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Help me support the US Adaptive Recreation Center!

Hello!

My name is Sarah Heacox and I've been a volunteer ski instructor at the U.S. Adaptive Recreation Center for several years, teaching downhill skiing to individuals with disabilities. I'm participating in a USARC fundraiser called the Peak-to-Peak Pedal, riding a bicycle 335 miles from Mammoth Mountain to Big Bear this fall. The money we raise supports outdoor recreation for children and adults with disabilities. This will be my second year riding the Peak-to-Peak!


USARC is the only organization in Southern California to provide camping, fishing, off-road downhill wheelchair riding, canoeing, sailing, jet skiing, water skiing, snowboarding and snow skiing instruction to the disabled community. Their website states,

"USARC believes people are empowered when they undertake and succeed at challenging outdoor recreation. These experiences often result in increased self-confidence and greater success in academic, professional and personal life challenges."

In other words, opportunities to play in the outdoors, like skiing and camping, are far more than just recreation. They represent a chance to build skills and self-esteem to help people achieve goals in every aspect of their lives.

I'm asking for your support in the form of a donation to USARC. My fundraising goal is $1800 by October 1st.

Please click here to go to the secure donation site! All donations are tax deductible. Thank you for supporting USARC and athletes with disabilities!

PS You can also give me a check made out to USARC (contact me at sarah (dot) heacox (at) gmail (dot) com), or go to http://acteva.com/go/p2p15 , select "Donor" and press continue, and select "Rider-Sarah Heacox".

PPS You can see pictures of me riding in last year's 2008 Peak-to-Peak Pedal 14 here!





[Images: 1. Me and Talia, a seven-year-old with autism, in her first ski lesson. The huge smile never left her face. 2. Me and Emma in her bi-ski, enjoying some cocoa slopeside after a long chilly day of fun skiing. 3. USARC logo. 4. 15th Annual Peak-to-Peak Pedal logo.]

Pics from 2008 Peak-to-Peak Pedal 14

Some pictures from the 2008 Peak-to-Peak Pedal, riding between Big Bear and Mammoth!

Ahhh, going downhill...




Taking a quick rest at the top of a hill.

Layered up against the below-freezing weather, the hill I just climbed in the background.


I'm smiling because I'm at 6000 feet approaching Mammoth Mountain, there's no oxygen, and Tom is pushing me up the hill.

So I let the blog die because I was so caught up in writing other stuff. Namely, mad revising of a middle-grade story about adaptive skiing, and writing a completely unrelated adult fantasy novel. The MG story is done and polished and I'm actually writing an actual query letter for it (meep!), and the fantasy novel second draft is done and in the hands of beta readers as we speak! And a new YA fantasy novel is in the works. Exciting.

I'm also signed up for my second ever Peak-to-Peak Pedal! More info to come on that.

In other news, this song (and video) fills me with an inordinate quantity of love and smushy feelings. Watch it and your day will be better!

Zombie Blog Arises From Dead

I'm just raising this blog from the dead, zombie style. Hi. Stay tuned.

Check out Comedian Kathy Griffin's Visit to Walter Reed Army Medical Center this Thursday

This week on Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List, Kathy performs at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. From the previews, it looks like she visits the disabled soldiers in rehab. It looked like an interesting pop culture take on the subject, so I thought I'd put it out there. It is supposedly one of the only times that a camera crew has been inside the rehab facility at Walter Reed. This Thursday night 10/9 central (August 14th 2008).

If you aren't familiar with the show, Kathy Griffin is a moderately successful comedian who makes fun of everyone and everything, including herself. Her material is somewhat controversial, but nowhere near as racy as a lot of male comics. The show is a hilarious reality show about Kathy promoting herself and trying to become more famous, in a self-effacing sort of way. Kathy said about this episode:

I'm so proud of winning that battle with Bravo — they didn't want to make it a whole episode. But I'd found that those guys at the hospital — the majority were amputees — just have the sickest sense of humor and were so wanting to laugh and use humor to get through their situation, because that's how they deal. So I said to Bravo, "Go [bleep] yourselves — I'm not doing Frontline here, you know. I'll still be making a fool of myself and saying inappropriate things. But this'll be a window into what happens to these people that you're not gonna see on The [bleeping] Kardashians!"

Other cool stuff:

Cute article in the LA Times about teenage girls with visual impairments learning how to surf. It's a light fluffy piece that goes out of its way to emphasize the 'kids with disabilities are just like other kids' aspect. Cool picture to go along with the article.

This story from the St. Petersburg Times, "The girl in the window," is a moving profile of a little girl with developmental and physical disabilities that resulted from her extreme neglect from birth to age seven. With the love and support of the family that adopted her, she is learning to walk and talk and play for the first time at age 8. I thought it was a great portrayal of a child with a disability and what she and her family struggle with, without presenting the girl's life as a tragedy, or the parents as martyrs or heroes. Excellent journalism.

And finally, a Nike commercial, featuring Oscar Pistorius (he's at the very end). I'm not all about the Nikes, but this is a great commercial. I love the song, too (All These Things That I've Done, by The Killers).

Happy Wednesday!

Cool Bits of News About 2008 Beijing Paralympics and Olympians With Disabilities

The Paralympic Games in Beijing will start on September 6th. Learn about the twenty Summer Paralympic Sports at this website! Did you know that this year Rowing is a new event at the Paralympic Games? Do you know how to play goalball? Brush up there. Do you know about the different classifications for different events? Lots of great info on that site. Did you know the Summer Paralympic mascot is a cow? Neither did I. Apparently,

Cows, symbolic of a down-to-earth, diligent, staunch and never-say-die spirit, are adopted to show the unremitting spirit of athletes with a disability in being the best they can be. It dovetails with the upbeat spirit of Paralympians and the concept of "Transcendence, Equality, Integration" of the Beijing Paralympic Games.

The determined, optimistic and diligent spirit of cows reflects a positive attitude to life. The Paralympic Games calls for people with a disability to enjoy the same rights to compete in sports as anyone else, and to achieve sporting excellence and inspire and excite the World, and thus develop their strength to add vigor and vitality to social progress.

Yes, those cows and their never-say-die spirits...Hmm. The Olympic mascots are: a fish girl, a panda boy, a fire boy, an antelope boy, and a swallow girl.

Watch the Paralympics

This site, Paralympic Sport TV, will show news and events from the Paralympic Games, which start on September 6th, 2008. It is run by the International Paralympic Committee. Watch a cool trailer here. I don't know how much coverage they will feature.

If you live in the UK, details of Paralympics coverage on TV can be found here. They will air over six hours of Paralympic sport per day for twelve days.

In Australia, the ABC will broadcast over one hundred hours of Paralympic coverage. That's the most Paralympic coverage of any country. The schedule is here.

As far as I can tell, there will be little to no coverage of the Paralympic Games in the United States. A nice person from the US Paralympic Team website informed me that hopefully there would be news about some Paralympic coverage. I will keep you posted! I'm guessing there should at least be some televised specials. If anyone knows of any scheduled coverage, leave me a comment!

And finally! This year marks (I believe) the first time that an athlete will compete in the both Paralympics and the Olympics. South African swimmer Natalie du Toit, who I wrote about before, will compete in the Olympic 10 km open water swim ( a new event) as well as six different Paralympic swim events.

Unfortunately, Oscar Pistorius did not qualify for the SA Olympic team in either the individual or relay competitions. He will represent South Africa in the Paralympics and he plans to continue training in hopes of qualifying for the 2012 London Olympics.

In addition, Polish table tennis champ Natalia Partyka will compete in both the Olympic and Paralympic table tennis events. She is missing her right forearm and she competes left handed.

Images: Top: A cute little brightly-colored cartoon cow is the 2008 Paralympic mascot. A caption states her name in English and Chinese as Fu Niu Lele.

Bottom: Natalia Partyka, a young white woman missing her right forearm, strikes an athletic pose as she prepares to return the ball in a table tennis match.

Great NY Times Article on Restraining Kids at School

This week the New York Times had a very interesting article on restraining in school, called "Calm Down Or Else." Before reading this story, I actually thought that the use of restraint on children in school was reserved for situations in which someone's safety was at risk (i.e. a student attempting to injure himself or another student). In fact, schools use restraining as a disciplinary measure for behavior problems as minor as "noncompliance." Restraining is primarily used on students with disabilities that affect their behavior (for example autism, ADD, ADHD, cognitive impairment, psychiatric disorders).

Some examples of these disciplinary measures included in the article are a twelve year old held "face down on the floor, straddling him at his hips, and holding his hands behind his back," a 'takedown' holding a preteen with Asperger Syndrome on the floor "prone for 20 minutes until he stopped struggling," and "an 8-year-old with a diagnosis of attention deficit disorder and mild mental retardation repeatedly locked in a 'seclusion room' alone, adjacent to the classroom." Students have actually been killed while being restrained by adults at school responsible for their care. I have personally known parents who have gone to court to try and prevent the school district from using physical restraining on their child.

The article tries to explain why these incidents are occurring. Compared to a decade ago, there are many more children identified as 'special education' students. Staff aren't trained to manage severe behavior situations, and yet they have to maintain safety in the classroom and teach their students. The use of physical restraint in schools has very little oversight, unlike nursing homes or psychiatric facilities, so most of these incidents of abuse are going unnoticed. The author concluded that school districts and state authorities need to provide adequate training and guidance on what disciplinary techniques are appropriate and safe in order to provide for students with special needs.

It pretty much goes without saying that using physical aggression on elementary age kids, some of whom can't even talk, is barbaric. This is coming from someone who has been kicked, punched, slapped, bitten, head-butted, chased, spat on, screamed at, intentionally urinated on, called every insult you know and probably a few you don't, and had the contents of my desk flung across my office, by kids and adults with developmental disabilities while at work. The job is hard, sometimes frustrating, and often low-paying. There will always be people with developmental disabilities who get frustrated and use aggression.

But. I have never put my hands on a person entrusted to my care with the intent to physically dominate them, frighten them, or perform a "takedown." There are almost always better or gentler solutions.

When I was just a little sprout (in the eighties!), in Indiana the local schools were just coming to the end of an era where paddling in schools was considered appropriate and encouraged. It's still legal in that state, but currently banned in the majority of US states. My elementary principal kept a paddle conspicuously visible in her office and, though it was rarely used, just the thought of it terrified us. Even the kids whose parents used corporal punishment at home were afraid of her. I can't imagine the fear that a child with a cognitive disability who doesn't understand the situation would feel for a large adult pinning them face down on a gym mat for up to twenty minutes at a time. Then every day at school the child must face the person who did that to them and try to have trust in that person, or face yet more physical punishment.

Now go read the article!

Bluetooth Headset Thieves Swiping Cochlear Implants from Toddlers

This morning I read this shameful story on the LA Times. It's about a deaf three year old boy who is learning to speak with the use of a cochlear implant. This sweet little pumpkin had the external portion of his cochlear implant stolen, not once, but twice! Teenage thieves swiped it right off of his ear while he was running errands with his mother. The first time, his mother chased the thieves into a parking lot where they dropped the device unharmed. The second time, the device was lost. Luckily, they had a backup device.

The article claims that thieves think the cochlear implant earpiece is a Bluetooth headset (hands-free wireless doodad for a cell phone), so cochlear implant earpiece swiping is becoming more prevalent. While a Bluetooth headset costs between $50 and $300, this little boy's cochlear implant earpiece costs $6000! Need I even bring up the question of who steals from a toddler? Ignorant teenage doofuses, apparently, because in my experience a cochlear implant looks nothing at all like a bluetooth. You be the judge:

Cochlear implant, behind the ear, plus a transmitter magnetically attached to the side of the head.

Bluetooth: stuck in the ear and pointed toward the mouth.

An unrelated gross story: This weekend I went out for sushi. I ordered a small sake because it goes perfectly with sushi. I love sake and I have tried probably one hundred different varieties. It came in a little tiny pitcher, and I poured myself a little cupful. I took a hearty sip, but it wasn't delicious sake! It was rice vinegar! Horrible, sour, and gross. I just managed to spit it back into the cup rather than all over the table. The End!