Technicalities
Just to bring everyone up to pace,
I have decided to share some technical information about my situation. Some of
the “cans” and “can´ts”. Also... if there is a private medical institution out
there looking for a trial material for some new fantastic solution to cure
spinal cord injury, let me know.
(But before I do that, I would really like to thank You for all the positive feedback and encouraging words -this really made not only my day, but my entire week. So…I will keep on blogging. Also, I am super grateful for the donations I already have received to my fund – every little helps!)
So...
I found out at the hospital, that what I have, is called spinal cord injury or SCI. Also
a very correct way to describe this is paraplegic. Wikipedia tells us the
following:
"Paraplegia is an impairment in motor or
sensory function of the lower extremities. The word comes from Ionic Greek: παραπληγίη "half-striking". It is
usually caused by spinal cord injury or a congenital condition that affects the neural (brain)
elements of the spinal canal. The area of the spinal canal that is affected in
paraplegia is either the thoracic, lumbar, or sacral regions. Common victims of
this impairment are veterans or members of the armed forces. If four limbs are
affected by paralysis, tetraplegia or quadriplegia is the correct
term."
 |
| "2 months after the injury" |
After and accidental step into the darkness I landed on my back and back
of my head and fractured my spine at the level of Th11/12 and damaged my spinal
cord. This left me paralyzed from my waist down. The head injury demanded some
stiches and was nothing serious according to the doctors - however I like to
point this out from time to time when its convenient for me to pretend mental
issues(havent tried this out with the officials or authorities yet though, but there is time for everything in this life...). It is worth mentioning that the word "complete" was first
brought up in association with my injury. However, in later stages they have
started to have some doubts about it. Personally, I don´t really care if they
want to call it incomplete or complete spinal cord injury, as long as I can´t
walk, run or dance anyway (yet!).
They fixated the fractured spine with a metallic plate and a few screws
(titanium?) which you can clearly see on this picture. This means that I am
kind of stiff in my back in that area and if everything goes as planned, the
plate will be removed at the end of this month and should return much more
mobility to my spine. I am planning to ask them, if I can keep the plate.
I am using a wheelchair on a daily basis. They call me - an active wheelchair user! I know, I was thinking what you are probably thinking, but this appearantly describes more the level of my injury and abilities to manually use the wheelchair without assistance. Currently I have 2 of them -
Ki Rogue from the US and Panthera U2 from Sweden.
In addition I am training almost daily with KAFOs (knee, ankle, foot orthosis)
and crutches to cover more and more meters by walking and standing up. I
think I am currently up on ca. 70 meters with crutches only. (I am going to post a cool video about this really soon)
I can crouch on my hands and knees. I can lift myself from the wheelchair
to other chairs, sofas, beds, in and out of vehicles etc.
I can´t stand up without the KAFOs (I am missing the necessary knee-lock
function for that). I am showering and doing pretty much everything else while
sitting.
Luckily, I am not in any kind of chronic pain. I have pain from time to
time inside my legs and bones and hip joints and little bit in my back, but
this is something I can easily solve with the help of some prescription-free
painkillers. So, I don’t think I should be complaining too much about that
after talking to other folks with some much more serious issues (the kind of
pain that even large doses of morphine can´t kill!!! )
Mentally… as I mentioned above,
when I want to play stupid or dull, I am referring to my head-injury (but really
in a humorous context only and as a practical joke to be honest). I am struggling
more and more with some chronic depression, signs of post-traumatic stress
disorder, chronic fatigue and motivation problems. As I read a lot about my
injury and others that have it -these seem to be quite common and not only with
spinal cord injury or loss of mobility, but also with other severe injuries and
sicknesses. (planning to write more about that in another post).
So-far I have been dealing with all
this mostly by myself. I also find it a bit therapeutic to talk about these
things with other people with either similar injury or sickness, or folks that
have experienced something like it. If you are not in any kind of similar
situation yourself, you probably can’t imagine the stories we share while on
rehabilitation centres. (I am playing with the idea to write about some of
these stories anonymously soon -both tragic and funny).
So… I guess that covers it for now.
Feel free to ask me specific questions or tips.
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