A Bay Space nonprofit serving to people with disabilities thrive

On a current Thursday alongside the gorgeous waters of Berkeley’s Aquatic Park, a bunch of cormorants sunbathed on the dock, buffleheads floated close by, and Christina Leffmann embraced the liberty she thought she’d by no means have.

A decade in the past, when Leffmann was 23, she suffered a stroke — her third — and her life fell aside. At present, she settles into her power-assisted tricycle, attaches the leash of her 14-year-old canine, Air, and begins to trip. Driving the paved pathway alongside the glistening waters, Leffmann is as free because the cormorants on a biking trip that has grow to be a weekly spotlight.

It’s all made attainable by BORP Adaptive Sports activities and Recreation, a 48-year-old program that gives entry to athletics, health and out of doors recreation for individuals with disabilities.

“BORP is largely my self care,” says Leffmann, now 34. “This world was not made for people with disabilities in mind. It’s difficult enough to survive in this world, but to really figure out how to thrive, it makes me really feel alive.”

She remembers the day her life turned the wrong way up: Sept. 15, 2013.

Freshly graduated from UC Santa Cruz with a level in psychology, the Oakland native was looking for her means as a first-time skilled in the actual world. In the future, her boyfriend invited her to return to a curler derby occasion. She had by no means been earlier than.

“I joke that it was so good, it literally blew my mind,” she says.

When Leffmann returned dwelling, she couldn’t cease vomiting. She had a horrible headache and shortly felt fully disoriented.

“I went back into the bathroom to puke more, hit my head on the toilet and passed out,” she says.

When she awakened at Castro Valley’s Eden Medical Heart, she discovered she had suffered an aneurysm.

“Everything changed in an instant,” she says.

Leffmann found she had been born with an arteriovenous malformation (AVM). Often, capillaries are buffers between arteries and veins, however she was born with out that buffer.

“It was a breeding ground for an aneurysm,” she says. “(A blood vessel) ballooned because of the difference in pressure. And then it burst.”

Over the following yr and a half, she suffered two extra strokes, misplaced perform in her proper aspect, developed a neurogenic overactive bladder, a speech obstacle, visible and listening to loss and “all sorts of problems,” she says.

Leffmann had been residing with a member of the family and sometimes stayed over along with her boyfriend, nevertheless it wasn’t till they broke up that she realized how a lot her new incapacity impacted her life.

“I was with him for a year after my first stroke, and I didn’t realize a lot of my limitations, because he was always with me to help,” she says. “I was in denial. I didn’t know what to expect, because I never met anyone with a disability. It still caught me by surprise for years.”

After her third stroke on Valentine’s Day in 2015, Leffmann was transferred to Stanford’s medical middle, the place she met Gary Steinberg, a cerebrovascular neurosurgeon who had expertise eradicating AVMs. Leffmann’s surgical procedure was profitable, however over the approaching years, she struggled to simply accept the lasting impression of her incapacity.

“From 2015 to 2017 it was like, ‘what do we do with her?’” she says. “I couldn’t live where I was living before my third stroke, because it wasn’t wheelchair accessible.”

So she moved again to her household dwelling, residing along with her mom in Oakland. Her housing was settled. What she didn’t have was freedom — not till she found BORP.

“The fourth (and final) time I was in in-patient rehab, someone did a presentation about BORP,” she says. “Now I do cycling, kayaking, outdoor adventures, camping, rock climbing, tai chi, yoga and open-gym. I’m just meeting a lot of people.”

A kind of individuals is Daniel Gomes. Now 35, he turned disabled when he was 29 and struggled to simply accept it.

“I didn’t know one person with a serious disability,” Gomes says. “I was in a shell — trying constantly to get better but nothing worked, so I would only get more depressed.”

By means of BORP, Gomes discovered individuals who had been going by way of related experiences. Gomes met Leffmann final yr. They had been each outdoorsy individuals earlier than their disabilities and by no means thought they’d have the ability to go tenting once more. However with their power-assist wheelchairs, they joined a BORP tenting journey to Camp Arroyo and hit it off.

“It’s nice to meet someone who actually knows what you’re going through,” he says. “I felt so alone for so long. Five years is a long time to be completely depressed. BORP brought me out of it, something as simple as getting me out of the house.

“Life has changed a lot, but at least BORP is bringing me joy. And friends to show and tell me things I didn’t know.”

There are film nights and peer assist teams. There are tenting journeys and staff sports activities— wheelchair basketball, wheelchair rugby, goalball, energy soccer and sled hockey — in addition to health lessons, pickleball and mountain climbing. And the adaptive biking middle alongside Aquatic Park homes one of many world’s largest adaptive bike collections and a kayaking program.