It Takes Nerve

Looking over some older posts, and reviewing some email messages I’ve sent to friends and family members, I notice that I’ve been describing the condition that was (mostly) responsible for my long hospitalization as “myelitis”. That’s true enough and simple enough, but it’s also somewhat as if I had said I had a fever, sore throat, and breathing problems when in fact I had influenza.

Strictly speaking, the spinal cord condition that caused me so much trouble was a “spinal dural arteriovenous fistula”, which the medical folks seem to refer to as “SDAVF”. It seems to be a fairly rare condition, and from what I’ve read it appears that I was fortunate that it affected my spinal cord rather than my brain.

I was definitely fortunate that it was discovered and diagnosed fairly early, and that I had excellent medical care in top-notch facilities.

Since being released from the last of the three hospitals and concentrating on rehabilitation, I’ve been concerned about how soon—and how much—I’m likely to recover. I am of course hoping and striving for a full recovery that has me eventually in better-than-ever condition, but I’ve never been so optimistic that I could ignore reality. For a while it didn’t look as if my legs and feet were ever going to follow my brain’s orders properly. Lately, however, my recovery has been accelerating, with nerves and muscles cooperating rather well.

Dr. Nishida, the doctor whom I’ve been visiting for a couple of decades now for everything from colds to sprains, and who is now making monthly house calls to check on me, runs his own clinic as a GP these days, but was originally a specialist neurosurgeon/brain surgeon. He tells me that although the nerves connecting spinal cord to limbs readily regenerate it’s very unlikely that spinal cord nerve cells had died and are now regenerating. Instead, it’s rather as if some of them had been temporarily “asleep” and are now gradually awakening.

Whatever the nerve details may be, I’m very pleased to see returning function and almost daily expansion of my range of physical activity. Less than a year ago, I could barely stand up. A couple of days ago, I was practicing precise control of my foot and ankle as I maneuvered my car around my yard. It did take some courage to fire up the engine and hit the gas pedal for the first time in nearly two years, since it requires a light and careful touch to avoid sudden and very dramatic acceleration, and many people would be annoyed if I were to embed the car in my house, but in fact it went very smoothly.

Sometimes it takes nerve, sometimes it takes nerves, sometimes it takes both.