Spasms

Lately I've been spending so much time working on wheelchairs that the ideas for my ‘Speaking Out' articles have been fleeting. I try to think of problems I have encountered in the last month and none seem to have surfaced other than what type of material to use for the foot pedals or how to get carbon fiber in the shape of a race chair before the epoxy dries (I can tell you this is not an inexpensive learning curve). Then something happened recently that got me thinking about writing on a topic I usually don't talk about.

I don't talk a lot about the first few years of my injury anymore - not that it bothers me, but when you spend the majority of your days working (with people who know your story) you don't run into too many new people and all of my other friends already know what happened. However, I found myself talking about the early days the other night when I unexpectedly ran into the girl that had injured herself just two jumps before my last. She broke both wrists and was unconscious for some time, although she had a full recovery and currently races boarder cross as a pro snowboarder. She has obviously thought about that day more than once, and I had never met her before - to tell you the truth it was a bit of a surreal experience. What brings me to reminiscing about my past is that she had a lot of questions about what happened…. Generally speaking I'm a positive person but in retrospect those first two years were a f*cker (pardon the language but that's the truth) so for the potential benefit of those that are working through their first few years of injury, I'll give you mine in a nutshell.

I broke my back on the ski hill, busting my T7, 8, and 9 into powder. I took a gondola and an ambulance to Mineral Springs Hospital in Banff, Alberta, experiencing the most pain of my life, which ended with the medics bursting my urethra with the balloon on a foli catheter. As you may already know, normally all of your clothes would be cut off so that you would not have to be moved more than necessary. But Banff is a ski town and the doctors (obviously recognizing expensive ski clothing) decided it was worth the risk to slowly and painfully remove my Gortex ski pants and jacket (I still use them today so I guess I'm happy). From there I was jammed into a helicopter destined for the Foothills Hospital in Calgary and twelve hours of surgery later I was a genuine paraplegic. Since we all have a tough time for the first few months in the hospital while our bodies try to figure out what the hell happened I won't get into the details.

Skip forward a few months and I'm out of the hospital. I have the best friends in the world, my family will do anything for me, and I have a great attitude - but the legs they told me wouldn't move again are bouncing around like a kid on Ritalin… SPASMS - BAD spasms. For the next year I did everything I could to control them. I stretched so much I made a twelve-year-old gymnast look stiff. If I wasn't in so much pain I would have joined the circus I was so bendy. Stretching, Baclofen, weed… nothing worked, and trust me something had to work. My spasms were non-stop, 24/7, bone grinding and uncontrollable. I couldn't work, I couldn't sleep… in short I was a grumpy, drugged-up Para (don't get me wrong, I did have my good days but I hated spasms).

The next step? A Baclofen pump, which is basically a tuna can sized pump implanted in your abdomen with a tube to your spinal cord, dripping the wonder drug directly onto your confused body… Eureka ... a solution! The first week with my new friend was like the calm after a storm. Beautiful floppy legs and I could actually sleep beside someone without kicking the crap out of them. No more spasms! But time passed and about six months later the spasms were back and they were stronger than ever. Even with the highest dose of baclofen pumping through my body the spasms returned with a vengeance. The advice from the rehab doc was, “deal with it”. I was not going to be a slave to my useless legs – what about cutting ‘em off? Hell no - I need somewhere to hang my pants. What about getting my cord cut? Bingo. My surgeon, Dr. Hurlbert, the only doctor who understood what kind of life I wanted and needed to live, gave me the option of going in and severing my cord from T10 to L1, an eight hour surgery with no guarantees. We did it. The result? I can sleep soundly at night and spend my days doing what I love.

So If your feeling down, I recommend you look back at how far you have come from the day you said “what the f*ck just happened?”. You'll impress yourself every time.

Cheers.