how I broke my neck and recovered - my spinal cord injury story

hello and welcome to my channel my name is caitlin and today i'm going to be telling the story of how i broke my neck so it starts in 2014 so today towards the end of 2014 i decided that i wanted to try pole dancing classes so my mom and i went together and we tried out a class and i immediately loved it i was hooked i wanted to go back for more classes and that's exactly what we did we started going um to poultons and classes a couple of times a week um in the evenings at um a studio near to where we live um so that we carried on doing these programs and classes um from the end of 2014 and we carried on um in 2015 as well in 2015 i did my first performance my first showcase i absolutely loved it and i loved the feeling of being on stage and choreographing a routine and performing it i decided that i wanted to carry on doing um more so in 2016 i started looking at entering some competitions and there was the 2016 um studio showcase that um happens every year that i wanted to perform and again so i started training more and more i would go um for extra lessons to help with choreography and creating these routines and i was at the studio quite often and then one day on the 15th of september in 2016 in the evening i went to a class that class that i went to um was a class that i went to every week what we would do is um there was a stretch class and then a poll class directly after so i would usually do we call it doing the double and i would do the stretch class and then the pole class my mom would do the stretch and pull class with me and at that point my sister was also coming to the stretch classes with us but she didn't do the pole classes she would just sit and wait for us while my mom and i did the pole class so uh we did the straight class and then i was in the pulp class and during the poll class we were trying out um a move called brass monkey and from brass monkey and there's a move that you can go into called brass bridge if you're a pole dancer you'll know exactly what i'm talking about if you're not a pole dancer i'm gonna put a picture up on the screen and you'll see exactly like what the move um looks like so that was um the move that i was doing and it was my first time ever trying this um move i had done brass monkeys before but i'd never done brass bridges um before and i tried the move i immediately got it on the first try it felt really comfortable really easy actually and um the first time i tried it i had um the instructor spotting me she was like right underneath like ready to catch me if anything happened and nothing did happen i felt thought that i was fine so i was like okay let me try again and i asked my sister to take a picture of me so i got into the move the instructor helped me into it um was there while i was getting into it to make sure nothing happened and then because i wanted this picture the instructor then stepped away to step out of the frame of the picture and in that moment i lost the grip on my leg and i fell out of the move and i fell onto the floor and i landed on my neck so that was the accident so i fell and i landed on um my neck um and immediately as soon as i fell i felt that i couldn't move at all i felt like i couldn't move my arms i couldn't move my legs and i immediately started shouting and i started shouting i can't move i can't move i can't move um very luckily for me um in that class was someone who happened to be a paramedic so she um like again was very lucky that she was there so she managed to come over um she immediately told everyone to kind of like back away not move me at all and because i was in this very like awkward position where i was basically in a back end um like lying on my like chest um with my neck like hyper extended into the position she then managed to um log roll me out of that position so that i was lying on my back that point i still couldn't feel anything i was very like panicked i was um yeah i was really really worried i had no idea what was gonna happen it felt surreal it felt like the whole experience it felt like it wasn't actually happening to me it felt like something that happens in a movie so then after that um we waited for the like actual paramedics and the ambulance to get there um the person in class who was a paramedic she had a friend that was on call and in the area so she phoned him directly and he arrived pretty quickly and was able to kind of like assess the situation and he had all of his equipment there to take my vitals and um all of that and then the actual ambulance that was supposed to take me so hospital arrived um i think it was only a few minutes later but it felt like um forever while i was there waiting um i got then transported um put onto a stretcher transported in ambulance to the closest hospital which was actually only like five to ten minutes away from the pole studio and i went into um the emergency room there um it was a very very very kind um nurse that was kind of like overseeing um me and um looking after my case basically while i was there at that um hospital and she was um very very kind she was like checking up on me she was checking out by my family as well because um my mom and my sister had obviously been in the class so my mom was able to ride with me in the ambulance but only one person was allowed to come in an ambulance so my sister had to stay at the studio my dad then went um we um my mom obviously phoned my dad when um once the ambulance had been called and everything so he then came to the studio he picked jay up and then he met us at the hospital so my mom my dad and my sister were all there at the hospital and then i got imaging done x-rays done at that point they thought that it was my c4 vertebra um that had been broken from the imaging and x-rays that they'd done or they were worried that it was my c4 vertebra that was damaged so they were not putting me on any sort of um strong painkillers or any sort of sedation because they were worried that if i went under basically that i might lose my airways like my like might lose my breathing because of the potential of it being a c4 um injury so they were not putting me under any sort of pain medication or sedation at that point and they then called the neurosurgeon and they were waiting for um a response from the neurosurgeon because i needed to go into surgery at this point it was a lot of waiting i was in the um like er i think but i my memories are like all very like vague of this um point of like what like the environment was like and what the room was like i was only basically seeing the ceiling i was stuck on my back unable to move at all my neck was in um i was on like the blocks and my head was being like stabilized so that i couldn't move at all and possibly like damage my spinal cord further so i couldn't like really look around um at all but what i can remember from this point was that i was experiencing the most intense extreme pain in my right hip um it was so bad that i actually asked um the doctors and the nurses that were working there if they could take me for x-rays to go x-ray my hip because i thought that i had broken my hip in before i was convinced that that sort of pain there had to be something like wrong or broken in my hip with how intense it felt i think like looking back now it was just like must have been nerve pain referring from um the injury but it was the worst like pain um i've ever experienced i think um i don't actually remember any pain associated with like my actual like neck when i fell um it was just that pain in the hip so that was a whole lot of waiting and then um the nurses um were still trying to get a hold of the neurosurgeon at the hospital that i'd first gone to and they weren't getting a hold of him so the very nice nurse that was kind of like looking after me and like my case made the decision um to airlift me to another hospital uh because the neurosurgeon obviously wasn't responding and um she felt that it was just um best that i go to um another hospital so at that point um they then called the helicopter the helicopter arrived fairly quickly and then they did at this point put me under um some sort of like sedation i'm not sure exactly what they gave me but it just made me feel like very like woozy um and yeah like quite like out of it um and the reason that they sedated me at this point was because they um needed to make sure that i wasn't gonna like move at all um during the helicopter ride because obviously the helicopter i can be a bit um bumpy and um they needed to make sure that my neck wasn't going to bump so what they did was they um had these like inflatable things that they blew up and they put like around my neck so it was basically like was in this jumping castle and these inflatable like balloons were either side of my head keeping me in position but the um nurses and the doctors at that point were worried that i might um get claustrophobic and might start to panic and that i might try and like move my like head around at that point so that's why they put me in the station then um after that i was airlifted to the other hospital i arrived at the other hospital went into the emergency room near the trauma unit um there they reassessed me they did more imaging um and more scams um i think ct scans mri x-ray that process took um forever i remember being i think it was in either the mri machine or the ct machine i was there and i it was freezing um cold um i had just like this thin sheets um over me to kind of keep me warm and i was in there for what felt like hours um just like staring at the inside of this machine waiting for it to be done not again being able to move or do anything then um after i was like processed like through the emergency room and taken all the imaging and everything they took me into um the icu then um i think this was the first time i met um my surgeon and my neurosurgeon and he um basically told me and my family like what was going on he confirmed that the injury was not a c4 injury it was a c5 injury and then he then explained the operation that he was going to have to um do and it was going to be a fusion from c4 to c6 but they couldn't do the operation that night because i've fallen during the class which was an evening class so it was around i think 7 00 p.m and i think like at this point it was now like past like midnight we're getting close to midnight but um either way they weren't going to be able to do the operation immediately and that night because they had to order the um metal cage that was going to go into my neck so the way it works with a fusion is they take it's basically like a spacer um and they replace the vertebra with this like metal um spacer cage contraption thing they place it in there and then they secure that to the vertebrae above and the vertebra a lot below so that doesn't um shift in any place or doesn't move and then new bone actually grows um into the metal cage that they've placed there so that was the operation at c4 to c6 um fusion and the next morning i think it was yeah i think it was in the morning that i went in for surgery um i was obviously sedated for the whole surgery so i have no idea what was going on but my parents and my family were all waiting um uh outside the operating room so during the surgery um what the neurosurgeon had told um my parents before going into the surgery was that he really had no idea what the damage to my spinal cord had been um and that um during the surgery while he was um while he's taking out the pieces of the vertebrae that had like completely shattered and replacing it that there was a chance that um after the surgery i would end up permanently paralyzed but there was a chance that i would be able to recover i think there was also quite a high chance of me um dying during the surgery i actually didn't like find out about this until after the surgery had actually been done the neurosurgeon although i was like of legal age and um i was like technically an adult at that point before that like fusion before that surgery um he mostly just spoke to my parents i didn't really have um that much interaction with him besides him just like introducing himself to me and saying that he was the one who was going to do my surgery but then after the surgery um i got the chance to kind of like ask him a lot more questions about what was going on and everything it was just before the surgery that he mostly spoke to my parents so then i got out of the surgery um i got taken back to the icu and they then were waiting for my neck brace to come in to kind of keep my neck again like stable and in place and in the meantime i was still on the orange blocks that were keeping my head um stabilized and in position um and then it was pretty soon after the surgery that they started um doing physiotherapy with me so i had two physiotherapists that would come to me once a day while i was in hospital the physiotherapists would change um but it was always two of them that would come and they would try and get me to do things like sitting up um in the bed um i remember it was like a really big like achievement when i managed to move from uh sitting up on the bed to then moving to the chair next to my hospital bed and then they were also trying to get me to start um walking as well so by this point i was slowly gaining back um a little bit of movements and a little bit of like ability to move my limbs so i was they were starting to get me to try and walk and um they would have me like walking up and down um like hallway of um the icu but obviously like with support they would be like either side of me and um at this point they were kind of doing most of the work i was not really doing much but um it was at least like getting me in getting my muscles like moving again um they really wanted to um try and get me yeah moving as quickly as possible to prevent like um as much muscle from atrophying as possible after spending a week in the icu um my surgeons and my like medical team and made the decision that i was ready to be moved out of the icu i was doing um really well and they didn't have like any concerns that would warrant me staying in the icu any longer um so they then started the process of getting me transferred to a rehabilitation hospital i remember i was so excited to be transferred i couldn't wait to get out of the icu it felt like this big like milestone in this big achievement in my recovery that i was able to leave the icu but then they kept being these delays of getting the paperwork signed by insurance and um getting everything organized so it's supposed to be transferred um i think it was i was supposed to be transferred on the thursday but then we had to wait for the friday and then weren't sure if i was going to go on friday and there was a possibility it would be delayed over the weekend um as well but then i think i ended up going on the friday so it was like a week and one day that i was in icu and then that friday i was transferred from the icu to rehabilitation hospital so then i made it to the rehabilitation hospital they transferred me just um in an ambulance and then they wheeled me in um on a stretcher into the ward that i was staying in in the rehabilitation hospital then um when i got there um a physio and an ot came up to the ward and up to my bed to do an assessment with me and they um basically checked me out they did um like tests for um my movement and my sensitivity and responses um to kind of see where i was at um and then um because i moved that day i didn't have any like official um like physio training sessions or ot training sessions that day i kind of went to bed and then the next morning the next day my like full routine for while i was in the rehab started so then my routine in rehab started i had two physio sessions a day one ot session and one group session i was again in the spinal cord ward so all of the people that i um was kind of like interacting with and um that were in the same physio like rooms in the same group sessions as me and sam ward as me all had spinal cord injuries so my two physio sessions would be like individual just me one-on-one with my physio i had one like main physio that i had for um the duration of like my stay in the rehab and then i had um there were other physios in the ward that i would also sometimes um work with but mostly it was just my main physio that i worked with then my ot sessions as well again i had one like main ot that i worked with then sometimes i would do work with the other ots and then the group stations sometimes that would be ot sometimes that would be physio and um just one of the ots or one of the physios from the ward would facilitate a group session with um everyone i really pushed myself while i was in rehab i was in my physio sessions i would arrive um as early as possible for my physio sessions i would stay later in the afternoons in the physio room there was like this big room that had all the like physio um equipment and different kind of like areas and stations that everyone go to for their physio sessions and then you would go then back up to the ward for the rest of your day i would try and spend as much time as possible in the physio rooms just working on whatever i could work on to try and improve this was partly because i really wanted to try and get better and try and regain as much function as i possibly could as quickly as i could and this was also partially because it was really really boring in um the hospital i was in the rehab hospital for about two and a half months it's obviously like a lot that was involved and a lot that happened during those two and a half months but um too much to really get into for this videos and for the purposes of this videos video i had good days where i felt like i was making a lot of progress and that i was um really like successful and really um actually enjoying myself despite the situation that i was in but there were also um days when i just felt like crying and i felt like i was never going to leave and that um i was never going to recover and it got rough at points but i made it through um towards the end of um my stay at the rehab they um started allowing me to come home for the weekends so i'd be at the rehab for the week and then i'd be able to come home for the weekend and at least spend the weekend in my own house in my own bed and that was really nice and that motivated me to like work even harder to be able to come home like permanently um and originally when i was admitted they kind of gave me a timeline of like six months to a year that i would be there they kind of said we don't know but maybe six months to a year and then after being there for a couple of weeks they were like okay you'll probably be out by january and then um they eventually set my um date of release i think they set it sometime in december but then they moved it up by like two or three weeks um into november and so after two and a half months i got um released from the hospital i got to come home and i got to stay in my own house my own bed um and i became an outpatient so an outpatient basically just means that i'm not staying in the hospital any longer but i was still doing physiotherapy um i didn't go for outpatient patient stations at the hospital that i had been at the rear hospital i've been at i went to one that was closer to home because just an outpatient sensor so they didn't have any inpatient um facility but they did come like recommended from the physios that i had at uh the rehab hospital um so i went there and i was doing physio and ot sessions several times um a week and that lasted for a couple of months i think yeah a couple months to a year that i was doing the outpatient sessions very regularly now and today i don't actually go to physio or ot anymore i do see um a biokinesis i've got certain exercises that i know that i need to kind of like work on in order to still carry on improving but i don't actually have to go for outpatient treatment anymore i often get the question of um whether i'm like fully recovered now or um if i have any lasting impacts and there are like some things which i'll discuss in a moment that still kind of impact me to this day but i will for the most part say that i am fully recovered with a spinal cord injury like mine which is like an incomplete injury and most of the damage was actually caused by the spinal cord swelling um itself there's a possibility that i will continue to recover for even years into the future although um i can definitely tell the improvements that i've seen have slowed down a lot especially since that first kind of year the first year was when i saw the most improvement i made the most kind of rapid recovery but since the end of that first year up until now i have seen improvements it's just been a lot slower so i think that will continue um i can't actually really say though and no one can say feel certain if i will improve and like recover more or if this is kind of me as i am now in terms of the kind of like lasting effects i obviously have the scar from my surgery that's always going to be there um it faded quite well my surgeon did it really nicely where he like put the scar exactly in the fold of my neck you can barely see it you can actually see the staple marks because this um incision was stapled together you can see that more than you can actually see the scar from the incision so that's there then um because of the paralysis what happened was the level of the paralysis made that i could use my like upper traps and my neck muscles those were also intact but obviously everything below that was affected so as i was like recovering and as i was like still mostly paralyzed my upper traps actually started to take on a lot more of the work of the movements that i was doing and started to compensate a lot more for the muscles that weren't really working as much so now i have very overactive um upper traps that kind of take over in um a lot of the movements and a lot of exercises that i tried to do and then because of those upper traps being over active um i have pretty constant like knots in my shoulders um so i do go for like sports massages with my bioconexist every so often to help with those and then i have a lot of just like tension in my neck muscle tension the muscles um are quite um stiff um because my fusion was only um like three vertebra so c4 to c6 i still have quite a lot of mobility in my neck so i can look left and right fine i can roll my neck in circles my mobility is mostly um fine from that perspective it's just the muscles can get a little bit stiff and tight which does limit the mobility a bit and then i do um get spasms in my neck it used to happen quite often um like closer to the injury where i'd get this like spasmodic and then i would have to um like wait for it to release or see a physio to get it to release but now um it happens a lot less frequently then overall my right side was affected quite a lot more by the injury and by the paralysis then my left side so my right hand was um quite severely affected and i had to work like really hard at getting my right hand able to actually like be able to write with it and to recover it to the extent that it has and now my right hand like it's mostly um fine it's just like quicker movements that um i struggle with so the one thing i often show is like flicking my fingers so with my left hand i can flip my fingers like perfectly fine at a quite fast speed with my right hand when i try and go at a speed the fingers don't really open up properly so i can do it slowly and force it to open up but when i try and go quickly um that's what happens i mean my right leg as well my glute is quite under developed compared to my left and i have my exercises obviously that i'm working on that to try and correct that imbalance it's gotten a lot better in the past um few years um and my glutes have gotten a lot stronger but the right is still quite a bit behind the lift in terms of their relative strength and then um the last thing that affects me is still is in very cold weather my muscles um kind of seize up a bit more um yeah if that's the way that i can describe it so it's basically just it takes my muscles like a while to warm up like if it's particularly cold they like they don't go into a spaz it's not a spasm but um they just feel like a lot more tight and it becomes like my movements are a lot stiffer and it becomes like a bit more difficult to be for me to move when it's cold um and that also has gotten quite a bit better since um like in the past few years it used to be really really bad um in the first like year or two after my accident and now it's just kind of when it's very very cold that i really struggle with it and yeah i think that's everything it's hard to kind of think about sometimes because it's become so normal to me it's like just my life and i adapt and get on with it now but um when i like compare it to before or like compared to like other people that have never had this sort of injury you can kind of then see all of these like little like quirks and things that i still um deal with but mostly i'm fine now thank you so much for watching this video i know quite a few people from like my tech soccer that i posted were interested in knowing the story of what happened and i figured it would just be nice to kind of put the whole like story and everything in one place and one video that um i can refer people to um i think i pretty much covered anything but if you have any questions um leave them in the comments below i'll do my best to answer all of them maybe i'll even do like a q a about um this whole topic at some point so definitely leave your questions um below um like the video if you enjoyed it and subscribe to my channel if you want to see more from me in the future thank you so much bye

Channel: Kaitlin Rawson

Views: 47,340

Keywords: sci, spinal cord injury, c5, recovery, pole, pole dance, pole dancer

Id: Jh_NPQEqcRs

Length: 32min 24sec (1944 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 30 2020