Question
Hi John,
My cousin Kali had a horrible accident. She dove off a boat and the water was to shallow and she hit her head.  She broke 4 bones in her neck.  The doctors say her injuries are between a C2 and a C3.  She is on a resporator and has to be fed through a feeding tube.  The accident occurred on July 9th.  She is totally paralysed from the neck down.  Is there hope? Can she get better or will she be like this for the rest of her life.  Is there any kind of surgeries that could be done or maybe stem cell therapy?  I am out of my mind as so is Kali.  Please give me any info to help.
Thank you

Answer
Hi Suzanne,
Thanks so much for your questions.

I am truly sorry to hear about your cousin.

There is always hope but it is very difficult for me to say what or how much she will recover. It's going to depend on how severe the injury was and how much damage there is to the spinal cord and the surrounding nerves.

Also, it is going to depend on how hard your cousin works in rehab. One of the best things you can do is encourage her and don't let het get discouraged. Always remain positive. Whenever you, other family and/or friends are around her, talk positive. This is very important in her recovery, whatever that may be.

Even though I didn't recover what feeling and muscle use I lost, I am very grateful that people around me remained positive and kept encouraging me. I've seen too many people just give up and get very depressed.

As far as other surgeries or stem cell treatments, there are none. Most everything is either in the research or experimental stages.

Years ago, a researcher/doctor was conducting test on cats and was making some incredible advances in restoring the cats' paralysis but, because the doctor had to inflict paralysis first to the cats, some animal-rights activist broke in and destroyed everything he did including his journals. He has been unable to duplicate his previous research.

I am including some websites with a lot of spinal cord injury info.

This site is one of best I've ever seen.
www.spinalcord.uab.edu

This site has some good links but I just ignore the lawyer links scatted among the them.
www.spinalcordinjuries.com

Here's the rest.
www.spinalcordinjuries.org
www.spine-health.com

I hope this helps and if you want any more sites or have another question, please don't hesitate to ask me anytime.

Thanks again,
John McKinzie