Carl Wardell: Living Life in Stride

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="300"] Photograph courtesy of Össur Americas.[/caption] People have their own yardsticks for measuring milestones: completing a 5K, exceeding a sales goal, landing a whopper of a fish. Carl Wardell, 35, a left transfemoral amputee, experienced a milestone this past July while attending a Philadelphia Phillies baseball game. He tells the story of the 110-degree, "super muggy" day. "Every year my friend, Michael, and his family—they have a bar in south Philly real close to the stadium—they buy all these tickets, and a bunch of people go to the game," he says. "They have a barbecue, and we get a bus to the game and back." Wardell, however, never made it to his assigned seat that day. Instead, he was "motoring around" inside the stadium, up and down stairs, seeking out various vantage points from which to watch the game, with his girlfriend and Michael's 80-year-old grandmother. Dead cell phone batteries had hindered communication, so it became clear to Wardell once the game ended that the others in the group had already escaped the heat and taken the charter bus back to the bar. "Michael has helped me since my car accident; he's been there for me," Wardell says. "I've talked to him so much about this POWER KNEE.... He knew that I was fine, so that's why he left." The two seemingly less-abled members of the goup had been left to fend for themselves, he says. "It was the joke of the day." The December 2001 car accident that Wardell mentions not only claimed his left leg above the knee, but it also shattered his pelvis and left him with a broken arm. His right leg was also injured—he wears an AFO because of foot drop, and he experiences laxity in his knee despite undergoing reconstructive surgery. [caption id="" align="alignright" width="225"] Photograph courtesy of Össur Americas.[/caption] Wardell says he used to feel like he was holding people back before being fit in June 2011 with the POWER KNEE, developed by Össur, Reykjavik, Iceland. He says he used to pick and choose what events he would attend depending on the terrain and potential obstacles. He might be able to get from the parking lot to the stadium when going to a Phillies game, for example, but after climbing the stairs would he be able to make it back to the car? When going to the mall, he would strategically plan where to park, sometimes driving around for at least 20 minutes, to minimize the distance he would have to walk. A former roofer and construction worker, he had to change careers. For his first five years as an amputee, he says he had to deal with ill-fitting sockets and ambivalent prosthetists. From the beginning, Wardell found a way around or through his physical limitations and restrictions. He made the hospital discharge him just ten days after the accident. "I knew better than to sit around and get comfortable lying in bed or on the couch because I was hurt," he says."When I was going to therapy I'd see people worse off than me.... You think life is over after this happens to you, but then you get around some other people and you see how things could be worse. I appreciate what I've got." One thing Wardell didn't have at the time was health insurance. He had paid cash for each of the prostheses he wore prior to the POWER KNEE—starting with a couple of hydraulic knees and an Össur Vari-Flex foot®. After that, a childhood friend who is a prosthetics technician had told Wardell about the Otto Bock C-Leg®, so he decided to upgrade. "One day I was on eBay® messing around, and I found one [for sale]," he says. "I bid on it and got it." However, he had trouble finding a prosthetist to set the computer, align the leg, and adjust the resistance for his weight, so he says he made do with the prosthesis as it was. That same prosthetics-technician friend discussed Wardell's dilemma with Dennis Williams, CP, prosthetist at the patient care facility where he works—Allied Orthotics & Prosthetics, Mount Laurel, New Jersey. After hearing Wardell's story, Williams agreed to help. That was about five years ago. Williams was the sixth prosthetist that Wardell had seen by that time, and the one he continues to see today. [caption id="" align="alignright" width="300"] Wardell takes his girlfriend's son fishing-one of their favorite pastimes. "Carl is a great role model for Anthony," says Krystine Greco. Photograph courtesy of Krystine Greco.[/caption] About a year ago, Wardell's C-Leg started to fail, and the eBay purchase did not come with a warranty. Williams says he researched microprocessor knees and recommended that Wardell try the Össur RHEO KNEE® and Ceterus foot. "We got him a new socket, and we got him into the RHEO," Williams says, adding that Wardell used his new prosthesis for about three months. Then Össur contacted Allied and invited them to be one of the first companies to become certified in fitting its new POWER KNEE. Since roughly 2006, earlier versions had been tested by amputee veterans and service members, and it has recently been made available commercially in the United States and Europe. According to Russ Marable, director of prosthetic marketing at Össur, the "ideal candidate" today is a K3 transfemoral amputee who wants to better overcome other mobility limitations or functional losses related to a short residual limb, contralateral side comordibidities, overstress injuries, etc. Another target candidate is a fairly active K3 transfemoral amputee who wants to do more or go farther each day but is currently limited by severe fatigue or exhaustion. Williams was asked to look for the former and, after reviewing his patient files, he chose Wardell. "I knew already what kind of patient he was," Williams says. "He's driven." That was mid-May. By June 1, Wardell and Williams were at Össur's North American headquarters in Foothill Ranch, California. By July, Wardell was motoring around the Phillies' home stadium, Citizens Bank Park. By September, Wardell was so adept at using his new knee that Össur took him to the American Orthotic & Prosthetic Association (AOPA) National Assembly in Las Vegas, Nevada, to serve as a patient model. By October, Wardell was back in California teaching new users the ins and outs of adjusting to this new prosthesis. Wardell says that using the POWER KNEE has substantially lessened his fatigue factor so he is able to do things longer and easier. The hardest part has been "untraining"—forgetting what he was trained to do with other knees. "You engage your thigh by pulling it up rather than kicking it through gait as with passive knees," he says, adding that it also took him a while to adjust to the noise the prosthetic knee makes. Rather than being bothersome, Wardell says he relies on the noise to help him walk. "There are two different sounds—one with the front swing and one with the back swing. [As an amputee], you lose nerves and feeling but it is 'replaced' with the sound." Activities that fall into the "longer and easier" category include being able to stand and walk for hours—which were critical to Wardell returning to work. In July, Wardell was hired by Allied as an amputee support counselor and technician-in-training, so he finds himself on his feet most of the day. He now takes his two American bulldogs for long walks; he plays with his girlfriend's four-year-old son for hours; he does his own yard work, after which he is sore like any "normal" person might be; and he again feels comfortable taking his boat out for solo fishing trips. "Before, I would like to take people [fishing] with me," he says. "You have the tackle box, fishing poles, a cooler. Now I can carry my stuff to the dock without help. At low tide, the ramp is steeper. I can go down the ramp now with no problem." Wardell says his increased activity level has also enabled him to lose 20 pounds. "To live my daily life with ease again is nice," Wardell says. "[The POWER KNEE] allows me to live every day a lot better and a lot easier." Laura Fonda Hochnadel can be reached at laura@opedge.com

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Carl Wardell: Living Life in Stride

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Related posts:

SCRA Wins Award for Prosthetics Initiative

TMR Technically Feasible for Transfemoral Amputees

TMR Technically Feasible for Transfemoral Amputees

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