After the wreck, I had to figure out how to get dressed on my own. This and the next two posts will be about dealing with that.
So after my hospital stay, I ended up in a Rehab facility. While there I had Occupational Therapy. While the OT therapists were good, they didn’t have much experience with an Arm Amputee. And why should they? 80% Of upper extremity amputations are just fingers and even then upper extremities only account for 5.4% of all amputations. (These numbers come from the Amputee Coalition numbers for New York which is where I live and the wreck happened.. At the time of this writing, I’m not in anyway affiliated with the Amputee Coalition) Due to their lack of experience, they weren’t able to effectively teach me techniques for day to day living without my arm. So I had to use my strongest muscle, the one between my ears.
Let’s get started..
When I was in rehab, OT got me these button tools. They’re a wire loop on a handle that allow you to guide the button in the hole. They work, but they are accessibility tools, as I’ve mentioned in other posts, I try to avoid accessibility tools when I can. If you forget to bring it on vacation, you’re screwed. Also it’s one more thing you have to bring and when you travel by motorcycle, like me, the less crap you bring the better!
I also found that they get hung up on the button making them difficult to work with and more importantly, I found I don’t need them.
Let me show you how I button up. I use two different techniques, one for my pants and one for my shirts. Since I put my pants on first, I’ll start there. I’ll document the technique for shirts in a second post.
In the pictures, I’m wearing loose fitting jeans to make taking pictures easier. I also suggest you learn this technique with loose fitting clothes as it’ll be easier to learn. Once you get the hang of it you can go back to wearing your skinny jeans. (I hate to see her leave, but I love to watch her go…)
I start by putting my middle finger through the button hole.
Then pull the hole side of the pants to the button side, with my middle finger and grab the button side with my thumb and index finger.
Now using your middle finger, find the bottom of the button.
Next you’ll use your middle finger as a guide by tipping the bottom of the button up with your middle finger that’s still in the button hole.
Then using your Ring Finger and your Index finger, push the button hole side of the pants down over the button.
At this point the button is at a 45 degree angle and almost all the way through the hole, to hammer it home, just press down on the bottom of the button with your middle finger and upward angle on the thumb, while still holding the hole side with your index and ring fingers. This rotates the button from 45 degrees to 90 degrees perpendicular to the floor and pushes it the rest of the way through the hole.
This post will be a bit longer than my previous two. It involves that yearly job of cleaning up the leaves from the yard.
Before I begin, let me start by saying that in order to do this, I disable the Dead-man switch on my lawn mower. I will show you how I do this. However, THIS IS DANGEROUS this switch is a SAFETY FEATURE of your lawn mower, use this tip with caution and use this tip AT YOUR OWN RISK. Think before you do this, if you’re reading this because you’re like me, YOU CAN’T AFFORD TO LOSE ANY MORE BODY PARTS!
OK, disclaimer aside, let’s pick up some leaves, shall we?
So I don’t manually rake my yard. Power tools baby! OO OO OO! (That’s my best Tim Allen impression deal with it!)
A yard cart for moving the gear and full bags of leaves around
So here on Long Island the local blowhards… err… politicians require that we bag our leaves. So that is what we must do.
I use a leaf blower to blow the leaves in to piles. Mine is a gas blower. So obviously I have to gas it up first. Since it’s a pain in the ass to tip the gas can up one handed, I use a fuel siphon. Mine is the fancy powered one that uses a D Battery, but you can use the manual ones too.
The Battery units are available at your favorite big box hardware store for about $15 bucks.
And the manual ones are about $7
So to start the blower, I place my left foot on the bottom of the blower and my right on the top to hold it down while I pull the starter. You’ll have to modify this technique for your equipment.
The only difference between blowing the leaves as an amputee and blowing leaves before I was an amputee, is that now I have to put my beer down while I blow the leaves. So I won’t spell out how to get them in to a pile, you should be able to figure that part out.
However, I do use a rake to get in the corners and in the tight spots. Here’s a close up of the rake handle with the Easi Grip on it. This is the only “accessibility” aid I use for leaves.
So once you get the leaves in to a pile, it’s time to pick them up. I use my lawn mower as a leaf vacuum. Most modern lawn mowers have a bar that if you let go will shut the mower off, this is the Dead-man switch. Well lets just say trying to use that bar and start the mower all with one hand is an exercise in futility that leads to teaching the neighborhood kids some new four letter vocabulary words!
So to get the mower started with as few colorful words as possible, I use a Cable Cuff to clamp the Dead-man switch in the run position. This little bugger is about $3 bucks at your favorite purveyor of tools and yard equipment.
Reminder: DOING THIS IS DANGEROUS SO DON’T BE A DUMBASS! Pay attention and keep all fingers and toes (that you have left) away from the exposed moving parts!
Here’s a picture of the Cable Cuff holding the Dead-man switch closed.
Next just run the lawn mower over your leaf pile until the bag fills. The next step is to take a leaf bag and put it in a garbage pail, using the A clamps to hold the bag open.
I pre-stage the A clamps on the pail as I open the bag and drop it in. Then, to get it started, I’ll hold the edge of the bag against the top of the pail with my stomach while I clamp the A clamp on the bag. I then work my way around the top.
Now just take the bag off the lawn mower, doing this will depend on your equipment, for my lawn mower, I use my right knee to hold the spring loaded door open and then use my left and only hand to remove the bag. I set the bag down and lean the bag on my left shin to move my hand around the handle to lift it up.
Here’s a picture of me doing that:
Ok got that? No? What do you mean no? OK… I got you.. Here’s a YouTube Video of me doing that in action….
So now you have the leaves in the bag, now what, how do you get them tied up and to the curb?
Well I’m glad you asked. (Bear with me as this was hard to photograph, you will be rewarded with video at the end, I promise)
Start by getting a twist tie and holding it in your mouth. Then take the A clamps off the bag and gather the bag at the top.
While holding the top of the bag closed, tip the garbage pail on its side. (There is already a tie on the bag just for this picture, at this point you won’t have one on yet)
While holding the bag closed (so you don’t dump any leaves), place your foot on he garbage pail (As a lefty, my right foot is better).
Then drag the bag out of the can.
Next, you’ll reverse your hand on the top of the bag and spin it to twist the bag closed. (Watch the video if this doesn’t make sense)
After taking it for a twirl, pinch the top of the bag between your legs and using the twist tie in your mouth tie the bag closed.
Repeat as necessary until done with the leaves in the yard!
So here’s how that looks in a video:
I’ll leave the bags where they lay around the yard as I bag and then use my garden cart to haul them to the curb.
The bags at the curb..
My neighbor’s yard:
And My yard… Can you say “anal” boys and girls, I’ll bet you can!
So as a divorced home-owner, I have keep my house clean. There’s no one but me who’ll do it, so one thing I have to do is sweep.
Now as you read this post you’ll be saying, “Hey, didn’t the about page say he wasn’t going to use adaptive tools?” Well Ha! if you go back and read the page it says “…try not to use whenever possible…”
So yea, this post includes adaptive tools… sue me. LOL
So here it goes, I found these Easi Grip Add On Handles and the Easi Grip Arm Support Cuff. Those links are for the manufacturer’s site. They’re a product of the UK. They’re also available on Amazon which is where I got mine.
Here’s what it looks like on my Broom….
So I generally sweep using that. Then comes the fun part of picking up the dirt…
To do that I use a standard dust pan.
I use my foot under the handle to tip the dust pan up enough to capture the dirt and leave as little of that annoying, it won’t go in the pan line that’s left behind….
Lets get started with one of the first techniques I learned (well after walking that is)
So I couldn’t grab a picture, but to open the bottle, I put the bottle between my knees and use a regular bottle opener to pop the top of my favorite adult beverage….
One open Beer and one empty glass…
I start by grabbing the bottle with my pinky and ring finger. I use my middle finger, index and thumb to grab the glass.
I then gently tip the bottle up using my wrist and lean the glass over with my fingers, getting the perfect pour down the side of the glass….
Hi! Thanks for stopping by! This page is intended to share tips and techniques that I’ve personally came up with in order to live my life as an amputee. I’m posting them here in the hopes that they may help others too. And maybe along the way some of you could teach me a thing or two.
I intend to post as I can, sometimes you you may find tons of new stuff and other times…. well crickets…
When I lost my arm, I found myself in Occupational Therapy. The therapists weren’t used to having to deal with arm amps, since there aren’t many of us. So I’ve had to be inventive along the way. Also, I try not to use “adaptive” tools when ever possible. The reason is that there’s always a hardware store, supermarket, variety store, etc, near by. There is almost never an “adaptive” store around so if you forget, lose or break the needed widget, using regular items means what you can run out and get one.
Before I get started, a little about me, not that you care, but hell this IS my page after all.
My story of becoming an amp started back on June 8th of 2013 I had a motorcycle wreck. Going in to a left hand turn at about 45-50 mph the kickstand on my chopper deployed. I couldn’t make the turn and I hit the guardrail. I was thrown, and hit the vertical support post of the guardrail with my shoulder, ripping my right arm from my body and whipping me around. That broke my femur in to places, fractured 4 ribs, lacerated my liver, gave me 6 stitches in my left, a huge bloody lip and 3 broken vertebrae in my neck. Yes I can actually say that becoming an amp was a pain in the neck.. badump bump..
So lets begin, shall we?
You’ll find my articles on the left side of the page listed under How-Tos.
DISARMED 