A One Handed Blog

I meet with Stuart and Phil from TouchBionics today, they were over from Scotland for the 33rd Annual Meeting and Scientific Symposium for the American Academy of Orthotists and Prosthetists in San Francisco.

It was great to meet them and learn more about the i-Limb myoelectric hand they have been developing, I’ve been following the progress since I found them online last year.

Based on my research these guys are state-of-the art. The hand has fully articulated fingers and thumb and although the control is limited to proportional open and close, as per standard myo devices, the fingers move independently and are therefore able to hold onto unevenly shaped objects. You can change the position of the thumb to change the action from gripping to holding a key between thumb and finger.

I got to have a play with one of their prototype hands attached to a maglite. By changing the pressure I exerted on the open/close buttons the hand responded with likewise speed. I could use it to pick up my glass (bowl shaped), something I sure can’t do with my current hook.

I’m doubly excited about what the future has in store after meeting Stuart and Phil and can’t wait until I can get my "hand" on one later this year. I haven’t seen anyone else with anything as close to this, outside of university research labs.

I had an epiphany the other day, I was all excited because I had contacted a company called Touch Bionics (based out of Scotland) about their i-Limb hand (see picture). I’ve been following them since I came across their website last year, just salivating to get a look at the myoelectric hand they’ve been developing.

Anyhow, thought I’d drop them an email to introduce myself and low-and-behold they kindly replied asking to learn a little more about my situation.

And then it occurred to me…I currently use a body powered hook day-to-day, most often than not I don’t even use my harness, so it’s just a passive device I use for driving and pushing things around. It’s functional, sure better than nothing and I’ve seen others who have become pretty adapt with one…but it ain’t no hand.

And there came the realization, why should I accept this, why should any upper limb amputee accept this as the status quo. Even myoelectric hands that work off muscle impulses are typically no more than an electrically controlled hook (open/close), maybe with added wrist rotation.

I want more, much more, I’m raising my standards. I can sit here and wait for advances to occur, wait for it to filter into mainstream, hope one day I get a replacement hand, or, I can go out there and be part of the process. I’ve decided my mission in life (after Kaboodle of course) is to pursue the most advanced prosthetics there are, to search out the best people and work with them, help push development to the next step. I want to be an evangelist, to let others know what is feasible…but, most of all I want a new hand, no compromises, no excuses! I’ll make do with what I’ve got for now, I’m not complaining, but I’m not willing to accept this is as good as it gets.

I’m looking forward to further discussions with Touch Bionics, they seem the closest to bringing the next generation of artificial hand to market so far. I’ll keep you posted.

February 18th 2006, I came to sitting on the ground in my paraglider harness after having collided with power lines, a mis-adventure I was lucky to survive. A year later and I guess I can reflect a little on what has happened since.

It’s strange, that still, all I can remember prior to the accident
was the moment I saw the power lines in front of me as I was headed in
to land. I can’t recall the 10 minutes or so that it must have taken to
fly from where I last remembered being in the air to this precarious location

You would think something like this would have a profound impact on your life; shake you up; make you realize what’s important; maybe find a new purpose to it all. Well, to be honest, not much has changed, maybe it’s too early to judge, but, life goes on.

Don’t get me wrong, I feel very fortunate to be alive and for me the fact that I’ve been able to get back to life, so fully, so quickly is pretty darn amazing. I don’t know if I need to find anything more significant than that.

I never imagined something like this would happen (who would?), losing a hand wasn’t at the top of the list of things I figured for my future . I’ve enjoyed participating in a number of “risk” sports and in hindsight part of that enjoyment required a suspension of disbelief that anything would happen…even though there were numerous people that it did happen to each year.

Do I wish I’d never gone paragliding that day? You bet! And at the same time, there’s  part of me that knows I have grown with the experience, I feel stronger for the experience. To face adversity and come out the other side smiling gives you a sense of certainty about life. So I’d love to have my hand back, but, I don’t want to lose who am I today. I’m a better person, a better husband and I’m happy.

Losing a limb doesn’t need to be the end of your life and how you handle it is down to you. You decide the meaning, the significance you attach to a situation. It’s all about your state of mind and the state it’s in is down to you.

It was my birthday at the beginning of the month and I decided that, since I failed to make some New Year resolutions, it was time to make some birthday resolutions. So I’ve decided I’m going to get back in shape and get down the gym again. I haven’t done any regular excercise since the accident nearly a year back now. I dabbled with Yoga again, but with my work schedule at Kaboodle I just haven’t been getting home in time to go consistently.

As of Monday though I’ve embarked on my new regime of exercising at least 5 times a week and abstaining from alcohol (at least for the next 2 months). My goal is to lose about 12lbs in weight and get my waist back to 32″ again. Now I’m not saying I’m fat, or particularly overweight, but with each passing year I do seem to have gained a little extra padding around the middle.

Using my “grip prehensor” attachment I’m able to work out pretty well in the gym using the machines, (for free weights I think I’d have to get a special attachment to lock onto the bars). It works well when I’m pushing, but, if I’m pulling (doing lat pull downs, for example) my socket keeps coming off…a little disconcerting to be pulling down to then have everything go “twang” and look up to see my arm hanging off the lat bar above my head. Probably even more disconcerting for everyone else.

You see, the problem is, my arm has shrunk now to the extent that it doesn’t maintain solid suction in my socket anymore. Looks like another trip back to my prosthetist for a new socket…let’s hope my insurance company doesn’t mind coughing up again.

So there I was, driving along quite happily on the freeway into work. Since I have car pool stickers for my Prius I was in the carpool lane and just going with the generally flow of traffic…when I happened to look in my rear view mirror to see a bike speeding up behind me…with flashing blue lights.

Oh great, I thought, as I pulled into the next lane only to be followed by the police bike. Me, in my little Prius being pulled over for speeding…the embarrassment of it all. Being pulled over in my wife’s M3 (which I have been), fine. Being pulled over on my Suzuki GSXR-750 motorbike (which I have been), I can accept…but in a Prius, please!

I pulled off the freeway and stopped. Officer Garcia gets of his bike, walks up and introduces himself, boy am I glad I got everything squared away with the DMV now!. Tells me he’s pulled me over for speeding and does the usual. Anyway, after he’s handed over the ticket he inquires how long ago I lost my hand.

So I told him and he then askes how I lost it, so I explained a little of the story. And he then tells me that he’s a skydiver and starts talking about how he was skydiving at night one time and came close to landing in power lines…imagine that. Not that it did me any good, he didn’t let me off the ticket.

So caught, not red handed but one handed…nice to know some things don’t change, eh.

My brother came to visit from the UK for the week on his way to his company’s annual sales meeting. I hadn’t seen him since he visited me in hospital in Miami back in March/April last year.

It was great to see him again, although Kaboodle kept me pretty busy during the week I managed to at least take a day off during the week and went down to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Both of us have been keen divers so it was fun to go see the fishes without getting wet and cold.

At the weekend we did a day trip to Kirkwood for some snowboarding with my boarding buddy Robert. It was bitterly cold in the morning, probably the coldest I’ve ever experienced down there and the snow is still not great…but the sky was blue! We haven’t boarded together for probably 8+ years, so it was fun to chase each other around the slopes.

The only challenge was that, by the end of the day, my stump was aching from the cold…my prosthetic just "conducts" the cold and the circulation isn’t that great in my stump at the best of times. When I took my socket and silicon sleve off the end of my stump felt like an ice cube! I’m goning to have to experiment with something to keep it warm.

Guess what, losing my hand hasn’t stopped me hitting the slopes. Well, no big surprise there since I snowboard – which isn’t heavily dependent on the use of one’s hands. But, nevertheless, it’s great to get back out there after missing the end of last season.

I typically do day trips with my good friend Robert Greene. We’ll drive up to Kirkwood, or perhaps Squaw, Saturday morning and back again that evening. This way we miss that crazy Bay Area traffic.

Last year we use to drive up in my Jeep Wrangler, but, I had to sell that last year when I bought my Prius…luckily though Robert bought, so now it’s his turn to drive!

Whilst I didn’t expect loosing my hand would stop me from boarding I did use my loss as an excuse to upgrade my equipment this season. I wanted to find some boots that would be easy to manage with one hand and while I was wandering around a shop in Lake Tahoe back in September that’s just what I found.

These boots are just great, the dial allows me to easily tighten them with one hand…hell, even if I had two hands I’d want these boots. Of course, it didn’t stop there, new boots meant I’d need new bindings (my old bindings were specific to my old boots) and why not get a new board while I’m at it too!

So I ended up with a completely new setup but have had to wait until now to get back on the snow and give it a try. As they say, good things come to those that wait…

And the other good thing is, as an amputee, I get half price lift tickets at Kirkwood and at Squaw it’s only $25! Now, I don’t recommend you rush out and chop of your hand or leg just to get cheap lift tickets, but, I’ll take whatever upside I can get thank you very much.

…is a new left hand.

Seriously though, I’ve been researching over the last six months or so advances in upper limb prosthetics to get a feel for what’s out there and I truly believe that in the next 10 years, maybe even 5, I will get my wish.

I see 3 distinct possibilities:

1. I will get a ‘Luke Skywalker Hand’
2. I will get a hand transplant
3. I will grow a new hand

You see, I view the loss of my left hand as a temporary inconvenience, a bit like breaking your arm and having to wear a plaster cast. You miss the use of your arm, it’s annoying, but not the end of the world. Then after 4-6 weeks, the cast comes off and you get back to normal. Maybe it’ll be 4-6 years for me, but, based on my research I don’t see why this shouldn’t be the case.

So, theory #1, ‘Luke Skywalker Hand’:

There are some interesting advances being made in upper-limb prosthetics, I’m particularly excited by the hands being developed with fully articulated fingers. The closet I’ve seen that is soon-to-be-commercially available is from TouchBionics.

Prosthetics Research by keiron

Theory #2, hand transplants:

I was quite amazed to discover that there were people who have received hand transplants, the first being over 8 years ago! And there have been at least 2 double hand transplants. I’m keen to learn what level of motor function can be achieved and what’s involved, but it looks promising.

Hand Transplants by keiron

Theory #3, growing a new hand:

This is the one that is perhaps the most ‘out there’, but in time it seems quite likely that we’ll be able to grow replacements limbs. I haven’t found as much concrete research in this area but I’ll keep looking.

Quite literally! I finally got my hand back from Hanger last week after they finished drilling a hole in it so I could insert a locking pin. The plan is to use it for weight training and bike riding…so I thought I’d give it a test ride.

I inserted the locking pin so that the hand was locked closed (I’d measured it before they drilled the hole to ensure the hand would fit over the handlebar). I then threaded the hand over the end of the handle bar and I was off. It worked pretty well. I’ll need to experiment a little with the angle of the hand since when riding there was pressure on the outer side of my arm, but it worked!

I also tried riding with the harness on and not using the locking pin, wasn’t too bad but the cable restricted my movement some and I had to keep constant pressure on it to keep the hand gripping the handlebar. The benefit being that if I fall off I wouldn’t still be attached to the bike since the hand would release.

The next step is to get the gear changer moved from the left side to a twist changer on the right, that way I will have access to both deraileurs on one side. I may also get both brake cables routed to one lever, TRS have a special lever just for this purpose.

It was just thanksgiving  here in the US and Kerry and I celebrated with a traditional English roast dinner, minus of course the turkey, since we’ve both been vegetarian since July. So what did we have instead of turkey? Kerry made our first ever nut roast…not quite the same as turkey but pretty tasty nevertheless.

I use to make our roast dinners every year and didn’t see why this year should be any different. Whilst Kerry made the nut roast the rest was down to me. With my hook in place I was able get on with most of it, although a little help peeling the potatoes moved things along a little quicker…gripping those pesky things ain’t easy. Look at those lovely roast potatoes…um, um, um!

It was a lovely dinner (roast potatoes, yorkshire puddings, stuffing) and whilst I missed the taste and texture of the turkey a bit (Kerry wasn’t to bothered) overall it was great. Luckily Bisto gravy doesn’t contain any animal products so I could still cover everything in gravy.