Oh Blessed T2, I Love You

"Today, if you become frightened, instead, become inspired."

Isaak on Grey's Anatomy said that. Now, before you say how incredibly petty I am that I watch Grey's and then I QUOTE it, wait just a minute before you judge, because that was one of the most poignant things I've heard for a very long time. Watch the episode. If you only get as far as that pre-op speech you've heard a wonderful speech that even Dr. King (martin, not Charlotte would be quoting himself).

I had decided to share a little about spinal cord injuries and voila, Grey's has an episode where Isaak has an inoperable tumor on his spinal cord and will either die, become paralyzed from T2 level down or live if McDreamy can be the doctor that he thinks he is.

I have the episode on pause so I don't know what will happen. What I know is what happened to this T2 girl.

I don't know what people know. I assume you know what I know because I've shared it with so many people. But there are new people out there that haven't heard a spinal cord lesson lately, so here goes.

The spinal cord is a mass of nerves. I great big wound up, braided rope of minuscule nerves that make every function in your body function. When you get your finger pricked for a tiny blood sample, the nerves in your finger tell your spinal cord what just happened and it in turn tells your brain, and your brain screams at you, "That effing hurt, STOP doing that you moron!"

When you sneeze, your spinal cord tells every part of your body that a sneeze is coming, "So get ready." Eyes close, face wrinkles, nose twitches, body tenses, back arches, head tilts down, arm goes up and you sneeze into your elbow so you don't spread your nasty H1N1 scum all over your neighbor's desk.

Your spinal cord manages all the reflexes in your body, intentional your unintentional. The nerves in each area of your body travel through your spinal cord to your brain and other areas in your body. Remember learning about the Central nervous system? Yep, had I actually listened in 8th grade science class I would have understood this when I was hurt. Instead, I had to relearn it when my brain was at it's weakest--post-head injury.

Isaak says something like, "If you can't get the tumor out, cut my spinal cord. I can live without my legs."

Yep, you can. Not so hard I say. BUT if you have a choice, don't choose that one, it's not something you want to aspire to--sitting around all day on your lazy ass.

I'm not a doctor and I haven't read up on this lately, but in my teeny tiny brain, this is how it works. You've got all these vertebrae that make up your spine and through the middle of each vertebrae there is a hole that the spinal cord runs through. It starts at the brain stem and runs all the way down to your tail bone.

Push play. Isaak goes through 10 hours of nothing because McDreamy studies the cord and doesn't do anything because he knows the permanency of cutting the wrong something.



The spine is divided into sections: Cervical, Thoracic and Lumbar. C, T and L. There are 7 vertebrae in the Cervical section. They are numbered C1, C2, ...C7. Twelve vertebrae in the Thoracic section: T1, T2, ...T12, and 5 in the lumbar section:...L4, L5.

Let's say for the sake of visuals, each vertebrae is about an inch high. So every inch along your spine, there is a vertebrae and a section of the spinal cord. Each section of the cord controls certain areas and functions of the body. C2 = blink, C3 = breathing, C6 move hands, C7 the grasp motion, Ti the underbelly of your arms. And all the way down. Ability to nod, use your hands, move your shoulders, feel your nipples, bend at your waist, sit upright, bellybutton... hips... feel thighs, walk, walk, walk, and at the very end, your bladder and bowel function.



Christopher Reeves was C5. I'm broken at C6, BUT my spinal cord was not severed or bruised. That's my miracle.

If your spinal cord is severed, you have no hope of your spinal cord ever recovering from that point down. You won't regain function. At least with today's technology. If your spinal cord isn't severed it is called an Incomplete sever. You MAY have a chance of regaining function. The body does what it wants and there is no way of knowing how the cards fall, but Incompletes can regain walking function, sensation of pressure, hot and cold and sometimes all ability comes back. The Central Nervous System cannot be managed so it will do what it wants and we ;accept it until someday when we figure out its mysteries, so for now...

I'm a Complete T2 with residual T1 nerve damage irritation (that drives me absolutely nuts if I think about it) and a really creepy bulge at C6 where my vertebrae collapsed on each other but the spinal cord didn't bruise or break but instead followed the path the vertebrae took and looks like the hairpin turn in Big Cottonwood Canyon. MIRACLE. Yippee! Thanks Jesus and his Mom and Dad too!

So I sit on my tired tailbone and fake that I have control of a lot of my body. But I can't even sit up without a good wheelchair. Every morning I do a 3-hour routine to get ready for work. (You don't want to know the details.) I can't feel my Secret spreading on my armpits, in fact I don't sweat from T2 down because that unintentional (autonomic) function doesn't automatically happen without the spinal cord.

EVERY person that has any kind of paralysis doesn't have bladder and bowel control because those function are controlled around L5. With paralysis, the degree of function varies. No one is the same. If we were, there might be a cure for SCI (spinal cord injury). Thank the Big Parents in Heaven again because I'm not sure sure I could get through this without creating the great bathroom stories for comic relief.

Except Isaak has full function of every function he wants because McDreamy DID IT! Doesn't happen in real life very often.

BUT the story ends happily because every night I transfer onto the bed and EVERY single night I sigh with unintentional relief because my tailbone finally gets the weight of the world off it. Then I do a little Reiki on myself and I bless my injury that it will be the best it can be. (Why hope for a loser injury when you can have the best.) And I ask Big Momma to let me have another great day just like the one that just shared with you.