Tara Butcher: “You Choose the Life You Live….”

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="200"] Photographs courtesy of Tara Butcher.[/caption] Rising 15,100 feet from base to summit, Tanzania's Mt. Kilimanjaro is the tallest free-standing mountain in the world. It is composed of three distinct volcanic cones: Kibo, 19,340 feet; Mawenzi, 16,896 feet; and Shira, 13,000 feet. Approximately 25,000 people attempt to summit "Kili" each year, but only 40 percent succeed, and ten people die trying. On January 31, 2010, Tara Butcher counted herself among the 40 percent, summiting Uhuru Peak-the highest summit on Kibo's crater rim. Butcher and Erica Davis, both spinal cord injury (SCI) survivors, were chosen by Overstock.com and the Corrective Holistic Exercise Kinesiology (C.H.E.K.) Institute, San Diego, for the trek, which was "designed to raise awareness for individuals with physical challenges so that they can participate and compete in the sports they love," according to the Overstock.com website. The young women were part of an eight-person expedition that allowed Davis to make history as the first paraplegic to reach the summit. ( Author's note: Butcher's and Davis' ascent of Mt. Kilimanjaro has been chronicled in the documentary, Through the Roof , a Captured Life Productions film. Proceeds from the sale of the DVD will benefit the Challenged Athletes Foundation. ) Butcher, a San Diego resident, 29, is also a transtibial amputee. The 2005 accident that caused her SCI and claimed her lower left leg should have left her dead or paralyzed. When she was 23 years old, Butcher was involved in a minor fender bender along a Southern California highway. When she exited her car to appraise the damage, she was hit head-on by a car traveling 72 miles per hour. According to Butcher, the collision sent her body flying over two lanes of traffic, where she landed hard on her back, in the middle of the road. She details the aftermath: her right leg was shattered; her left leg was destroyed from the mid-calf down; the trauma to her abdomen resulted in a ruptured ovary; and her neck was separated from her head-an internal decapitation. Butcher was later told that 99 percent of these injuries result in paralysis or death. Road to Recovery Butcher was in an induced coma for ten days. She awoke to discover that after a week of surgeries, her spine and neck had been fused together with a metal plate and bone from her hip, her lower left leg was gone, and the bone in her right leg was replaced with a titanium rod. "I knew something bad happened because my family was surrounding me [when I woke up]," she says. "I was then informed by my team of fantastic doctors what happened and what my injuries were. They were very reassuring in telling me I could still live a normal life and do everything I wanted to." After an eight-week hospitalization period, during which she was bolstered by support from family and friends, Butcher says her mother took her home to recuperate further and wait to be fitted for a prosthesis. She "didn't leave my side until I was 100 percent independent," Butcher says. "During a time like that nothing is better than having your mom take care of you." About a month after returning home, Butcher was cast and fitted for a prosthesis-a regular walking leg for daily functioning-which allowed her to return to her job as a hairstylist. Learning to walk again required practice and determination from Butcher. "The more you do it, the better you become," she says. "I used a cane [until]...I learned to trust myself and the leg...." Butcher attended two or three physical therapy sessions and decided it wasn't too helpful for her, so she pursued her own rehabilitation, walking on her own and doing her "daily things," such as maneuvering around the house, going to work, and grocery shopping. She eventually hired a personal trainer to help her "get stronger all over." As Butcher regained and then surpassed her pre-accident fitness levels, she set her sights on running-something that before the accident, she would not have considered. However, to pursue active endeavors, she would require a different prosthesis. That's when a fellow amputee and mentor introduced her to the Challenged Athletes Foundation (CAF). CAF provided her with a grant that allowed her to get her first running leg in 2008, an Össur Flex-Foot Cheetah®. ( Author's note: A second CAF grant enabled Butcher to get another running leg in 2010, an Össur Flex-Run. ) The Run Down Butcher approached learning to run in the same way she approached learning to walk-with baby steps. She says she started running on a treadmill because of the security the handrails offered. She eventually began running up and down her driveway and then from the driveway to the stop sign down the street, until she had gained complete trust in her prosthesis and took it out on the road for a trial run. "I will never forget the first day I really ran," she says. "It was absolutely exhilarating. I was hooked." Butcher says that she quickly progressed to running 5Ks and, wanting more, she signed up for a 10K. "I never even imagined running farther than six miles until my trainer told me he wanted me to do a half marathon," she says, adding, "So I signed up, and I finished it with a smile. I swore to myself that day that I would never run any farther than 13.1 miles. So what did I do one year later? I signed up for the New York City Marathon." In 2008, Butcher completed the New York City Marathon- 26.2 miles-in 5:56:17. "Running reminds me what my body can still do, and it gives me a sense of freedom," she says. Not to be constrained to bipedalism or land, Butcher then took up cycling and swimming. She completed her first triathlon in March 2009, the Superfrog Olympic-distance triathlon in Coronado, California. She followed that by completing the San Diego International Triathlon in June 2009. That same year, Overstock.com and the C.H.E.K. Institute approached Butcher about the Mt. Kilimanjaro trek. She immediately signed on. However, unlike the baby steps Butcher took when learning to walk and then run, she was put on a fast-track training regimen for the climb. Her weekends consisted of six-to-eight-hour hikes. She used the Stairmaster to build her climbing stamina and worked out with a personal trainer three days a week to build core strength. Three months later, Butcher was at the foot of the mountain, physically and mentally ready to take on a challenge that she says took her totally out of her element. "I am not a mountain climber, nor do I like to sleep in a tent," she says. Yet her determination took over, and won, again. "It took eight days total [to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro]," she recalls. "I have never wanted anything more in my life than to be at the top of that mountain, and when we arrived it was surreal. I was breathless, literally, and I've never seen something so beautiful in my life. I felt like I was on top of the world. We were above the clouds." Since summiting Mt. Kilimanjaro, Butcher has continued her athletic pursuits. In 2010, she once again competed in the San Diego International Triathlon, this time in the sprint distance, finishing fourth out of 13 in her age group. She is currently training for the Million Dollar Challenge, a seven-day, 620-mile bike ride from San Francisco to San Diego, California, benefitting CAF, which takes place October 15-21. And October 23 will mark Butcher's third year participating in CAF's San Diego Triathlon Challenge (SDTC). The first year she participated in the CAF SDTC Tour de Cove spin-a-thon and, for the second year in row, she will be on a relay team riding the 56-mile bike leg of the event-joined by two mentees who are both new to CAF and sports. When asked what advice she shares with her mentees and others who are faced with challenges, Butcher says, "If you have any thought or desire to pursue something, whatever it is, if you really want it, make it happen-because you can. You choose the life you live, so choose wisely." Laura Hochnadel can be reached at linkEmail('laura','opedge.com')

Tara Butcher: “You Choose the Life You Live….”

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Tara Butcher: “You Choose the Life You Live….”

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Certified Prosthetist Orthotist or Board Eligible Prosthetist Orthotist

Certified Prosthetist / Prosthetist-Orthotist (CP/CPO) Gates Prosthetics + Mobility Clinic — Mountain Home, AR

Clinic Manager – Certified Prosthetist Orthotist (CPO) – Rogers, AR

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