Another Day, Another SCI

A lot of people find this site via Google when they are searching for answers when spinal cord injury makes an unwelcome appearance in their lives.  I get emails from people that sometimes touch me deeply.  I thought this one was particularly powerful  and am sharing it with the permission of the wonderful woman who wrote it:

Hello,

First of all, I want to tell you how much I love this site. I agree, Spinal Cord Injuries Suck and most people have no clue. I have read most of your posts and have passed on some of the information to my daughter, who is a recent C5 Incomplete Quad.(Just typing that out makes me cry) Feels the same way you do about the bowel and bladder program. Recently, told her boyfriend, who started showing-up less and less, to move on. Didn't want someone around, who felt "obligated" to hang with her. Wanted to focus on her recovery and didn't feel like she could be a very good girlfriend to him right now.

She is 24 years old, beautiful and brilliant. Graduated at the top of her class from ******** with a double major in Marketing and Finance. Was in a head-on collision in Portland, Oregon on December 12, 2008. Broke her neck, sternum, pelvis, ribs, jaw, both feet, and shattered her left ankle. She is lucky to be alive, but expressed early in her recovery that it may have been better if she would have died. The doctors were informing us that she had a 3% chance of walking and would be on a respirator for a long time. Prognosis was not good. 

Fortunately, about four weeks in to her recovery things started to return. They pulled the trach and she was breathing on her own. She started moving the fingers on her right hand ever so slightly and flexing her quadriceps on the right leg. She is currently at the ****** Rehab Center and continues to flex new muscles. (quadriceps on both sides, calf muscle and all the toes on the right, two toes on the left, gluteal muscle on the right, inner thigh muscles on both legs, hip flexors, fingers on both hands) She can not bear weight yet because of her shattered ankle, which is a set back. They will be getting her in the pool next week and hopefully on the tilt table, then the standing machine. Has a great Physical Therapist, who has been working her hard. Her recovery is going to be long, so just because she has things returning doesn't mean this is going to be easy. That is difficult to explain to family and friends, who don't understand how slow this is going to be, and think she is just going to get up and walk. Yes, she should feel lucky, but when you still are laying in bed unable to use your hands (she use to type 90 wpm) and legs, spasming all over the place, and you have to do your bowel program every night and be cathed constantly, she doesn't feel so lucky. She says, "Mom, I really fucked myself up."

I wish there was some way for you to meet her and talk to her. Any races coming up in California? You remind me of a male version of her. Have you thought of having guest posts, maybe from a quad? I would also be interested in assisting in any fund raising for SCI research. People are suffering and we do need a cure NOW.

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