What are our eLEGS test pilots saying? Profile on Fernanda Castelo
by Berkeley Bionics on April 26, 2011
Fernanda Castelo
Holmes, Jr.
Paralysis was an unfamiliar world that forced me to re-learn how to move again. Waking up in a partially paralyzed body consumed me with fear and does to this day as I live with a distinct unknowingness of being an incomplete quadriplegic (meaning I have movement and sensation below my level of injury but I cannot walk without assistive devices). I’ve become a being whose lens of reality shifted to darken hopes, blurred visions, and is captured in a speed of stillness. My journey has been confusing and frustrating. I question: Who now resides in my physical frame, the paralysis or me?
It was fifteen years ago when I fainted and my life altered. The fall on the floor was severe enough that the impact herniated cervical 5&6 disks into the spinal cord, causing trauma, shattered vertebrae, and swelling. All this took place while I was sitting on the toilet having an episode of stomach cramps. I lost sight of light. Instantly, flickering rays of hope were shadowed by darkness.
Later, in a stark hospital room, my neurosurgeon had the complex responsibility of having to explain the outcome of my spinal cord injury – I felt heavy as a woolen blanket of numbness, deprived from normalcy. Days turned into weeks, months and years. My progress has been incremental with slight return of muscle functions and sensations. Giving up has never been an option. Investigating and evaluating when and when not to accept help was an immense learning curve for me. My loving family and community assisted me to become more mobile in my daily life. My mobility devices are not gadgets but tools that help me actively participate in life. Perched from a manual wheelchair in the earlier years, then corralled in a walker, to jousting with fore arm crutches, and lately rolling in a power chair – I celebrate my ability to be move. I’ve progressed with increased mobility over the years through experimenting with functional electrode stimulation (FES) and bi-lateral leg braces. I interchange between sitting, standing and assisted walking depending upon my needs.
When eLEGS created a media buzz during Berkeley Bionics’ launch in October, 2010, I watched an eLEGS demonstration by Amanda Boxtel with intrigue and excitement. I was impacted for sure. I thought: Wow – here’s a wearable robotic scaffolding in the form of an exoskeleton – how awesome is that! It is external and non-invasive. That day I imagined myself standing upright in perfect posture, and eventually walking with eLEGS. And indeed the time came that we walked together.
continue...
http://berkeleybionics.com/2011/eleg...nanda-castelo/
by Berkeley Bionics on April 26, 2011
Fernanda Castelo
Holmes, Jr.
Paralysis was an unfamiliar world that forced me to re-learn how to move again. Waking up in a partially paralyzed body consumed me with fear and does to this day as I live with a distinct unknowingness of being an incomplete quadriplegic (meaning I have movement and sensation below my level of injury but I cannot walk without assistive devices). I’ve become a being whose lens of reality shifted to darken hopes, blurred visions, and is captured in a speed of stillness. My journey has been confusing and frustrating. I question: Who now resides in my physical frame, the paralysis or me?
It was fifteen years ago when I fainted and my life altered. The fall on the floor was severe enough that the impact herniated cervical 5&6 disks into the spinal cord, causing trauma, shattered vertebrae, and swelling. All this took place while I was sitting on the toilet having an episode of stomach cramps. I lost sight of light. Instantly, flickering rays of hope were shadowed by darkness.
Later, in a stark hospital room, my neurosurgeon had the complex responsibility of having to explain the outcome of my spinal cord injury – I felt heavy as a woolen blanket of numbness, deprived from normalcy. Days turned into weeks, months and years. My progress has been incremental with slight return of muscle functions and sensations. Giving up has never been an option. Investigating and evaluating when and when not to accept help was an immense learning curve for me. My loving family and community assisted me to become more mobile in my daily life. My mobility devices are not gadgets but tools that help me actively participate in life. Perched from a manual wheelchair in the earlier years, then corralled in a walker, to jousting with fore arm crutches, and lately rolling in a power chair – I celebrate my ability to be move. I’ve progressed with increased mobility over the years through experimenting with functional electrode stimulation (FES) and bi-lateral leg braces. I interchange between sitting, standing and assisted walking depending upon my needs.
When eLEGS created a media buzz during Berkeley Bionics’ launch in October, 2010, I watched an eLEGS demonstration by Amanda Boxtel with intrigue and excitement. I was impacted for sure. I thought: Wow – here’s a wearable robotic scaffolding in the form of an exoskeleton – how awesome is that! It is external and non-invasive. That day I imagined myself standing upright in perfect posture, and eventually walking with eLEGS. And indeed the time came that we walked together.
continue...
http://berkeleybionics.com/2011/eleg...nanda-castelo/
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