Kick ball is possible for the amputee...

This weekend is Homecoming at Sweet Briar, one of the most beautiful campus' in America. As I am making my way back to Sweet Briar, I am reminded of my last week on campus as a student. It was Senior Week, the week after seniors took their finals and the week before graduation. There were events for us everyday. We floated the lake, went to the local Mexican restaurant and had a faculty vs. seniors kickball game, cocktail parties and luncheons, etc.

I was excited to participate in the kickball game. I didn't really know what my role would be, but I knew I was playing. At that time I had a "boring" hydraulic knee...no computer. We decided catcher would be the best position for me and when we were kicking, I would have a runner of my choosing. The game got a little more intense than I thought it would. There was a pretty new, young, male economic professor that joined the faculty and participated in our game. He got on base and even made it to third base. Next thing I know this guy is coming to home plate and it was going to be a close call. Naturally, I kneeled to block the plate as the ball was being thrown to me. The guy slide into home plate ( remember the plate was blocked by my knee, also remember my knee is titanium or something) HEAD FIRST!

The next day at lunch I saw him in the dining hall and had to comment on the giant goose egg just above his eye.

Vacuum Leg

My mom and I tried a new Vietnamese restaurant that had just opened near us since our usual Vietnamese restaurant was closed. We were seated in the sun room type area, it was kinda nice except I think they may have forgotten about us a few times. There was one other little family seated across from us. The little boy was done eating and you know how they get restless when they are bored; he was walking around the tables. I could see his face when he noticed my leg. It looked as if his thoughts were written all over his face. If only! He went to his table and said, "Mom, she has a vacuum cleaner leg!" This mom was one of those moms that used it as an opportunity to teach the little boy. She brought him over to me and asked if I would explain to the little boy what happened. I went through my spill, " My leg was hurt in a car accident and the doctors had to make me a new one."

That little boy sure had an imagination and when you think about it, it kind of does look like one of those little dirt devil vacuums. I would be willing to bet his chores consist of vacuuming.

Lake time!

Yesterday I spent the day floating on the lake with friends. I have a water leg (my old leg) that I use when I am in or near the water. I don't take any chances with my c-leg. I mean I can't really even walk with my cell phone in my hand without dropping it and shattering the screen. I can only imagine tripping and falling in the water with my c-leg on. I don't think Otto Bock has an AppleCare type policy to replace my knee!

I switched legs at the car and headed to the water. Before we got in the water, two little boys walked passed us and one waved. They walked down the sidewalk a little ways and turned around and walked back past us. The older one said, "hi" this time. I asked him if he was having fun in the water? He said, "what happened to your leg?" He was so funny the way he asked. He just had a comical expression. I told him, " I was in a really bad car accident and my leg got hurt really bad and the doctors made me a new one." He said, "So you don't feel it." I said, "No." He proceeded to touch my toes and poke my leg in several spots asking if I could feel it. I continued to say, "No, not at all." He said he was never going to drive in the dark again. I asked him when he has driven in the dark and what happened? He has a little car that he drives and he hit a tree once.

We floated for several hours, I was getting out and jumping in just fine. I switched to floating with my legs hanging off the float and after a little while,I felt a cage like thing with my foot and freaked out. I fell off my floaty and was flailing in the water. Ryan, asked me if I took my leg off the last time I had gotten out? I said, "no,I still have it on." I knew I could feel the suction was still there. I felt down and the leg was GONE! The shell had separated from the suction piece. Velcro and water are not friends. I freaked out again and started flailing again! Now, after 2 flailing incidents, I have no idea where I was when it came off. I looked at Courtney and Ryan and said we have to start diving! Luckily the water was only about 5 feet deep. I had been trying to avoid touching the bottom, there's just something about the bottom of lakes; they're slimy and you never know what is down there. I had no problem diving down and running my hands across the bottom in search for my leg. Our floats started getting a little to far from us so I swam over to get them and I turn around to head back and I see Courtney and Ryan standing looking at each other and smiling and I hear "did you?" I said,"did you really?" He was tall enough that he could walk around and feel with his feet. Much more efficient than my diving! He reached down and pulled my leg out of the water! I was incredibly lucky! Can you imagine if we had not found it and someone else had found it?

At this point, I decided to take it off and leave it on the side. I was concerned about how I was going to get the two pieces back together so I could walk back to the car, but I have learned that it does no good to worry about the future. I would figure it out when I needed to walk. After we were done playing in the water, I looked at my leg and the Velcro had dried and was still sticking. I put it on and was able to walk fine! I've got to figure out a better system for my water leg. If you have any ideas, I am open to suggestions!

Pedicure Time!

The day I got to take my prosthetic home, I first went to therapy, but on the way home I stopped at the nail shop to get my toes painted. My prosthetic has never been in my house without the toe painted (except when I have to borrow a foot when mine is getting fixed). I have had polish on my toes since i was about 13 when my mom got me hooked on pedicures, it was an expensive mistake for her. The best part is that I get half price pedicures now! That's right I can go in and get my toes and nails done for the price of a pedicure! 

Last weekend I got a pedicure then made the mistake of getting in the pool and all the polish chipped off my "real" nails, so today I went in and got them repainted. 

"Oh Lord"

My senior year of college a friend and I went shopping for gifts for our secret sophomores; of course we ended up on the candy isle. What gift is complete without a chocolate bar? She had pointed to something she wanted from the top shelf. I'm pretty short. So is she. I went to reach for it and I think she stepped back and my prosthetic foot got caught up in the mix. I didn't realize anything was wrong until I was on the floor. In fact we were both on the floor laughing. We were close to the checkout lines and two older men looked our way and one had begun to walk over to try to help. When he got closer he noticed that my prosthetic had popped off and was lying in front of me. In a loud, shocked tone, he said, "Oh Lord!" Now I was in central Virginia so naturally the gentleman had a pretty good southern drawl and it sounded more like "Oh Lawd!" This didn't help our laughing situation. 

The gentleman offered to help me,but when I'm in that situation, it's kind of hard to explain to someone what they can do to help. What was I supposed to do, ask him to hold my leg while I get up? I declined his help. He went back over to his friend and they looked back our way and he told his friend, "She won't let you help her." It wasn't that I wouldn't let him help me, but it was more I didn't know how to tell him how he could help me. Some things are just easier done myself. I don't think I could ever let anyone put my leg on for me. In fact, I think the first time I ever put my prosthetic on, I put it on myself. It probably took 5 times, but nevertheless.

I have recently become better about letting people help me more. I don't fall much anymore since I have the C-leg, but if I drop something and someone offers to pick it up, sometimes I'll let them. I know I could get it myself, but I've learned that most people feel the need to help and sincerely want to.

Summer Fun!

In my opinion, summer fun = playing in the water! Last summer was really the first summer I had good summer fun! The first summer after my accident, I returned to New York to do my internship at Cornell (I was headed to this same internship when my accident happened the previous summer) and didn't really get in the water. The second summer I had just graduated Sweet Briar and was too busy looking for a job. The third summer, last summer, I finally got in the water quite a bit!

Some family friends invited my mom and I out to their lake house one Saturday. They had their jet ski and boat out. Now I love to ride jet skis, I have been driving jet skis since I was about 8. When I was little I could throw almost anyone off, so much so that most of my family will NOT get on a jet ski with me. I was curious if I still had it! Answer: Yes!

Over the first two years I had my prosthetic, I had to replace my socket (the piece that connects the knee and foot components to my residual limb or I like to call it my little leg, under no circumstance will I call it a stump) my foot and my knee at different times. So, my prosthetist piece milled a leg together using the extra components that I could use as my water leg.

The first time out, I was riding with Mr. Caroll(he was driving) after a few minutes he threw both of us off. I can't remember if I was shocked or scared but I reached down and said, "where's my leg?" We both looked up and my prosthetic is still on the jet ski! That was a relief. We probably would have had to get a dive team out to search for the prosthetic at the bottom of the lake. We both got back to the jet ski, I got on first, therefore, I would now be driving! We were laughing and said we can't do that again! Sure enough, we were both in the water not two minutes later! The leg was still on the jet ski...again! We decided I would go back to shore and take my leg off or strap it on with some sort of rope or something. There was no more riding the jet ski for my prosthetic, I definitely continued to ride!

Skydiving!!!

Last year some friends and I went to Skydive Spaceland in Rosharon, TX. Skydiving is something I always said I wanted to do, but never thought I would actually do it. One Friday my friend texted me and asked if I wanted to go. I said yes, but I had second thoughts. I was debating if I was going to tell my mom I was about to jump out of an airplane three years after she watched me fight for my life after the car accident. I knew I had to tell her. Much to my surprise she was ok with it, at least in front of me.

I texted the picture of me in front of the plane to my dad and sister just 30 minutes before I was scheduled to jump. My sisters response was, “I want to GO!” My dads response was, “Don't lose your leg.” Skydive Spaceland works with a lot of the wounded veterans, so they have particular staff members they paired me with. They had a strap the went around my waist and then down to my ankle of my prosthetic to keep me attached to my leg in the event the prosthetic did come off.

Needless to say, skydiving was the biggest thrill of my life. I was on an adrenaline rush for over a week! Once you get in the air, the plane is so loud that you want to get out. I was conveniently placed right in front of the door and as you can see in the video I pretty much rolled out! It was GREAT! Hope you enjoy the video and please excuse the goggles on my face at the end!

Keri Skydiving video

* Sometimes You Tube will not allow you to watch the video from a mobile device(cell phone/ipad) I think I    have fixed the mobile device issue.

Travel Troubles

I traveled to Virginia this past weekend for one of my college roommates wedding (the BEST wedding I've been to so far!) Everyone has gone off for a weekend trip and left their cell phone charger at home and had to pick one up at the nearest store.  The knee component of my prosthetic is a C-Leg so it has a computer in it and it needs to be charged like any cell phone. On my first flight to Atlanta I was thinking about going to bed when I got to Richmond. The light bulb went off and I opened my eyes and freaked out. I had forgotten my leg charger at home. I was going to be gone for 4 days. There is no way the leg is going to last that long and unfortunately you can't just go buy a charger like you can for cell phones. I called my mom in between flights and asked her to FedEx it to me priority Overnight for Saturday delivery. She went to the airport to see if she could get it on the next flight to Richmond and I could just go pick it up at the airport. We played this game a few years ago when i ordered new golf clubs on eBay and the seller shipped them to my house in Houston, only I was in Ithaca, New York playing in a charity golf tournament the next day. It worked that time. I drove to Rochester to pick them up! It didn't work out as nicely this time. The only option we had was to FedEx priority overnight Saturday delivery. Thank you to the lady at FedEx that was so generous and made it a lot easier! I was so worried that it would be delayed and that I would not have time to charge it before the 4:30 wedding. 

Friday afternoon was about the 36 hour point since the leg had been charged and I was preparing myself to have to walk stiff legged if we went anywhere(I wasn't going to miss out on any of the fun). I called Jon, my prosthetist, I told him my situation and he said that it would probably last 40 hours and that I would probably have a dead leg by the time I went to bed on Friday night. His take on the unfortunate event was, "Well at least for a few hours you forgot you were an amputee!" When I woke up Saturday morning, the leg STILL was not dead. I was kind of disappointed, I really wanted to see what would happen when it is not charged. I now know that the charge in my leg will last longer that 48 hours. 

The hotel phone rang at 11:15am on Saturday morning, it was the concierge; FedEx had just arrived! Sydney ran over to the front office and got my package and got my leg charging for the wedding festivities! 

4th of July

We all celebrate the 4th of July in honor of our independence. We would not have independence without those heros that sacrifice their lives for us. In this time of war where so many wounded soldiers are coming home amputees, I am often asked (especially on holidays like Memorial Day, 4th of July and Labor Day) if I am a member of the military. I really wish I could say yes, but I just respond, "No, it was just a car accident." I wish I could say that I was doing something so selfless.

This year I am flying on the holiday. I am wearing shorts so it is obvious I wear a prosthetic, I'm also wearing an American flag shirt. Several people in the airport walked up to me and told me "Happy 4th of July" or some variation of that. On my last flight of the night to Richmond, my ticket had me seated near the back of the plane, so I asked the attendant if there was a seat up closer that I could move to. She said, "I was hoping you would ask, I didn't want to offend you by offering." Many times people will underestimate what and how much an amputee can do, offering a free upgrade to first class, now that's not offensive. The gesture was nice though, I totally see where she was coming from.

 When I first started going to the gym that I've been going to for about 2 years now, people would come up to me and commend me for going to the gym and how hard I workout at the gym. I mean I don't workout THAT hard. At first, I would think, "Geez, what do they think I should be doing, staying at home and not go out in public?" The more I would think about it, they were just giving me a compliment.

Firsts

I'm going to play catch up on my experiences and funny stories for a little while until I get caught up. So here it goes...

I got fitted for my first prosthetic in October of 2009 and received it only two weeks later. I wore it for about a month and the doctors realized I had HO (heterotrophic ossification). Basically it is when you get a piece of bone like material that "grows" in the tissue. Mine happened to be at the tip of my leg and the prosthetic was putting pressure on it. It was very painful. I had it removed December 1 of the same year.

I went back to school at Sweet Briar College in Virginia in February for what would be the only semester of my Junior year. My first weekend back a few of my friends and I went to Pizza Hut. I had not really been out in public with my prosthetic with the exception of my physical therapy 3 times a week back in Houston and the nearby Macy's. No one had ever said anything to me about my leg, and honestly I had not thought about what I might tell someone had they asked. There was a wait for a table and the cutest little four year old girl was also waiting with her mom. She curiously watched me walk in and and went over to her mom and said, "Mommy, she has a robot leg!" I don't really remember what I was thinking when I heard that or what I did. The most memorable thing to me was that the mother came over to me and asked me if I could explain to the little girl what happened. I told the girl, "My leg got hurt really bad in a car accident and the doctors had to make me a new one." She expressed that she wanted a robot leg too as she lifted up her pant leg. I told her she had two really good legs and to keep her good legs. She accepted that simple answer. The following week I heard another kid say something, the only thing different was that her mother ripped her up and told her to be quiet. It broke my heart that her curious mind was scolded. You would be surprised but most parents scold their children for wondering.