Posted 10 August 2005 - 08:27 PM
As Lynne said, this can take a brutally long time, and because each of us is such an individual, you may want to have caution on taking what happened to one person and expecting it in another.
It really depends on where the break is, how severe the break is and any additional trauma at that site.
As a general rule, as you step down the vertabrae each level down roughly corresponds to a new set of nerves. Breaks high up in a neck usually result in a much greater loss of mobility, muscle or other motor controls. As breaks occur lower and lower down, the patient may have better control of their bodies. However, the severety of the break is equally important. A person that has a completely severed spine is much worse off than a person that has a pinched, or partially severed spine. In a partial case, the patient may have some feeling in some areas, but not in others. As swelling goes down, some pressure may be taken off some points and feeling may start to return. Lynne was asking the area of the break because that largely tells us what nerve paths could be affected by the accident.
I would caution reading too much into the situation before the full extent of the injury is understood as you may have better or worse recovery than what would be explained in these forums. Recovery may take weeks, or a number of years. Initial recovery in the first few weeks is often a good indicator of longer term recovery though. You may find the nurses checking nerve feelings for the first 2-4 weeks, and then less regularly after that.
I would hazard a guess that if your friend has some feeling at different parts of their body that the break is not a completely severed spine though. They may still have permanent damage to a number of nerve pathways though.
Common results of these types of severe injury are: Loss of control of muscle groups: stomach, legs. arms etc. Loss of control of bladder or bowels: Some body training may help regulate things like the bowels to a livable status.
If I could put in a word, just be their friend. The thoughts that run through the patients heads are often depression, panic, shame, etc. What they really need is just to have a friend around. Someone they can talk to about usual daily matters: sports/news/friends/work. What they probably don't need is someone commenting on how horrible they look, or all the bad things that could come out of the situation. I know that I hated to run through the accident I had, day after day, after day to multiple people. I wanted to hear about something, anything..other than my accident.
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