Four Years

Deborah had the chickadees eating out of her hand
Last Saturday marked the fourth anniversary of my accident. In some ways, the time has flown by but in other ways it seems like forever. The most surprising thing for me is that I'm still seeing plenty of changes and improvement, even this long after; I'm still getting stronger, handier in the chair and have more stamina, and that makes a lot of things easier.

Deborah and I didn't do anything special to mark the occasion, but it was a nice sunny day so we went to the Reifel Bird Sanctuary. We've been there a few times before, but there are always different birds depending on when you go. Here is an example of my improvement just in the year since we moved to Vancouver: Deborah noticed that when we went to the sanctuary the first time, she had to help me around the trails quite a bit. This time however, she hardly had to help me at all.

I'm hoping my photography skills have improved in the last year too! There are more pictures from our trip to the sanctuary here.

Ruby, an eclectus parrot at the conservatory
It has been pretty dreary and wet the last couple of weeks, but Deborah found us a great place to visit on a rainy day, the Bloedel Conservatory. The Conservatory is in Queen Elizabeth park, which we've actually driven by many times but never gone into. The Conservatory is an indoor, tropical garden with more than 100 birds, including parrots, macaws, finches and - of course - budgies.

Unfortunately the park itself is quite hilly, and even though there are paved paths I think it would be pretty difficult for me to get around. The Conservatory itself was okay though, with a nice paved walkway inside. It was a nice way to spend a rainy afternoon and we will certainly go back on a sunny day to see more of the park.

I put more pictures of the various birds (in colour) here.

More Wheeling

Mud Bay Park in Surrey
One great aspect of living on the "lower mainland," as the greater Vancouver area is sometimes called, is that there is no shortage of paths and trails along the many waterways. A couple of weeks ago we went to Mud Bay Park in Surrey, which is just south of us and on Boundary Bay. We had been to Boundary Bay Park before, which is on the other side of the bay, and there is a path that runs along the water between the two parks - a whole 20 kilometers for adventurous people. Like most of the paths along the river and bay, this one is crushed gravel and not too bad in a chair, but even still we only did a short loop of a couple kilometers. Just like at Boundary Bay park, and most of the other trails around, there was quite a bit of wildlife and some great views.

Yoga Progress

Hands and knees. It may look easy...
It's been almost a year since we moved from Los Angeles to Vancouver, but I still do yoga every Monday with the same instructor, Nancy. But since we couldn't convince Nancy to move here with us, we have class by Skype. It actually works very well, and we've made quite a bit of progress on all sorts of things. As you can see in the video, I can now get up on my hands and knees, which takes a lot of both strength (to get up) and balance (to stay up). The end goal here is to get to the point that I can, on hands and knees, lift one hand off the ground. So far I can get one hand on fingertips, but when I try lifting it I promptly fall over. We've also been working on abdominal muscles, coordination and balance, with all kinds of interesting exercises that help make day-to-day activities easier.

Strapped in and ready to go
In August, Debbie went to visit her family in Ottawa while I stayed home. I had been on my own for a few days once before while she was away, but this was a full week that I'd have to look after myself. Shortly after she got back, it was my turn to visit my family in Dorchester (near London, Ontario). This was my first time away on my own, but my brother Peter has his house all set up for me with ramps everywhere and all the equipment I need inside. Everything went well as far as the flights and traveling went, and it was a big accomplishment for me to take a trip like that on my own.

I was in Dorchester for 10 days, and had a great time visiting with everyone and catching up. One of the (many) highlights was going for a sail on my brother Stephen's boat, along with some of my friends that I hadn't seen in a while. I think I'm chuckling in the picture because Stephen had just tethered me to the boat with a strap - just in case. I didn't realize it at the time, but I ended up steering the boat most of the afternoon, so it was a good thing he did fasten me in.

Overall it was a great trip and it was nice to see everyone again. I'm definitely looking forward to going again next year!

Terry Fox Run

At the start of the run and ready to go
Last weekend Debbie and I did the Terry Fox Run, which is an annual event benefiting the Terry Fox Foundation and cancer research. My friend Eric happened to be in town for the weekend and came along as well. The course was 10 kilometers, starting from Garry Point park in Steveston and going up the dyke path along the water. The path is gravel, so it was pretty slow going; we started a half hour before the official start, and even at that we were so late getting back that everyone had packed up and left from the finish. It took us about three hours total, by far the longest I've wheeled in one go.

For my American friends that don't know, Terry Fox was a runner that had a leg amputated because of cancer. In 1980 he began his Marathon of Hope, a cross-Canada run to raise money for cancer research. He made it as far as Ontario, but unfortunately had to stop there as his cancer had spread; he died not long after. The runs began in 1981, and are now an annual event held across Canada and around the world.

Study Results

Last week Debbie and I went to ICORD for a presentation of the results of the trunk muscle function study I took part in a while ago (part I, part II, part III). The researchers used a study group of 14 people with spinal cord injuries and a control group of 15 able-bodied people. Interestingly, almost all of the SCI subjects had some control of some of their abdominal muscles, and all of the SCI subjects had some level of electromyography (EMG) activity in at least one abdominal muscle. However, the ultrasound testing showed that the SCI group had thinner abdominal muscles than the able-bodied group, and the thickness changed very little during the exercises - in the able-bodied group, the muscle thickness grew significantly). What this means is that even with a complete spinal cord injury, there are still pathways from the brain to the abdominal muscles and some voluntary activity is preserved. The results have given the researchers some direction for future studies, which will focus on how exercising can improve function - it was noted that most of the SCI subjects do some type of regular exercise (yoga was mentioned) that activates the abdominal muscles. They will also try to quantify the improvement in function from that activity. It was interesting to see the results, and it was also nice to have some verification that the yoga I've been doing does make a difference.