These are my opening remarks at the Caribbean Sport and Development Agency conference on Redefining Normal Good Morning ladies and gentlemen, I am Dr Kriyaan Singh, I’m 32 years of age and have been in a wheelchair for the last 9 years of my life. Many people on first seeing me give the normal pleasantries, a smile, hello, how are you. But sure enough the obvious question follows. “What’s wrong with you” Ordinarily I would answer the person giving details of my injury and current physical condition. But a couple weeks ago I went out with my close friend and while I was trying to park outside a gym the gym instructor on hearing I was in a wheelchair asked my friend “what’s wrong with him?” to which she replied “what’s wrong with him? Absolutely nothing. He’s normal” Growing up as a child there were two things I loved, animals and the outdoors. And I’d do anything to encompass them in my life. Animals became my passion and career choice and being active outdoors became my hobby. Everyday I’d be out in our yard kicking around a football with my brother and neighbors. Then I erected a basket ball ring in my father’s garage. Bought an old table tennis board and put it in my father’s gallery, even bought a cricket set with stumps. Not realizing you can’t put stumps in a paved road. Our home, front yard and drive way became known as the resident’s play park. For a child growing up scoring a winning goal or that last basket in a game was like being a superstar each time even if it was just for fun. Numerous times I’d brake windows, dent cars and ruin my father’s immaculate front lawn because of my sporting antics and sure enough I’d get a whooping for it. But I’d be back out the next day kicking around my football again. Sport was my avenue of being a hero in my own little way. I think my father drew the line when I bought 12ft pirogue and made a trailer for it. The whole village would attest to me toting the trailer and boat on my own down to the sea at 8 in the night, driving the neighbor’s dogs crazy. Going to Naparima College I had the pleasure of being classmates with sportsmen like Sherwin Ganga and Samuel Badree. Playing cricket till late after school with them and Darren Ganga. Now I will forever have the stories to tell of how I hit Samuel Badree for 6 or cleaned bowled Darren for Duck. Then as I entered Veterinary School I was introduced to a new sport. Weight lifting. Initially Weight lifting and the gym were a means for me to lose weight because I had become a bit overweight. As a 17 year old I weighed 235lbs, even though I was active as could be recreationally I still saw myself as unhealthy. And knew others would too. I decided to get myself physically in shape through the gym. Each day I’d try to exceed my potential from the day before and do more and more. After 3 months of gym during summer break from UWI I had gone down to 135lbs and my self confidence was higher than ever. And nothing sends the confidence of a young man through the roof like the stares from the girls. Being not just physically fit but strong became an integral part of my life. In my studies as a vet being strong ensured that when it was time to deal with large animals like horses and cows I’d be at an advantage. Fast forward to my final year at UWI and everyone in my apartment complex knew that the loud clanging noises at 2am when everybody else was doing their last minute cramming for final exams was Kriyaan lifting weights in his room. Weight training and the discipline it involved helped me immensely in focusing on my studies. I graduated from UWI with honors as a doctor of veterinary medicine on June 2 2005 and began my career with gusto. Started working three jobs, busy from 3am to 11pm every day but still made time to maintain my weight lifting. I had progressed from doing weight lifting for recreation to setting goals to one day compete at the amateur level. I’d go to the gym and my aim was to max out every machine I could. Then as some would say tragedy struck. I however like to think of it not as a tragedy but as a life altering event full of purpose. On June 2 2006 11.15 am, one year as a vet officially, my vehicle was struck from behind by a truck causing it to flip spin and crumple into the middle of the highway. Being fully conscious throughout the collision I realized I couldn’t move my legs, my abdomen and chest felt like a ton of bricks were resting on them. My arms were on fire and my fingers were shaking like crazy. My right ear was severed from my head by the seat belt and blood was everywhere. Being medically trained I knew I had damaged my spine. I unbuckled my seat belt and smashed the driver window with my right elbow. Using my arms I pulled myself out through the window and fell onto the median of the highway. And there I lay covered in my own blood, the down pouring rain and the mud around me. Eventually other motorist stopped and came to my aide. Giving me a cell phone and I called my father and told him. “Daddy I got in an accident, I’m lying on the road, I can’t move my legs and I’m dying.” An hour and a half later an ambulance came and rushed me off to the San Fernando General Hospital. There the doctors began their battery of tests all of which I understood and asked about. The doctors requested an MRI and I remember them saying, his shoulders and neck muscles are too big and in the way of the CT scan. In the midst of all the chaos, frightened for my life and tears gushing out my eyes I smiled because my shoulders were too big because of the gym. Later that night I was shifted to St Claire Medical where MRIs showed that my spinal column shattered and crushed at the base of my neck. From that moment on it was confirmed that I was paralyzed from my chest down. I had very little use of my hands and couldn’t grip at all. Surgery was performed to stabilize my spine but nothing could be done for the damaged spinal cord. Being trapped in the intensive care unit with no access to the outside became a arduous task. With each passing day my frustrations and fears for the rest of my life grew and grew. I had gone from being a 180lb behemoth in the gym to being a 180lbs paperweight in a bed. I couldn’t even sit up because my blood pressure would drop and I’d faint. With each passing day I grew more and more depressed. Night after night I’d be up crying. Then something changed. They started me on physical therapy. Nothing intense but simply breathing into a device called a spirometer to strengthen my lungs and arm raises and arm curls. Glimmers of my days at the gym shone through. My physiotherapy became my avenue to expend my frustrations and my dreams. I began setting goals in my therapy just as I did in the gym. The first of which was to be able to sit up, hold a toothbrush on my own and eventually get to go outside and smell a tree in the hospital car park. And I did. Even thought the therapist would be with me for one hour, I’d continue doing the exercises after she left. Over and over because I knew I had to be my old self again; strong, determined and normal. In a short space of time I moved out of the hospitals and back to my home, however now sleeping in the living room as it was on the ground floor. Each day I looked forward to my father coming home from work to play catch with a tennis ball with me. I remember the look of fright and uncertainty my mother gave me when I asked her to bring me my weights so I could exercise in bed. But sure enough they brought them and with the help of my friends who came to visit me every day I began doing whatever exercises I could with my arms. My lack of grip in my hands put forward a new challenge for me but I was determined to overcome it. Devising ways of strapping them closed around the barbells or wearing wrist straps so I’d pull from my wrists instead. While the therapist wanted me to try and stand using a walker I accepted my legs weren’t going to respond and focused on doing as many dips as I could on the walker. Being able to lift myself using my arms was my aim to achieve more and more independence. I resolved that if my legs don’t work my arms would become my legs. As I grew stronger and regained more control I was able to move to my wheelchair on my own, push myself in the chair on my own and sure enough rolled outside in my yard to try and throw a ball into my basket ball hoop. My parents though recognizing my progress became fearful of me injuring myself further, as all over protective parents would be. Within 4 months of becoming completely paralyzed from my chest down I started back working as a vet from my bedside. I’d see pets of close clients on a table designed to fit over my bed. I kept telling myself that all I have to do in life is be a vet. That being a vet was my life dream and I can still do it. As I grew in confidence I recognized my next challenge as being able to do surgery again. I again called on my mother to bring my surgical tools for me and day and night I’d practice holding them, opening and closing them and even using them on my pillows and stuffed toys. Until one day I decided I had to start back doing surgery but couldn’t put an animal at risk. So I turned to myself. Since the accident I had felt a foreign body lodged under the skin on my right elbow, which I believed was pieces of window glass from when I shattered the vehicle window with my elbow. Insisting that I never want to see a hospital again and when no one was around I gathered all my tools on my bed table and placed a mirror in front of my elbow. I proceeded to surgically dissect over the glass and then stitch it back up using my weak left hand and holding tools in my mouth. It was after this feat that I knew I was ready to perform my job as a veterinary surgeon again. Maybe not as I did before but with me adapting to use my hands and my mouth to hold my tools. Up until this time my sporting activities still remained at the level of simple physiotherapy. Then I went to Miami. I remember the doctor there looking at my medical records and then at me, and saying “ok so you won’t walk again”. Although I had been resolved that for now I was paralyzed in some small way I always hoped the healing would continue and I’d walk again. I was shattered. Immediately I spun into a depression. Not wanting to do anything, no exercise, no visitors, not even see sunlight. That was until I visited the Miami Physical Therapy Associates. When I entered I remember having tears in my eyes and a hard feeling in my throat. I told the owner Mr Robin Smith that I knew nothing they could offer would make me walk. Nothing they could offer would make me better and nothing they could offer could make me normal again. His answer changed my life. He said “I won’t be able to make you walk, but we will help you to be the best you can be and we’re not aiming for normal. We’re aiming for extraordinary.” He took me into his facility and I was overjoyed to see a fully accessible gym pack. My wheelchair could fit in every station and I could do a full upper body work out like I did at the gym before. He introduced me to an FES bike which shocked my legs to make them ride against resistance which meant I could work out my legs again. Within days I was back on my wheels again, coming two hours early to the facility to use the gym and leaving two hours later than I was supposed to. Again my goals were to exceed everyone’s expectations and max out every machine they had. Even the FES bike progressed me to a level where what I was doing was equivalent to pushing a piano up a 40 degree incline. While there I got to meet and train with other international sport personalities and celebrities as well which at times made me forget I was in a wheelchair. I basked in the glory of being spotted in bench press by wwe wreslting personality Triple H who was there doing therapy for his knees. The owner then told me after three months that he could do no more for me and what I needed to do now was return home and fulfill my dream, to be a vet even in a wheelchair. And I did. I came home 7 months after being paralyzed and reopened my practice. I modified my office and home with ramps, wider doorways and adjusted tables. I got hand controls to be able to drive myself again and be independent and thought myself to dismantle my chair and get it in and out of the car on my own. I remember my first surgery after the accident on an actual patient taking me 1 hr and 22 minutes. I was covered in tears as I did it using my right hand, the back of my left hand and my mouth to hold the tools, but I did it. And that was all that mattered to me. Today I can do that same procedure in 10 minutes, because I never gave up. I never allowed my fear of failure to overcome my desire for success. It was at this juncture I decided to get back into the gym. Of course there were major obstacles in my way. Very few of the gyms in my area were accessible to a wheelchair, either being on second floors, having steps or narrow entrances. Some gyms that were even accessible told me I wouldn’t be allowed to join because of safety issues. Then I found a gym in Point-a-Pierre, Fitness Centre and my journey to fulfilling my passion for weight lifting took off again. Being at the gym as a person with a disability I was able to return to my pre-injury routine. It allowed me to interact with persons and have a normal social life once more. This was critical to my mental and emotional stability Although none of the equipment was designed to be used by persons in wheelchairs I quickly set out to adapt the way in which I used the equipment to suit my needs. I kept saying no matter what it is I can do it even if I have to do it differently I’ll achieve the same end result. Sometimes I’d be doing a chest workout on a legs machine. Wearing restraints around my legs and my neck to do pull ups. Finding all sorts of odd positions to brace my chair to do exercises and leaping off my wheelchair on to the ground. I’d do whatever it took to do my exercises in a fashion as close to normal as I could. And then I noticed people at the gym were noticing me. People would come up and compliment me on my perseverance, my strength and my endurance. They’d tell me how much I inspired them in their own work out, saying if I could do it so can they. People then started coming up and asking me to show them exercises or finding out what the exercises I did was for. It wasn’t long before I saw people who weren’t in wheelchairs doing the adapted exercises I did. That’s when I knew I was redefining normal. Through the focus on my gym, swimming and basketball which I started back playing, I was able to avoid a drug addiction to pain medication I was on for neurological lower back pain. I told myself that the only way to forget the pain is to distract my mind from it or to feel good muscular pain elsewhere. Being dedicated to the Gym and sports, in my eyes, not only saved my life, my health but also my career. I started going to the gym not just for me but for everyone around me, those that looked on, those I inspired and those I could inspire. And this is a very important point to recognize as a person with a disability. Although sometimes we may think we are weaker than others, we give strength to others. My new goal was not just to do all and do more at the gym but for each day to inspire at least one person to make something better of themselves. I took my disability to be a tool to make me more efficient than those around me, doing more while using less of my body. I entered the hardcore extreme obstacle competition last year which encouraged me to train harder. No longer did my training mean being strong but it meant being able to go through obstacles designed for able bodied persons. From a 5 mile trek through the forest, swinging over mud filled pools, crawling under barbwire, climbing over 10 feet walls and an open swim to the finish line of a pier. Doing the competition was hard and a real challenge to my physical and mental strength but with a team of friends we did it. Now I have a life long bond with those friends which can never be replaced. The comradery and inclusion that taking part in such an event redefined to me what being normal is. Being normal isn’t walking or running, it isn’t seeing or hearing. Normal is being accepted by our peers as equal. Normal is accepting yourself for who you are and being committed to doing tasks regardless of how challenging. See the limitless potential each and every one of us has to be great and to be our own best. It was only through falling off my chair that I learnt how to pick myself up and get back in. and it is only when I had no choice but to be strong that I realized how strong I could be. The beauty of all sports is that it encourages us to set and reach for a goal, to work towards it. Sport and adaptive sports provides inclusion for everyone to be on an equal playing field. And it allows us all to share in the mixed emotions of defeat after giving your best or success in winning. The most emotional time of my life to date wasn’t becoming a vet, nor was it becoming paralyzed. It was rolling down the pier hearing thousands of people cheering my name. It was throwing myself into the ocean and swimming to the finish line. And it was climbing up that ladder using only my arms and then up the stairs on my hands. And I employ every person to go out and take part in some sport and give yourself the opportunity to feel that exhilaration. Give yourself the chance to not be counted as normal but to be singled out as extra-ordinary. At present I’m training everyday in the gym with the aim to again enter the Hardcore event this year. I’m also preparing to represent Trinidad and Tobago in wheelchair power lifting events coming up with the aim of going and participating in the paralympic games in 2016 in Brazil. I also now train several persons at the gym both disabled and non-disabled. A few weeks ago one of the people I train was squatting and another man came up and admiring his technique and strength asked him if he could train him. My apprentice pointed at me and said that’s my trainer over there. Imagine the look on his face when he knew a person in a wheelchair, paralyzed from his chest down was training someone in leg exercises. Now he’s one of the people I train too. Persons with disabilities who I train and demonstrate for have not only regained strength and mobility through the gym and wheelchair basket ball but their confidence and attitude towards life has improved tremendously. They have become more independent through their activity, been able to get their body weight under control and over all improve their health. I have also been appointed a temporary independent senator where I hope to make as much valuable contributions I can to the nation. As a certified diver I hope to soon begin teaching paralyzed persons to swim and dive on their own. All this from my chair because I believe from where I sit I can see where I want to stand. In closing, I’d just like to leave you all with a little thought. While we’re all here to hear about redefining normal I urge you all to do as I did and let extraordinary be your goal. Let nothing stop you from achieving your goals. Look at every obstacle as an opportunity to adapt to a new situation and become better than yesterday. And most of all remember in always trying your best you’re already successful. And by the way I still enjoy the stares from the ladies today.
Posted on: Thu, 22 May 2014 13:04:00 +0000
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