One Body, One Life

So I recently had minor surgery for a soft tissue injury I got cycling. This procedure meant 3 weeks off the bike. In my down time, I decided to do lots of walking, upper body strength training and yoga. These pursuits have lead to me injuring my knee! There's a knock on effect in action here, as well.

I saw the physio and had my knee taped... The day before I was scheduled to have my first ever spray tan! There went that plan.. Also my training plans are out the window. Yesterday, my last stitch finally dissolved - I could be back on the bike! But alas no. I'm nursing an injury. It ruins plans, it's a bit frustrating and it's pretty damned painful, too: life, however, continues a pace.

I'm fortunate enough, however, to be sponsored by Elevate Performance and The Magical Kate of physio fame has made it possible, with her tan-preventing tape, for me to walk without either vomiting OR crying in pain, which made Thursday a much better day than Wednesday.

My life is exciting - I also had my car detailed AND managed to visit all Sydney based family members! OK that was sarcasm, but I did gift the talking Woody that Eddie found in the park to little SQuAngus and he loves him lots. Poor Bel has the nastiest eye infection I ever saw :*(

In ACTUAL exciting news, I have the finalised carbon fibre socket on my prosthesis! YEEHA! Can't wait to test this baby out..

I want to take a moment to shout out a HUGE congratulations to Caitlin on this week's FANTASTIC weight loss effort and to Lizbot for more training, more loss AND pushups on her toes. Also to Laura, for being the toughest chick ever to smash out 3 huge sets of gladiator/push-up/mountain climbers. YOU GO GIRLS!

On The Right Track

Thanks to the incredible support of the amazing people I'm surrounded by, throughout the global network of connected individuals, everything is progressing swimmingly.

Centrelink approved funding for my prosthesis and it is currently being configured by APC Prosthetics in Northmead. I have to head to the office, bike in tow, to test it on Tuesday. While I'm over there, I need to go in and meet all my friends at TADNSW, who have let me piggyback off their charity to raise - can you believe it - $10,100?! Wow! I'll come back to this point.

I've changed bike supplier and what a great choice that has turned out to be! My coach suggested that it would be beneficial for me to work with Clarence St Cyclery because they're close to my work, he has a great relationship with the manager and because they have developed a support relationship with the Paralympic team. They are very sympathetic to my cause, also, and have given me a great deal, as well as being tremendously attentive and helpful. Danni and I went in to get me fitted up for the bike and there is only 1 part missing from completion. If that part can be sourced locally (it is currently on backorder), then within a week from now, I'll have my bike and stationary trainer in my home!! The funds raised are sufficient to cover my bike and trainer, helmet and cleats, proper clothing, a good lock AND insurance.

Learning to ride, on the other hand, is the biggest challenge I've faced yet. I met coach Tom out at Dunc Grey velodrome on Tuesday to have my first lesson... It was super tough. 28 years of my oblique slings functioning in their specific and unique alignment, which involves my right ribs slotting over to the right hand side of my right hip, is a difficult thing to correct and is prohibitive to me finding the balance point and position to allow for solo riding. Technical and complicated, I know, but essentially it lead to me being exhausted within 10 minutes! The other problem is that, unlike my coach, I'm not very patient. Seeing me try to ride for the first time, he just smiled and sighed and said "this is going to take a while."

Raising over $10 000 in such a short time has not only done amazing things for my confidence, but it has exposed me to the beauty of the human spirit and the power of human generosity and kindness. The wonderful ways in which people contributed and the ideas people had were ingenious and touching. I need to make a couple of shout outs:

• To Skye Jones, for calling for paper bag donations in all her spin classes.
• To Diane Azzopardi for auctioning her dvds to contribute.
• To Jules, who sold his artwork at a discount and donated a percentage to me.
• To Louise and Steve Kovacs, for their generous donation and requesting that I write to their nieces and nephews - which I did.
• To Fitness First Bond St for running a charity day with $10 sessions and all proceeds going to me - thanks also to the PTs who volunteered their time for me.
• To FSP for their $1500 contribution and complete support.
• To the friends I didn't know I had or hadn't heard from in so long who surprised and delighted me with HUGE donations.
• To Donna and Alison, for all your advice and encouragement.
• To Ingrid, for the posters, for listening, for being patient, for my website, my newsletter, for everything.
• To Eddie, Chandler and Danni: for being my tripod of closest friends, who support me in every way, every day. It takes a lot of flexibility and patience!
• To Scott and Louise, who jumped in at the very last to push me over the line.
• To everyone who contributed in any way. For Donating. For spreading the word. For believing in me. For caring. For being part of something bigger than ourselves.

Thank you <3

This Amazing Journey

I am pretty positive most of the time that I lead a particularly charmed life. I live in a GORGEOUS city, it is a beautiful time of year, I love my work because I find it so satisfying and rewarding to help people change their bodies, minds and lives. I have found my soul mate and life partner and I live exactly how I believe and see fit. I run when I want to, swim, dance, move, live, breathe, share, eat and cook. I experience so much joy.

It wasn't always like this. In fact, I've been through times tougher and darker than many. That's another thing I'm glad for - that most people can be spared those experiences, but also that I'm strong enough to shoulder them.

I'm happy as it is and I'm totally glad to be here... I'm an ambitious creature though and I love a good challenge, so the opportunity to work towards a gold medal in cycling at the paralympics when I've never ridden a bike alone is something I simply can't pass up. In fact, it frightens me to admit I've never wanted anything so badly in my whole life.

So I'm just back from a month overseas, trekking in Himalaya - hard to be me, right? I start planning some fundraising events and plotting some ideas for February - when people's wallets have had a chance to recover from Christmas and New Years, and so my ideas and events are well conceived and well executed.

Then on Monday I received an email from the Paralympic Committee advising that the National track championships are on February 3-6 2011, and that I need to attend for classification and to put down a time.

BUT I HAVE NO BIKE OR PROSTHESIS!?

So after a minor panic attack, I resolve to set to work on Tuesday to raise funds for my bike with the special gear set that will enable me to ride one handed and the stationary trainer that will enable me to ride MY bike, indoors, without an arm. I got up early and wrote a plan and brainstormed with my close friend, graphic designer and web site producer, Ingrid in Canada. I was on the phone by 9am, spoke to my accountant about the possible ways I could raise funds without the tax man eating them instead of them going to my bike and the donors receiving the tax deductions they deserve. The only feasible solution was to partner with a charity.

I got onto the Everyday Hero site and went through the list of charities geared towards helping people with disabilities... When I got down to T, I discovered TADNSW - Technical Aids for the Disabled. A charity with a service called Freedom Wheels - specifically aimed at assisting the disabled to ride bikes! Well YAY - that's exactly what I want to do! So I got on the phone secured an authority to fund raise. I see the beginnings of a beautiful partnership... While its fantastic that I found this organisation just when I needed them most, I must say that I'm completely baffled and bewildered by the fact that I have not once heard of this service in all my 28 years. I could have started riding long ago!

I spoke to the team at Renegade Cycles and made sure they knew about my order and were happy to help and I also contacted my friends at Financial Service Partners, who helped launch my motivational speaking career. Then I built my fundraising page and got Ingrid to help me writeup the facebook event.

At 1pm Tuesday I launched my fundraising campaign on Facebook and Twitter. I sent my email campaign shortly after. To my astonishment, the donations started rolling in immediately, accompanied by beautiful messages of encouragement and support. It was an incredible feeling to be connected to so many people in the faith and hope that I will reach this lofty goal of raising $10 000 in 10 days, and ultimately success in para-cycling. At the time of writing this entry, less than 48 hours later, I have raised $4535. INCREDIBLE.

Wednesday was another big day! Fitness First have offered to run a fund raising event where the PTs will give  30 minute training sessions for $10, with all proceeds going to my cause. FSP have a plan to raise funds for me and another friend is pitching me to her company in the hopes of securing corporate sponsorship (thanks Donna!). I also met with my cycling coach, Tom Skulander, and will be headed out to the Velodrome to start training with him (see: learning to ride a bike, Jayme Paris' old one!) on Tuesday.

This morning I did another big thing and instructed APC Prosthetics to go ahead and order my arm from the US. I am confident that funding for the prosthesis will be secured when required.

The response has been completely overwhelming. This amount of support is something I never dreamed I was destined for. I just keep trying to keep on top of the donation emails, responding with my expressions of gratitude, regardless of how insignificant and unsubstantial they seem to me as compensation.


My eyes keep welling up with tears. This journey is amazing. I have never felt so loved.


If you have made it this far through reading my post, please share this link to my fundraising page and my story with everyone you know.


<3

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety Jog.

Why Hello There!

I have returned from an amazing adventure, trekking through Himalaya. I took LOTS of beautiful photos. The ones I took sightseeing in Kathmandu you can see here and those from the actual trek are viewable here.

This is a great little map of the trek itself:

I cleared customs in Brisbane, Australia and headed to Byron Bay for the Lighthouse 10km, an annual event and a favourite of mine. Boy oh boy I could tell I hadn't run in 4 weeks! It was TOUGH. I even needed walk breaks. From the turnaround point down on the beach, I started chatting with a lovely speech pathologist from the area named Cathy. It definitely made those last 2km much more enjoyable.

I arrived home on Monday evening, November 1st and my tenants were wonderful. They left my apartment in better condition than I had given it to them in! It was such a blessing.

I had been well for the entirity of my nepalese adventure. I had 1 day of stomach upset in Namche and 1 day of a sore throat. And then I came home.. I got gastro AND a chest infection once I had returned! So the germs of a developing country are no match for my immunity, but apparently Australia is. I think it was the air travel. I'm finally recovered from that and easing back into work at the gym.

Last Thursday I had another fitting for the socket attachment of my prosthesis, which is very exciting and coming along nicely :). On Monday, I was visited by a staff member from Work Focus to assess the requirement for my prosthesis in my place of employment. Hopefully this will result in the government's Employee Assistance Program providing funding for me. On the downside, the process is a little slow.

In slightly disappointing news, I didn't win the New You Awards and will have to get cracking on serious fundraising for my $10 000 road bike in the new year. I'll focus on the arm first. I think it will be far less stressful if I tackle one thing at a time.

As we hurtle towards the end of the year, I decided that the best gift I could give myself is a finely tuned version of myself. I decided to embark on an 80 day transformation on the day I left for Nepal in order to ensure I enter 2011 in improved mental, physical and spiritual shape. Regular journalling is key and there is a whole list of objectives contained within my entries. Completing the trek in good health and without injury was another goal, so hooray for having ticked that one off already!

The next stage of the transformation is a little scary. My friend and fellow trainer Dani will be accompanying me on Daniel Reid's 7 day fasting detox, which is all about cleansing and purification. I've never done a detox before, and I've certainly never gone 7 days only drinking supplements and not eating. Add to this that I've never had a colonic, of which there are 2 through the detox, and you'll get an idea where my trepidation stems from :)

There's lots more in the works, but I'll leave you with this for now. Until next time!

<3

Forging my Way!

What a roller-coaster the past 7 days have been! The wonderful human being who has sparked me up to commence this big adventure shall now be known as Geoff, and subsequent to our meeting on Monday, I have a meeting set up with Tony Adams and Melissa Moon on Thursday morning! Very exciting stuff :)

This week I also met with 2 providers of prosthetic limbs and selected who I am going to proceed with, as they have contacts within the AIS and paralympics.

The first meeting I had on Tuesday left me feeling quite despondent, though of course I never allowed that to show through my determination face. The reality, though, is that upper limb amputations make up only a very small percentage - something like 5% - of all amputees and only a very small percentage of those upper limb amputees are above the elbow. Due to us making up a small minority group, there is no money or market to have stimulated the research, development and production of load bearing, motorised elbow joints. Simply learning this fact left me feeling insignificant and very isolated. Although I learnt that I could acquire tools to assist me in riding a bike, holding a dumbell/barbell and even balance me while I run, my hopes of attempting two-handed push ups and handstands were effectively crushed.

That didn't feel very good. What compounded my sadness and frustrations was that I had no access to speak with anyone like me who would really understand what I was feeling. As a one armed girl in a two armed world, the more I spoke to my friends about it, the more frustrated I became by the fact that they couldn't really get it because they didn't know what disability meant. At the same time, my understanding of what being disabled really means and how it can feel grew tremendously. As my limb deficiency is part of who I am and part of my experience, it would serve me well to become more comfortable with handling these emotions instead of rejecting them in defiance. I'm an adult now and the time has really come for me to embrace and accept the whole package. It is, however, quite a difficult and daunting journey to be embarking on alone. The road is very interesting, but I have no shoulder to cry on when I hit speed bumps. Whilst I'm enjoying the freedom and flexibility of single life, it is difficult facing these challenges alone and a bit sad not to have anyone beside me with whom to share my journey. On the other hand, when I come through the other side, I will really own my success and the pride that will accompany it for having done it alone. I try to hold onto that thought.

Friday was a big turnaround day, though! First I met with the Amputee Association of NSW and hope to develop a relationship with them that is long lasting and super strong. There is great promise for a mutually rewarding and beneficial future delivering improvements to the amputee community at large. Someone just needs to bring them all together... It was at this meeting that I was shown a picture in a magazine of an athlete using a sea leg with an elbow joint as an arm to ride a bike! Such a resourceful and understanding bunch of people at this association... And it was armed with these new resources and information that I then went and met with APC.

Subsequent to this informative meeting, I elected to continue my journey with APC. Firstly, we are going to get everything sorted to enable me to ride a bike, weight train and run balanced. Stage 2 will look at using the power knee joint to make an adapted elbow for load bearing activity.. But that one is a mission of a couple of hundred thousand dollars and not in my immediate future. The meeting was very positive and filled me with hope and marveling at the possibilities of how my future will unfold. I left smiling. It was exactly what I needed.

What does the immediate future hold for me?'

• I'll need to get a script raised for the prosthesis and see how much funding the government will supply. 
• The gap will need to be sorted out through fundraising activities of an EPIC nature! More on that when I have the quotes and dollar figures. 
• I need to research Amputee Athletes within the AIS and Paralympics to see how I can get on that path.
• I need to write my story... *gulp* This needs to be done post haste as I appear to have my first speaking gig the first week of September.

And in other marvellous news, I have recovered from my injury and was able to run this weekend! Watch out bay runners and city2surfers!

Til next time! Xx

Serendipity

Last Wednesday morning at 10:05am, less than 48 hours after my previous post, a gentleman who was starting his workout approached me on the gym floor and asked if I could tell him my story. I replied that I was on my way to a meeting but gave him my card. 


Luck had it that the meeting was cancelled and I was able to go back and have a very interesting conversation. He asked me if I was interested in public speaking. I said it was my dream. He asked how I lost my arm. I told him my story. He is the CEO of a financial services organisation and interested in my motivational capabilities.

The outcome of the 40 minutes that we spent together is that he intends to have me trained in public motivational speaking and has events already earmarked for me to present at. I have been tasked to research the prosthesis that would best serve my requirements and to start working towards breaking the record for one-armed push ups. 

It dawned on me at the conclusion of our conversation that, one day very soon, I will ride a bike. I could be on my way to being a role model. This brought me to tears, completely overwhelmed and needing to be pinched.

With cautious optimism, I sent out an email to my close friends to say what had just taken place. We are all so excited about what lies ahead.

Since last Wednesday, I have completed 50 push ups. That was Saturday. I still hurt! The record is 105 in 10 minutes. I reckon I'll go for 120 - by Christmas. 

My next meeting with this gentleman (who shall for the time being remain nameless) is scheduled for Monday 12/07/2010 at 11:30am. I'm also meeting a prosthetician the following day, to spec out my exact requirements.

Watch this space!