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!