One Foot on the Board

GeoCities.us » Pipeline » Ramp

Get your FREE home page!

ONE FOOT
ON THE BOARD
skating on a prosthetic leg · Gilbert Ulloa · Fresno, CA

What's up. I'm Gilbert. I'm 22, I live in Fresno, I work at a skate shop, I take drafting classes at the community college, and I've been skating since I was twelve. In August of 1996 a car wreck on Highway 99 took my left leg below the knee. Since last year I've been skating again, on a carbon-fiber foot.

This page is for anybody who just lost a leg and thinks that's the end of whatever they love doing. It's for skaters, mostly, but also anybody. It's not the end. It's a different setup, that's all.

IF YOU JUST LOST YOUR LEG
First, I'm sorry. It's a lot. You're going to have some bad days, and that's normal, and you're allowed. Second, you are going to be okay. Not right away. But you will. A year ago I dropped in on a quarterpipe. Three years ago I couldn't get to the bathroom by myself. Write me if you want. I've been there.

MY STORY · THE SETUP · PHANTOM STUFF · DON'T SAY · PAYING FOR IT · SKATE TIPS · LINKS

MY STORY

The wreck. I was 19, driving home late on Highway 99 from a friend's house in Madera. A car came across into my lane. I don't remember the hit. I remember headlights, and then I remember a ceiling in the hospital and my mom's face. The doctors worked for days to save my left leg. They couldn't. They took it below the knee. My mom was the one who told me. She held my hand and didn't cry until I did.

The hospital. I'm not going to lie, the first few weeks were bad. Pain, and then worse than pain, the thinking. I was a skater. Skating was my whole thing, my friends, my job, my everything. I lay there doing the math on my life and it didn't add up. A guy from the hospital's amputee support group came to see me. He was like fifty and he walked in on a prosthetic leg and I honestly couldn't tell which one until he knocked on it. That was the first time I thought maybe.

Shrinking. After surgery your leg is swollen. They put a shrinker on it, which is a tight elastic sock that helps the swelling go down and shapes the stump so a socket can fit it. (Doctors say "residual limb." Most of us say stump. Say whatever you want about your own leg.) I wore it pretty much all day and night for weeks.

The first fitting. About two months after the wreck I met Doug, my prosthetist. That's the person who builds and fits your leg. He took a plaster cast of my stump and made a test socket out of clear plastic, so he could see right through it where it was pressing. The first time I stood up in it, between the parallel bars at physical therapy, I felt about nine feet tall and about two years old.

Learning to walk. Diane, my physical therapist, is the toughest person I know. Weight on the leg. Weight off. Step. Step. Mirror. Again. It was harder than any trick I ever learned. Your balance is all different, your hip has to do new work, and the skin on your stump has to toughen up. I was on crutches, then a cane, then nothing. By Christmas 1996 I walked into my grandma's house on my own two feet, one of them carbon. My grandma screamed. In a good way.

Back to work. Mike, who owns the Board Room, the shop where I'd worked since I was sixteen, held my job the whole time. When I came back he put a stool behind the counter and never said one word about it. Now I sell boards, set up completes, and talk new kids out of buying the wrong size wheels. Mike also got me to sign up for drafting classes at the community college. He says I've got a good eye for lines. I'm in my second year.

Getting back on. My stump kept changing shape that first year, which is normal, so I got a new socket in spring 1997. Then in 1998, Doug and I started talking about skating. He set my leg up with a different foot, a carbon one with more spring in it, and tweaked the alignment. In April I stood on a board in the shop parking lot after closing, with Mike holding my arm like I was a little kid. I rolled about ten feet. I almost cried, in front of Mike, which would have been really bad.

By that summer I was cruising and doing little ollies in Jared's driveway. Then his backyard mini ramp. And on a Saturday in October 1998, at the skatepark, with my boys Jared, Marc and Justin standing there not saying anything, I put my tail on the coping of the quarterpipe, leaned forward and dropped in. Rolled away. Everybody went crazy. Some kid I didn't know asked if he could see my leg. I let him. That's my best day since the wreck. Maybe my best day ever.

THE SETUP
My leg, explained like a board. Every leg is different. Ask your prosthetist about yours.

BOARD	LEG
DECK	The socket. The part everything else bolts to, and the part you actually stand on. It's custom molded from a cast of your stump, so nobody else's fits you. A good socket is everything, same as a good deck. A bad one ruins your whole day, and your skin.
GRIP TAPE	The liner. A thick, soft gel sleeve that rolls onto your stump like a sock. It cushions you and grips your skin so you don't slide around inside the socket. Mine has a metal pin on the bottom.
HARDWARE	The pin lock and bolts. The pin on the liner clicks into a lock at the bottom of the socket, which holds the leg on. There's a button to let it go. Everything else is held together with bolts, and like any setup, they can work loose. I check mine every session.
BUSHINGS	The socks. Your stump changes size, during the day, in the heat, over months. So you wear prosthetic socks over the liner to fill the space, and they come in different thicknesses called "ply." Too loose and the leg feels wobbly, too tight and it hurts. You tune it, same as bushings. Some days I start at 3-ply and end at 6.
TRUCKS	The pylon and adapters. The pylon is the metal tube between the socket and the foot. The adapters at each end let Doug change the angles a tiny bit. That's called alignment, and like loosening or tightening your trucks, a small change makes a huge difference in how it rides.
WHEELS	The foot. Mine is carbon fiber. It bends when you put weight on it and springs back when you take it off, so it has some pop. My walking foot was stiffer. For skating, Doug went with more flex. Feet come in a lot of styles for a lot of activities.
RISERS	Your shoes. Here's one nobody tells you: your leg is aligned for a certain heel height. Switch from flat skate shoes to boots with a big heel and the whole leg tilts. Pick your shoes and stick with them, or tell your prosthetist.

PHANTOM STUFF

This freaked me out more than anything, so here it is simple.

Phantom sensation is when you can still feel the part of your leg that's gone. For me, my left foot itches. My toes curl. Sometimes it feels like my foot is just hanging there in the air. Almost everybody who loses a limb gets some of this. It's your brain still drawing the map of your body the old way. It's not in your head in the "you're crazy" way. It's real, and it's normal.

Phantom pain is when that missing part hurts. Cramping, burning, sharp zaps. Mine was really bad the first few months, mostly at night. It got a lot better over time, and for a lot of people it does. Now I get it maybe when the weather changes or when I'm stressed out.

Tell your doctor and your prosthetist about it. There are medicines and other things that help, and a socket that doesn't fit right can make stump pain worse too. Don't just tough it out like I tried to at first. That was dumb.

STUFF NOT TO SAY TO AMPUTEES
(or at least, to me)

» "What happened to YOU?" from a total stranger, in line at the store, before hi. Kids asking is fine. Kids are just curious and I'll show them. Grown-ups, say hi first.

» "You're so inspirational." For buying a burrito? Come on. If I land something gnarly, then sure, be inspired.

» "At least it wasn't..." Both legs, an arm, my head, whatever. Yeah. I know. I was there.

» "My uncle's neighbor has one of those!" Cool. We don't all know each other.

» Touching my leg without asking. It's part of me. You wouldn't grab my knee.

» "Should you be doing that?" My doctor and my prosthetist and I decide that. Not the guy at the park.

What's cool: just treat me like a skater. Talk to me about the trick, not the leg. If you're curious about the leg, ask nice, and I'll probably tell you more than you wanted to know.

PAYING FOR IT

Legs are expensive. That's real. Here's what I learned, in general, because everybody's insurance is different.

Insurance. Most plans cover some kind of prosthesis, but what they cover and how often they'll pay for a new one is all over the place. Get a copy of your policy and read it. Ask your prosthetist's office to help, because they deal with insurance companies all day.
Letters. Your doctor and prosthetist can write letters explaining why you need a certain part. Those letters matter a lot.
If they say no, ask again. You can appeal. Ask how. A no isn't always the last word.
Sport legs are harder. A lot of insurance will pay for a leg to walk on but not a different one for sports. I skate on my everyday leg with a skating-friendly foot, which is what worked for me. Talk to your prosthetist about options.
The state Department of Rehabilitation. In California that's what our vocational rehab agency is called, and every state has one. Their job is to help people with disabilities get to work. Because my goal is to be a drafter, they helped me with my classes. Call yours, tell them what kind of work you want to do, and ask what they can help with.

SKATING ON A PROSTHESIS: MY TIPS
Talk to your doctor and prosthetist before you start. Then:

1	Start flat. Parking lot. Pushing, turning, stopping, falling. Then curbs. Then a mini ramp. Don't go straight to the bowl to prove something.
2	Figure out your stance again. I always skated regular, left foot forward. My left is my prosthetic, so it stayed in front, and my real foot in back does the pushing and pops the tail. That works for me because I need my real ankle for the pop. Some guys switch. Try both.
3	Wear pads. All the pads. Knee pads especially. Your prosthetic knee side takes a beating when you slide out, and you don't want to crack your socket. Yeah, I wear pads now. Yeah, I used to make fun of guys with pads. I was wrong.
4	Learn to fall on purpose. Run out of it, slide on your pads, roll. Practice it on grass first.
5	Bring a kit. Extra socks in different plies, an Allen wrench for your hardware, a towel. I keep it all in my backpack.
6	Watch the sweat. Fresno in July can hit a hundred and ten. Your stump sweats in the liner and then you slip around. Take breaks, take the leg off in the shade, dry off, put it back on.
7	Check your skin every night. Red spots that don't go away, blisters, any broken skin: stay off it and call your prosthetist or doctor. A sore on your stump can keep you out of your leg for weeks. Way worse than any slam.
8	Tell your prosthetist what you're doing. Doug skates now. Not really. But he watched me once in the parking lot and then changed my alignment a little and it was way better. They can't set you up for it if they don't know.
9	Skate with your friends. Mine never once treated me different. They just waited for me at the top of the ramp like always.

This summer Tony Hawk landed the 900 at the X Games. The same week I landed a frontside 50-50 on the curb outside the shop. Basically the same thing, if you think about it. Don't think about it.

LINKS & HELP

The Amputee Coalition of America. A national group for amputees and families. They have a lot of good information for new amputees and can help you find a support group and people to talk to who've been through it. If a guy on a leg comes to see you in the hospital like one did for me, there's a good chance it's because of a group like this.

Your prosthetist, your physical therapist and your doctor. They're your crew. Be honest with them about pain, about your skin, and about what you want to do. Mine helped me get back on a board.

Me. Questions about skating, or just want to talk to somebody who's been in that hospital bed? Write me. I check e-mail in the computer lab between classes.

You're number

to drop in since January 1999

[email protected]

This is just my experience. I'm a skater, not a doctor or a prosthetist. Ask yours.
Last updated Wednesday, September 15, 1999