So I blogged a couple months ago about changing my career path and being a dog trainer. I freaking love it and I'm good at it. I have a reputation that is spreading and, for once, it's actually good! The hardest part though, is that I spend about 35-40 hours a week standing/walking and it's not always easy. My previous job, while EXTREMELY difficult mentally, had almost no physical demands. I don't want to say I'm struggling with being on my feet (foot) that long, but I will say that it's pretty rough sometimes. I'm good at ignoring pain. My amputation is not the worst injury I've had in my life, and it's rare that I ever have much pain that resulted directly from not having a foot...other than phantom pains, and the occasional poorly fitted pros. But standing up, and walking, for sometimes 9 hours a day, seems to be taking a toll...to a point where it's hard to ignore, even by a professional like myself. I've broken my right foot several times and it's not the most reliable piece of equipment I have on my body either, so I can't let it take a lot of the duty, because I'll end up with stress fractures again, or if I'm lucky, just some pain.
So, it's rough physically, at times, but I love the job so much, and I'm so happy, I'm planning on gutting it out. Anyone have any inspiring words I can use to motive myself when I wake up and am limping like drunken caveman before 9 hours of rasslin' with dogs?
I was just reading through the news on CNN and came across this article. It sounds extremely interesting, and I would've liked to have known about this for the first years after my amputation.
I suffered with extremely severe (is there any other kind?) phantom pains for several years. I've passed out, thrown up, made up completely new cuss words, blamed Homer Simpson, and even claimed I was moving to Mexico once. Not that any of that stuff helped, it was mostly involuntary anyway. They were so bad that once, my judgement was clouded from the pain and I pulled out my IV and was hopping towards the 8th floor window in my hospital room, with the intent of jumping, just to make them stop. Lucky for me, a really bad one hit me before I made it to the window and I sorta lost control of my body and fell, giving a nurse time to come into the room and foil my plan. The past few years haven't been that bad, but I'll still get them a couple times a year.
Hopefully this article/therapy will help some folks that are in a similar situation as I was years ago when I was struggling with the pain.
So I was laid off from my Corporate America job, after 10 years, a couple months ago. I took a couple months for the holidays to blow over and really think about what I wanted to be when I grow up. I love dogs, and was considering going into the dog training field. However, that doesn't pay much, especially for an entry level type position. So I interviewed for a couple other corporate jobs, similar to what I was doing, but not enjoying. Then this past Monday, I get two phone calls, requesting me to come in for interviews. The first one was for a job I didn't think I'd get, the pay was nearly twice as much as I was making before. After I hung up, I was excited, I figure if I've gotta go back to cubicle life, I might as well be able to make the commute in a Mercedes. So I was getting all my stuff together, visualizing the interview in my mind and getting ready to knock it out of the park. Then my phone rings again...it's a pet store wanting me to come tomorrow and interview for their dog trainer position. HMMM. That's cool, I'll go and see what's that's like, plus that interview is first, and will be a good way for me to warm up for my real interview, for the big money job.
So I go into the pet store and interview with 3 people at the same time there. Really cool people actually, happy, joking around. I've never had an interview I'd consider "fun" before, but that would qualify. So in usual "Kris" fashion, they love me and offer me the job on the spot, and tell me what the pay is...and it ain't much. I am honest and tell them I've got an interview coming up in a couple hours for a job that pays a truckload of money, and I need to see what that's all about. They understand, and ask me to call by the end of the week (today) with an answer.
So I go to the next interview, it's pretty stuffy and ridgid, but I'm use to that from my last job and I ace this one too. They are going to recommend me for the job, and asked that I come back tomorrow (weds) for a 2nd interview. I do, I ace it as well. They say they will call me with exact salary figures by Thursday afternoon.
Long story short - After a long discussion with the wife, and her being really upset that I didn't want to sell my soul so she can put a pool in the backyard, buy a new car, and eventually be a stay at home mom...she gave me a chance to make the dog trainer job work.
I really lobbied for the job that I'm passionate about, and will enjoy. A career path to me is finding what you love and are passionate about, and working as hard as you can to create a living doing that...a career path is not improving your brown-nosing and microsoft office skills so you can get a cube where you can actually see part of a window if you lean out into the aisle.
A big thing that influced me to make the decision I did, was all the various crashes I've had. The times I'd been laying there in the hospital and hearing the doctors talking to each other saying I had no chance to live, or being told I'd never walk again or even be able to sit up, or I'd have to be put in a nursing home at the age of 23...all those things obviously stuck with me, and I don't take any day I'm alive for granted. So I intend to love what I do all day, and work hard, and do it the best I can, because when my number is up, the quality and happiness of the life I had are waaaay more important than the money I have in the bank.
I used to make fun of golfers. Seemed like a bunch of unathletic aging guys, dressed like country club pimps, driving around a manicured field looking for their balls. Having grown up in a small town, a good Friday night during my high school years was; illegally procuring a 6-pack, chugging it with my buddies in the parking lot of the local driving range, and spending a couple hours smacking drives out into the darkness, or aiming at the guy on the tractor picking up the balls. But that was pretty much the extent of my golfing experience, and that was when I had both feet.
Fast forward about 18 years or so to the present day.
One of my good friends plays golf every once in a while, and he drug me out to the driving range a couple times in the past year or two. Saturday morning he shows up at my door asking me to go to the range that is just up the street. Timing was good, so I agree. We're there for about 5 minutes and he starts trying to talk me into playing a round of golf. Now, I can hit the ball pretty well about a 1/3 of the time, the other 2/3 consist of a wicked slice, or topping it, which results in the ball skipping accross the ground. Occaisionally, I'll miss the ball completely, and try to make a joke of it by looking way off in the distance and saying "wow, I got all of that one!". So, I keep telling my buddy that I'm not going out on this nice country club golf course, in front of all these people with these skills. He is pretty intent on getting me to go and my apprehension results in a ferocious 10 minute volley of name calling. So finally, I compromise. I tell him that I'll go tomorrow, as long as we go to a course that won't be so busy, and people playing behind us won't get mad if(when) every one of my shots ends up off in the bushes or water.
So Sunday morning comes around, and we head off to a small public course a couple miles away. Come to find out, two other guys are meeting us there. So I've got more people watching me. He tells me one guy plays at least once a week, while the other has been playing for 30 years, and he's only 34. Great. I'm a pretty competitive person, but at this point, I let out a sigh and just hope I don't embarass myself or hurt anyone.
We meet up with the other guys in the parking lot and one of them throws me a beer. Wow, just like high school, drinking beer in the parking lot. Although it's 9:30 on Sunday morning and not Friday night, I feel like we're off to pretty good start. While we're waiting for our tee time, I make sure I tell each of them several times that I've never played before, and this isn't gonna be pretty. They told me not to worry, as we had plenty of beer and the weather is good.
So those 3 guys go first off the tee, each of hits it long and straight, right down the fairway. I'm about to start sweating, I'm all kinds of nervous. I take my swing and was completely surprised! A perfect shot, probably the best I've ever done. It went farther than everyone else, and was perfectly in the middle of the fairway! The other guys were just as shocked as me. I notice this and calmly turn towards them and say "Does anyone know any hard games?" So we hop in the carts and head down the hill. My next shot landed 5 feet from the hole, I putt it in and I birdied the first hole I ever played!
Now after this, things went horribly wrong, I lost about 8 or 10 balls, sat out a couple holes, drank a few more beers and drove the cart. But my performance on the first hole was enough to hook me. I'm watching shows on the golf channel now, I'm looking at purchasing a set of clubs, wanting to go to the driving range to practice, perhaps take some lessons...I really can't wait to go again.
I am a little disturbed because this means I have become an unathletic aging guy that will be dressing like a country club pimp.
Now on to my question/problem, maybe there's another LBK (or left handed RBK) golfer reading this that can help me out...My left foot is my front foot, so when I swing, I can't really pivot that foot at all. I'm not sure if this is something I just need to practice, or if I need to adjust my swing somehow, but I think this is the main reason I slice so many shots off to the right.
If anyone actually read this whole blog, thanks, I'm proud of you for sticking with it!
...devotees. Waaaay back in the last century when I became an amp in '94...there was no internet (maybe there was, I'd have to check with Al Gore), and so I never knew about these people. Seems like I might have read an article in a magazine in the waiting room of my pros guy a long time ago, but I just chalked that up to a couple weirdos and a writer needing a story. I never sought out any other amputee sites or forums until I joined this site a few weeks ago, and this is the first I've heard so much about devotees. I checked out the posts in the devotee group here and read the wikipedia article and I gotta say...kinda strange. But I guess I don't see why it's such a big topic. Are there lots and lots of these people? I mean what is it that they do that is bad? I saw some posts about people misrepresenting themselves as amps in order to manipulate their relationships with actual amps...but in what way? I mean it seems to be that it's guys contacting women amps? Me being such a handsome manly man...should I be on the lookout for these people contacting me? What do I look for? It's just weird and new to me, even though I've been an amp for 13 years now. I like to think of myself as pretty well informed on things, but this is news to me and I guess I don't quite know what to make of it.
