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The common person knows very
little about spinal cord injuries and paralysis.
Within a blink of an eye, my life was thrown into the fight of a lifetime and into the world of the “unknown.” I remember the 2 weeks it took me to understand what had happened to my body after severe damage to my spinal cord. Once the morphine levels were decreased and my stake of shock diminished, I remember thinking, “Why do my legs feel so stranger to me?” and “What the heck is a Spinal Cord Injury?” I soon found out and I want to help you understand (if you do not already know). A spinal cord injury (or SCI) is just that... It is an “injury” to the “spinal cord.” Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Well…not so much. I will do my best to keep it simple, while still being as technical as I can.
A Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) is damage to the spinal cord that results in a loss of function such as mobility or feeling. The spinal cord is the body’s message pathway that extends about 18 inches long from the base of the brain, down the middle of the back, to about the waist. The nerves that lie WITHIN the spinal cord are Upper Motor Neurons (UMNs) and their function is to carry the messages back and forth from the brain to the spinal nerves along the spinal tract. The spinal nerves that branch out from the spinal cord to the other parts of the body are called Lower Motor Neurons (LMNs). These spinal nerves exit and enter at each vertebral level and communicate with specific areas of the body. The sensory portions of the LMN carry messages about sensation from the skin and other body parts and organs to the brain. The motor portions of the LMN send messages from the brain to the various body parts to initiate actions such as muscle movement.
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