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9/5/2020 update | Year 5

Today is the 5-year mark since my injury.

Yeah. Time flies, right?

There is so much to share. So much has happened in the last year alone…

But what’s pressing on my mind is a realization I had while watching the documentary Crip Camp on Netflix:

Netflix describes it as “On the heels of Woodstock, a group of teen campers are inspired to join the fight for disability civil rights. This spirited look at grassroots activism is executive produced by President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama. … A groundbreaking summer camp galvanizes a group of teens with disabilities to help build a movement, forging a new path toward greater equality.”
It basically tells the story of the group of teens with disabilities who fought for eventually what became the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

I really encourage you to watch it, I won’t give more of the story away.

But what I really got from it is that I stand on the shoulders of giants.

Giants with every kind of disability.

Giants with wheelchairs.
Giants with crutches.
Giants with congenital birth defects.
Giants who got hit by buses (watch the documentary).
And other all other kinds of disabled GIANTS.

Now when I walk my dog and cross a street at the curb cutout, I think of this group who occupied a Federal office building in San Francisco for 26 days with all the health issues and risks that I have.

When I park in a handicap parking spot and have the ability to open my door wide and pull out my wheelchair, I think about how these warriors lived life with none of these conveniences.

Many fellow wheelchair users consider me a baby wheelie even at this 5-year mark. I used to refute that moniker.

But after watching this documentary, I realize: yes I am a baby in this new world for me. These people who fought for my ability to access the everyday world with ease are my defacto elders.

—

There’s a part in the documentary where some guy in the Nixon administration says that curb cutouts and dedicated parking spots, amongst other things, were a difficult expense for the budget when compared to the percentage of people who would benefit.

I remember one of my first managers at my first job out of college (many, many years ago) said in an off-hand comment during a happy hour the same sentiment. I didn’t think too much of it back then, but it stuck with me because I think I knew it wasn’t right.

“Prejudice can’t survive proximity…”
// Stephen Beresford

What became the ADA isn’t perfect. Enforcement and compliance aren’t perfect. People don’t comply and block/park in/use fake issues in handicap parking all the time.

But holy shit would my life be different if these people’s point of view won out. It would be incredibly harder and more frustrating to operate in this world.

I physically shudder at the thought.

I didn’t have an appreciation for wheelchair living before now because I didn’t have any proximity.

Now that I’m a part of this world and the proximity is my everyday life, I obviously see it from a different angle.

…and I’m not talking about the 4’2” perspective I now have, sitting in a wheelchair.

There is a quote I love by Stephen Beresford, “Prejudice can’t survive proximity, it melts away when you meet and speak to those you fear”.

It’s so relevant in today’s world.

It’s so easy to write off those who are different, especially if we’re not exposed to those people.

But when suddenly a family member comes out of the closet; or someone close becomes disabled … that’s when people’s hearts change and their eyes open. That is when the preconceived notions and priorities change.

It’s disappointing we humans operate that way at times.

But not all humans. And not all the time.

I’ve been fortunate to meet MANY people who have open eyes and open hearts. I make sure to surround myself with them.

It’s a matter of choice, I believe. It’s a matter of whether you’re able to be open or not.

And yes, proximity.

Are you looking down only at your own two feet? Or looking out to see the other people around you?

When you look out, do you do so with judgment – possibly driven by fear? Or could you look out with curiosity – maybe seeking to understand?

Sure it takes a little more energy. But the return is a little bit of connection.

And I’ve never heard of genuine connection as a detriment to one’s life and well-being.

Especially right now.

In honor of year 5, I set a goal to raise funding for Angel City Sports.

A lot of the media I’ve gotten recently is on their behalf, and it’s because they really make sports accessible. When quarantine came, they got creative and went virtual with their annual Angel City Games. And now they’re working on being able to survive.

Here’s the deal. I know if everyone who sees this donates $25, we would triple this goal.

Since I’ve moved to LA, I’ve found an awesome local community of challenged athletes and supporters in Angel City Sports (ACS). In these quarantine times, all non-profits are facing deficits and ACS is not different.

I hope to contribute to the ACS community as they rise LA youth and adults into the Paralympic Games for years to come.

If you have it, drop it in the bucket!

More Information and Contribute Here »

West Hills paraplegic sets his sights on Ironman championship

A training disaster left Rob Balucas a paraplegic. But it did not end his desire to compete — now, as a para-athlete, in triathlons.

West Hills paraplegic sets his sights on Ironman championship https://t.co/5Vw3lUPWjT pic.twitter.com/RbjtEFThyS
— L.A. Daily News (@ladailynews) August 6, 2020

By Tarek Fattal | [email protected] | Daily News
PUBLISHED: August 6, 2020 at 11:27 a.m. | UPDATED: August 6, 2020 at 1:08 p.m.

Rob Balucas said he focused on three things in 2015: Triathlons, running his web design and marketing business and walking Chloe, his dog. With a “less is more” approach, Balucas was ready to take things to a whole new level.

“It was going to be a breakthrough year,” he said.

Life changed on Labor Day that year. While training for a half-Ironman event, Balucas lost control of his bicycle and toppled over the side of a hill.

Initially, he thought he’d suffered a collarbone break in the fall. He’d recover in a month or so, he believed.

But a deeper look by doctors revealed an L1 burst fracture in his lumbar spine. Balucas was now a T8 Complete Asia Score A paraplegic, losing all control and feeling in his legs.

“The world changed,” said the 42-year-old Pepperdine grad who now resides in West Hills with his girlfriend.

Unable to walk after his accident, Balucas, who resided in San Francisco at the time, was forced to use a wheelchair. He moved into his parents house in Fresno, focusing on occupational and physical therapy.

“I found myself commiserating with others through the physical therapy,” Balucas said chuckling. “Going to the grocery store, or just the movies, with my therapist became routine. But each trip came with its challenges now that I was in a wheel chair.”

Balucas said learning to drive with his hands only, a process he said was expedited by his stepmother, helped him recapture much of his freedom.

“Despite what was going on, I felt her hinting at me — beginning to look for an apartment, starting to drive and be more independent,” he said. “At the time, it seemed insensitive, but in hindsight she was definitely trying to help me. I’m thankful for that push.”

Now training as a para-athlete, Balucas promised himself that he’d be return to triathlons — which generally include long-distance running, swimming and cycling — within a year.He kept that promise, competing in his first triathlon in August 2016.

“By the one-year mark of my accident I’d done three triathlons,” Balucas said, competing in Oakland, Santa Cruz and Malibu. “But it wasn’t without the help of friends and family.”
Rob Balucas crossing the finish line at the Ironman 70.3 event. (Contributing photo/SCSPhotoworks)

Balucas needed adaptive equipment to compete, including a hand-cranked bike for cycling and a racing wheelchair, for the distance-running portion of the competition. A crowdfunding page helped Balucas pay for the gear.

“I’ve always pushed myself,” he said. “I like to see what my limits are. I’ve gotten up to 43 miles per hour on the arm bike — that’s fast.”

Balucas is currently participating in the Angel City Virtual Games presented by Hartford, an event committed to a summer of sports, special events, and community building for adaptive athletes with physical disabilities.

The event is usually held on the campus of UCLA, at such facilities as Pauley Pavilion and Drake Stadium. But amid the pandemic, the festival has gone virtual. Instead of a few days, the event’s various competitions, activities and workshops will last through the end of August.

“For those with physical disabilities, this event is a game changer,” Balucas said. “It’s the same reason why able-bodied people do sports — but times 10. It shows adaptive athletes that there’s a world out there for them.”

The games provide training and challenges in such sports as wheelchair basketball, swimming and table tennis. Instead of physically competing, participants watch a training video from high-level coaches or Paralympic athletes then submit a video of themselves competing in whatever the challenge might be.

“I did the track and field challenge, which was pretty much a pushup-challenge,” said Balucas. “I submitted my video and felt good about it — but then I got crushed by a kid that did 67.”

Balucas’ ultimate goal is competing in the full Ironman World Championship event. The 2020 event was postponed until February, but then rescheduled again to October, 2021, in Kona, Hawaii.

After qualifying for the 2019 world championships in Lubbock, Texas with a second-place finish at the Ironman 70.3, he elected to compete in the half Ironman World Championship in Nice, France. As remarkable as qualifying for the event was, Balucas was left unsatisfied.

“I didn’t finish,” he explained. “There’s a horrendous hill that I couldn’t climb by the checkpoint time.”

Full of renewed desire, Balucas has set his sights on 2021 events — and pushing his limits yet again.

“I’ve seen every type of person cross those finish lines,” Balucas said. “Cancer survivors, obese people, people with one leg, a person with no arms — I’ve seen it all. I know I can do it.”

Read On

9/5/2018 update | Year 3

Man, he really wants an arm workout.

When I’m riding on my handcycle on a given day and not competing, I sometimes wonder what people think I’m doing. I get all kinds of facial expressions. I have boiled it down to a few choice guesses as to what people might be thinking.

My favorite is this: the confused stare.

I think the confused stare is thinking, ‘Man, he really wants an arm workout.’

‘There’s a million ways to work out your arms. Maybe he just really wants a tan too.’

And then today of all days, it happened.

While I was taking a break on my ride, this older gentleman started up a conversation and asked if I do this to work out my arms.

I wanted to say yes and go with it. You know I would have done that with a completely straight face. But I didn’t. I explained that I’m paralyzed from the waist down, etc, etc.

My gopro just happened to capture it all:

3 Years Today

Today is the 3-year anniversary of my injury. No milkshake commemoration like year 2. No chicken fried steak commemoration like year 1. I’ve been off the wagon in both diet and workout since the last IRONMAN 70.3 flame out, so I’ve exhausted my appetite for gluttony.

I am about to embark on back to back to back weekend riding/racing for the rest of September including the Giants Race, Nautica Malibu Triathlon, and BORP Revolution Ride. So I’ve got a lot to focus on and that’s fine.

Identity

Last month I rode the hill I crashed on, as I plan to do every year, during the Marin Century ride and that sparked off a lot of introspect as to what was it that drove me to rebound so quickly back into my life and not spiral into the depths of despair like many do and many others expected me to do.

I believe it’s the fluidity of my perception of who I am. My identity.

I have actually spent a lot of my life thinking about my identity and taking a proactive, ownership role in who I believe I am. I spoke about it, in part, a year ago at an event for Filipino-American college students.

I say ‘in part’ because my mixed ethnicity is only one dimension of who I am. But it kicked off the awareness for me at a young age because I looked far more Filipino in grade school and was raised primarily by a single, white Mom. You can watch the speech I gave for more about that.

But that led to a lot of awareness and understanding of how others perceive me. Somewhere around the end of high school and the beginning of college, I realized I could shape that perception and began to experiment.

And that experimentation continued deep into my twenties.

I tried on corporate life, I tried on entrepreneurship, I tried on real estate investing, I tried on teaching, I tried on speaking, I tried on living in the big city, I tried on living in the big city on the East Coast, I tried on triathlon, I tried on open water swimming, I tried on dating women an earlier version of me would have shamed me for, I tried on dog ownership – the list goes on and on.

What I learned was that none of those things are my identity.

My identity is something far more core.

It’s composed of values and priorities.

It’s refined and discovered by me trying on the list of stuff above.

And Then, The Accident

And then, the shit hit the fan. I broke my back and added titanium rods and screws, wheelchair, rehab, transfers, constant neuropathic pain, catheters, bowel programs, erectile dysfunction, standing frames, hand controls for driving, being 4 feet tall and looking up at the world, amongst many other spinal cord injury-related things to the list I’ve tried on.

When my accident first happened, I was very quick to reconcile that this injury and the growing list of aforementioned atrocities do not change who I am.

… if I don’t let them.

I believe I have a choice. I get to decide who shows up in the ICU, in the rehab hospital, in the wheelchair, and in my life.

I wrote about my intentionally-crafted and battle-tested values and priorities awhile ago in another blog and you can read that at this link.

My point is that I have come to believe I get to decide what my identity is.

In many cases, people who suffer spinal cord injuries have a really hard time coping with their new circumstances. I understand why and I believe that’s perfectly okay to have happen.

I’ve seen that for many of those people, it’s a crisis of identity. They believe their identity is in the motorcycle they just crashed, in the arborist job that they had when they fell from that tree, in the club dancer they were before they were hit by a drunk driver, in the military uniform they wore before that IED went off.

The truth is, their identity is in their values. The value of riding free, wind in the hair; of working hard and making things beautiful and safe; in having a good time; in the being the warrior who is brave and willing to protect others.

And the application of that identity can be applied to anything.

It’s a matter of being willing to be adaptable and roll with the punches.

Spinal cord injury is a masterclass in being adaptable.

Yo Soy Un Lider

My accountability partner, Lili, and I have been in some form of holding each other to account since 2005. One mantra that’s come out of our partnership is this Spanish: ‘Yo soy un lider.’

I am a leader.

One interpretation of this mantra is this:

Based on how I lead my life, others will follow.

If all I ‘lead’ with is complaining about how hard it is to live in a wheelchair and lament all the atrocities I mentioned before (and side note to acknowledge: it IS difficult and real and painful) then people will follow and say, ‘I couldn’t imagine. It must be so hard. Poor baby.’

And so goes my life.

But if I lead with a smile – the same smile from before my accident. If I lead with the same values of challenge, endurance, and growth that I learned from triathlon and apply that to rehab, living with a disability, and now paratriathlon; then people have said, ‘Wow that’s amazing! Go get it. How can I support you?’

And so goes my life.

¿Eres un líder? // Are you a leader?

#youcreateyourlife

—

PS – I had to have something to eat to commemorate after I started writing about it. I ordered in Vietnamese Fresh Spring Rolls this year because I’m addicted…and they were nommed five paragraphs ago.

An Ask: support my ride for the Bay Area Outreach and Recreation Program (BORP)

One of the first things I was anxious to do, after getting out of rehab, was get back out on the road and cycling. I was pointed to BORP in Berkeley where I could ride their handcycles while mine was on order and being built. Their crew there and other riders were an immediate support group for the goal I had to do a triathlon before the one-year anniversary of my accident.

They allowed me to borrow a handcycle for 4-hour indoor ride and for my first triathlon in Oakland.

They enabled my goals and I could not have done it without their support. I’ve met countless others in the Bay Area who also benefit from there opportunities to participate in a variety of sports.

Will you support BORP? (imagine my doe eyes) I’m riding my handcycle with a team during their annual Revolution Ride on Sept 22. Every bit helps kids and adults have the opportunities I’ve had after a catastrophic life event.

Even better: come ride with us. If you’re a cyclist then join the team. I’d love to have as many people there as possible riding with me.

Here’s the link, do $25. Or $50. Every part gets me to my goal and gets people in my circumstances back into life.

BORP is a 501c3 non-profit, so contributions are tax-dedutible.

Support BORP »

What Do You Decide?

A few months ago, my good friend and inspiration-extraordinaire Romeo Marquez Jr. called me up and asked me if I would speak at an event called TFCU Speaks. TFCU stands for The Filipino Channel University; TFCU is a starting up a TED Talk-like channel on YouTube aimed at Filipino-American college students.

I jumped at the chance and this was the result of my first real official speech. Being my own worst critic, there’s a ton of things I want to do better next time. But here’s version 1.0 of my 18-minute speech:

There was also a Q&A with the panel afterward that had some great answers:

Here’s the full 22-min Q&A:

The Martian

Two years ago today I was discharged home from rehab, concluding a two-month hospital stay between Marin General, UCSF and Santa Clara Valley Rehab.

It was the first time in my life I went overnight in a hospital and I ended up doing 58 nights.

Tonight, I’m watching the movie The Martian again.

My first field trip from the hospital .. that wasn’t to another hospital … was for a group of us in the Rehab unit to go see a movie. And we went to see The Martian. It’s a big-budget film directed by Ridley Scott and based on the book by Andy Weir.

If you have seen it, you can probably imagine a million parallels between Matt Damon’s character (Mark Watney) trying to survive Mars and our journey learning to live in wheelchairs. And there are a million parallels.

The guy next to me was a big guy with tattoos and a bald head who hurt himself on the job and was a bigger smart ass than me, but also a big teddy bear on the inside – as big bald smart asses tend to be. In our circumstances, the teddy bear tends to be a little more evident too.

Nevertheless, there were moments in the theater when I was kinda shielding my face from him because I was tearing up.

Spoiler alert

Tearing up moments like the moment Mark Watney in the movie says, ‘I’m not going to die here’ after freaking out for a while when he realizes he’s stranded on Mars. Then he gets busy figuring out how to survive as long as possible.

Then there’s every moment of crisis that comes after he’s had a triumph of engineering and has a great quip about his genius.

Then there’s having to handle shit ????. Literally. (Fellow SCI and caretakers know what I’m talking about.)

But most especially, at the end, he says to a group of students:

“At some point, everything’s gonna go south on you and you’re going to say, this is it. This is how I end. Now you can either accept that, or you can get to work. That’s all it is.

You just begin. You do the math. You solve one problem and you solve the next one, and then the next. And If you solve enough problems, you get to come home.”

idle time

In that moment, in the middle of rehab, learning to sit up on my own, get in and out of my wheelchair by myself, do a wheelie (albeit barely), wheel myself up an incline, building up the strength to do so, learning how to manually pee and poop, basically how to live life in an entirely new way … in that moment, that story and those words were incredibly powerful.

In the movie, he’s alone on Mars for 560 sols total (Sols = Martian Days). So, he has ups and downs and a boatload of time to be idle.

In rehab, we had a required minimum 3 hours/day of workout. Even with meals and other activities, there feels like a boatload of time throughout the day to just be in pain and wonder about things:

Will I ever be able to get out of bed without help?

Will this freaking pain ever go away?

Will I be on all these medications forever, taking a cup full of pills?

Will I ever stand on my own again?

Will I ever walk again?

Where am I going to live?

Can I live on my own?

How am I going to drive?

Will I be able to work?

How am I going to pay for all this?

Who’s going to want to be with a guy in a wheelchair?

And on

and on.

the recipe

There couldn’t have been a more serendipitous moment for me to watch this story and hear these words.

“You just begin. You do the math. You solve one problem and you solve the next one, and then the next. And If you solve enough problems, you get to come home.”

That’s been the answer to every question.

Get crafty. Get help. Stay humble. Keep your head up. Keep your head in the game. Keep moving. Keep looking for answers. Find another way.

It’s not only a recipe for learning to live from a wheelchair.

It’s a recipe for living.