maybe a litte intro is a good idea?

[extremewheelchairs]

so I wrote a post here 1st about my brother-thinking that introductions n shit of that sort are sort of 'lame' (sorry-no offense meant-I'm just horrible at intorducing myself in person even so I don't really do it online much)


im a 43 yr old woman, paralyzed, had a motocross accident
left me in a coma for 3 months, severe head injury, "hit in the head'
as my mom said I always was even as a kid.
in 2005, i was diagnosed with ALS.

i started skydiving 3 yrs ago, and BASE 2 1/2 yrs ago.
it's been a long haul for me to get here.

so now:
i'm pressing forward from tragedy to triumph (for me anyways)

it was harder to swallow the truth
that sometimes i have to loose
in order to improve

but now im where i want me.
but honestly i could fold at any time
and when that happens im closer to the finish line
its now or never
im pressing forward
its time to sever the past
and focus on the present.

before i die i want to know im alive
instead of staying at home bored out of my mind
so I'm trying to make the most out of my life.

so many obstacles blocking my way
but i try to knock them down one at a time.

I'll do what it takes,
for a stronger person of me it makes.

i don't focus on the pain
but on the gain.

i don't believe in tomorrow
I'm ceasing today like 'carpo diem'
shallow people think im weak
when they see my appearance


I've bought myself a new blackjack 260,
and a new perogeeII container,
several pilot chutes and 2 sliders,
two yrs in a row bought jump slot for
bridge day](this yr was jumper #23 @9:30AM)
but cant find a ride and getting there by buss with gear,
tents medical shit i got
now (feeding tube pump etc) was 'too much' to handle
so never made it there-again.
not giving up
going to register
next yr.'
maybe by then i need to try to do it tandem
if i cant move that much anymore.

after tearing up my old raven in that landing
that broke my ankle the 2nd jump I made
-there's the truth now-

so if you want to judge me for it
guilty is what i plead.

[Para_Frog]

As long as you don't live in your dad's Chicago basement mixing Prozac-coladas...you'll be welcomed by this ragtag band of douchenozzles.

You should plan a trip to Twin in the summer. The locals enjoy riggin up black death contraptions to fling anyone with physical challenges off the bridge multiple times.

And you can land in the water next to a boat. No broken ankles.

Bring Patron.

[speedphreak]

I agree, Twin is the place to go. If arrangements are such a big deal for you then you want to have as much leeway as possible for the outcome you want.

With Twin, you've got all Summer (Spring & Fall) to coordinate and plan for your trip/jumps. With Bridge Day, you've got such a narrow window of opportunity, you're kinda putting all your eggs in one basket and hoping everything works out.

Plus, there's all sorts of people who live at Twin that can help with everything.

[hamsandwich]

Come to Twin! I have a platform built for our good friend Russel to jump from, he's a T3-T4 complete para.

Here's Rusticle's website: Russel - Paraplegic BASE Jumper - "Project pBASE" I don't know the last time he updated though.

He's done some cool shit like wheelie'ing off the planks on the bridge with a drogue chute in d-bag attached to his ass to float the chair down. He's also jumped an Earth.

I live in Twin with roughly 10 other jumpers. Don Mayes runs a boat service for us and you can land in very calm water and then we'll hoist you onto the boat. Keep in mind that at the end of the day you'll owe beer!

Perrine Bridge Festival would be a great time to come if you can only do one trip this year. Maybe Rusty will come too and you two can do a parapa-twoway.

And one question... You started BASE 2.5 years, so you mean learning or have you made a BASE jump somewhere?

Either way, come huck our bridge. You'll love it. I'll even score you a free ride down here if you're remotely close to any of the Canucks I know. What Province and City are you in?


peace!

-

[hamsandwich]

The locals enjoy riggin up black death contraptions to fling anyone with physical challenges off the bridge multiple times.

It's true! We have mental challenges so we compliment each other well!

Bring Patron.

Yes yes!



-

[extremewheelchairs]

As long as you don't live in your dad's Chicago basement mixing Prozac-coladas...you'll be welcomed by this ragtag band of douchenozzles.

You should plan a trip to Twin in the summer. The locals enjoy riggin up black death contraptions to fling anyone with physical challenges off the bridge multiple times.

And you can land in the water next to a boat. No broken ankles.

Bring Patron.

never been 2 Chicago,
haven't seen my dad in 37 yrs,

i happen to believe in that statement
"B.A.S.E before bitches, alcohol, smoke, everything" (well I've never had the bitches but hell I can't get any from any gender anyways )

i do have a medical exemption for MJ and sure my thoughts used to be
thinking that I'm a crip n chronic
roll a blunt im on it
a couple of puffs
& im super sonic
a speed demon for a quarter mile
deep breathing all the while
never let my BP level affect my style
many odds at stake
never using my brakes
only focused on every corner I make

having everybody gather round
from the floor to the ceiling
door to the street
just go with the feeling upon your feet
I'm broke chest down still groove to the beat

but now...
with a sober mind I wake up not to cope but to deal with
any old problem, that'll get in my way
then vanish-dissolve it

no thoughts on wasting my time
all things cost but life is SO fine!
bad things don't cling to my life,

I know what I want....
so much to loose
no time to waste
embracing a challenge
is all i can do to keep things in place

in so many ways
every day is a whole new beginning!

YES, i want and will come to twin
how's april and may?
might then just stay as long as my bank card
works and my disability pension
keeps coming in monthly
luckily i dont have to worry about food too much
kus of the feeding tube and pump
just need some hydro
a tent is where i lived at the DZ last yr
for 3 months kus i was focussing
on goals that physical comforts weren't a part of
tenting works just great for me
so long as some spot to put it up is found
for free...?...

I did promise to judge at the Eastern Conference skydiving competition
'sometime in Aug. or ept. dates not set yet
(I did consider how I can give back to jumping
if I live long enough that I cant move anymore
so my DZO paid for my courses to become a judge)

i'm fine to loose the beginning of our super caravan arrival (we got one of only 10 in the world with 900hp engine-and only one fitted for skydiving, the rest are private company jets-i know the jumpers came from all around to get a chance to climb to 13.5 in 12 min.) but that means shit's nothing for an invite to twin!


being military guy you'd then perhaps know the parachute I'll jump next weekend.
stratocloud 240, old military reserve...

in skydiving I'm a bit of a 'old canopy whore' would love to fly some paradactyl's n shit but my DZO wont let me ,

ityah i know it's because if a gimp bounces on a DZ it will be hard for any other gimp who wants to learn to skydive to find a DZ willing to teach them... hell here in Canada, I think my DZ was the only 1 willing to give a gimp a chance to learn how...
been different for someone who already knew how to skydive before breaking themselves.
'
so I can't let that happen here...
not that I'd want it to happen anywhere,'I JUST KNOW that
I'm going to die, like anyone else and in B.A.S.E. its not a matter of IF, but when... hopefully not before I get my B.A.S.E.#!

water landings, the next week after I got my endorsement (got my night and water jump endorsement also but not the rating to go with it so I'm technically not allowed to do neither),

I end up landing in the ditch on the side of the runway FILLED with water, im immersed to my tits and cant get up-damn legs don't work!
HAH finally figured out when it would of been a good time to be able to stand up instead of waiting for someone to drag me out
-needed a reserve repack, new AAD battery and subsequently a new AAD-which is what I just got on a payment plan from my DZO-thus the stratocloud jump next weekend-I FINALLY get my gear back from the riggers

-I was trying to work on my blind man landings and ended up sliding right into the damn ditch!
(as he comes running to get me out of the ditch the DZO says 'was that another intentional blind man'?)-soon enough he found out it was-i told him its safer for a butt slide landing then going the right way-blind man my feet are dragging behind me no chance for my leg to get caught in a rut in the ground


if the locals love tossin gimps off bridges
I'M IN...

and water sounds awesome-nice to save the ankles without health care in the USA,
'but what the hell, even if I lost one, what the hell do I need feet for anyways, an old fashioned amputation will work just fine for me if needed.
lots of whiskey and a powerful circular saw followed by a decent heat gun should be just fine.

thanks para frog,'i guess it means I'm not kicked out of here

oohh yah-I WILL bring LOTS of Patron, my mentor drinks ONLY patron.. you related 9he's military- one of our 'skyhawks')

[extremewheelchairs]

Come to Twin! I have a platform built for our good friend Russel to jump from, he's a T3-T4 complete para.

Here's Rusticle's website: Russel - Paraplegic BASE Jumper - "Project pBASE" I don't know the last time he updated though.

He's done some cool shit like wheelie'ing off the planks on the bridge with a drogue chute in d-bag attached to his ass to float the chair down. He's also jumped an Earth.

I live in Twin with roughly 10 other jumpers. Don Mayes runs a boat service for us and you can land in very calm water and then we'll hoist you onto the boat. Keep in mind that at the end of the day you'll owe beer!

Perrine Bridge Festival would be a great time to come if you can only do one trip this year. Maybe Rusty will come too and you two can do a parapa-twoway.

And one question... You started BASE 2.5 years, so you mean learning or have you made a BASE jump somewhere?

Either way, come huck our bridge. You'll love it. I'll even score you a free ride down here if you're remotely close to any of the Canucks I know. What Province and City are you in?


peace!

-

actually Russell and I shared emails, and planned to do some jumps together until he was getting married in the summer of 2008...
then just sort of got caught up in my own shit and didnt plan nothing with him again-sorry dude Russell if your reading... feel shitty for letting you off the loop on whats going on.

Not a problem with beer at the end of the day,
I'll buy it every night if I can string up my hammock,
or my tent in someones yard. use their hydro 2 hook up my feeding pump for the price of beer... hell if i had a ride i'd bring cases of Can. 7% beer



as 4 your question-both-learning started with getting my hands on the snake river base 1st jump course manual-reading it daily still...
hey some read other "bibles" daily

that broken ankle was a low antenna with intended water landing with off heading opening into brush n rock cliffs.

never done anything higher then 600+f

but honestly, I'm a total newbie considering dozens of jumps might make one a novice

hope to do an E @ "echo bay" some winter-transportation and getting out of there is the issue there-need a good climbing crew 3 sure-its over 300f of rock cliff-trying to get a gimp up that you really need to want to see it happen-the jump.
it has to be winter-its down into Ontario's deepest lake-not really where I want to go in.

that's why an E anywhere else would be awesome-jumping into the deepest lake we got in the province is not ideal.


winters don't bother me-this weekend we had -25C @ top floor yesterday n -17C on the ground. went for a 35 sec FF from 9.5 -yah was a bit chilly i must agree that's why were dressed like ninja's-any exposed skin is frozen immediately up there....
but hey @ topfloor in the winters two miles up in the heavens
Is a cold and lonely spot. That's where you find out what you are
And indeed what you are not(in the skydiving world anyways)

Rented some gear (have to keep current) kus of my AAD problems & I
wasn't able to jump in Dec was in hosp. with sepsis (systemic blood infection), doc said i'd have died if i'd waited another 3-4 days before going to the hosp.
(their places i avoid almost till death n i have a DNR-do not resuscitate order kus if my ticker stops then let it be so-the ALS is going to kill me anyways but with tons of suffering)
so as soon as I got the strength to get up there, I GO

oohh and speedphreak your so right,
IT IS such a small window of opportunity,
pay lots to get there, lots to stay there and then end up jumping in some shitty weather like this yr had been....


oooh and I live in Ontario.

[extremewheelchairs]

p.s. that stratocloud is NOT the plasma cloud that most people think of=when they hear the word (which is the interaction of the solar winds with Venus)...

now I did try to tell my DZO if he's so concerned about my butt slide landings, on an old military reserve -it hasnt been jumped in 10 yrs but my riggers kept it in his collection because he's just more interested in jumping some of the more 'interesting' vintage canopies...

I told him we could rig up a system like they landed on Mars that rover-under a round parachute, with the rover surrounded by airbag balloons so it could bounce around until it stopped I said if he'd like me to ry thatt? :-) Actually some modern paragliding harnesses have a self inflating airbag under the seat. Sort of an airlock idea - air from the front fills the airbag but if one has a bad landing the air doesn't go out either too fast or slow through the inlet valve. No good in freefall, but if one built one that could be foolproof in staying shut or being opened, that could protect your spine on landing. On the other hand, something like that would actually interfere more with a good sliding landing... and NO im not high writing this-my brain just wanders to these things on its own-CLEARLY I DONT NEED DRUGS

[nicknitro71]

CLEARLY I DONT NEED DRUGS

Clearly you do! Especially the weed kind!

I personally love to throw and jump with physically and mentally challenged individuals, having been both at some point in my time.

Abbie is a master is death-camping both kinds. Too bad that Herenza guy ain't around anymore, none was more qualified than him when it comes to death-camping!

Oh, it's spelled Carpe Diem, short for carpe diem quam minimum cedula postero which loosely translates into "do your shit today and leave as little as possible for tomorrow" (as tomorrow might never come).

[nicknitro71]

By the way, weed contains cannabinoids that are KNOWN to act as neuronal modulator. Smoking weed might do wonder for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. You can either believe all the fuck-faces MDs getting blow jobs from hot whores working for the pharmaceutical industry or the fucking TRUTH which last I checked it's only ONE and ONE fucking only!

[extremewheelchairs]

Clearly you do! Especially the weed kind!

I personally love to throw and jump with physically and mentally challenged individuals, having been both at some point in my time.

Abbie is a master is death-camping both kinds. Too bad that Herenza guy ain't around anymore, none was more qualified than him when it comes to death-camping!

Oh, it's spelled Carpe Diem, short for carpe diem quam minimum cedula postero which loosely translates into "do your shit today and leave as little as possible for tomorrow" (as tomorrow might never come).

thanks for the spelling correction-i actually didnt know the who phrase...

yah like I said-I DID have a medical MJ exemption-federal cardm had the right to carry 2 oz at any time, and have up to 28 plants in the basement

but literally i just got too ill to take care of it all, AND take care of my firewood to keep the home fires burning-AND living on an airport my landlord would not give me permission to grow-finally my doc who perscribed it initially (ALS clinic doc) retired and the local little town doc must be related to the local litle town cop because he absolutely refuses to even sigh my toronto medical club paperwork-which is not even an exemption-federal one that is-all it is- is a paper that says yes this person has this illness....

but becuse its from the compassion club the doctor tossed it in his garbage before he had time to read it.

well... I've decided if i have to wheel myself there-in which case i better start going as soon as the roads are lacking snow-I AM coming.

I told greenmachine today-we were talking static lines -he said to me i did way too much analyzing and thinking in my post to his static line post in basejumper.com forum (well he emailed me i dont know what if anything he said on the forum-havent been there today during the day)...
have to go to the hospital to put stop my insides from falling out of the hole in my stomach,'
i sort of ran into a problem-the last 24 hrs.
my feeding tube came out,and so my insides been coming out,
and finally I rigged up a system that's keeping the leaking to a minimum using a packing clamp (yah its a bit painful but strong enough to keep the hole shut) with a wooden stick holding some cotton gauze in the hole-also helps to not have the clamp totally shut skin against skin-it hurt way more that way-this way its a bit less painful

i agree that I DO need LEGAL perscription back
BUT i dont need to be buying it...
now that my roomie fckd off to Lodi and decided to stay,
went on his last months rent, I'm keeping this house, which just doubled my rent-from $500 to $1000 plus utilities and income of $1289 is sort of leaving me about $189/month to live on....

since I work here to skydive for free
and I tagged the closest A i could get to, its too hot to go anywhere near it for a long while,
i got lots of time to gather firewood.... help out at the DZ to put cash in the account for when the competition comes and after I'm done judging I usually become an altitude whore for Sept, Oct. Nov. and onward...

BUT this yr I'm coming to twin
n i dont care who tosses me off the bridge as long as the've tossed someone else before-and the locals know him/her...

how to get there...
seriously i was thinking at one point of taking my electric chair and going on a roll-about with my buddy John (http://j2rollson.com/index2.html)-he's got wheelchair 'extreme' athletes on his site (actually on this link http://www.extremechairing.com/sports/sky%20diving.html he's got an old video of me while i was doing tandem progression skydiving back in 2007-old stuff old news it makes me laugh now when i watch it-my'wave' off is SO frantic , my limp legs puled us always into a double backlook instead of one -my 360's were so forced! its just plain laughable to watch i did toss up my final AFF video up just a while ago but i dont have anyone taking video of me jumping these days-especially when i do my 'fun' stuff-but when i watch my final AFF video even i can see that i fal like a rock, not too bad on stability on exit there but its still very funny compared to now-sometimes fun to watch the old shit just to remind myself what it was all like-) -and John is a fellow who decided one day to go for a long ride,'then he rode across his state,'then another one
and now hes goes on this awesome 4 wheel dune buggy thing completely controlled with one joystick-watched his youtube video and had me feeling those days of motorcross (when i hit my head trying to do a backflip off a ramp over a dirt road-ended up landing on the roof of buddy's truck roof, tore his antenna of with my arm and brought it as souvenir-3 weeks coma followed that stunt...).

anyways-that's probably lots of intro about me

time to shut up n start reading and asking some important questions along the way

[ZegeunerLeben]

>>I had the privilege of hoisting Russel over the railing back in '05. I even have a couple crappy disposable camera polaroids of Russel with his legs and hips wrapped in black tape, hanging from the pull-up bar & another great one of him in free-fall. I keep them in my office, and I look at them whenever I get that 'I can't do it' feeling. extremewheelchairs, if you really decide you want to make a BASE jump, there are people out there who have made it happen (not me)

[extremewheelchairs]

that's awesome re the motivation those photos give you ZegeunerLeben.

I agree in your signature totally-and now will dig up russells email again and give him a shot-see how the new married life is treating him and gosh if he's got kid by now filling 'trailor base' log books (no cant be yet-he only got married june 08)...
anyways, yah since the shout out was tossed up im ceasing it and coming down-trainm bus, hitchhiking i dont give a doG's ass how, but its going to happen.... i'd like to see myself down there end of april May time-everyone here at the DZ's gona think i got shit for brains because we put up with a 25 yr old 306 without a door to jump all winter just to have something big n fast arrive (this yr its a toss up between the super caravan or a skyvan) for May 1st n usually we get a helicopter by mid April when the runway is soup, but hey-that suff's everywhere snd im coming back home eventually--cant stay in the USA with ALS and no job to give health insurance, so i'l get to still be an altitude whore in the late summer-but BASE 1ST

[hamsandwich]

Alright extremelyinsaneinachair! I've got a couple buds in Manitoba so if you can make it that far I'll ask them if they're coming down for PBF.




-

[extremewheelchairs]

Hey manitoba I can do. If that's the best I'm in ontario so ita north of chicago-manitobas about a $300 bus ride away n 30 plus hrs but I want to be there.
This is my summer my body moves well enough to do shit still-and I'm doing it! My DZO needs 2 know when I'm gone- dates I told him I was going hopefully memorial day kus I really want toi see GreenMachine n he emailed me this AM that he's there then. If thers a closer ride-awesome but I will go to manitoba if I need 2!