Coaching Terry

18April08

I’ve known Terry now for about 3 years. He is an Iraq War Veteran (Operation Desert Storm) with peripheral neuropathy. Over the past 3 years I’ve seen his mobility deteriorate; from crutching around the physical therapy clinic where I work, to now spinning around in his ultralight wheelchair. When I first met Terry, he seemed (rightfully so) fairly angry. Nobody was able to do anything for him to fix his problem. Getting his physical therapy paid for was a major ordeal, and he was resentful. I felt bad for him; his problems are real, yet so much about the disabilities that vets come home with, especially one like his, are not taken very seriously.

Terry seems to have transformed over this short time. He found Disabled Sports Eastern Sierra (http://www.disabledsportseasternsierra.org) and has been an integral participant, instructor, and mentor for many other athletes with physical and cognitive challenges. I became involved with DSES shortly after I met Terry, and volunteered as an instructor with them for a year; but I then decided to spend the past winter pursuing my own personal desire to learn telemark and Nordic skiing. I’m still far from skilled at these forms of skiing, but, I feel that next winter I can go back to volunteering time with DSES. There is such a sense of satisfaction and reward for “just being” at the end of a day with these students.

Today I met with Terry for his first “official” coaching session to prepare him for the San Diego Challenged Athletes Foundation triathlon in October. He has spent a fair amount of time over the past summer on his hand cycle, finishing a good chunk of the Fall Century bike ride; not only attempting to ride 100 miles in a hand cycle, but that would be 100 miles at an altitude of 7000-8000 feet. I’m excited to be part of a team (myself, plus 2 physical therapists from our clinic) that will help Terry to success in October. During our session today he told me that he received approval from the Forest Service to “rehabilitate” the trail from Mosquito Flats to around Rock Creek Lake, essentially widening it, to make it wheelchair accessible; backcountry wheelchair required, of course. I was amazed by this; as far as he knows, there is no one else in the country advocating for wheelchair accessibility to the backcountry. According to Terry, presently, national (congressional?) mandate is that trails be no more than 22” wide. He successfully generated a modification in this mandate (at least at the state of California level) that would allow the widening of trails to 24” – just wide enough to accommodate a wheelchair.

Terry skis Mammoth Mountain as well as I do (probably better, actually), maneuvering his mono and bi-ski, and he just championed wheelchair access to the backcountry in the Eastern Sierra. Terry has found the one person who can fix his problem. That person, of course, is him. Now if I can only convince Terry that he CAN, as well, champion the ocean swim in La Jolla Cove this October ….