Biggest news I can think of is the Kevin Everett spinal cord injury during the NFL’s first weekend of games. C-3 complete, though he had some sensation initially, yet his primary doc, guy named Cappuccino, immediately declared him ’likely never to walk again’. I heard that shit myself the day after my own injury (thanks for the upbeat prognosis). Yet only one day later, Cappuccino had reversed field, with the startling news that Everett was now moving upper and lower extremities! Talk about a turnaround. Seems within the first 20 minutes after his injury, and with Cappuccino in contact with Miami Project’s Barth Green, Everett was given ice-cold saline solution IVs, in the hope of inducing hypothermia which in turn would keep the ravages of inflammation to a minimum. Later, they used a different technique in administering even more cold saline, and wa-la! a day after he was proclaimed ‘paralyzed for life’, Everett’s moving, albeit modestly, but moving nonetheless.
What a beautiful, tortured can of worms this opens up. First off, I must offer condolences, congratulations and best wishes to Everett and his family; glad to see he MAY have significant return of function, which remains to be seen, of course, and clearly he isn’t going to walk out of the hospital in a few days nor will he be returning to the football field with a titanium plate in his neck (‘course you never know with athletes; that’s all we know, our playing fields).
Can of worms? Well, if this is an effective acute therapy, and as some have claimed, its benefits have been speculated about since the 70’s, every damn plegic still breathing has got to ask, ‘Wait a minute, why the eff wasn’t this done to me?’ OK, it wasn’t perfected back then or even lately; delivery was a hassle, they hadn’t really tested it, whatever the reasons but it hasn’t been widely applied. Until now, and from this day forward, every acute injury SHOULD BE demanding similar treatment. Sure, methyl prednisone was used along with the saline, he was decompressed and stabilized, and all told, the entire effort probably meant little long-term loss of function, but if this method actually works, and his recovery is not simply due to his conditioning or the hated assertion, “I vowed I would overcome, and with God’s help, and my strong will…” (yeah, hated because those that ‘come back’ from the abyss known as acute paralysis evidently are more favored by God than those who don’t, or possess greater will and/or courage than the rest of us, assertions I flatly defy) then this method has got to be universally instituted, immediately.
Nah, while it’s great news for Everett and his family (and the Miami Project, who have advanced the therapy-), there’s untold and ongoing sadness, too, to balance and remind us, including the little boy we just learned about in rural Oregon who, injured in a car crash but not taken to the hospital (his parents are Christ Scientists, I believe, and don’t prescribe to traditional medical practices), died the other day from infection while laying in his bed with quadriplegia, his parents fervently praying for a cure. Could cold saline have helped? Probably, but we’ll never know; the therapy is just getting heard about now, and yeah, if effective, every ER on the planet MUST have the means to administer it, hell, every ambulance, since time is the critical factor in acute injuries.
Everett was, in truth, fortunate to play in the NFL, with its vast resources, and to play for a team, the Bills, with an owner, Ralph Wilson, who had the vision to keep a spinal injury specialist on staff for just such an occasion. All NFL teams should soon follow this example, if, again, the therapy -and not God’s favor or the patient’s super-human will- proves to be effective.
And imagine the people recently injured, who learn about this therapy and yet weren’t given it. ‘You mean I could have been restored, I had a chance yet I wasn’t GIVEN the chance?’ Zounds…
In my travels speaking to plegics and families, I have long been saying the real cure will be in treating the acute injury immediately, to reverse the inflammation and its affects. This is no damn consolation to chronics, believe me, but I go on to talk about other procedures in the pipeline, etc. and note that there are committed researchers who believe they can help the chronically injured. Yet I know in my heart of hearts that I am among the last generation of the paralyzed; acute therapies, such as cold saline, are coming on line which will soon render paralysis…well, treatable.
As for we chronics, our road remains…littered with stones.
~
Got an email the other day that really irked me: “…and I’ll bet you and your wife sit around and smoke dope all day, sounds like your (sic) a real stoner and so is she.”
Wrong. Oh, perhaps it’s all my mistake, in that I may be a bit too flippant with my smoking references, but I would like to set the record straight here and now: I smoke a small bit of herb usually once a day, at the end of the day before I hit the sack. Some days, as I did on my recent trip, I would smoke in the afternoon then again before bed, depending on pain (like many plegics, I deal with daily, ongoing and in some instances extreme back pain; usually by 3 o’clock or so, it hits but I’m normally able to hold off till bedtime, unless traveling).
For the record, however, my wife DOES NOT smoke marijuana, and has not since 1989. She never enjoyed it, did it a few times with me, and has not since. She has never done drugs (cocaine crank H ‘shrooms what have you), and has never been drunk in her life. Yet, after meeting her, many people chalk up her constant exuberance to being loaded; they do not understand she is LOADED ON LIFE!
My thing is a little weed, cigars, some strong coffee, and that’s it. When I mention herb, it’s just me, baby, tokin’ away…
~
I have a small, portable toilet I use when I go on the road, domestic and international, for my bowel care needs. You may not want to hear this but, too bad, it’s an interesting detail. After my injury, and when the travel bug hit again, I searched the available products and found them all entirely lacking: either way too flimsy, or simply ridiculously expensive, so I decided to make one myself. I went to my dad’s shop and stole a bunch of billet aluminum pieces and fashioned myself a strong, lightweight, 21st Century porto-commode. Of course, I decked it out with some racing touches, put a couple burnished aluminum things on it, and it looks pretty slick. It’s gone with me all around the world, and shows no wear.
Anyway, it went with me on my latest trip, and usually is the first thing we put into the luggage. Yet, out in eastern Nevada one morning, we were in a hurry to meet up with some people, Pia was on the phone and I simply forgot to pack it. Later that night, we realized we’d forgotten it; a problem, in that not only did I not have a commode, but I’d lost something quite unique and a pain in the ass to replace. We went about our trip, found a plastic one for the time being which worked OK, but Pia said, “On the way back, let’s see if it isn’t still there.”
“Pia, it’s gone, alright? Somebody found it and took it or used it for parts or sold it for scrap. I’ll just make a new one.”
“No,” she insisted, “It’s still there at the motel.”
“We’ll see.”
Several days later, on our return through Nevada and yielding to my wife’s demands, we drove back to that 50’s era, funky motel. What do you think we saw as we drove into the parking lot, sitting outside next to the manager’s open door, but my sparkling aluminum commode? We went inside and, after we registered our astonishment, the manager replied, “Hell, kids, this is Nevada, we still got honor out here. I figured it was probably something you needed, and whoever made it did a helluva job, so I just put it outside where it’d be easy for you to find.”
When I offered him a small reward for keeping it, he got offended. “Not everybody’s out for a buck, son, and not everybody needs a reward for doing the right thing.”
I shit like a king that evening, believe me; a grateful king…
~
And now that we’re home, there’s another major ‘mo-fo’ going on in our area: the Moonlight Fire up in Plumas county. Many thousands of acres torched, and no end in sight, the authorities claiming “16% contained,” a more vaporous and meaningless figure I have yet to hear. You may say, “Ah hell, another Northern California wildfire, no big deal,” but this one IS a big deal. Let’s ignore the fact that Chuck Norris, Eddie Van Halen and Brad Pitt among others have vacation properties in the area (oh, no!), the real tragedy is in what will then unfold for that depressed, already-suffering region once the fire burns out. The economy is crippled due to years of environmental strangleholds on logging, many will be forced to find work elsewhere, and those that choose to stay or have no choice are faced with a very bleak future. Then, when the rains come, you’re talking rivers of mud, with all ground vegetation gone.
Logging policies and reclamation practices, along with forest thinning and a change in how the Forest Service deals with fires, have got to take place now, or these scenes and the ones you surely saw in Lake Tahoe earlier this year, will become common place. Then there won’t be any forests left to preserve, you hear that, enviros? How’s that for a big-time backfiring of your ideals, your years of ignoring what seasoned foresters have been saying? You cannot simply ‘leave Nature alone’, we must manage ALL of our resources wisely. The mantra must now become, “conservation instead of preservation.” No other choice…
~
And I’m paying for my travels this week with a nasty stomach virus. In my 8 years of paralysis, I have yet to deal with diarrhea…until this week, and man…
Yeah, I know, ‘Haven’t you had enough, v?’ I don’t have much to do with that, it seems, just gotta keep…surviving.
~
(Note: My book, ‘Scouring the globe for a cure: a disabled man’s experiences with stem cell treatment’
can be purchased at the following Web address:
www.booklocker.com/books/2857.html)
