实践的方法
木匠和外科技师, 居家男人肯尼·杰克逊抽出时间参加了皇冠app官方版下载的研究, qualify for a national racquetball tournament and embrace his “life’s work” in mentoring fellow amputees
丹·英格兰，巴里·古铁雷斯摄影
By the time doctors delivered the news to Rollie Higgins, his foot had turned black.
He’d been in and out of the hospital for a year after an artery clotted in his leg. 医生插入了一根尸体静脉, 一个星期都有效吗, 他们尝试了一些时间, 哪一个根本不起作用. 希金斯享年76岁. 他将失去一条腿的消息并不令人惊讶.
然而，肯尼·杰克逊让它更容易被听到.
在希金斯得知这个消息后不到半小时，杰克逊就来到了希金斯的床边. 这没什么大不了的, 杰克逊说, 他把左腿摔断了, 就像踢掉一只鞋一样, 为了说明这一点. Higgins, the longtime owner of a hardware store in Greeley, had his family in the room. 但是杰克逊, who works part time as a surgical technician for North Colorado Medical Center in Greeley, talked to him about what life would be like without a leg minutes before doctors prepared to take it. 他甚至陪他进了手术室.
“I didn’t have any drastic thoughts, and that was because of Kenny,” Higgins says. “如果医生说我会失去一条腿, 我不知道该向哪里求助, 那样会有不同. 但是肯尼在那里.”
不只是说说而已. 希金斯认识杰克逊大约30年了. 他在皇冠app官方版下载当木匠时，经常到店里来, 或者他的第三份工作是维护几栋建筑. 这就是杰克逊的生活方式.
Higgins could see he was telling the truth, rather than feeding him a few attaboys. 没有一条腿的生活对他来说真的没什么大不了的. 就在希金斯破产之前，杰克逊告诉他，如果他需要什么，就打电话给他.
杰克逊 considers it his life’s work to counsel those who are facing what he first went through in 1990, when he was an oil rig worker and a drilling rack rolled over and crushed his legs.
右腿受伤了. 即使在今天，他的脚也没什么感觉. 举个例子, he discovered he had to stop wearing steel-toed boots because they rubbed the skin off the tops of his toes. He didn’t realize it until his wife pointed out his raw feet when he stepped out of the shower.
医生对他的右腿尽了全力，所以他的右腿还在. 然而，他们知道，他的左手可能在他被推进来的那一刻就没了. 他们试图拯救它. 如今，他对陌生人说，他很高兴他们没有这么做. 他相信失去那条腿救了他的命.
• • •
杰克逊27岁时失去了一条腿. 他是个酒鬼. 失去一条腿，即使从一开始，也没有让他沮丧. 这是一个征兆.
“我真的很开心，”他说. “太有趣了。. 我和妈妈还有妹妹坐在医院里, 我说这是上帝让我慢下来的方式.”
Four months later, he met his wife, Dawn, at the former Smiling Moose near campus. 他还记得第一次在酒吧见到她的情景. 她仍然是世界上最美丽的女人, 他说, 结婚23年，有两个孩子, 基南, 19, 和Kylee, 18. 他还有一个儿子，30岁的杰里米，住在亚利桑那州.
他不确定，如果他没有失去他的腿，他是否已经准备好迎接她. 他很确定，至少，他是留不住她的.
一旦他们在一起, 黎明开始引导他的生活, 直到今天，她依然如此, 尽管杰克逊的独立性很强. She was going through nursing school, and she told 杰克逊 to forget the oil fields. Using the money he got as compensation for his injuries, she signed him up for surgical tech school. 他在医院工作了22年, now on Mondays and on days doctors need him for extra surgeries in addition to his job as a staff member in construction at UNC.
杰克逊说:“生活的变化真有趣。.
因为他在医院的演出, 以及道恩在那里做全职护士的事实, 他定期探访截肢者. 他这样做至少有15年了. 道恩建议他去看一次病人, 一位医生同意了, 承认就连他自己也不能像肯尼那样真正理解他. 现在当一个病人进来, 消息传到了杰克逊那里, 通常是在轮班前或轮班后协助手术.
杰克逊 prefers to listen, despite his love for conversation, but he does have a few tips for them. 当洗澡, 记住他们没有腿, 他建议, 回忆起自己差点把浴帘从戒指上拉开的日子. He encourages them to use their crutches at night when they get up to go to the bathroom — repeated hopping can grind down their ankles, 他会用自己的脚踝作为证据. 他告诉他们不要对止痛药上瘾.
He’s even made suggestions to doctors on their patients’ treatment plans based on his own experiences. 他看的是对他有用的东西.
“I mostly just tell the docs that you’ve got to get them up and going,” 杰克逊 says. “你需要尽快把他们从床上弄起来. 或者他们只是看着时钟，就像‘滴答滴答滴答滴答滴答滴答’.“那没有任何好处.”
然后他告诉他们打电话给他，无论什么时候，他是认真的. 他在午夜接了一个有幻肢痛的人的电话. 杰克逊仍然有这种感觉. 他告诉那家伙怎么撑过去而不是吃药.
“我只是告诉他们，‘生活还没有结束，’”杰克逊说. “你可以做你以前做过的事情. 你可能需要做一些不同的事情.’”
• • •
UNC’s biomechanics department knew who to call on for a study that could affect the future of exactly how doctors perform the amputations. 他得花一个下午的时间——对于一个身兼三职的人来说，这是一项艰巨的任务, two kids and a wife — to walk stairs as fast as he could and walk across campus as more than a dozen sensors attached to his skin tracked his movements.
当然，他告诉他们. 没什么大不了的.
Ten remote cameras glowed like a stovetop set to boiling as 杰克逊 cracked jokes between strolling from one corner to another on commands from an apologetic Abbie 摩天. 摩天, 毕竟, 已经把他的皮肤剃光了还在他身上贴满了生物标记, 哪一种会造成更大的伤害. 然而，这些生物标记物很重要. 它们和电子游戏用来捕捉角色动作的方法是一样的. 杰克逊可以在宽屏电视上看到自己像一系列彩色圆点一样走路.
“看那些肌肉蹦出来了?费里斯笑着说，同时又在杰克逊身上画了一个记号笔.
对一个跛脚的老家伙来说还不错?杰克逊回应道.
费里斯是一名研究生，他在那里不仅仅是为了笑. Her study measures functional performance in different below-the-knee amputation techniques. 费里斯说，基本上有两种不同的类型.
更传统的方法是在需要的地方切除肢体, 胫骨和腓骨是相互独立的. 第二个, 称为Ertl过程, 以先驱者命名, 在两者之间形成骨桥. Ertl程序比较困难, 费里斯说, 因此不太常见, 但她也认为，这可能是一种更好的方法.
原因是传统技术没有真正的稳定性, 所以截肢者往往有更多的关节炎和腰痛.
的Ertl, 因为那个骨桥, 可能更多地吸收日常生活的影响，以防止这些食物.
这就是她正在研究的. 她说，杰克逊的截肢手术更为传统.
杰克逊将皇冠app官方版下载的研究视为帮助他人的另一种方式. He works on home-improvement projects to make some of the amputees’ lives easier, 而且他只收零件费. His counseling doesn’t end in the hospital room, either, giving his phone number out freely.
The advancements made in prosthetics have made his life much better, even from one year to the next. 杰克逊, 53, 打高尔夫球, rides a wakeboard and plays enough racquetball twice a week to qualify for the national Senior Games. 这些游戏只适合50岁以上的人, 但这是他做出的唯一让步:他与健全的球员竞争.
• • •
Kenny may counsel amputees, but he knows he’s not going to get the same understanding at home. 至少不是基南. 基南 can bench press 350 pounds and likes to throw his father around the racquetball court.
“He has no mercy,” Kenny says, recalling struggling on a day the two went surfing. “他一直对我大喊大叫，说我不够努力. 我儿子不在乎我是不是只有一条腿. 这是你想要的，对吧?”
事实上，这正是杰克逊想要的. 就在事故发生几周后, 他妹妹推着他在格里利的一家音像店转悠, 他们看到了一部电影, 一只红鞋的男人.
“嘿，看，”她说. “他们拍了一部皇冠app安卓下载安装你的电影.”
“她从不让我想太多，”杰克逊说. “我家里没人知道.”
He had his fun, even after the accident, but when the kids were born, he and Dawn had a talk. 他父亲是个酗酒成性的人, and they decided they didn’t want their children to grow up in anything remotely close to that. 喝酒少了. 他已经八年没喝酒了.
他宁愿一周打两次壁球, 星期二和星期四, 每个人都知道他不会随叫随到. 他非常期待参加全国老年人运动会.
“我的孩子们为此让我很难过，”他说，“但我不在乎.”
他珍惜与家人在一起的时光. 时间有限. 凯利在皇冠app官方版下载读书，基南将在秋天转到那里. 在工作间隙, they will spend time on the porch watching the sunset and playing cribbage until midnight. 没什么特别的. 这没什么大不了的. 这是他的生活.
生活总是在变得更好, 在他参与研究之后, 皇冠app官方版下载生物力学实验室的学生对他的腿做了一些调整. 感觉比以往任何时候都好.
He would also like to get involved with Wounded Warrior Project to provide support for injured military veterans. 当他见到刚截肢的病人躺在床上时，他不会对他们说教, 他们想知道失去肢体的生活会是什么样子. 他倾听他们，然后告诉他们自己的生活, 一个家庭关系紧密，有三份工作的人.
It’s a blessed life, 他说, and all he has to do to keep it is stay busy in it. NV
