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.