inMotion Magazine

May | June 2019 36 Honor, Valor, Sacrifice (continued) have killed me because it would have spread. It’s like a giant shotgun.” The explosion left Nichols with what he describes as an “out-of-body experience.” “One second, you’re walking and talking to infantrymen, and you feel confident,” explains Nichols, who received the Purple Heart and Bronze Star for his service. “The next thing, you’re on the ground without any feet. You feel like, `What now?’ It’s like you have to create a whole new image of yourself. You don’t know who you are anymore.” Nichols spent nine months in the hospital. Having suffered no nerve or muscle damage in his knees in the explosion, he was able to retain a lot of his balance and the ability to climb ramps and stairs. But it was a challenge to acclimate himself to the prostheses, which he found to be extremely uncomfortable. Like many other amputees at the time, he was fitted with a hard- shell prosthesis with a cuff strap. He remembers it to be like “wearing a shoe two sizes too small” that caused skin irritation, blisters and infections. He recounts the pain and terrible discomfort of putting pressure on his stumps, and blood pooling in the sock that covered the open wounds during his time learning to walk on the antiquated prosthetics. “It was like a torture chamber,” he says. The technology is vastly improved today. “I’ve been walking with prosthetics now for 48 years,” he says. “I’m ambulatory. I don’t have a wheelchair or anything like that. It doesn’t make a difference if I did. But I chose to use my prosthetics as my mode of transportation. I have a soft shell inside the hard shell. I still use a cuff strap and a waist strap. But the shells have pins, suction, and gel-sleeve liners. And there’s carbon fiber. With carbon fiber, you get what’s called stored energy when you’re walking. It helps you move forward. It’s a little easier.” Today, Nichols is in great shape at 5 feet 9 inches, and 150 pounds. A resident of Stone Ridge, New York, he golfs in the Eastern Amputee Golf Association. He’s up to about a 14 handicap, after once being between an eight and nine. He chalks up the decline to not playing much recently because of his involvement with other sports like skiing. He skis in Windham, New York, and teaches people with disabilities how to ski. He plans on improving in golf in preparation for the Golden Age Games. With a wife, three kids, and three grandchildren, he finds that life has been good to him. “There are days when I get up and go, `It’s going to be a rough day,’” he says. “But normally everything is fine. I’m going all day. I’ve been very fortunate because my disability is manageable.” Mike Richman is a writer and editor in the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Office of Research and Development. He joined VA in 2016. He previously worked at the Voice of America, one of the U.S.-funded broadcast agencies. Nichols attempting to surf at a summer sports clinic in San Diego Adaptive Sports Programs amputee-coalition.org/ resources/adaptive-sports- programs Eastern Amputee Golf Association eagagolf.org National Veterans Golden Age Games anchorage.net/event/ national-veterans-golden- age-games/37439 Related Resources