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[AHolland]

This type of question must be one of the most common questions. I wonder if Simon should have a locked FAQ question forum that covers general questions such as this.

Okay, here goes:

Every person is different so the degree of recovery and the rate of recover varies considerably between people. I would also add that a person's attitude towards recover aids slightly towards the degree of recovery (but that is just my opinion). You can't make a person walk just because you want to..Trust me on that one.

I would hazard that recovery goes through 4 stages:

Intial recovery is generally up to 4 weeks or a bit longer. The initial recovery time could be roughly thought of as the time for things like swelling to go down, body stability to kick in etc. This would be the time when doctors/nurses are regularly checking the patient over for touch or mobility. Probably at least once a day.

The second phase would be the early healing stage when a person is going through coping with the long term effects of the injury. This may be 6 months or longer and equates to the period of time when a person is still in the hospital.

The third phase would equate to the longer term period of self stabilisation that may take 2-3 years. It may be longer. A bit more on this later.

The final stage could be defined by that period of time when a person no longer shows any improvemnt in their condition and they either level out, or start the slow deline over time as we all do as we age.

Now for a bit of discussion.

Phase one usually shows the greatest gains and this is when a person gets an appreciation of their condition, where the damage is, but will still not have an idea of long term effects. It is in no way a period of time of complete recovery. More recovery will come later. Your friend has either just finished off this stage, or may be just getting there.

Stage two also shows some good improvement. Blood pressures generally stabalise, bladder and bowel conditions start to regulate themselves (for good or bad) and I would guess that by the exit of this stage that 70% of the healing has taken place (this is really just an approximation).

Stage three is when final recovery takes place. It may take years to get though all the repairs that the body will see. Generally 1-2 years shows the bulk of the improvement, but some people may still note some improvements out to 5 years. Myself, I noted a bit more improvemnt after the second year, than in the first year. I sort of doubt that is normal and may be because I had a lot of internal trauma which occupied my bodies time in the first year.

The final stage is just that period of time when no further improvment occurs. Sometimes miracles do happen and people will magically regain some body movement later, but don't count on it.

I'm sorry if this seems a bit disjointed. Too many interruptions.

Your friend is way too early in their recover to know how they will fare in the end. Things that will probably occupy their mind is mobility, bladder and bowels. It is great that they have recovered so well above the knees. Many of us would kill to be in that position.

Here is a bit of a quicky case study of a person who lived in a group home with me until recently, who might emulate your friends condition. They has a cancerous growth on the spine which pressured the spine, but did not cut through it. Permanent damage was done to the spine though which is why I would consider him an SCI victim.

first 6 months they had no control or feeling of all their body below the upper chest (nipple area).

next 12-18 months recovered feeling to about the waist including feeling of the bladder, but no control of the bladder or bowels.

18-24 months could feel the legs vaguely, but had no control of the legs. Still no control of bladder or bowels. At the end of 24 months he could lock his legs straight and was "learning" to walk. The problem being he could not feel the fet touching the ground so he had to "look" where he was walking. Significant muscle atrophy also made it so 50 feet was a day's walking.

At present he is still learning to walk and still does regulated bodily functions. His greatest "apparent" gains were out in the second year as well.

I would almost certainly believe that your friend will continue to have gains in the future. 2 1/2 months is only the tip of the iceberg so to speak. However we are all very different and there is no guarantee that improvement will continue or stop on any particular schedule. I would expect that any gains your friend has would slow down but continue.

Sorry for the ramble. Maybe others can give an idication of how their healing process went in the first couple of years.