Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • My journey began in 2005.

  • That's when I got diagnosed with cancer.

  • Six surgeries trying to cut it out.

  • Thirty-nine radiation treatments trying to burn it out.

  • My cancer doctor told me that they had done everything in their power

  • so were going to have to amputate.

  • At that time I just called myself an old backwoods country hillbilly

  • and now they tell me that I’m the most technically advanced man in the robotic field

  • to this day.

  • I’ve never been a rich man but I’ve been a hard worker all my life.

  • A little bit of caffeine keeps me from getting mean.

  • I’m happy go lucky. I’m a jokester.

  • Everything that I do I try to do the best I can.

  • I’ve been told you know with one arm you can’t do stuff.

  • You know, there’s lots of things you can’t do.

  • Well, I’m not saying youre going to do it fast, but eventually youll get it done.

  • When I got cancer and then lost my arm, you know.

  • I mean it blew my mind, I mean, you know.

  • Why would this happen to me?

  • Now, you know, I can’t go out and take care of the family like I used to.

  • But you know it’s there, so I’m going make the best of it.

  • I live my life by two rules.

  • There’s a reason for the season

  • and always have PMA

  • Positive Mental Attitude.

  • I got introduced to Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab.

  • They had a project to build the arm that was said to be revolutionizing prosthetics.

  • The modular prosthetic limb...

  • They wanted everything to move just like your natural hand, wrist, elbow, shoulder can do.

  • And they needed the human factor now to come in and start testing and working with the arm.

  • I got a chance to meet with Dr. Albert Chi at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

  • Dr. Albert Chi found the nerves that use to go to Johnny’s hand

  • and moved them to healthy muscles in his remaining limb.

  • He introduced me to Targeted Muscle Reinnervation.

  • And that is the surgery and technique that you use

  • to work prosthetics with your mind.

  • And I never in my wildest dreams thought that I would be the one.

  • I mean, why would some backwoods country hillbilly be the chosen one?

  • I just got to go with the flow.

  • Courtney, as much as we have worked together now,

  • it’s more than just as a tech-prosthetist relationship. Were just like a family.

  • Johnny's unique in all kinds of ways.

  • But what makes him unique

  • in how he controls the limb

  • is that he has the osseointegrated implant.

  • Osseo means bone...integration with the bone.

  • So they bore out the center

  • and it’s implanted into the medulla of the bone, the inner core.

  • He’s the first person to get the implant in the United States.

  • The first time they told meJohnny, I want you to think close your hand.”

  • So I thinkclose handand that robotic hand went close like that.

  • Man I come byYEAH! I wanted to come out of that chair so bad!

  • Remember, deep breath, relax.

  • The biggest motivation is I have a second chance on life. I could have lost my life with cancer.

  • I had three of my children that were in the service come back with all their extremities

  • but some of their buddies didn’t.

  • I want to be the best role model to forward on the prosthetic field.

  • I want to better a lot of lives.

  • Sometimes the biggest challenge is slowing Johnny down.

  • Every single time we work together he shows me

  • that there’s far more by pushing the envelope that results in practical application.

  • And it’s forcing me to adapt things that I might not have thought of before.

  • Right now with kind of the man-machine integration,

  • Johnny has narrowed that gap to the smallest distance that it has ever been.

  • Right now, the modular prosthetic limb is an in-lab arm only.

  • If I was able to bring this arm home on a regular basis,

  • it's unbelievable what I could probably accomplish with this on.

  • I’m going to push it as far as I can push it.

  • I want to introduce you to the place that I stay each and every time I come up to Baltimore.

  • The magnificentHotel Chi.”

  • I can’t believe were here in this setting. Everything weve done so far has been in the lab.

  • And to see Johnny right now with the system in-place, it’s just so incredible and so moving for me.

  • This man means a lot to me. I mean, I put my life in his hands and I mean literally.

  • He’s beyond being my doctor. To me, he’s just like my brother.

  • Remember we were talking about how it’s Johnny that challenges me?

  • This is just an example of that.

  • There’s times when Johnny pushes the envelope in a way that I don’t feel comfortable with.

  • Oh no!

  • What happened?

  • Nothing.

  • Give me a towel, real quick. Give me a towel. Give me a towel.

  • Hurry...give me a towel.

  • Feel free to point out:

  • "and the researcher, Courtney, is visibly uncomfortable during cooking dinner."

  • I have to put a glove on this hand or at least make an attempt to.

  • Just be cautious.

  • You are such a mother, you know?

  • Youre going to give me something? You want to find out if it’s going to work? I’m going to work it.

  • The cooking was, I mean, nerve wracking but now in hindsight, I mean, it was amazing.

  • We didn’t practice at all. He was trailblazing it today.

  • It’s just that one step closer from this being a research system to something deliverable.

  • I really do feel like we're at this crossroads between breakthrough surgery and breakthrough technology.

  • Really were seeing this evolution of man and machine.

  • It’s going to be light years beyond what is available out there.

  • Bon appetit

  • Like I said before, you know, I don’t know why I was chosen for this.

  • I’m not the most intelligent man in the world.

  • I’m not the most physical, strong man in the world

  • but it has given me a new sense of purpose.

  • I’m just the Model T,

  • or the Wright Brothers beginning of the technology.

  • I’m showing you it does work

  • and every week were progressing farther and farther and farther and farther.

  • My next step is I’ll be going and I’ll be getting sensory surgery done

  • to where I’m supposed to be able to feel as good as your own natural limb.

  • It’s going to be good.

  • And weve just begun.

My journey began in 2005.

Subtitles and vocabulary

Click the word to look it up Click the word to find further inforamtion about it