Can she feel cold or warm?? Obviously, she can feel above her neck, so she has feeling in her face and head, but can she feel other things?? Like if she got stung by a bee, she probably wouldn't feel it, right??
Now this is getting really personal and private, but if she has sex, can she feel that?? How does she poop and pee?? She probably can't even feel it when it comes.
im guessing if she is quadrapalgic,she cant feel anything from the neck down,including pain and other sensations.as for the bathroom,i guessing she waers adult diapers,but who knows
shareSorry but you may wanna use the term "disposable briefs" it doesn't make people who need them feel like children.
"Out of all the things I've lost in my life, I think I miss my mind the most."
-Mark Twain
No diapers, colostomy bag and urine bag.
shareThat's not necessarily true. I'm a paraplegic, and some of my friends are quads. None use colostomy bags. Two use catheters, either indwelling or external, and urine bags. Another does intermittent catheterization, so no urine bag.
The thing is with these kinds of injuries is that they are all different; there is no one common way the people with them have to deal with them.
I'm a paraplegic, and I am friends with many other paras and many quads, so I understand their condition quite well. There is no one answer to this question; every injury is different. There are so many factors that come into play here that no two spinal cord injuries are alike. Injuries are generally categorized as "complete" or "incomplete", and there are variations in each of those categories, too. People with "complete" injuries generally have neither sensation nor voluntary movement below their level of injury. Those with "incomplete" injuries generally have either some sensation or some voluntary movement, or both, below their levels of injury. Further, the part of the spinal cord that is affected also matters. Quadriplegics are people who have injuries to some point along the cervical (upper) spine. Paraplegics have injuries to the thoracic or lumbar spinal cord. This affects what limbs are useable, and to what degree, and what balance they may have, depending on how much use of their abdominal muscles they have. And, obviously, it affects how much they can use their lungs, as you saw in the movie.
To complicate matters further, the effects of the injury also depend on how badly the spinal cord is damaged. Completely severed spinal cords are rare, usually the result of gunshot or knife wounds. Most commonly the spinal cord is crushed to some degree. That degree of damage affects what the person can do or feel, regardless of whether they are quads or paras, regardless of what level of the spinal cord was injured.
I know quads who can tell when they have to go to the bathroom, and can control that. I know paras who don't know if they have to go, and have no control over it. And I know paras and quads who have just the opposite abilities. I know a quad who can walk a few steps, with great difficulty, so he uses a power wheelchair to get around. Another quad friend can feel pain below her level of injury, but cannot move her legs. She does have some limited use of her arms, unlike Brooke Ellison, and can feed herself.
I could go on and on here with more descriptions of all this, but the point is that there are no set rules for people with spinal cord injuries. Each one is different, and each person with them has different abilities and limitations.
Thank you for the indepth post. I know little about SCI, but I know enough to know it just doesn't matter where the injury occurred but also the degree of injury. Many associate tetraplegics with "no movement below the neck"--no use of the four limbs (hence "tetra" or "quad" used), but as you explained, some have use of arms and even hands. There is more to understand about SCI than simply the diagnosis one has.
shareWell, this is just from my own personal experience, since I am a paraplegic too, and to answer your question: basically, I can feel anything that is above my level of injury. Anything that's from my chest up feels and operates as normal. When I'm cold, I feel cold, when I'm hot, I feel hot, when I'm hungry or thirsty....yeah, I think you get the point; everything's normal. As for the restroom thing, I don't have any control over and I do wear adult diapers (or briefs, but honestly the term "diaper" has been thrown around so many times in my life, I'm really just used to calling it that) I haven't had sex yet, but I have read that paraplegics can have sex...no, they can't really feel it, and if they do its a different sorta feeling, I guess....and we can get orgasms too, and also, since we can't feel anything 'down there', that means that anything above the level of injury is twice as more sensitive (meaning we'd need more foreplay than the actual act of sex). For Brooke, however, she is not a paraplegic because she is paralyzed from the neck down. She more than likely can't feel anything at all except her face, but that's just my guess. Oh, and I do have movement in my feet sometimes, even though I can't feel or control them, sometimes my leg/foot will just sorta kick out, lol. It's called a "spasm", and, it's hard to describe, but, it's like I feel it move but at the same time I don't feel it move....it's more like a tugging sensation I guess you could say. Lol, the human body is so weird
shareThank you too for sharing. When SCI were even less known by me, it was interesting to see a woman on "Discovery Health" who had tetraplegia. She still had some use of her arms. She was featured because she was carrying a child. Her greatest risk seemed to be "autonomic dysreflexia," but she pulled through, and she delivered a healthy boy.
What was interesting to me was, despite being tetraplegic, she described her intimacy with her husband as... not hurt by her injury. She said it was actually "better" than before the injury! She said it was different but "for some reason" better than before. It was the first time I realized having paraplegia or tetraplegia is not necessarily what most think.