I am excited to announce today that Camp Discovery is back! This program, which I began last year with the help of a generous grant from AVON, is really a dream for me. When I sustained a spinal cord injury (SCI) in 2000 and was at Craig Hospital doing my rehabilitation, I realized I was only one of two women going through rehab at the time. When I was discharged and went out into the real world and also began doing sports, I realized that there still weren’t very many women in chairs with SCIs. This made it difficult for me when I had personal questions that I needed addressed about spinal cord injury and life as a wheelchair user. Although I made do for many years, I decided it was time to figure out a way to bring other women together who had experienced the same situation.

I applied for a grant from AVON to put together an adventure camp for women in chairs and as luck would have it, my application was accepted! I put together a group of volunteers to coordinate the camp and it was a huge success. We recruited 15 women to take part in activities from tennis to golf, to handcycling and scuba. It was so much fun!

This year, thanks to the efforts of the Challenged Athletes Foundation and Craig Hospital, I am able to bring the camp together again. It is open to any woman who has experienced an injury or disorder of the spinal cord (SCI, M.S., spina bifida, etc.) and who primarily uses a wheelchair.

I found that this camp is a necessity in this population. The women who participated got so much out of being able to form a support group and to meet others in their situation.

I thank our current sponsors and hope that if you are reading this, you will consider making a donation to Camp Discovery! Please fill out the contact form on this website and I will be in touch with you promptly.

There were fifteen campers (it seems strange at the age of 49 to refer to myself as a “camper”, but I’ll try). Most had spinal cord injuries or spina bifida. As far as I know, I was the only participant with MS. Campers’ ages ranged from twenties to sixties. Trish and her committee (which included handcyclists Kim Prussia and Sherry Schulz (Sadler’s Alaska Challenge, Ride the Rockies)) did an amazing job pulling together the grants, volunteers and resources necessary to make the weekend fun, comfortable, and educational. Trish recounted her own early years in wheelchair sports, and the fact that there were so few female athletes to learn from. She hopes that the shared information and contacts provided by Camp Discovery will help budding female competitors figure things out quickly.

The weekend included both introductions to a variety of sports activities (golf, tennis, handcycling, SCUBA, weights, Pilates) and a taste of life coaching and meditation techniques. Trish also threw in some fun, pampering activities, rounding up a bunch of friends to provide massages, facials, and spa treatments to campers.

Since I’m training for my first triathlon, I was excited to have the opportunity to ask Trish about the logistics of doing triathlon, and it was fun to hear her mention that in her opening remarks: “Maybe all you want to know is how to pee during a long event-in that case, I’m happy to tell you about it.” So let’s get the peeing over with right away. The choices basically boil down to 1) indwelling catheter and leg bag; 2) intermittent catheterization; 3) somebody having your chair or crutches or whatever mobility aid you need available when you need to make a stop, and 4) peeing on yourself (“that’s what the men do”). Which one you pick depends on your disability (is this really the time to learn how to do intermittent catheterization?) and what kind of activity it is (is this a competitive event in which you cannot afford the 15-20 minutes to get to a restroom and back on the bike?). Luckily, the triathlon I’m planning is a sprint distance event, so the peeing question shouldn’t arise.

My swim coach has been telling me that I’m going to wear a wetsuit in the swim leg, and I’ve been resisting that advice (“wetsuit? in an indoor pool? for a 525 yard swim?”). But I talked to several wheelchair using swimmers at the camp, and you know what? They use wetsuits, or at least wetsuit bottoms, to keep their legs from dragging. This improves their swim times and saves energy. They talked me into it. One of the things I came away from was that you’re not necessarily going to be able to do your sport exactly the way you think you “should”; instead, you’re going to do what you’ve got to do. And if that means peeing into a bottle, learning to cath, or wearing a wetsuit even if nobody else is, that’s how it is. I also learned (or am trying to learn) to accept more help. A camp volunteer, who doesn’t live far from me, offered to be my triathlon support person, to help me get in and out of my wetsuit, fetch my chair, help with transfers, and so on. What a great offer! The staff to student ratio for the SCUBA lessons was approximately 4 to 1, and it was hard for me to accept that it took that many people to get me underwater blowing pretty bubbles and playing with toys. But it was great fun, and I’m grateful to all those people for being willing to do it (and doing it so well).

There’s a vibrant and amazing community of volunteers in this area to support adaptive athletes, and this is probably not a complete list of all the organizations I saw providing resources and help this weekend:

Craig Hospital – Craig provided the super wheelchair bus (at one point I counted 8 riders in wheelchairs), and the lift always worked. Craig therapists and nurses helped out at the handcycling session, and gave a talk on wellness and our senses.

Denver Parks and Rec – Denver Parks and Rec provided the bus on which the lift didn’t work, but that showed me how a group of determined people can work around obstacles. Campers got themselves into a variety of private cars, and all the wheelchairs and some handcycles were loaded onto the bus. Kelly and Jim also helped out handcyclists.

Adaptive Adventures – I’ve seen Mau and Mark from Adaptive Adventures roll up at a number of events and just start unloading handcycles, fitting handcycles, fixing handcycles, teaching shifting and steering. They’re always friendly, supportive and incredibly helpful.

National Sports Center for the Disabled – Also brought a truck load of handcycles and got campers fitted up and out on the road.

A-1 Scuba – The instructors and volunteers here were professional, kind and patient. They clearly love what they do, and have lots of experience assisting disabled divers.

A lot of these organizations focus primarily on the person with spinal cord injury, and if you’ve done rehab at Craig Hospital, you’ve been exposed to an incredible number of opportunities and resources for fitness and wellness. If you haven’t had a traumatic injury, and your disability has come on slowly and sneakily, you may need to be more proactive in searching out those opportunities. Don’t be put off thinking that a particular program is just for SCI, or just for vets, or just for senior citizens. Pick up the phone, or send and email, and talk to the organizer about whether it would work for you as well.

Trish hopes to make Camp Discovery an annual event. Keep an eye out for the next camp, because it’s a great opportunity to try out sports you may have been missing, learn about what’s out there, and meet other women who are trying to get and stay fit and active.

That’s exactly how Camp Discovery was born. Ever since I was discharged from Craig Hospital I have traipsed through the trials and errors, ups and downs and positives and negatives of being in a chair, but I have always felt a sort of a lonliness and a lack of female companions who could truly understand what I was going through. Sure, I have a whole list of life-long able-bodied friends, who are empathetic and understanding and unfailingly patient, but when it came to other people I knew in chairs, it was always guys. Not that this is a bad thing, but there are so many questions, logistics, and issues, involved in having a spinal cord injury and sometimes you just need someone you can really TALK to. This is something, that with the exception of one or two people, I have not found much of in my nine-year journey. And I figured that if I was having a hard time, there were bound to be other women with disabilities, specifically those in chairs, who have experienced the transition from able-bodied to disabled, who feel the same way. So, it came to my mind that starting a support group might help build a community of women who could come together and share experiences. The only thing about that is that “support group” didn’t sound empowering. I wanted a group of women who could, by sharing, begin to feel stronger, bolder and braver in their lives, not just vent to each other or create a pity party. In my mind, that meant adventure and excitement; opportunities to expand and challenge. My desires were answered when I learned about the AVON Hello Tomorrow Fund, which provides grants to individuals to contribute to their community by developing or sustaining programs for women. I applied to develop an adventure camp for women in wheelchairs to be able to improve their fitness, create support systems and learn about body image and self-esteem. Following are the words of the AVON press release, which announced my successful application.

“Tricia’s winning application to the Avon Hello Tomorrow Fund met the criteria of clearly presenting unique and achievable objectives to empower women or girls and ultimately improve society. It was selected from a pool of strong contenders by an expert panel of judges, including personal finance expert Suze Orman, actress Phylicia Rashad, Sarah Ferguson, The Duchess of York, and experts in business and grantmaking.

“This is a great way to create a community-based fellowship for wheelchair-bound women through an uplifting shared adventure/experience,” commented Sarah Ferguson on Tricia’s proposal.

Every week since April 17, 2007, the U.S. Avon Hello Tomorrow Fund has awarded $5,000 to an individual who has submitted a compelling application to help realize a program, project, or idea that empowers women and ultimately improves society. Tricia is one of thirteen weekly winners to be selected from more than 1,200 applicants from across the U.S. who applied in the current quarterly application cycle.”

Excellent! I got the grant. But this was one case of me deciding what I wanted to do first, and then figuring out how to do it later. So my initial reaction was panic! Oh my…I’ve really committed myself now. But I knew in my mind what I wanted and that this would become a labor of love.

I gathered a group of fundraisers, recreational therapists, medical personnel, fellow wheelchair athletes, a life coach and representative from the Challenged Athletes Foundation, and got started. We started meeting over lunches, dinners, and coffee making a plan. We developed a great schedule that included tennis, golf, scuba, Pilates, weights, spa time and more. We found so many people who were interested in volunteering their time and expertise to make each activity happen. All we needed were campers. At first, we thought it was going to be hard to find ten willing women, but when the applications began to flow in, we realized that ten slots wasn’t going to be nearly enough. As we raised more money we added five camper slots and prepared for October 1^st when the camp would have its kick off.

I had no idea what to expect when the campers came rolling in. They ranged in age from 20s-60s with disabilities spanning from spinal cord injuries to spina bifida to M.S. I had no idea what, if anything, they would have in common…if they would bond…if we had planned a weekend of activities they would enjoy. But in less than the first hour of our Thursday evening program, I new we had hit the nail on the head. Alissa Crowley, an organizing committee member did an icebreaker. She asked each woman to look around the room and write down ten things that EVERYONE in the room had in common. Seems hard to guess when you don’t know anyone else in the room. The list started slowly, but quickly gained momentum. “We are all women.” It began. “We all laugh and cry.” Then, “we all have dreams.” A moment of silence. “We all have boobs!” Laughter. “We’re all sitting…we have dealt with some shit in our lives…we all need friends and supporters…we’ve all had good things in our lives…we all have bad hair days…we all want to try new things…” The list went on and on. And by the end, I think we all realized what we were doing in that same room, ready to experience Camp Discovery.

The rest of the weekend was filled with an exhausting list of activities and I had the fortune of watching each woman step out of her shell, out of her comfort zone, crack a smile and let out a laugh. I can’t speak for anyone else, but it was just what I needed. To see that there were other women just like me; who have triumphs and disappointments, questions, answers and who need support from others in similar situations.

I can’t say enough about the great group of women who attended the first Camp Discovery. I hope that my camp creation helped them dream a little bigger because I know they all helped me realize a dream of my own. I didn’t realize how big an impact the weekend made until I started hearing the women talk about “next year.” Panic! I had been so busy thinking about THIS year, I never even imagined a next year. Guess I better get busy…

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THANKS TO OUR VERY GENEROUS SPONSORS:

AVON Hello Tomorrow Fund

Challenged Athletes Foundation

The Sporting Woman Community Fund

St. Anthony Hospital

Craig Hospital

Mountain Fitness Training Center

I went to Camp Discovery on October 1-4,2009, founded by Tricia Downing.

She is a woman who had an accident ning years ago, has completed marathons and has a  definite drive to help other women with spinal cord injuries to challenge themselves to be the best they can be.

The first night was dinner and getting to know the fellow female campers as well as the many volunteers.  On Friday morning, some of the campers went to scuba, while everyone else traded off golfing and tennis.  I went to golf. There was a stationary seat that when the lever was pushed, it propped me up so that I could swing the golf club from a higher position. There was also an adaptable golf cart, when I transferred to that seat, I had an definite advantage from just golfing in my own chair.  Surprisingly, I did so well that our instructor and I had a distance competition!!

I played tennis also.  I transferred into a “sport” wheelchair that had slanted wheels. I guess I had exhausted my “hand-eye” coordination  because I didn’t do well in tennis.  I need to practice because I needed to maneuver around the court AND hold my tennis racket.

Late afternoon we went to the gym/bike shop. We did chair pilates and talked with Tricia’s personal trainer. That evening, we had a spa night, at the gym.  I was pampered to a massage, facial, and Bubble Goddess (www.bubblegoddessbathco.com) products, manicure with dinner and drinks.

Our life coach, Linda, wanted us to do “future boards,” where we were to cut out images, words, and meanings for what I would like to see in my future.
Saturday morning, some people stayed at the hotel for jewelry  making, and some people went hand cycling. We went hand cycling at Cherry Creek Reservoir.  We had many more volunteers from, NSCD (www.nscd.org), Adaptive Adventures (www.adaptiveadventures.org), along with Challenged Athletes Foundation (www.challengedathletes.org).  I went with an “able bodied” biker, on about a three mile bike ride.  Challenged Athletes Foundation has a grant process every year for people to apply to get a hand cycle.

Saturday afternoon we went ton a “psyche hike,” (www.psychehike.net)where we went on a hike to take in the sights, sounds and smells.  We stopped and had a mediation, wrote down our thoughts, worries, fears and wants. This hike in the day, was very uplifting. Saturday night, we all came together to regroup and share our thoughts on the weekend.  Sunday was just to pack, unwind and leave the hotel.

I LOVED this camp, I learned so much about myself, both physically and mentally, as a woman who has Spina Bifida. I made many friends that we will keep in touch and hopefully we will see each other next year at Camp Discovery!!

–Amber Gersch

Next week I get to represent my country at the duathlon world championships and I can’t wait. Not only do I want to show my athletic abilities but to show that there is such a thing as a major comeback and I know that no matter how I do, I really have won the biggest race of my life just by making it to the finish line!