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New legs, new shoes

Veteran learning to walk again with prosthetics

Walking for the first time in more than a quarter of a century thrust a jumble of conflicting feelings upon Harry Shaw.

There was pain. The prosthetic legs he was fitted with on Monday, May 24, pinched at first. He also experienced a bit of vertigo. After being confined to a wheelchair for about 27 years, he wasn't used to being so high up in the air.

But it also was a joy to be up and walking again, to see two feet beneath him again, after all these years. It reminded him of when he was a kid, how he would cast repeated, loving glances down at his feet when he had new shoes on.

"Going forward, that's the cool part," said Harry, 47, of Port Aransas. "Being able to move forward in a way that doesn't involve wheels gets really high-up in the awesome factor."

Harry was a 21-year-old Army paratrooper serving in Grenada when he suffered the injuries that left him with only eight inches of his upper legs.

A member of the 82nd Airborne Division, Harry was engaged in a battle on the Caribbean island nation when he and fellow U.S. soldiers accidentally were cut down by friendly fire from a strafing American jet in October 1983. Harry suffered through a weeks-long recovery during which he nearly died several times.

After he finally got past the most critical part of his recovery, he tried using prosthetic limbs for several months, but they didn't work out for him. The limbs irritated the scar tissue on his legs, and the prosthetics of that era were so heavy that Harry had to expend more energy using them than it was worth. He ended up staying in a wheelchair for the next 27 years.

Earlier this month, Harry traveled to Houston take part in a skydiving event established especially for amputees. Harry wasn't allowed to jump, because event officials were afraid that his legs were so short that he might accidentally slip out of a harness.

Representatives of TMC Orthopedic, the company that ran the skydiving event, told Harry that they could fit him with a new pair of prosthetic legs. They talked to him about advances that have been made in that area over the past three decades.

Made of titanium and carbon graphite fiber, the legs today are lightweight, but strong. A more intimate fit is possible through custom liners that didn't exist years ago. And microprocessors do their part, helping control how the knees bend.

Harry decided to go for it. The legs cost about $40,000 each, but Medicare and the military's TRICARE program will pay for it, Harry said.

And so Harry and his wife, Ginny, and their 7-year-old daughter, Lucie, traveled to Houston this week for an appointment that could change Harry's life.

Harry said before the visit that he wasn't under any illusions that the prosthetics would mean an instant walk in the park. If the prosthetics work out, it's going to mean a lot of work at getting used to using the devices and rebuilding muscles he hasn't used in many years.

The Shaws are spending a few days in Houston this week, as Harry gets fitted with the legs and technicians gradually make many adjustments to make the prosthetics fit well for the Army veteran.

One of the first orders of business was to get Harry's legs measured at the facility. Then Harry headed for a shoe store. For the first time in many years, he was going to need shoes.

The family went to an Academy store. Harry selected a brown and black pair of Reebok DMX Voyage shoes - a cross between hiking boots and running shoes.

"I cannot tell you the giddiness that accompanies setting a course toward the shoe (aisle) at Academy Sports and ACTUALLY having a bona fide reason other than to wait on one of my family members to pick out their latest pair of shoes!!!" Harry wrote in his blog, hardcoreharry. wordpress.com. "Talk about a (RE)defining moment in a life!!!"

He wore a size 10.5 or 11 before he lost his legs. The prosthetics people told him to get something smaller, because they would be easier to walk in. He picked some size eights.

The family went back to the clinic, and workers put liners on Harry's legs. The molded plastic formed a close, custom fit.

"You could literally drag me across the floor with those, and they aren't coming off," he said.

Harry wheeled himself between a set of parallel bars, gripped the bars and stood.

Ginny watched and shot photos and video, which she put on her Facebook page for friends everywhere from Port Aransas to England to see.

"I was just really proud of him," Ginny said. "I thought it would be much harder. The first two or three steps were really good steps. I thought: 'Wow, he can do this!' It was great. It was a fabulous day. It was really exciting."

Harry took some slow steps, still holding onto the bars for support. Between sessions of standing and walking, Harry rested, and technicians kept making adjustments in the prosthetics' fit. Using a laptop computer, they also gave commands to the computer parts in the legs to adjust for Harry's weight and determine resistance for whatever kinds of motions he might attempt.

Technicians kept making the prosthetics' "sockets" fit better and better over Harry's legs by heating and slightly remolding the plastic polymer, making modifications a little bit at a time.

The legs kept feeling better and better and pinching less and less. While Harry walked only four lengths of the approximately 17-foot-long bars on Monday, he did 12 lengths Tuesday.

"It went really well," Harry said in an interview at the end of the day Tuesday. "I was able to walk quite a bit more."

Harry said he believed he and his family would finish up Wednesday and head back to Port Aransas.

What's in store next? Months of rehabilitation, learning to walk again. Harry is in the process of trying to work out exactly when, where and with whom he will be continuing his rehab work.

He made progress over the course of just two days in Houston, but that doesn't mean it was easy.

"It's a great deal of work," Harry said. "It's not something that you just get up and do. It takes a lot of practice."

Still, he's determined. "No more will I define myself by my reclined state!" Harry wrote in his blog. "I feel just like a pioneer setting out into the vast unknown wilderness, not knowing what future awaits me but I know I will engage that future fearlessly and with the utmost resolve. I am a US Army Airborne Paratrooper. Surrender is not in my creed!"