Life & Limb - A monthly podcast about Living Well with Limb Loss

[00:00:03] Jeff Tiessen: Welcome to Life and Limb, a podcast from Thrive magazine, all about living well with limb loss and limb difference. I'm Jeff Tiessen, publisher of Thrive magazine and your podcast host. My guest is, hands down, the most adventurous amputee I have ever met. A skydiver, a surfer, rock climber, snowboarder, and in fact, Canada's first Paralympic gold medalist in that sport. A sailor and a contestant on the Amazing Race Canada reality show. You might say that the sky is not the limit for British Columbia's Tyler Turner. Tyler, welcome. Thanks for joining me. How are you?

[00:00:39] Tyler Turner: I'm great. Thanks so much, Jeff. Thanks for having me. I'm excited for this.

[00:00:42] Jeff Tiessen: Oh, my pleasure. I know you have a lot going on right now, right? In your personal life.

[00:00:47] Tyler Turner: Life is crazy. Yep, yep. It's been a wild, wild journey. I like to just say yes to everything, and that's good and bad, but I gotta take everything while it's coming at me right now.

[00:00:59] Jeff Tiessen: Which has been the case for quite some time. And, you're a busy dude for sure. You know, I really want to try to stay away from the low hanging cliches, but before we dive into your story, tell us what you we're like as a kid. Because what I understand is that losing both legs didn't turn you into a man of adventure, right?

[00:01:21] Tyler Turner: No. This is everything for me. And it always has been. I like to say I just had a screw loose growing up. I don't know what it was. I. I wanted to jump off everything. I wanted to see how fast I could go, how far I could go. When I got into learning to weld when I was in high school, the first thing I welded was a street luge to see how fast I could go down a hill. My mom had to come into high school to sign paperwork. Once the teacher saw exactly what this thing was that I built, like, they didn't want to let it out of the classroom because it was too dangerous. My mom came in and went, yeah, that's what he does. Sure, yeah, he can have that. So, I just, I don't know. I always had it, something in me. I just want to go fast. I want to push the limits. I want to see how high I can go, how far, how fast.

[00:02:07] Jeff Tiessen: And still none of that's been tempered.

[00:02:10] Tyler Turner: No, it's never changed. And yeah, losing both my legs, traumatic brain injury, back injury, all that. Nothing. Nothing stopped it. It's just innate, it's ingrained, and it's what I do. And if I don't do it, I'm not going to be happy.

[00:02:28] Jeff Tiessen: It's a different story in that you were skydiving, had a hard landing, if I understand right, and you were in a coma immediately. I read that you didn't remember much for months. You lost both legs below the knee, on both sides, bilateral. But hey weren't amputated at the same time. Almost a year apart, right?

[00:02:53] Tyler Turner: Yeah, I mean a crazy little kink in the story is that I woke up in the hospital and I don't really remember the first time waking up. But I do remember these feelings of not wanting to live as an amputee. And I was a single leg below the knee amputee at the time, and I just didn't think life was going to be the same. Hello. Little did I know life was not going to be the same because I would lose my second leg about a year and a bit later, and that was more of an elective surgery because I'd been living for that year with a really, really, bad foot, going through multiple revision surgeries trying to save that foot.

And inevitably, you know, the foot was going to be the thing that was going to leave me in a wheelchair for the rest of my life. I could walk 10 meters at rehab, at GF Strong. I was getting up to maybe 20 meters sometimes, and my foot would swell so huge that night, and the pain would be so extreme that I just kind of saw it as like, you know, I had a reference with my right leg of what a good leg is to me. And to me, my good leg was my prosthetic foot. And I just thought it's crazy to go on trying to keep this, this foot that everyone's referring to as my good foot, which I think is my really bad foot. And it's what's giving me the most pain and issues in life, and it's what's holding me back the most. And so, it took a while. It wasn't just me saying, I want to amputate it. There was a lot of discussion with a lot of professionals, and it was kind of across the board, the best decision to be made. And it would give me the most potential going forward. And it's actually what really gave me the most motivation to get off painkillers, get off all the drugs, and put myself back into this motivated workout fitness routine to put myself in the best place to be able to do the things that I love to do, that I am back to doing now.

[00:04:51] Jeff Tiessen: But even though it was the right thing to do, I've never heard an amputee talk about elective surgery being an easy decision.

[00:04:59] Tyler Turner: No, no. You know, it wasn't an easy decision at first, but honestly, as the time ticked on, it became so easy. And when with our healthcare system, too, it took time. It's not the quickest process. And I kept having appointments rescheduled and canceled and pushed, and I think six times it was rescheduled. I knew the phone number that called me when it would get canceled or pushed to a later date. And when I saw that phone number pop up, I remember the moment really clearly, the time that they were calling to say that they were rescheduling, and I was at a place where another reschedule was not going to be a good situation. And nor were the five before, but this one really was. I was in a pretty dire place. And the lady calling was the same lady that I called every time. And she said, I know how bad this call is. And, like, I've been on the calls with you before. So, they were calling to reschedule, you know, a month or two later.

But I've actually see a spot open next week, and if, you know, if we can. If you can get here, if you can get to Vancouver in a few days, we can make this happen. I was like, I'm getting in my car right now. You know, I was so anxious. I was so ready to have it amputated. So, as much as it wasn't an easy decision, when it kind of got down to it, not only was it an easy decision, it was like, I was excited for it. I was happy. I was so ready to just move on with life.

[00:06:29] Jeff Tiessen: Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting how time drags when that's happening to us, right? Back to skydiving, and you knew right away that you were going back in the air. Right? It seemed like you had no reservation. So, when you were ready, you were going. And then surfing came after that, and then snowboarding even later, because I think you said it was tougher on your body than jumping out of an airplane, generally speaking. Right? So, getting back into all these sports. How did prosthetists, prosthetics, prosthetic technicians impact your pathway back into the air and down those slopes?

[00:07:11] Tyler Turner: Well, there was no doubt that I was going to skydive again. And right away after my accident, it was like, you know, people are coming into the hospital and I'm saying, I'm going to skydive again. And I wasn't joking. That was my motivation. Right? We need to find something after traumatic injury like that, and it feels like life's over, but if you can have something to push you and to motivate you to keep going forward. For me, that was getting back in the air again, getting back in the water again, getting back in the mountains again. And so that was my ultimate motivation. So, there was never a question that I was going to do these things again. And that's what I think has led to my success as much as I have, is having something like that that would push me and motivate me to get back.

And then, of course, yeah, I go into Pentlands Prosthetics in Vancouver there, and I meet Ricky Chu, who's my prosthetist. I think on day one, he's like, man, another one of these guys, like, they want everything. They're telling me they're going to do everything. And I feel like prosthetists must see this occasionally. They want to get back to things. This kind of thought that just getting the right prosthesis is all that you need to get there, but it's not. I mean, that's only one little piece of the puzzle. And I'm lucky that, you know, starting off, Ricky was on my team. He got on my side and he was okay, you know, if you're going to try and do these things, I can be there to try and help. And he started slow. We're not going to get six prosthetic legs for six different activities right off the bat. But, you know, I think right off the hop, maybe he got me a rock-climbing foot. I think that would have been one of the early sports ones. And I also told them, I'm going to skydive with these prostheses you're making, so make sure, you know, we consider that. And he was okay with that. And, then I did go skydive and then I did go rock climbing and I'd bring him photos and show him how it went. And he’d just shake his head like, all right, and so when I told him that I'm going to snowboard, he didn't really question it. And he's been on board with me. Luckily I got hurt at work and I'm very grateful that Work Safe's been on board with me. I think I've lived up to the claims, too, so there's no more question of is he or isn't he going to do it? If I say that I want to do it and I can justify it and all that stuff that goes into working with insurance, people get on board with me. And I think, yeah, that support has been so integral to where I'm at now. The fact that Ricky will make little adjustments to my prostheses to make sure that it works for what I'm trying to do. It's absolutely imperative to making it to where I'm at.

[00:10:08] Jeff Tiessen: That's a really great answer. And I like what you said about it's not just the componentry, the prosthetic device. That doesn't necessarily guarantee you're doing the things you did before. It takes more than that.

[00:10:22] Tyler Turner: It's that time and effort and motivation. And while that prosthesis is being made, that could take three months, I'm also working with this mental performance coach and psychologist, John Coleman. He would, you know, kind of like a Venn diagram, for lack of a better term, draw a circle, and we put the goal in the middle of this circle, and then if I wanted to get to that goal, like, yeah, sure, prosthetics is one of the things that needs to get me to that goal. But he would say, look, there are some things you just can't force. And that prosthesis is going to take a few months. So, he'd say, what can you do today? What can you do tomorrow? What can you do this week? Next week? This month? Next month?

What can you be doing that's within your control to get you to that goal? When there are all these things, like prosthetics, that are outside of your control a little bit? And I still use that mentality to approach any goal, and some of the goals have gotten a lot bigger and wilder, but it's still like, what can I do today? So, while that prosthesis is being made, you know, I can be working on leg strength or doing some small squats or whatever it is, go to the gym. Like, what can I do today? I can go to the gym once, what can I do tomorrow? I can have a rest day. What can I do this week? And I can go to the gym two more times and work on, you know, leg strength or whatever it is. And yeah, just doing what you can within your control so that when you get those prostheses, you're as ready as you can be.

[00:11:52] Jeff Tiessen: Yeah, that really speaks nicely to the next question I had for you. And it involves that recovery process, so to speak. The general public, sports fans, reality TV show fans, they would see you as that public persona, right? Outgoing, gregarious, super cool guy. But you know, as amputees, we know that that's not typically how it begins after amputation. And you have talked about some very dark times and depression and the painkillers and self-doubt even. Talk a little bit about that from the context of how you got from there to here.

[00:12:33] Tyler Turner: I get a lot of amputees getting in touch with me. The world's so small with social media these days and one of the big questions, the big thing is like, I want to do what you're doing. It looks like you're just out there every day and you're getting after it and you're mountain biking today and you're skydiving tomorrow. I do a lot of things, but what I don't put on social media and what's not as fun or cool is the cost of all this stuff. And it's not just financial cost, but the physical cost. And my wheelchair is right there next to me and I spend a lot of time in my wheelchair. And I know there are double below-knee amputees who have a poor relationship with their wheelchair and they don't want to use it. They don't want to be seen in it. My thing is, you know, to do what I do in the action sports and the adventure sports, the adrenaline sports, there's a cost to it physically. And I just came off a shoot, up in Alaska, and we were five days up there surfing, going hard, long, long days. And yeah, I'm shut down right now. I've got a big hole in my knee from a pressure point and I'm a wheelchair guy this week and I'm okay with that. Like, that's the price that I have to pay to get there. And so, when people ask me, you know, how do you do it all? How do you keep up with this? And amputees want to kind of be at this level but there's so much more behind the scenes than what you see face value. And that video I posted today, that looks like I went skydiving immediately after I went mountain biking… that video is from three months ago or whatever. Social media is just loosely based on reality and has become a bit of a business too. So, yeah, it's not all what you see and it's not quite as glorious.

It's a long process and painful process, but if you're passionate about something and you want to get it, you'll get it and you'll figure out a way to get it. For me, I love this stuff so much that I'm willing to go to the grocery store in my wheelchair. I'm willing to, you know, run around town, do all my chores in my wheelchair. And I always say I'm saving up my walking time because I want to go mountain biking tonight. So, I'm going to do all my chores today in my wheelchair. I'm going to go out to the shop and work on the car in my wheelchair. I'm gonna sit here and do emails with my legs off and just be saving up. Saving up. Cuz I want to use my leg time for when it really matters to me. And when it really matters to me is jumping out of airplanes and, and surfing and rock climbing and snowboarding and mountain biking.

[00:15:27] Jeff Tiessen: We did an article in Thrive not long ago about this and the combination of mobility devices and maybe that even includes a cane or crutches or something for you at some point. But taking that load off, especially for lower extremity amputees for, you know, a long walk to the park. Why not take the chair, right? Or like you say, grocery shopping. And there's that mentality we need to get past that the wheelchair is, you know, so un-liberating. But, it's not. It's freedom too. It gets you pain free to wherever you want to go as well. And that's what I'm hearing you saying, right?

[00:16:04] Tyler Turner: Yeah, that's it. I love my chair and I know everyone has their own relationship with their wheelchair. And I tell new amputees, especially double amputees, to try and create that good relationship with their wheelchair because it's going to be your friend; it's going to help you out. You know, when you're backed into a corner, your wheelchair is going to help you out. And it's days when I can't get my legs on. I'm in my chair and I'm confident, comfortable being out in the public in my chair. And I just see it as, like you said, another tool. And it helps me do all the other things I want to do because more time in my chair means like my cup only has so much in it every day, every week, every month for this extreme impact leg time. And even just going to the park, I'm going to cut out any of those unnecessary walking times because I want to be walking when it's time to go for dinner with friends and family. I'd like to be up on my feet for that. But also, you know, if I'm having a tough week and I can't and my legs hurt so bad, I'll go for dinner in my wheelchair and then I still get to enjoy that evening. And it doesn't bother me that I'm in my chair where, you know, some folks don't love that feeling. But I've just got this relationship with my wheelchair where I think that it's such a great tool and it gives me even more in life. It just gives me more joy because I can do more things and I can be out and about more often.

[00:17:37] Jeff Tiessen: What a great message, especially from you, Mr. Adventure. But you know, pull back the curtains and, and this is how it needs to be for you. You lean into going to dinner with friends and family and I wanted to ask you a little about what I imagine as you having two very distinct friend groups or families and what I know is your adventure community that you've been part of probably all of your life, but you joined a new community after becoming an amputee. Call it the amputee community, the disability community. Do you exist comfortably in both of those simultaneously?

[00:18:17] Tyler Turner: Yeah, the most exclusive group in the world that none of us want to be a part of. But I love it, just like amputee in the disability world, the niche action sports disability world. It just such a cool group of people. I'm so grateful to have got to know them and consider them my really close friends. And we're all spread out around the world really, especially North America. But we always try and catch up. Whether it's the snowboard world, where we're all on the World Cup tour together so I get to see them often. But these smaller groups has kind of become my family for sure. And every time we get together we have the most amazing time. But yeah, there is this kind of divide of like the disabled world and family and then the old world, if you will, and the able body world. But I think it's been really cool to kind of force those worlds to mesh and it opens up everyone's eyes. I guess when I'm inviting people out or I'm doing something or you know, I've got an opportunity to invite friends on whatever it is something we're filming or, or something bigger. I love that. Yeah, I get to combine, I kind of get to be the conduit to combine these worlds sometimes. And those opportunities I think are special for me because it's an eye-opening experience for everyone involved. And yeah, slowly as time goes on, those lines are so blurred and I don't really see the difference between them there. I've just got a bigger group of friends and I love people. I love spending time with people, able bodied, disabled, whatever it is, we're all hanging out and we're all getting after it. That's the best part. We're not getting together and dumbing down the activity because we've got someone in a wheelchair, or someone who’s an amputee with us. It's like we're going to go just as hard and we'll figure out a way. Adapt and destroy as we like to say.

[00:20:38] Jeff Tiessen: I like that. Well, I definitely saw that in Greg Westlake who hosts for AMI the Leveling the Playing Field show. I think he's the producer of it. And seeing you two guys together, two double leg amps, he looked full of joy and ready to go when you were going to take him up in the air. But weather prevented it that day. But yeah, that was pretty cool seeing you two guys together. Him known as Captain Canada in the sledge hockey para ice hockey world and you with Amazing Race Canada.

You know, I'm sure an amazing experience for you and your fiance Kayleen. Of course us viewers, we only see what the producers want us to see. So. I'm just wondering quickly if you can pull back a curtain or two on something that really surprised you about the show. Something you didn't expect that we would never know from a viewer standpoint?

[00:21:35] Tyler Turner: Well, I think it's something that you can assume probably, but until you're in it, you don't really know. But it is grueling, it's non-stop. We get to see a one hour episode on TV, but that one hour episode took 12 to 36 hours to film. And when they say racers travel from point A to point B, what you don't see is that travel. They show you showing up at the next spot. That could be 10 minutes to four hours to 12 hours. And that's all racing. So you don't shut off. And so for, you know, the entirety of filming, you're turned on and you are pinned, absolutely pinned. And so, when you see people making these mistakes that are dumb, like we couldn't do a simple math equation and we looked a little silly, but that's like three weeks later of going almost 24/7. You're so exhausted, you're so dead that these mistakes are gonna happen. Your brain's just not working. And so, watching the show, you can assume that it's pretty intense, but nothing can prepare you for how long and how ruthless it is mentally and physically. And the burnout happens after like episode two and you got 11-12 more episodes to film. It's just devastating physically and mentally.

[00:23:15] Jeff Tiessen: Yeah, we just don't see that. Looks glamorous, you know, the travel. But would you do it again? And if they had kind of a returnee show, you know, former contestants come back, would you do the show again?

[00:23:30] Tyler Turner: It would be a hard decision. It would actually be a really difficult decision. Because it was so brutal on my legs. It. That time that I talked about where I do something intense and then I spend a day or two in my chair to recover from it. Well, this was a month of no wheelchair. And there were moments, for peeling back the curtain, there was moments where they would bring me a wheelchair after getting to the mat, just to transport, but I didn't travel with my chair. There was a chair occasionally that would help me get.

When we weren't filming, if you will, we were waiting overnight. But for the most part, I spent one month without a wheelchair, and that was my first time ever doing that. And I can tell you, when we stepped on that final mat, the pain that I'd been enduring for about two weeks, at that point is when it really set in. It was extreme, absolutely extreme pain. And it took a lot of the joy out of it, which was unfortunate because I was just fighting through a few episodes. I had some pretty good meltdowns. I think, well, the alien language challenge. We had to remember this alien language. And I snapped. I completely snapped. I was so far pushed beyond the brink. And the amount of pain that I was in, in that episode in Toronto, the amount of running we did, which I don't do. I generally don't run.

It was pretty brutal. So, would I do it again? It would be such a hard decision because what an opportunity. And, like, there was so many amazing things, so many amazing people and just to meet Canada in that way. The people and the places and everything that came from it was amazing. But, oh, man, I endured a lot to get to that, so, that's a long answer. I bet I'd say yes in the end.

[00:25:39] Jeff Tiessen: I'll bet you would too.

[00:25:40] Tyler Turner: We forget about the pain and misery and we just think about the, you know, the positive parts of it and yeah, I mean, I'd have to think I'd probably say yes to the adventure.

[00:25:53] Jeff Tiessen: Thanks for sharing about that. The pain that you're enduring, I mean, that we don't see either. You make it look effortless for, you know, being a double leg amp. Wow.

[00:26:07] Tyler Turner: I feel bad for the producers. There was a lot of cursing that had to be cut out from my scenes.

[00:26:13] Jeff Tiessen: Well, from what you just described, I'm sure it's not the first time they heard it. A couple more for you and then I'll let you go. Another sort of check off the box adventure for you. You and Kayleen sailed her sailboat from Canada to Mexico. How cool. I mean, a little bit on that but more importantly, what's next for you personally, professionally, athletically. What should we watch for?

[00:26:42] Tyler Turner: Well, what's next is 2026, athletes’ lives go in quads and you know that the focus is the next games and success at the next games. So, everything in my life revolves around that and how much energy, how much time, I'm putting out, conserving and what's going into training, what's going into fun and what's going into work. So that's where the balance comes for everything across the board. For me, the goal is to go and have some success again in Italy. And I can't wait for it. Can't come soon enough because man, these quads, they really, as much as they happen so quick, they also go on forever. And it's a grind. You want to make sure that you're putting yourself in the best place at all times to have success, whether that's the World Cup season or this season with World Championships and next season with the Paralympics. So that's the focus and in between, I mean it's just trying to find joy, trying to stay happy, do the things that I love to do and that is mountain biking and skydiving. Skydiving has worked for me, which is amazing. So, keep some money flowing. And mountain biking is not just joy, but it's really, really great off-season training. It keeps me in great shape, especially cardio and my legs. My legs stay strong provided I don't get injured because the risk is a little high out there. But yeah, I'm just trying to, you know, do what I love to do, stay fit and not get injured. That's the goal really.

There's some bigger things that we've got happening right now I can't really talk about, but fingers crossed, you know how this all goes. Just waiting on that green light, you know, and putting in all the effort to hopefully get it there. So yeah, some cool things on the horizon and hopefully they come to fruition and I get to share them with everyone.

[00:28:51] Jeff Tiessen: All right, well, we look forward to you sharing them with us here at Thrive when you can so that we can share them with your fans and followers here. And yeah, you refer to the Games, Paralympic Games in Italy, your second, and you shift from the hunter to the hunted as the Paralympic gold medalist. They're chasing you now.

[00:29:14] Tyler Turner: Yeah. It's definitely been a different feeling the last couple seasons, especially since Beijing where I showed up as an unknown, absolutely unknown and I was hunting like you said. These guys I get to race with, they're incredible. I've watched them race and they've owned this category for a long time. Then I came up and was competitive and started getting some wins. The tides turned and now I have this target on my back. There is no doubt everyone in our category across para-snowboard, has risen so high and anyone can win on any day. The competition is so good and so I need to keep pushing myself so that I don't fall behind. I know like us, there are some teams that are training hard and man, if last season's any indication, like, I am not comfortable where I am right now because the racing has got to a crazy level and like I said, anyone can win. It's awesome. I love it. I love it that the level of racing going on right now across all three categories is absolutely incredible.

[00:30:45] Jeff Tiessen: As a long in the tooth Paralympian from way back when, on the track, I can tell you that uncomfortable is a good place to be. You don't want to be comfortable. That comes with complacency. No. Stay fearful. Keep looking over your shoulder. Last question… Tyler, I've heard you talk about the secret to your success which is not pretty and not sexy. And we've talked about that a little bit here. But you talk about persistence and then a great quote from you on your website that reads, “It's not about where you started or your end result; it's the steps you take in between.” Just a quick explanation of what you mean by that because I think that would be a really great way to cap off our time together.

[00:31:29] Tyler Turner: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I mean it's such a grind and I said it a bit earlier, social media, we glorify all this stuff. But really what it comes down to is, as I like to say, stubbornness and I've got this whole thing about perpetual forward motion. Especially in the early days, it's critical because you're gonna get not just knocked down, you're gonna get kicked in the teeth. And then when you think you're down, you're going to get rolled in the mud and, and it's like, how can it get worse? And then it just does. And my thing is, you know, just like trying to keep that perpetual forward motion going just a little bit every day. Something to keep it moving forward. It doesn't need to be these big leaps and bounds every day. And yeah, it's those steps, it's those steps as you're going along. Goals. I wanted to snowboard. I wanted to skydive. I wanted to surf. I wanted to mountain bike. Those are massive goals. And if those are your only goals, the path getting there will be a really sad one or a let down the whole way. But if your goal can be, like I said, weekly goals or daily goals or monthly goals and not this grand goal of winning a Paralympic gold medal four years later, then we can have joy and success along the way. So, if it's like this week, I'd like to wear my prostheses for 30 minutes, then that's an achievable goal for that week and you can be proud of the success you had that week. And if we have smaller goals on these steps along the way, we can pursue the ultimate goal, the end goal with some pride and some feeling of accomplishment along the way. Because with only having that large end goal, it's actually kind of a really sad journey to get there because we think that it was just a journey of failure. When looking back, you see that you've come leaps and bounds that you just didn't get celebrated along the way.

[00:33:47] Jeff Tiessen: Back to where I started on trying to avoid low-hanging cliches. I mean, what a grounded message for someone that jumps out of airplanes and flies through the sky. But it's something that we can all relate to. Absolutely. At any age and stage of life and even people beginning their journey as an amputee or those of us who are a bit further down the path. But listen, thank you so much. What a great time spent with you.

Tyler has a terrific website, some videos that will take you up in the air with him and down the slopes and in the surf as well. Check that out at TyTurner.ca. If snowboarding is something you're interested in getting into, I'm sure you can contact Tyler about how to how to get started.

This has been Life and Limb. Thanks for listening. You can read about others who are thriving with limb loss or limb difference and plenty more at thrivemag.ca and you'll find our previous podcast episodes there as well. Until next time, Live Well.

[00:34:55] Tyler Turner: Thanks so much Jeff.