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Home / Thoughts / How many??

How many??

Written by Sean on Thursday, October 26, 2006

I’ve been feeling deflated these last few hours, mulling something over and over in my mind. My spirit is deflated, as well as my tyres! I’ve needed air in my tyres for a few days, I squeal against tile floors. I only wish it was as simple to get my spirits back up as it will be my tyres. It’s not like one can insert an air pump up one’s arse and feel better, is it? What, you’ll ask, is kicking my spirit down? The repeated opinion from members of the medical and psychological community that "because paraplegia involves so much of the body", us paraplegic wannabe are unlikely to see a medical solution to our BIID this side of the millenia.

I’ve had a Dylan’s song go ’round in my head. He likely never meant it to apply this way, but Blowin’ In The Wind seems to make sense in some ways to my transabled brains just now.

How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?

How many doors must we knock at before we’ll be taken seriously? How many ways must we find to try and reach the "powers that be"?

How many years can a mountain exist
Before it’s washed to the sea?

How long can we remain relatively sane? How long will it be before the last vestiges of our peace of mind gets erroded by repeated refusals, like the sea washes the mountain away?

Yes, ‘n’ how many times can a man turn his head,
Pretending he just doesn’t see?

How many doctors, how many researchers, how many people will refuse to answer our pleas?

The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind,
The answer is blowin’ in the wind.

Yes, the answer is right in front of us. It’s passing by, and we’re too blind to see. The answer is, they’ll continue to ignore us, refuse us, deny us, reject us, spurn us, rebuff us, dismiss us, ad vitam aeternam.

Stormy weather, maelstrom of
emotions. Raging seas,
raging needs.

And here I am, with a hole in the pit of my stomach. And I know the pangs I feel aren’t caused by hunger, as I just ate. And the food could have been cardboard for all I tasted it. And the food could have been sponges for all I enjoyed it. And the pit in the stomach, present pre-dinner, finds itself present, post-dinner as well. Yes, I have a physical reaction to this sense of longing.

Why such a bleak outlook this evening? During a brief exchange with someone in the medical community, I was suggesting in passing, just in case, that maybe they’d be open, or they’d know someone who would be open to help. A spinal cord transection might be too much to ask. Not the first time I’m told that while a single leg amputation might be doable, the impact of a spinal cord injury on the body is too great to "risk". Too great a risk, yes, but to whom? Which is the greater risk: paralyse someone who is fully informed, at their request, with a possibility of something going wrong down the road, or not to paralyse them, and to know they are suicidal, and are likely to attempt to kill themselves as a result of not being able to get what they need?

Maybe in a decade, or three, there will be accepted surgical treatment options for single leg amputee wannabes. Another 25 years after that, maybe double leg amputees will be considered? And then what? Then what… Then, give it another hundred years and there will be some people who practice spinal cord transections on transabled individuals who need to be paraplegic. Only by then, there’s likely to be a cure for spinal cord injuries. By then, I’ll have been dead several times over, me and every currently living transabled individuals.

Don’t get me wrong, I fully support research, even if I’m unlikely to ever see successful results from it myself. If I can take part in making sure someone else doesn’t have to endure and suffer what I’m going through, I’ll gladly do what I can.

But the egoistic part of me screams at the top of his lung: "IT’S NOT FAIR!!! HAVE I NOT SUFFERED MY FAIR SHARE??? ISN’T IT MY TURN?"

This researcher I’ve been in touch with said:

I think you would probably raise more eyebrows with a request for paraplegia compared with amputation because - as you say - it is so much more extreme, permanent and “disabling”. I hope that, as a result of my study, we might be able to propose the introduction of a program similar to that in place for preparation for gender reassignment surgery, and the serious consideration of surgery for people who desire becoming transabled.

Oh yes, that would be the best outcome possible, an actual course of treatment similar to that of gender reassignment surgery.

(As a side note, one doesn’t desire to become transabled… One is transabled, just like one is transgendered. It’s not something one usualy wants to become…)

And here I am, about to get into serious rambling, so I’ll wrap this up, full of mixed emotions.

Tags: Research, Surgery, Transabled, BIID, Amputation, Paraplegia, Spinal Cord Transection