I've been "off the blog" for a month. I have moved my office from my home, into my office building. It took thirty days to find all my stuff and get organized but I'll be a bit more regular from now on. Plus, I got a Mac. Yes, ditched the old PC and went Mac. The verdict is still out as to how swell it really is but so far it has not pissed me off as much as my old PC.
As I mentioned before, I have hired a billing service and very soon will be accepting Medicare, Anthem/Blue Cross, Workers Comp, and Universal Health Network. This has been a traumatic endeavor, dealing with Medicare is mind boggling. Thank god, I have someone to interface with them because I don't believe my patience would have held.
Big changes at the shop also. I have added a fitting room with parallel bars and a real plastic skeleton. Although most of my clients prefer to sit in the lab and watch everything be made, I now have a quieter, cleaner, space to work in. One of the nicest additions is the lawn furniture beneath the trees and my old BBQ grill for cooking a few burgers or steaks when I'm working. Not a bad way to get a prosthesis made, hanging out at the BBQ instead of sitting in a little room with no windows.
It is finally Spring here in the Sierra Nevadas and the snow has melted. This means hiking and backpacking time for me. There is a trick for amputees to get to enjoy backpacking. Whether you are below or above knee, one of the biggest problems when you are hiking on uneven terrain is tripping over roots or rocks.
Amputees compensate for lack of musculature by generating more forward momentum.This allows us to move forward at a reasonable pace. On uneven terrain, every time we stumble over a root or rock we lose our forward momentum and often times have to recover or even fall. Either of these circumstances makes hiking in the woods a real challenge. It can be enormously tiring to be stumbling every fifth step which causes us to look in only one direction. Down. I can be hiking through the most magnificent forest on the planet but until I stop, I can't see anything but the ground directly in front of me.
The solution: hike with poles. Hiking poles that have straps at the handles can give the amputee hiker tremendous stability and allow them to actually see where they are hiking. What a concept! I started with cross country ski poles but now have a bitchin pair of Leki collapsible hiking poles. The trick is the strap. If you pull with the strap tight against your wrist, you use the largest muscle groups in the upper body. If you grab with your hands, you use the smallest and weakest muscles in the upper body. Walk normally with arms alternating with feet and you are on your way. I not only hike but backpack with a fifty pound pack and I have a pretty short below knee stump and weigh, well it's none of your business how much I weigh but lets just say it's a bunch.
Give it a try. If you have stayed away from hiking in the woods because of fear of falling or tripping, give poles a try. It really makes a difference.
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