken away.

It is okay to be sad about what you have lost once in a while, as long as you know when to pull yourself back.

Thank you for reading!  Come back in two weeks when I’ll share my top ten ways I carry things and walk with crutches.

This picture of Michael J. Fox appeared on my Facebook news feed sometime over the past few weeks.   For me it was a sad reminder that I no longer teach.  This quote was the hallmark of how I taught, and it was for this reason why I made progress with kids other teachers could never reach. Now let me tell you, following this quote as a teacher made me famously popular with both students and parents, but very unpopular with fellow teachers and administration.

Changing your teaching to how the student learns requires:

1. Solid knowledge of each student as an individual.
2. Building strong mutual trust between teacher and students.
3. Truly believing every student is capable of learning (even the ones the administrators have written off).
4. A great deal of time, effort, creativity and hard work.

Accomplishing these four things becomes even more difficult when you factor in standardized testing, the latest teaching methods administrators force on their teachers, lack of funds for materials, behavior issues in the classrooms and environmental conditions students live in.  While educational psychologists will be hired to give lectures on this very subject during professional training workshops, in reality the administration is only concerned with standardized curriculum and scores on the standardized test.  That is what the funding is based on!

My teaching philosophy is:

• Erase what the previous teachers said about students so you can start with a blank slate.
• Build mutual trust with your students.
• Treat each student as an individual.
• Find the student’s positives and allow them to shine.

My teaching method: Use whatever teaching method gets results, and if the method you are using isn’t working, change it.  It was never easy; I became a father, social worker, psychologist then teacher to my students.  The wheels in my head never stopped turning, the lesson and behavioral planning never stopped and my key to unlocking them was to build trust.  If a student was struggling academically or behaviorally, I asked myself “what do I need to change?”

Torey Haydon, an educational psychologist and special education teacher, wrote books based on her experiences teaching special education students.  She taught the students nobody else wanted to.  In her journeys with these children, whom she reached out to, believed in and loved, she was always at odds with other teachers and the school administration.  Her teaching and discipline strategies didn’t match the norms of what was expected by the average teacher or administrator.  To reach these kids it took a special kind of teacher, one able to understand and make progress with them.  She often commented that she struggled with knowing if what she was doing with these kids was the best thing for them.  I was drawn to read all her books because I connected with her teaching methods and what she experienced with these kids. While I never dealt with students anywhere near as severe as she did, the special gift we shared that allowed us to make the necessary connections with troubled students simply isn’t recognized by school administrators.  With both Torey and I it is all about building trust and believing in students who no one else would, then teaching them the way they learn.  Just as Torey did, I also constantly struggled with whether I was doing the right thing for my students.  Was I disillusioning them by showing them what it was like to have someone care about them?  Was it cruel to allow them to feel successful only in the protected world of my classroom?

My passion is to teach, so I didn’t give it up of my own will.  After the third leg surgery and three school years of teaching a good chunk of each year on crutches, I lost my job.  Massive state funding cuts and teacher layoffs, due to a failing economy, gave an unsympathetic administration a legal way to lay the guy with the bad leg on crutches off.

Today’s climate for getting a job in education is grim.  There are more teachers being laid off than hired in the United States and the colleges are pumping out thousands of new teachers each year.  As I sat during two interviews it became crystal clear that my career was over.  One position was teaching eight eighth grade boys that had been deemed unteachable since first grade.  They were unmanageable after all the years of being treated like inmates in school.  As I sat there all I could think was that these boys desperately needed me, but I would not be physically able to handle them with my leg.  The visions of these boys snatching my crutches and running up and down the halls yelling “catch me if you can!” kept circling in my head.  If I had been offered the job I would have taken the challenge, however the guy on crutches was not offered the position.

A few weeks later I found myself sitting for another interview.  This position was a third grade special education position.  I was certainly more than qualified and capable of teaching despite the crutches, yet the catch was two-fold.  First it was only a one year position; second, it was teaching in a team-taught inclusion classroom, meaning I would be sharing the teaching responsibilities and classroom with another teacher.  As I sat there answering question after question, the young female teacher I would be working with didn’t say a thing – beyond slipping by asking about my disability, then quickly retracting the question.  She didn’t have to.  It was written all over her face and in her body language.  What the writing said was that ‘there is no way I am sharing my room with this crippled old man’.  Needless to say I didn’t get offered that position either.  It was then I went home and began the process I knew was coming: giving up my dream of continuing to teach.

I do now know the answer to whether I was doing the right thing for my students.  One of the aspects I struggled with the most in coming to terms with never teaching again was the guilt.   The guilt of knowing there were so many students out there that desperately need and deserved at least one year to feel successful and learn. My not teaching would cheat many of them out of that experience.  Unfortunately, the world is not always fair and the choice of continuing to teach was not mine to make.

I have made peace with knowing that I didn’t only make a difference in one child’s life in my teaching career, I made a difference in many lives of the children I taught.

“It is because of great caring teachers like yourself that the school system is a better place.  I feel that without your positive influence as a teacher, Jack would not have come as far and as well as he has this year.  He had great problems last year with math and was very stressed by it.  I have not seen that this year.  In fact I have seen him progress in large leaps”.  -From a parent of one of my students.

Thank you for reading!  Come back every two weeks for a new post or subscribe to receive notifications of new posts. 

The best way to combat the winter blues is to get out and enjoy the snow.  The best way to overcome a disability is to stop dwelling on what you can’t do and focus on what you can do.

So here is how I play in the snow thanks to my fantastic adaptive devices. 

Skiing– for skiing I use outriggers, which are forearm crutches that have small skis fitted to the bottom.   Just as I use my crutches to hold the weight off my bad leg to walk the outriggers allow me to hold the weight off my bad leg to ski.  I am accentually skiing with my arms.  I lean all my weight over the outriggers as I slide down the hill.  My skis remain flat and weightless.  When I turn the outriggers with my arms my body swings though the turn with them.

My Outriggers

I chose this method called four-tracking last winter when I was trying to return to skiing.  Whether I am sitting at work, walking, relaxing or sleeping one of my struggles is where to put this painful left leg that really severs no other use than to be in my way.  So I didn’t go with three-tracking figuring my left leg would once again just be in the way.  This past weekend, I was so inspired by an above knee amputee skiing that I popped off my left ski and gave three-tracking a try.  The four tracking limits where I can ski, the amount of time I can ski and causes immense stress to my wrists, something a full time crutch user can’t afford.  So my goal is now to switch over to three tracking.  Unfortunately, I decided I was invincible and chose to ski the longest run on the mountain my first try.  This severely fatigued my leg and about a quarter of the way down I was falling every few turns.  My frustration became high; my wife offered to go get my other ski, but my pride kept forcing me back up for another few turns.  Next weekend I will be back at three tracking until I am zipping down the black diamond trails with my family.

 Snowshoeing

Standing in deep snow with snowshoe on good leg and snowshoes on my crutches.

Snowshoes attached to bottom of crutches

Snowshoeing–for snowshoeing I   use my Sidestix forearm crutches   that I walk with daily.  Sidestix make snowshoes that attach to the bottom of the crutches.  The snowshoes allow you to walk through deep snow or on hard pack snow. They work very much the same as the snow shoes on your feet, providing a larger area to distribute weight to prevent sinking and cleats to prevent slipping. I snowshoe basically the same as I walk with crutches, using my good leg and the crutches; my bad leg goes for the ride.  I didn’t snowshoe for a long time, but it was a hilly rolling terrain and for the first time snowshoeing on crutches it was a workout.  I experienced a priceless sense of freedom to be out exploring in the snow and I cannot wait to get out again.

My Sidestix forearm crutches with snowshoe attachments

With both skiing and snowshoeing I might not be conquering extreme terrain, but I am out there focusing on what I can do, finding new ways to have fun and enjoying being in the snow.  There are many Adaptive Sports Foundations out there. If you have a disability and would like to find a way to get out and enjoy the snow find an adaptive sport foundation near you.  You just might be surprised with the wide range of disabilities they can work with and what you can accomplish.

Don’t dwell on what you cannot do. Focus on what you can do and find new ways to do the things you love.

Thanks for visiting!  Come back every two weeks for a new posts or subscribe to my blog to get new posts emailed to you,

Once again the Olympic Games are upon us.  For 16 days the Olympics will be on the world stage, so we can turn on our TVs and see the footage all day long.  Like many other families, my family will be watching the events that most interest us.  I enjoy the Olympic Games and have incredible admiration for the amazing talent, hard work and dedication of the athletes.  They deserve all the attention the Olympic Games give them, however no more than the amazing Paralympic athletes.

I recently read an article written by Rachelle Friedman entitled 8 Misconceptions About Life With Paralysis.  In the article Rachelle discusses the common misconceptions that people have about being paralyzed.  While I am not paralyzed and not even trying to imagine what her life is like, nor compare Rachelle’s circumstances to mine, her story made me stop and think about the misconceptions people have about disabilities in general.  I certainly can attest to the misconceptions people have about life on a pair of crutches.  The misconceptions come from a lack of understanding, experience or exposure to what it is like to live with a disability.  Life without a disability can be challenging enough, making it very difficult for people to imagine what it would be like to not have the use of a part of their body.  What they would discover, put in many of our circumstances, is that the human body can adapt and the parts that are still usable compensate for the damaged ones.  Indeed, my body has adapted to using my arms to aid in walking. Recently while at Disney my wife and a few of the cast members observed that I was using my arms to swing my body in and out of all the rides.  They commented on how easy and graceful I made it look.  I no longer have to think about it; my arms just compensate for my leg.

The number one misconception people have of my situation is that getting around on crutches is a miserable and torturous chore that renders me immobile.  For me using crutches has become habitual, and in contrast to what people think they actually provide me with mobility and independence.

The second misconception of my situation is that I am unable to engage in any sport or physical activity, including walking a city block.  Hell, for the most part people assume I need help getting on and off an elevator.  In conversation, if I bring up something about walking, biking, working out or skiing, the response is one of shock that I can do these things.  Yes, my left leg is basically a painfully appendage that no longer serves me in walking, however I have found adaptive ways of living my daily life which includes participating in recreational activities.

With the Olympics upon us I have to wonder how many people actually have any idea what the Paralympics are, and if they do what misconceptions they have about these athletes.  The Paralympics is the second largest national sporting event, preceded only by the Olympics.  The Paralympics offer many of the same events the Olympics do and the focus is 100% on the sports, not the disabilities.  I believe the Paralympics are a perfect opportunity to educate the world that a disability doesn’t mean incapability.

The Paralympics first came about in 1948.  They were not called the Paralympics and were originally started as a sports competition for World War II veterans who had spinal cord related injuries.  The Paralympics did not become open to anyone other than wheelchair athletes until the first winter games in Ornskoldsvik, Sweden, in 1976.  This was the first time the games were open to multiple categories of athletes with disabilities.  Today the Paralympic categories include amputee, cerebral palsy, intellectual disability, wheelchair, visually impaired, and athletes with disabilities that do not fall into the other five categories.

The actual term ‘Paralympics’ was first used in 1988, in the summer games in Seoul, South Korea.  The term derives from the Greek preposition “para”, which means “beside” or “alongside” and refers to the fact that the competition was held in parallel with the Olympic Games.  After the summer games in 1988 the Paralympics have taken place in the same city as the Olympics and take place following the closing ceremonies of the Olympic Games.

The Paralympics give incredible athletes the chance to compete and excel in their category of sport.  Without the Paralympics many of these athletes would not have the opportunity to compete – not because of ability, but due to their disability, logistics of the game being played and the adaptive method being used.  It would create an unfair disadvantage among the athletes.  However, depending on the athlete’s disability many do have the ability to compete with “able bodied” athletes in the Olympic Games.  Athletes with disabilities can participate in the Olympics as long as they meet criteria set out by sport governing bodies.  Athletes who have a disability and compete in the Olympic Games is not unheard of.  Just to name a few, George Eyser was a gymnast with a prosthetic leg and competed in the 1904 Olympic Games.  A right-arm amputee Karoly Takes competed in shooting events in 1948 and 1958, and Natalia Partyka, born without a lower right arm, competed in the Beijing Olympics in 2008.  Most notably Oscar Pistorius, a double below knee amputee, sprinted in the London Summer Games.  In an ideal world I would like to see the athletes with disabilities and the able-bodied athletes all competing in the Olympic Games.  Not competing against each other of course, but essentially combining the events of both the Olympics and Paralympics into just the Olympics.  This would not only put the “able-bodied” athletes on the world stage but the “athletes with disabilities” as well.  I do realize the magnitude of problems this would create, but imagine the impact these athletes with disabilities would have on the world if we saw them competing side by side with the Olympic athletes!

The Paralympics Games are so inspiring to watch, yet the average person never sees even one event.  Unfortunately the Paralympics do not get the sponsors the Olympics get, therefore do not get the TV coverage either.  In the US the TV coverage of the Paralympics is almost nonexistent.  To watch the Paralympics in the US you need to go to the Paralympic YouTube Channel http://www.youtube.com/user/ParalympicSportTV.  In other countries such as Japan and the UK, TV coverage of the Paralympics is more prevalent.  Without a specific interest in the Paralympics the average person will not log into YouTube to watch them, and therefore they will miss out on watching this incredible sporting event.  If the Paralympics got the publicity and TV coverage the Olympics get, the world would be drawn to watching it and would realize what these athletes are capable of.

The Paralympic Games serve as great testimony that people with a vast array of disabilities are extraordinarily capable people.  These athletes certainly debunk the common misconceptions people have about being disabled.  If we saw them competing in the Olympic Games or had the ability to easily tune in each night while the Paralympic games were being held, then the world would see the “ability” in the word “disability”. Perhaps then people would dismiss their misconceptions of what someone with a disability is capable of.

The Paralympic Games begin March 7th and last for 10 days

If you would like to watch the Paralympics with me and get inspired go to  –

http://www.youtube.com/user/ParalympicSportTV

If you live in the UK –

http://www.paralympic.org/news/channel-4-broadcast-150-hours-coverage-sochi-2014-paralympic-winter-games

If you live in Japan – http://www.paralympic.org/news/sky-perfect-shares-full-sochi-2014-broadcast-plans

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paralympic_sports

http://www.olympic.org/content/olympic-games/paralympic-games/?tab=history