Fishing and life, life and fishing

[kickingfrog]

The link will also lead you to some of his photos.

 

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/nation...article1278230/

 

 

 

Mark Hume

 

Vancouver — From Monday's Globe and Mail

Last updated on Wednesday, Sep. 09, 2009 03:09AM EDT

 

 

.For Aaron Goodis, the man who walked himself back to life, the journey across British Columbia's rugged landscape began when a doctor told him his only chance to recover from the ravages of Crohn's disease was relentless, painful exercise.

 

But first he had to get out of his wheelchair.

 

Mr. Goodis, 29, has been fighting Crohn's disease since he was 16. It didn't stop him through his school years from going fly fishing with his dad, Phil, almost every weekend. And, as a young man, it didn't stop him from getting work as a fishing guide and fly-casting instructor.

 

But three years ago, because of the strong medications he was taking to battle Crohn's, Mr. Goodis lost so much bone density, he became confined to a wheelchair.

 

“My back was giving out … I had three fractures in my spine,” he said.

 

He was forced to leave his job behind the counter at Michael & Young Fly Shop, in Vancouver, and it looked like he would never walk again. Certainly, the outdoor life that he loved, stalking steelhead, trout and salmon on B.C.'s lakes and rivers, seemed over.

 

“If you can imagine what it's like to break your back, that's what the pain was like.”

 

Because of the pain, he was becoming afraid to move. He looked like he was dying.

 

But his doctors told him exercise was the only way to recover.

 

They put him on a new drug, Forteo, which is used to treat severe bone loss, and urged him to try walking again.

 

“It was my only hope,” he said. “So I went for it. Essentially, I went from bed-ridden exercises … to slowly trying to stand up … then I tried to walk, a cane in each hand, with my dad propping me up on one side, and a physiotherapist on the other. Then I began walking by myself, with the canes, and someone following with a wheelchair.”

 

It took months, but Mr. Goodis slowly began to walk again.

 

“It was one cane, then no cane. I spent a month walking around False Creek,” he said.

 

Family and friends were with him every step of the way.

 

One day, Mr. Goodis picked up a fly-fishing rod. It felt good in his hands and it brought back a flood of memories. He wanted to fish again, to walk B.C.'s streams, but he was afraid the motion of casting, raising his arm above his head and twisting his back to throw the line, would plunge him into a world of pain.

 

“I was very scared. I hadn't fly cast for two-and-a-half years,” he said. His first attempts were clumsy, which was humbling for a man who had taught casting professionally, and it left his back aching.

 

He cast on the lawn for five months.

 

About the same time, Mr. Goodis began working on photography. He'd had a long interest in taking pictures, using point-and-click cameras, but only got serious after his dad taught him to use an old Canon F1. He bought a digital camera and a backpack of photography gear.

 

“I really loved it. It was a unique way to capture my feelings and … to sort of try and tell a story of what I had been through and where I'd been. … I used that as a healing tool because it motivated me to get out and walk,” he said.

 

As his strength grew, so did his dream of going fishing again. Soon, he was making trips – with a fly rod in one hand and a camera around his neck. He joined a group of six friends on a two-month trip to Smithers, where he fished the big, brawling steelhead rivers that run through the mountains there.

 

As he fished, treading carefully on the riverside rocks and always wary of falling, he was “shooting and shooting and shooting,” with his new camera.

 

“I consider myself a fly fisherman first and a photographer second, but I go back and forth all the time [between the camera and the fly rod],” he said.

 

Mr. Goodis is behind the counter at Michael & Young Fly Shop, on West Broadway, again.

 

He is back giving fly-casting lessons, picking up a line and cast it with precision and grace once more.

 

And he has compiled the collection of dramatic landscape photographs he made, during his incredible journey back to life, in a draft book titled The Recovery Project .

 

He hopes to find a publisher and to use the proceeds to raise awareness about Crohn's disease.

 

“My passion for fly fishing and being outside led me to the camera. With technical help from my dad, I was able to take photos and that is how this started. My point is that passion for something can overcome anything,” he writes in the foreword.

 

“Right now, I feel healthier than I have at any time in my life since I was diagnosed with Crohn's,” he says. “I have recovered 90 per cent of my bone mass. The doctors say that is a miracle.”

 

He's able to go fishing and camping alone now. He's happy out there, listening to the sound of the river, waiting for the light to be just right, standing on his own two feet.