7 Things You Didn’t Know About Paraplegics

It’s not true. There is so much more to being paralyzed than not walking. It’s not having control of your bladder and bowel movements. It’s not having sexual function. It’s bowel training and using a catheter every 2-3 hours. It’s learning to drive with your hands instead of your feet.

   2. Because frequent catheing (putting a tube in to express urine), urinary tract infections are common. My husband, Arthur, probably has one every 6 weeks. They give him fevers, chills, night sweats. And each time a stronger medication to knock it out. He’s sick for several days when he has a UTI and stays in bed. This weakens him and he needs to build up his strength again.

   3.  They fall periodically. Recently on the way to meet me at a function, my husband fell twice while navigating speed bumps in a parking lot that wasn’t set up for wheelchair use. Ideally, a paraplegic is strong enough to get him/herself back in the wheelchair. But not everyone is strong enough. And having metal rods in your spine limits range of motion.

He’s fallen while going up a ramp onto the sidewalk, he’s fallen because he leaned forward too far in his wheelchair and was top heavy, he’s fallen transferring from wheelchair to the commode. Sometimes a neighbor helps, sometimes a stranger, occasionally he calls the paramedics. It’s a jarring experience and can set him back a day or more.

    4. The family may not support your independence. My goal was to help my husband be as independent as possible. That meant learning to go shopping by himself, learning to cook and learning to drive again using his hands instead of his feet.

Not everyone was supportive of my husband getting his driver’s license, and with good reason. Aside from the accidents he had before he became a paraplegic, at 70, his reflexes are not as sharp as they used to be. But that would be true whether or not he was a paraplegic. I think he is more careful now than he was before the motorcycle accident that left him a paraplegic.

     5. Getting a license to drive a handicapped vehicle requires a lot of work and money, at least in the State of Maryland. We had to pay almost $1,000 for the driving instruction course.  He had to have a vehicle that is handicapped equipped, which is quite costly. We were fortunate to find used one reasonably priced on Craig’s List.

My husband had to practice using your hands and getting used to not having his feet to put on the brake.

The doctor needs to sign off on it. The instructor inspects the vehicle to make sure it safe for the paraplegic. Among the changes to make our van ready: a piece of metal is in front of the pedals to avoid his foot sliding forward onto one of them by accident, a strap was installed to put around his chest so he didn’t list forward or side to side. A knob is attached to the steering wheel. Each of these things needed to be put in by an authorized mechanic who specifically works on handicapped vehicles. It cost $500 over and above in the cost of the vehicle.

It took almost a year to go through the process and stay on top of it each step along the way.

    6.  Not all of your costs are covered by your health insurance. Things like gloves (necessary to keep sterile when catheing), adult diapers, wipes and chucks (bed pads), laxatives and suppositories are all out of pocket. A sliding shower chair and drop down commode may also not be covered because they are specialty items. Or they may be partially covered like catheters.