Northwestern Prosthetic School

My time here is Chicago is about up. Its been a fun experience living in Chicago and going through the prosthetic program at Northwestern. Our class of 22 will graduate this Friday and then branch off on our separate ways. I feel like we had a special class in that everyone really bonded and helped each other out. School has consisted of assessing patients and casting them for a prosthesis. I'd then build it and try fitting it to the patient. We all completed 7 prosthesis projects in 8 weeks so it has been busy and time has flown by. Our class laughed a lot together making being in "school" enjoyable and when we'd get together to party and danced everyone had fun. Some memorable moments included dissecting the human body (new experience for me), Elvis singing happy birthday to Tom(our prosthetic instructor), Team Uniforms, Mullets, kidney stone hospital run (luckily it wasn't mine), Critiques, foot braking, Shannigans, Mcfadden's, O'tooles, and getting free stuff at AOPA. Chicago has been pretty fun too, but I'm ready to get back an area that has mountains, lakes, canyons and grass.

Tom gets serenaded by Elvis Tom and Mark rockin' it proudly
Class picture with 'The King' James and Scott pulling plastic on a socket
Modifying Dustin drape forming
Nice seam Ryan
Trans humeral prosthesis (none of our projects were completely finished all the way but just enough for trial fittings)

Trans tibial Prosthesis

Papa smurf

Thousands of people flocked to watch Flugtag put on by RedBull. I think I saw something like this on TV once but it's an unusual competition where a team of individuals build a contraption that supposedly glides when they run it off a platform 30 feet in the air, after performing a short skit. Basically what happens is the contraption crashes into the water and everyone cheers. It seemed like something off MTV or those Chinese game shows.It was pretty entertaining.

Tour de donut: The Conclusion

Who attends a Donut Race?? I thought it would draw a larger crowd (pun intended) because of the love for donuts. So I thought a race against a bunch of overweight people would be a cinch. Right?? Well my high hopes of first prize quickly dissipated as soon as I got to the race and saw everyone with their thousand dollar bikes and spandex outfits. You have to be pretty serious about biking to take the time to stretch into spandex. I instantly realized I wasn't up against the fellow that had eaten one too many donuts for this pant size but I was going head to head with Lance Armstrong. This didn't completely crush my spirits though. Like Martin Luther I had a dream and it was 21 miles away with about 300 bikes in my way and I was determined to come out on top. The excitement in the air was electrifying and everyone was anxious to start the race. The gun sounded catching me off guard as I was still trying to pump up the tires of my dilapidated mountain bike. I quickly stopped pumping and mounted my 2 wheel stead to start the first lap. During the first lap I raced with the fury of Seabiscuit and had enough mustard to stay up with the pack and found myself in 16th place. However keeping that pace took everything I had and so when I got to the first donut round the mere sight of them almost had me blowing chunks. After racing as hard as I could for 7 miles a donut is not the first thing I wanted to see. It was then that I sadly realized that I wasn't in this race to win but to somehow finish. But even sadder was the thought that maybe I didn't enjoy donuts as much as I thought. I began to seriously doubt I'd ever finish the race but instead be found lying on the side of the road in a pile of donut crumbs. All these thoughts swam in my head as I struggled to eat one donut that would deduct 3 mintues off my time. "Trav, your wasting more time eating. Just get going", Devin's logical resoning broke the conversation in my head. I guess he could see I wasn't getting anywhere fast by staring at the glazed goodness in my hand. I got back on my bike and made decision to take it easy and enjoy the race.

Well needless to say the next two laps were much easier but I saw my Lutherian dream pass as I watched kids and those individuals who really did love deep fried foods whiz by on their bikes. About an hour and thirty minutes after the race began I crossed the finish line with 5 donuts in the tank and happy to have completed the race. I was nowhere near the first biker who finished in 38 minutes or beat the record of eating 25 donuts but it was a fun experience.