The man who came in from the cold

Posted on 15 March 2012

If you’re going to change your life, do it! So says Dan Skinstad, 31, who has cerebral palsy and committed to a 2 300 km kayak adventure around Iceland’s savage shore.

Words Lisa Templeton Photographs Sunel Haasbroek

People imagine that my hairiest moment was when I fell out of the boat and came so close to death,’ says Dan Skinstad, with a shake of his head. ‘But that wasn’t it.’ He is speaking of the moment he fell out of the kayak he shared with around-Africa-on-a-bicycle adventure ace Riaan Manser, on the 38th day of an epic six-month paddle around Iceland, and was swept several hundred terrifying metres away to spend five minutes in water not much above freezing point. ‘No, my hairiest moment was in massive seas at Vik.’ He stares down into his coffee cup, thinking back. His hair, which had been wild and woolly, with a beard to match, in the SABC3 documentary, Around Iceland On Inspiration, is now cropped. He looks a lot like his brother, legendary Springbok skipper Bobby Skinstad – but smokier, as though he is a deep thinker. ‘The sea was absolutely savage that day – the surf had tripled in size. It was very scary,’ he says. ‘We were paddling in a chasing swell that kept hitting the tail of the kayak and swinging it around. We must have fallen into the sea 20 times. It was exhausting.

‘When you land in near-freezing water you immediately feel your core temperature drop, you get an ice-cream headache and your hands freeze up, so it’s hard to hold the paddle. All you can do after that is paddle hell for leather to warm up.’

‘Savage’ is a word Dan uses frequently to describe conditions in Iceland and a trip that could have cost him his life. It is not everyone who would arrive in Iceland in winter, when the snow is two metres thick on the ground, and take to the grim, grey heaving ocean in a kayak for paddling stints that sometimes lasted 10 hours a day, facing icy winds that reached 60 km/h, with landfalls few and far between on a jagged shore of relentless volcanic rock. ‘If I reflect on it, I couldn’t have chosen a tougher environment in which to change my life.’ He looks up with a wry smile. ‘Iceland in bad winter conditions is plunging right into the cauldron!’

In the beginning
When Dan was an infant, doctors told his parents, Dr Alvin and Alana Skinstad, that he would never walk, speak, go to a mainstream school or live a normal life. Since then he has matriculated from the prestigious Hilton College near Pietermaritzburg, completed post-matric at St Andrew’s College, Grahamstown, and obtained a postgraduate law degree through Unisa.

Why law? ‘Because I can argue the hind leg off a donkey,’ he says with a grin. And now he’s paddled around Iceland in a venture that was bold, if not foolhardy. ‘I’ve always been determined. I’d rather die than lose. I’m not reckless, but I’ll give it a go.’ Not that life has been easy for him. Born 10 weeks prematurely and critically ill, he was later diagnosed with cerebral palsy and at the age of three underwent back surgery that was ground-breaking at the time.

Performed by pioneering neurosurgeon Dr Warwick Peacock, the selective dorsal rhizotomy involved cutting only those nerves responsible for the spasticity and not those going to the bladder and muscle groups. ‘I am so grateful,’ says Dan. ‘If it weren’t for him I wouldn’t be where I am today.’

It’s a treatment that is only truly effective if followed by a great deal of rehabilitation, which became the bane of Dan’s life. ‘I’ve been sports mad for as long as I can remember, but when other boys were spending time playing rugby or cricket, I had to go to physical therapy. It was so frustrating – it burnt me.’

Did it make it harder having a brother who was a sports superstar? ‘Ag, I get asked that a lot. He’s my brother, you know, my boetie, so no…’

Braving Iceland
How does someone decide to paddle around Iceland? ‘I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. I wanted to stop avoiding exercise and change my life, and my perceptions of myself and those of others,’ Dan says.
His initial idea of doing a ‘boot camp’ to see how far he could pump up his physical ability was blown out the water when he got that fateful call from Riaan, whom he’d met while watching rugby, inviting him to paddle around Iceland. ‘I said “yes” just like that. I think naivety saved me!’

He had three months to prepare through strength work and a stationary canoe, but there was nothing that could have prepared him for the mental and physical challenges of an undertaking so taxing and hazardous.
‘It wasn’t a picnic, hey,’ says Dan, whose Durban roots bubble up in his speech. ‘The conditions were harsh, and I knew I had taken my life into my own hands. Even on our days off, it was always out there.

‘I learned that I can push myself far harder and further than I ever thought possible,’ he says, looking thoughtful and waving one hand to order another cup of coffee. ‘When you do savage tasks, you don’t become philosophical. When I was 50 km into a 65-km paddle, I wasn’t thinking high thoughts, I was too focused on the job.’

Now adjusting to life back in civilisation, sharing a flat with his little brother and giving motivational talks while looking for a job that ideally combines law and sport, he says he wants to apply the focus he had in the boat to everyday life. ‘If you want to change your life, do it. The more you ponder, the less likely you are to want to do it. And if people say you can’t do it, you can. If you’d asked a bookie whether we’d be successful
on our trip, they wouldn’t have given us a thousand to one odds.’

So would he paddle Iceland again? He stares into the distance, and then says, ‘I think I’m done, hey. It doesn’t mean I didn’t appreciate it, but I’m done.’

What is cerebral palsy?
Cerebral palsy or CP is an umbrella term that covers a range of neurological disorders that appear in infancy or early childhood (usually before the age of three) and could have a permanent effect on coordination, posture and body movement, and sometimes on cognition and speech.

Incidence
Two in every 1 000 babies will have CP, according to the World Health Organization.

Causes
CP is the result of damage to or failure to develop the areas of the brain that control muscle movements (rather than problems with the muscles themselves). Risk factors include infection, illness, drug or alcohol use during pregnancy, premature birth, injuries or shortage of oxygen during birth, or brain infections, head injuries, lack of oxygen or poisoning in an infant or small child.

Signs
Infants with CP are usually slow to reach developmental milestones like rolling over, sitting or walking. Possible signs include dragging a leg, walking on the toes, a ‘scissored’ or a crouched way of walking, and exaggerated reflexes (spasticity). It could also affect speech and other functions.

Treatment
While CP can’t be cured, a child’s abilities can often be improved substantially through therapeutic treatment such as corrective surgery, physical and speech therapy, and medication. The earlier intervention starts the better. While severity varies greatly, many children with CP go to mainstream schools and later enjoy near-normal adulthood.

Support
National Association for Persons with Cerebral Palsy South Africa
Call 011 452 2774, email nationaloffice@ncppdsa.org.za or visit www.napcp.org.za for more information.

The information provided in this article was correct at the time of publishing. At Mediclinic we endeavour to provide our patients and readers with accurate and reliable information, which is why we continually review and update our content. However, due to the dynamic nature of clinical information and medicine, some information may from time to time become outdated prior to revision.