Rehabilitation Update

This week I visited my doctors at TIRR, the rehab hospital where I spent several weeks after my accident. Upon examining my leg, they pronounced my leg back to "normal" strength. Thus they were surprised to hear me complain that my leg was still weak. Once they saw me walk, however, they understood what the problem was. It turns out that my opposing muscle groups are fighting each other, rather that relaxing when the other contracts. This is what they call "spasticity," which is a frequent condition for spinal cord injury victims. Normally, they would prescribe a oral medication that relaxes the muscles. While this is fine for those confined to wheelchairs, it won't work for someone like me who can walk already. Instead, they need to target specific muscles like my hamstrings, calves, and adductors. They propose to inject these areas with phenol, an alcohol that acts like a toxin, in order to kill some of the nerves that contract these muscles. They hope that I'll be able to walk better in this condition, and when the nerves grow back six months later, they will fire properly.

Fortunately, we can do a trial run to see if this would be a good course of action. By injecting me with lidocaine, a local anesthetic, we can simulate the phenol injections, but the effect only lasts two hours. That way, we'll have a pretty good idea of what would happen, and whether it would be a blessing or a curse.

Around April 7, I will be going in for another consultation and the lidocaine injections. Regardless of how we decide to proceed, I'll probably stay at TIRR and do intensive rehab for a couple of weeks. Since my leg strength is now "normal," I want to be able to use it. Though my upper body has improved significantly since Christmas, I've felt very little progress with my legs recently. At this point, even though my insurance will not pay my outpatient physical therapy, I'm willing to spend my dissertation research fellowship in order to get better. My life cannot really proceed in the way I'd like it to until I can walk properly.

Even though I've continued to do lots of exercise in Memphis, without the guidance of the experts in Houston, I feel like I'm spinning my wheels. I'm in a similar situation to someone trying hard to become a good baseball player, but without good coaching. These activities are technical enough that you cannot become better simply by trying hard. I need an expert to focus my energy and optimize my recovery. If that costs $150/hour, then fine. I'm not going wait any longer. The last nine months have felt like half my life.

Tomorrow I leave for DC, where I hope to line up a teaching job for next year. The job search has been an excruciating process, and I've been working at it non-stop since the end of January. At some point, I'd like to have a life that I can enjoy, even if it's just for a year. I don't think I'm asking too much. I really don't.