- Eileen (as in “I Lean”)
- Captain Hook
- The Gimp
- The 7 Million Dollar Man
- The Bionic Bonehead
Wait, back up a second. The 7 Million Dollar Man? Hmmm ... just like Colonel Steve Austin—but a million bucks better. Yeah, I remember now. Old Stevo was in a hypersonic crash-and-burn, and needed two new computerized bionic legs, a bionic right arm, and a bionic eye. Hell, if I could have half of that cool crap, this might not be all bad.
It was with that thought in mind that I left Eileen at the altar—and the 7 Million Dollar Man was in the house. And as soon as my new alias was in the house, I was conspicuously out of the house.
After eight short recuperative weeks at Yale-New Haven, I was out of the hospital. I spent exactly one day in possession of a wheelchair, then stuffed the complimentary commode in the garage to store baseballs. From that time forwards, it was all bionics—all the time.
My bionic inventory currently consists of …
- One computerized bionic knee
- One flex foot
- One swim ankle
- One XT-9 extreme sports knee
- One Boston Arm
- One hook
- Two leg sockets (one pirate and one racing flame themes)
My weekly training regimen consists of running, swimming, bionic Australian field goal kicking, step running, football (both American-style and soccer), and absorbing body blows from my three- and seven-year-old micro-ninjas, Aidan and Luke. But I jump ahead of myself.
Amputee-ism has its ups and downs. To demonstrate this point, when asked by a hospital psychiatrist how it “was going” early on in my experience, I commented, “I have two equally valid answers. (1) Going good, how ’bout you? and (2) I got no arm and no leg, how do you think it’s going?”
That day was the first day of the rest of my life. I can suck lemons or make lemonade.
The hardest part of being a double amputee is starting and stopping. Putting on the gear. Removing and caring for the gear. But isn’t that true for all humanity? Slow to stop. Lazy to finish. But I’ll tell you one thing; though slow to start, it’s hard to get me to stop. I’m more motivated and activated now than in that year before I completed the High Speed Human Shot Put. Perhaps that event propelled me—toward the fast track. I wouldn’t change that outcome for a second.
