First Time Walking With Crutches

Nashville Limb Loss Education Day

I spent today at the Amputee Coalition's event in Nashville called Limb Loss Education Day.  The goal of the event was to educate amputees and those around them.  Since my amputation, I've been learning quite a bit about amputations and prostheses.  It's almost like learning a new language, and as I've heard many people say, most people don't know enough to ask the questions they need to ask.  My goal has been to get to that level of knowledge and beyond.  Today's event helped with that goal.

My mom and I started the day off by running through Starbucks and Chick-fil-a for some breakfast (I love me some chicken mini's).  It was an earlier start to the day than we've had in a while.

We ate our breakfast on the way to Nashville, when we arrived we found the location pretty easily (thanks to modern technology, i.e. the magic box that tells us where to go).  What we didn't find so easily was a parking place.  You get a bunch of amputees together and all the handicap parking places get taken pretty quickly.

After registering and receiving our goody bags, we spent some time checking out the vendor booths.  We didn't make it far since the first stop was at my prosthetist's booth.  We spent some time talking and goofing off before the talks began.

I learned several things from the talks, most notably a good way to help deal with sweat in the socket: wear a sweatband for your head on your leg above your liner.  This and many other good tips made the trip well worth it, as well as the chance to meet other people who have experienced limb loss.  The vendors also taught me quite a lot about the different prostheses that are on the market.

At lunch time my prosthetist gave me some new shrinkers, then we decided to leave the event to get some lunch with my sister.  We ate at the cheesecake factory, and I probably ate much more than I should have (I was already over my calorie limit before I made it to the cheesecake...). Although, I did weigh in at less than 200 when I got home, so even after the huge lunch I'm back to being a little guy for the first time in five years.

Here's a quick video to give you a glimpse at my day.

Valentine's Weekend

This weekend was full of more activity than any of my weekends has had in a while. Starting the weekend off, my girlfriend, Rachel, surprised me by coming home from school for the weekend. I was glad for the chance to see her, as I haven't seen her since the beginning of the semester. We watched a movie and just enjoyed each other's company Friday night.

Here's a funny "fisheye" picture of our cat Lucy.
This has no relevance to this blog post.

 On Saturday Rachel came back and brought me lunch.  We spent the afternoon together watching "The Croods."  I found the movie to be very well done and quite enjoyable, if you enjoy animated kids movies that is (fun fact: I do).  After the movie, Daniel came over, and we played quite a few games of Call of Duty: Black Ops II.  I tend to be a social gamer these days, so I only play when playing with others. If anyone is interested, add Thryah on Xbox live, and we can play sometime.

Here she is without the "fisheye" effect,
so you know she isn't huge.
Still no relevance to the blog post.

Last Sunday I got out of the house for church for the first time since my accident.  Today I did the same thing except we also had Rachel and my dad with us.  The people at the church remind me constantly that they are praying for me and supporting me.

My birthday was two days before me accident.  One of the gifts I received was a Smith & Wesson revolver with the initials "JM" engraved on it.  Now, unlike my Coonan .357, this wasn't customized for me. The "JM" is referring to the designer of the gun (It's still cool that it has my initials).  Since my accident happened so soon after my birthday, I never had a chance to shoot the gun.

Today we decided to change that.  I'm trying to spend more and more time out and about or at least just out of bed, and this was how I did that today.  It felt really good to be outside and enjoying this hobby with my dad.  The gun shot extremely well.  It may be contending for a top spot as one of my favorite guns to shoot.

We did run into the problem of mud, so I had to shoot from pretty far back.
Otherwise, this was a great outing.