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A Random Sample of One
By Heather

Believe it or not, you often hear people with spinal cord injuries talk about their good luck. We’re grateful for what didn’t happen to us. For whatever function we’ve regained through rehab. Many are grateful to be alive. Here are some of the reasons that I’m grateful.

At the age of 44, I consciously moved out of a high-paying, high-stress job to something less lucrative, but more manageable. After 19 years of single motherhood, I proudly sent my daughter to university. And I was a newlywed! Life had to get easier, right? Wrong. I discovered that I had a congenital arteriovenous malformation, or AVM, in my spinal cord. Three arteries had hooked up directly to a vein, and the blood that was meant for the arteries was congesting the vein and compressing the nerves inside my spinal cord. This tiny thing — a few centimetres — was causing my incontinence and constipation, the constant cramping in my calves and the tingling that ascended from my ankles to my thighs one day. It never went away. By the time I had my diagnosis, I was limping around. There were times when I couldn’t walk at all. Without intervention, the vein would only become more congested. This type of malformation — right inside the spinal cord — is very rare. Why me? It had been there all my life with no symptoms. Why now? And the outcome of the surgery, if I chose surgery, was unpredictable — everyone’s spinal cord injury is unique. I was a random sample of one. Three and a half years later, after MRIs and angiograms, spinal surgery, months of rehabilitation and thousands of dollars in physiotherapy and alternative therapies, I can walk. Slowly. Stiffly. For short distances. With a cane. I do daily self-catherizations to empty my bladder, which is no guarantee against ‘accidents’. And you do not want to know what I go through to have a bowel movement. If orgasms were elusive before, they are now virtually non-existent — and not for lack of trying! But I have learned that the practice of counting your blessings is more than fodder for selling facile self-help books. Some blessings seem to be a matter of timing. My daughter, though devastated by my illness, was at least old enough to understand it. Some blessings are matter of timing and hard work. I am educated. I have skills. I can to continue to make a living from my home office (close to the bathroom — a blessing indeed!) Some blessings are a matter of social policy, such as a publicly funded health care system. I had an MRI in three hours because it was truly an emergency. I had five major procedures from top-notch surgeons. I did months of rehabilitation. All without bankruptcy. (Though I often wonder how much better I’d be if I could have stayed longer in rehab, had earlier access to acupuncture and could afford physiotherapy more often. But that’s another story.) But my greatest blessing of all, at the risk of sounding like a facile self-help book, is the support of family and friends. I am especially grateful for unwavering love from a new husband, only a few months into the rest of his life, who found himself pushing a wheelchair and changing his wife’s diapers. I thought I had escaped the rat race when I took on that less lucrative, more manageable job, but Life had other ideas. I guess Life just wanted to make absolutely sure that I know what is important.