8/2/07
How's Everybody Doing? I Know, I Know. I Really Lag When It Comes To Updating My Website, And By The Way I Hope You Like My New One! So Here We Go...
First Of All You Might Have Seen Some Of The Athletes With My Website Sticker On Their Gear. Why You Ask? Because I Have Been In The Process Of Starting My Own Foundation To Help People That Suffer From SCI (Spinal Cord Injury) And They All Back It! There Are A Lot Of Foundations Out There That Raise Money For Research Or People Injured While Participating In Certain Sports, And That's Great, But I Want To Help People Directly When They Are In The Greatest Time Of Need! I Needed Advice When I Was First Hurt And The Person I Spoke With Could Only Talk About Himself And How Cool He Was, And That Left Me Further Back Than I Started. My Goal With My Foundation Is To Help With Anything From Advice To Supplying Them With A Voice Activated Computer, Funds To Help With Living Arrangements, Or Whatever Else It Takes To Let Them Know That They Can Still Live Their Lives!
In March We Did A Raffle With Arsenal MX To Win A Custom Built Etnies CR 250. The Winner Was Drawn And It Was A Very Nice Guy From Menifee California, *Robert Deleon. When He Came To Pick Up The Bike He Decided To Give It Right Back To Us And Said "Sell It In Order To Raise More Money." He Stressed To Me That No Matter How Much He Would Love To Have A Bike That Nice, He Already Has Two And Would Rather Help Us Out. That Was Very Generous Of Him! So From There We Ended Up Selling It To A Private Party, The Mulisha's Very Own Todd Potter. Thanks Again Robert And Todd For Both Supporting SCI!
Last Month At The Dew Action Sports Tour, BMX Pro Stephen Murray Crashed While Over Rotating A Double Backflip Leaving Him With A Broken Neck At The C3 Level. Fortunately Though The Injury Is Incomplete, Which Adds A Lot Of Hope To His Recovery! Please Pray For Stephen. You Can Check Up On Stephen's Recovery By Either Going To His Website- Stephenmurray.Org Or His Myspace Page- Myspace.Com/Murraystrong
I Have Been Working On My MX Collection A Lot Lately Just For Fun, And It Has Gotten To Be Quite Extensive. You Can See Pictures Here.
I Will Be At X-Games 13 This Weekend And Hopefully You Will Be Too, Along With The Rest Of Southern California! It Should Be Very Exciting In All Of The FMX Categories Considering That Travis Has Retired And Pretty Much Everybody Else Will Be Bringing Their A Game! And Also Adding Moto X Racing To The Lineup Should Add Even More Excitement. I Don't Know About You, But I'm Just Excited Being Able To Watch Ricky Carmichael Race Once More! And I Would Like To Thank Paul Taublieb And The Rest Of The MXI Gang As Well As Lizz Leach At ESPN For Taking Great Care Of Me As Always!
I Hope You Guys All Have A Great Weekend Cause I'm Sure I Will! Check Back Soon For Further Updates!
3/13/07
How's it goin everybody! As a lot of you may know we are getting ready to draw the winner of the Etnies Honda CR 250 this Saturday, March 17, in order to raise money for a few people with spinal cord injuries including myself, James Marshall, and Ernesto Fonseca. Be sure to check back on Monday, the 19th, in order to see if you're the winner! If you have not yet entered make sure and go to www.arsenalMX.com and purchase a Chris Ackerman T-shirt, and for every T-shirt purchased you will get one entry into the raffle. You have until 6:00 p.m. PST on Saturday to get entered, so make sure you get on it, and check back on Monday!
9/24/06
What's up guys,
it's that time of year again! That's right, The 2nd Annual Sobe/No Fear Chris Ackerman Poker Tournament is here! Once again it will be at the Lake Elsinore Casino and I wouldn't have that any other way! Ted Kingston and the boys over at the casino basically let us take the place over for a day, or in this case, a weekend of debauchery! Friday, the 29th, we will hold the 2nd Annual Poker Tournament to raise funds for spinal cord injuries, and on Saturday, the 30th, will be the Baja 1000 drawing party. Should make out to be a pretty good weekend! Definitely fun filled! You can go to: www.chrisackermanpoker.com for more details about the tournament or go to www.desertassassins.com to find out more about the Baja 1000 drawing party. So be sure to check in after the party for photos and a story about all of the festivities! And I really want to thank Cameron Steele for putting this together and Ted Kingston for allowing it to all happen!
5/5/06
I am trying to update my site more often, even if it is only a short summary of what I’ve been doing. I am starting to sit up more and more each day so that I will be able to be back in my wheelchair soon. That will be great!
What have you guys been doing lately? I have to say that I have been scouring the Internet looking for just one more thing to read about the Supercross showdown that we will be witnessing going down in Las Vegas tomorrow night! I’m not sure who your pulling for but I am definitely pulling for the GOAT, #4, Ricky Carmichael! Make sure you guys don’t miss SX live tomorrow night, 5/6/06, on Speed beginning at 7:00 p.m. PST.
Lately I have had the pleasure of helping my good friend, Brian Deegan, build a Honda CR450F that he will be racing in some select AMA outdoor nationals this summer. He will be pitting out of the Richardson’s RV Rig. As soon as I know which races he will be attending I will be sure to let you guys know. You can definitely count on him riding an All-Black Honda with the number 173 on it.
The only other thing that I have really been doing is picking out furniture to furnish my newly remodeled house. Once again I have to thank Liza for running around helping me get samples of colors, and materials for my new couch and recliner.
4/9/06
How's it going everybody?
I just wanted to let you all know that for the last four months I have been at a state-of-the-art spinal cord injury rehab located in Pomona. I was working my ass off and I loved every second of it! This place was great! It was all brand-new! After being written off by every other rehab in California I met with the medical director of Casa Colina, Dr. Patterson, and he said let's do it! What have we got to lose? He could not believe that I am a C2 complete. By the way I move my neck, shrug my shoulders, and talk on the ventilator he figured I was at least a C4 with the feeling of a C5. He was very positive and still is that I will get off of the ventilator. And that alone would be huge for me! They had me on all sorts of workout machines that helped me move what I can and retrain my muscles. Also, I got lots of e-stim therapy and sometimes we even combined the two, really allowing me to move quite a bit! And on top of all of that they were giving my family and I the training that we need to take me home. For anybody with a spinal cord injury, brain injury, or numerous other injuries that are in need of great care and rehab you can contact Casa Colina @ www.casacolina.org.
My house was recently remodeled to make it totally accessible for me by putting in a ceiling rail lift system, whirlpool bath, laminate flooring (That my wheelchair will not ruin), and a number of handicapped necessities. I have to send out a huge thanks to Greg Bayme, GB Construction, for doing such a beautiful job on the house! And I also must thank Liza for helping me with my interior decorating.
Right now I am back at New Orange Hills recovering from a major surgery that I had to get on my left thy. I have 165 staples and who knows how many stitches to seal it up. But I am recovering just fine. They told me that I have to be on a minimum of six weeks bed rest, lying flat, before I can start sitting up. So in the meantime I am just practicing doing sprints on the ventilator (going hours at a time on very low settings) making me even closer to getting off. When they allow me to start sitting up again I will start going back to Casa Colina on an outpatient basis for physical therapy to regain my strength and recondition myself so that I will be ready to go home. I’m so excited because that day is not too far in the future.
9/13/05
I am very sorry that it has taken this long for an update. In the last few months I have been working hard at getting my house ready to go home to. I have also had a few health setbacks. But I am almost to the point where I can leave New Orange Hills in order to pursue my rehab at Casa Calinas which is located in Pomona. By becoming a patient there they will give me education about my injury and give me of the knowledge that I need to go home.
Since I returned home from China I have made significant improvements. I can turn my neck 90° each way and have full circular range of motion in my neck, shrug my shoulders, feel down to my chest and biceps, and the support settings on my ventilator are at an all-time low!
I am also starting a new foundation called Connected. Our main focus will be to help people who suffer from paralysis due to spinal cord injury by providing them with voice recognition tools such as computers and telephones. When I first got my new voice activated computer it opened a my eyes to the technology that is out there for people in my condition and made me realize that I can still be semi independent. So I want to bring this to other people.
There is an entirely new web site coming soon, so stay tuned!
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