I’d Hit That!

Okay, let’s get the ball rolling here. It’s time to saddle up and take a big batch of mirrors on the road.

A brand-new trip to some all-new places and departing very soon indeed. I’m gonna load up the cargo bike and head out on my most ambitious trip ever November 15th. A fabulous NGO called ‘EXCEED’ (the former Cambodia Trust) operate Prosthetic and Orthotic schools – a 3 year program – in 5 countries throughout S and SE Asia: Cambodia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Philippines, Indonesia. The graduates are then qualified to fit, mold, assemble and design all manner of artificial limbs and orthotic supports and braces. The students generally come from parts elsewhere in the ‘disadvantaged world’ and will take their new expertise yet further afield.

Your prosthetist, the technician who builds your new limb for you after your traumatic loss; he or she is going to be one of first and most important people you will meet in your new and challenging life as an amputee. Right? If I can teach/train these technicians Mirror Therapy to combat Phantom Limb Pain in their Brand New patients… right at the beginning… how Golden is that? Maximum Dissemination to the people who Most Need It. Boom!

So that’s what I aim to do: visit each of these P&O schools in each respective country and spend, say, 2 afternoons training them in the therapy and treating whatever in/out patients are there at the time. I’ll arrive on a bicycle on my own steam – it’s a major motivational tool of mine (plus it’s a lot of fun) – with a rack-load of free mirrors which I will in turn leave behind for clinical use and incoming amputees. They can loan out the mirrors the way a library loans books. That’s pretty cool too.

Then, I’ll take the opportunity of being ‘in-country’ and take the bike and a fresh load of mirrors into the provinces and visit as many hospitals and clinics as possible, plus directly to the poorer amputees right in their own villages. Relieving amputees of phantom pain and bringing a little joy all along the way. It’s magic. The best idea I’ve ever had.

It’s bold and ambitious and totally possible and I’m going to need a lot of help. For starters, I’ll need funding; I’ll need money. There’s a ‘DONATE’ button on this page. Please dig a little into your wallet and help a man achieve a really meritorious goal. One mirror costs, like, 10-20 dollars (depending on where I make them). And one mirror can make one amputee’s life worth living again. I’d hit that! Again, departure November 15th.
Let’s Go!!!

Yours as ever, stephen