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| Photograph courtesy of Ernie Paulson |
Ernie Paulson was 17 years old in 1994 when his doctors told him he had two options for dealing with a rare form of soft tissue cancer—clear cell sarcoma—that had showed up looking like a perfectly round wart on the top of his foot. They could cut the three ligaments to his toes and irradiate the foot, or they could amputate his foot and lower leg at the shin.
"I asked them what would happen if I just decided to do nothing and waited it out since the tests showed the cancer wasn't anywhere else," Paulson says. "They told me I would be dead in three years. So I said, 'Let's amputate it, then. Tomorrow.' "
That was at 4 p.m. on a Thursday. He was scheduled for surgery at 6 a.m. the next day. Once disturbed, the cancer is aggressive.
"It was all so surreal," Paulson says. "I was ready to graduate from high school and leave for the army the next month. I told my mom and grandpa that I wanted to walk home from the doctor's office. All I could think was: 'They're going to cut my foot off.' I didn't know anything about prosthetics. I knew it was going to hurt, but I didn't know how much. I remember waking up after the surgery cursing and writhing, trying to get away from the pain."
Paulson soon submitted to the pain. What took time was grappling with the fact that he had been a high-school wrestler poised to go into the military where he could wrestle and box, and now—at 17—he had only one foot.
"After a few months, a friend of mine said he knew someone with prosthetics," Paulson says. "This guy showed up at our door. He was a double above-the-knee amputee. He showed me his legs and said, 'It ain't no big deal.' After he left, I said to myself, 'What are you crying about?' I wanted a leg immediately."
Once on the path to the "sweetness" of walking again, Paulson did not want to go slowly.
"I couldn't wait to get on a cane. I was told I wasn't ready, that there would be too much pain. But I was determined to walk and make an appearance at a fundraiser dance my high school was putting on to help with medical expenses. I did it," he says.
Young, determined and athletic, Paulson made good progress with his walking but found that he missed doing combat fighting and hated the fact that people treated him as if he were disabled.
"People would open the door for me or pick things up for me," he says. "They would say things like 'someone in your condition shouldn't be doing that.' "That motivated me. In my mind, I was saying, 'Oh, yeah? You know what? I'll show you what my condition is. I can do this, and I can do more.' That's what drove me to get back into martial arts."
Paulson's return to fighting led him to a kung fu school in the town of Waukesha, Wisconsin, where he was working for an organization serving people with disabilities.
"I met my wife Becky at work," he says. "She was 35, and I was 21. I wanted more than to just sit around working every day. I decided to backpack through the West. So I got rid of most everything I owned and said to Becky, 'I want you to come with me. Will you?' She said yes."
Together they backpacked and camped, just "experiencing life," for a year and a half. They had no money and didn't always have much to eat, but Paulson describes it as an important stage in finding his place in the world again.
"We settled in for a time as campsite hosts in a very remote part of Nevada," he says. "That time brought us so close. We could laugh and cry together. We were asked to stay, but it was so secluded there. We decided to move to northern Wisconsin to live."
It was in Rhinelander, Wisconsin, that Paulson first became acquainted with cage fighting and full-contact mixed martial arts (MMA).
"Sometime in 2004, a local guy told me he had a cage fighter training him. I went down to meet the guy," Paulson says. "I asked him, 'Will you train me? I have a prosthetic leg.' He said he would."
Paulson sensed he had found a focus for his need to be strong, to be able to protect himself and his family. The more he prepared for his first match, the better he got. After three and a half months of rigorous martial-arts training, he kicked it up a notch with 10 more weeks of heavy cardio and strength training. "Train hard, fight easy" is Paulson's motto.
"I was so ready for that match, and I was winning. And then the guy got me in a submission hold that I didn't expect, and I had to tap out," he says. "I was heartbroken. I couldn't believe it. People were saying I should be proud of what I had accomplished, but I lost. I knew I had to fight again."
Pricked by the spur of his first loss, Paulson returned to training. He studied Greek pankration, a fighting style from the fifth century BC. He studied full-contact kickboxing and added them both to his repertoire of Brazilian jujitsu and Goshin karate. In 2006 Paulson won his second match.
Having experienced success and the difficulty of achieving it, Paulson—with a record of 1–1–0—made a tough decision.
"I was fighting on a leg that was good for everyday living, but limited me athletically," Paulson says. "I felt like I needed to seek out a prosthetist who could help me reach the next level in my sport."
His search led him in 2007 to Charles (Chuck) Buxton, CP, of Wisconsin Prosthetics & Orthotics, Menasha, who took on the challenge of creating a leg that was up to the rigors of not only a full-contact MMA match, but also a training regime that involved two to four hours a day of extreme cardio exercise.
"When I talked to Chuck on the phone, he made me think he was the guy who could help," Paulson says. "He asked for all my fight tapes to see what I had to do with my body and what was limiting me."
Buxton already had a lot of experience working with athletes, including pole-vaulters and volleyball players. He knew that as a prosthetist he could not work miracles, but he could work to get clients close—possibly very close—to what they wanted to accomplish in their sports.
"Before I met Ernie, I was not familiar with the demands of MMA, so I had to learn," Buxton says. "The prosthesis needed to allow him to work for eight hours a day, train for four, teach at the karate school, and compete. There would be forces in addition to regular ambulation that we would have to accommodate."
Among the other challenges was to build a prosthesis that would give him both flexibility and good stance control. To meet those competing needs, Buxton chose an Ossur Veriflex foot with a foot shell, split toe, and carbon pylon.
"Ernie can't kick with that foot, of course," Buxton says. "Basically, he has to stand on a stilt and throw a kick with his good leg. In a perfect world, he would have a prosthesis that would give him even more allowances with his fighting, but by using a frame with a flexible socket, he could have maximum freedom of movement on his regular foot."
A silicone suction design gave the prosthesis an intimate, controlled fit relatively deep in the socket, allowing for increased flex around the brim. He used a #2 sleeve to protect the proximal brim and Paulson's competitors from impact. Paulson trained and fought; Buxton adjusted the prosthesis as the demands of the sport tested its limits.
"I tell him 'I'm gonna' fix that. You might not notice that it's not quite right, but I do,' " Buxton says. "I go in, tear it apart, check it, reset it. I watch all his matches to see how he needs to negotiate his body on the mat. When he's at his fighting weight, he might be nearly 20 pounds lighter than his normal weight. I can always adjust something; I can always do better."
With Buxton in his corner, Paulson's record is now two wins, three losses in cage fighting and four wins, one loss in pankration. Pretty good for a 34-year old.
"I'm old for the game I'm in," Paulson says. "I train with a lot of younger guys. They call me the 'old man.' Some of them are 19, so I guess I am old."
By some objective measure, Paulson may indeed be considered old for combat in the cage. Personally, however, it is clear to him that as a competitor, karate teacher, husband, dad, and public figure, age is no impediment. Neither is his lack of a foot.
"It's an inconvenience for sure," Buxton says. "But as long as Ernie has a good prosthesis, he has no handicap. He has an in-your-face ability that anyone can plainly see."
Among others who have taken notice of Paulson's ability are Gimp Apparel, a company whose mission is to promote and support adaptive sports and their athletes, the Lake of the Torches Casino, and the promoters of King of the Cage mixed martial arts competitions.
After he fought at the casino in April, the owners sponsored him on the July 18 King of the Cage fight card.
"They are giving me $1,000 to fight and $1,000 donation to my karate school," Paulson says. "I will be the first amputee ever to fight on National PayPerView. I don't like to toot my own horn, but I think that's cool. It feels like I'll become a little part of history."
Not bad for an old guy.
Jane Albritton is president of Tiger Enterprises, Writing Consultants. She is a contributing writer for the Northern Colorado Business Report and Edibles Front Range. She is also an editor for a 50th-anniversary collection of Peace Corps stories. She can be reached at www.peacecorpsat50.org
