Hope - The Transverse Myelitis Association (TMA)

Hope - The Transverse Myelitis Association (TMA)

Here was the big message everyone in
attendance walked away with: neural restoration is possible. This is
actually a mantra we all should learn and repeat daily. To quote Dr.
Cristina Sadowsky of Johns Hopkins and the Kennedy Krieger Institute, we
are capable of “achieving significant, incremental improvement at any
time following injury.” I repeat: at any time. Whether you were injured
yesterday or like me, seventeen years ago, you can improve.

How many of you long ago gave up on the
idea your condition would ever change? That’s what the doctor no doubt
told you soon after your injury. “I’m sorry, son, there is no recovery
from this.” Before this conference, I believed that almost as a matter
of doctrine. This paralysis is it, I figured. It could only get worse,
not better. My sole focus, outside of exercise, has been trying to avoid
nasty falls, skin breakdown, and infection. Every time I read in the
newspaper about a “breakthrough in paralysis” or some such miracle on
the horizon, I turn the page. Years away and too late for an old-timer
like me, I’d tell myself. I don’t tell myself that anymore.