Rolling with the Punches Rolling with the Punches By Cindy Kleh
Sports can be the foundation for developing discipline, a desire to excel and a strong self esteem, especially for children. Success builds on success, and that confidence overflows into all aspects of life: making friends, mastering schoolwork and becoming an independent, happy adult.
No one illustrates this better than Ashley Hovey. She was born in 1981 with spina bifida, a birth defect in which the vertebrae do not completely enclose around the spinal cord when forming. The exposed cord can form a bulge that permanently damages the spinal nerves. In Ashley's case, the affected vertebrae were in the lower back, and her legs are partially paralyzed.
Recent advances have been made in surgical techniques for implanting “shunts” that drain spinal fluid from the brain. The shunts increase the chances of a child with spina bifida surviving to adulthood from nearly zero to 90 percent today. Ashley had her first shunt surgery at just one week old. By the time she was 11, she had endured fifteen surgeries and had spent much of her early childhood at The Children's Hospital of Denver.
At the age of five, she discovered the life-altering experience of skiing through the National Sports Center for the Disabled (NSCD) in Winter Park. She was living in California at the time, but her family was ski-crazy, and she yearned to be out there on the slopes with them, too.
By 1986, the NSCD was already well-established at Winter Park as the largest and most advanced outdoor therapeutic recreational agency in the world. Founded in 1970 as a one-time ski lesson for children with amputations, NSCD has grown into a world-renown nonprofit organization that yearly helps thousands of kids and adults try adaptive snow sports. With a specially-trained staff of 40 full-time instructors and over 800 hands-on volunteers, they are able to say yes to a person with almost any physical or mental disability.
“We don't turn people away,” says Beth Fox, Director of Operations and one of Ashley's first instructors at NSCD. “We take on almost any disability with a can-do attitude. We figure it out with research, engineering and medical networking. It's a very innovative organization.”
Fox first encountered Ashley while teaching her to use four-track skis, named because the two skis and two outriggers (forearm crutches mounted in skis) create four tracks in the snow. “She had mobility challenges, but she was striving for independence and ready for people to help her. Skiing is a vehicle by which other things happen, like physical strength and mental maturity.”
“She had good balance and was a quick learner... and a Cali girl,” laughs Pat Campanella, who is now the foreman of NSCD's Adaptive Equipment Lab, a high-tech ski shop at the base of Winter Park that tailors ski and snowboard gear with “McGyver”-like ingenuity to each disability. “She was a fun kid, and her whole family was really involved. They skied with her and encouraged her.”
When Ashley was seven, the family moved to Denver to be closer to Winter Park and The Children's Hospital. By the age of 11, she had reached the limits of recreational adaptive ski lessons. Wanting more, she decided to take the next step: ski racing.
Led by Paul DiBello, a five-time Paralympic gold-medalist, NSCD's
competition program is not for girly-men or girly-girls. At the elite
level, the athlete must commit to year-round training based on the same
principals of any high-level ski racing program, including on-snow practice,
dry-land aerobics and weight lifting.
DiBello must be doing something right, because over the past decade, 75 percent of the U.S. Disabled Ski Team has trained with NSCD coaches in Winter Park, and the U.S. Team has dominated international competitions and the Winter Paralympics.
Disabled ski teams from around the world come to Winter Park to train because NSCD has premier coaching and facilities. The NSCD Sports Science Lab, an adaptive gym, is located near the chairlifts, so an athlete can warm up before snow training and cool down or do strength training afterwards.
As Ashley's upper body grew, her legs could no longer hold her up on four-track skis and she started using a mono-ski, a rigid molded seat, or “bucket,” mounted on one ski with short, hand-held outriggers. Sitting down was less tiring, and she could ski longer and harder.
More difficult to master than other adaptive ski set-ups, the
mono-ski was perfect for Ashley. She had developed enough strength and
balance to excel on this advanced equipment through years of skiing,
track and field, and swimming.
During her high school years, Ashley was a constant whirlwind of
activity. She had been attending public schools since kindergarten, and
was becoming more adept at balancing friendships, schoolwork, race training
and traveling to ski races and track meets (including the 1997 Australian
Junior National Wheelchair Games where she set records in the discus and
javelin throw).
Skiing remained her favorite sport, because she could ski wherever her friends and family skied and often waited for them at the bottom. She never felt limited on the slopes, even on Mary Jane bump runs. She passed her driver's license exam at 16, opening up a whole new world of independence for her. Using hand controls to brake and accelerate, Ashley could drive herself to Winter Park several times a week to train.
Somehow she found time to baby-sit other disabled children and visit schools so able-bodied kids could meet her and learn about disabilities first hand. Her athletic goals came first, but there was something about working with other disabled kids that fascinated her. She liked to show them what was possible, and teach them skills that changed their perception of themselves.
She had been fortunate to be born in a family that accepted her disability and encouraged her to excel in sports, and she wanted to share her blessings with others like her. She became a volunteer instructor for NSCD, usually helping as a visual aid, and later that season, she acquired her Professional Ski Instructors of America (PSIA) certification.
In 1999, she qualified to compete in the Canadian World Cup, against the best disabled racers in the world. She took two sixth places and a seventh, in GS and slalom respectively. She had her sights on making the U.S. Disabled Ski Team, and competing in the 2002 Paralympic Winter Games.
Ashley was looking at a racing picture of herself on the wall when her doctor informed her that more surgery would be required. An infection had taken over since her last shunt surgery, and she knew this meant her ski-racing season was blown. “I lost it. I just pointed at the pictures and cried. I knew I would not be going to the Paralympics. I couldn't care less about the surgery.”
With support from her friends and family, she got through the disappointment and was back skiing in seven weeks. She should have waited eight or nine weeks, because the shunt dislodged, requiring yet another surgery. ( Her doctor took one look at her and asked, “Have you been skiing?”)
“I had to readjust my goals. I went to the Salt Lake City Paralympics and cheered on my Winter Park teammates. It was hard to see my friends compete when I knew deep down in my heart, I would've been there.”
She prepared for a degree in Early Childhood Development while getting away to the slopes on weekends. She was at home recovering from a ski-related concussion when she suffered her first grand mal seizure. She has suffered two more since then, and it takes time to physically and mentally recover.
She moved back home for a while and surrendered some of her independence. “I had to rely on my parents for everything. I could be pessimistic about it, but I have better things to do with my life than think about what I can't do!”
At 23, she doesn't know if the seizures will ever go away, but
she is preventing them by taking medication, watching her stress levels
and getting enough sleep.
Lately, Ashley has been branching off into new sports. She biked the 162-mile Courage Classic, a benefit for The Children's Hospital, on a hand-crank bike the past two summers. In 2004, she completed the Bicycle Tour of Colorado, covering twice the mileage of the Courage Classic over five days.
Her new love is “sledge hockey,” a version of ice hockey that's just as unruly, played on low, two-bladed sleds. The shortened hockey sticks have a metal pick on one end and double as propulsion tools.
Ashley has recently moved to the Fraser Valley, so keep an eye out for her this winter on the slopes at Winter Park. She could be passing on her adaptive skiing wisdom to kids at NSCD, railing GS turns or burrowing through powder. She takes it one turn at a time... one day at a time. It's never easy, but she refuses to let the setbacks get her down.
“I'm just too stubborn to stop.”
(For more information about NSCD, visit www.nscd.org or call (970)726-1540.)