New article about acute spinal cord injury - feedback would be very welcome

[Wise Young]

I just wrote an article for this forum, about acute spinal cord injury. I tried to distill into this article the most frequently asked questions and answers that I have given to people. It would be great if people took a look at it and told me whether they agree or disagreed with what it says, typos, etc. Thanks very much.
http://carecure.rutgers.edu/spinewire/Articles/AcuteSCI/AcuteSCI.htm
Wise.

[dogger]

Wise , i think it is good and seems to cover the questions i remember having following my injury .

thank you
dogger

every day i wake up is a good one .

[Karen'sMom]

Wise,

Your article is excellent! I wish this had been available to our family 17 months ago when our daughter was injured. This answered some of the questions I still didn't know the answers to. Thank you very much for writing such an in-depth article. I know it will be extremely helpful to families of new injuries.

I'm not sure if it is just my old computer but it showed a lot of 'code words' or whatever they might be, such as (endif), etc. throughout the article. I was going to print it off, but I thought I would wait to see if those 'codes' disappear.

Thank you again for your complete dedication to helping those with spinal cord injuries.

Sincerely,
Darlene

wisey


thank you much doc

[KLD]

I also see a lot of HTML code on the page when I go to this using my work computer (Windows 2000). Will try at home on my Mac. Using my Mac, all the threads on this forum are way off the page to the right, unlike the other forums.

We also need to add a link for this forum to the first/home page of Care/Cure. Are we going to add the word "New" to the title of the forum as suggested?

[betheny]

Dr. Y-
I love this article (Punctuation info, etc., needs fixed.) It answers the questions people have in terms they can understand. What I have always felt most important is not to remove hope too soon, and I think the info here is positive without offering false hope. I'd been hurt a week before I ever heard the term "incomplete". I wish this info re emergency treatment could go to every ER in the world. Thanks for all you do-Betheny

[Stacey]

Dr. Young,
Thanks for the article. I'm going to print it out and take it to my husband's rehab center. He was injured (C5-C/6 incomplete) just five months ago. All I heard at the beginning was that he was going to paralyzed for the rest of his life and we had to learn to live with it. No one gave us any hope of him ever recovering.
I wish that I had had this info in the beginning. WE have learned not to listen to most of the doctors and therapists, if we had, he would not be standing today. WE are working slowly towards ambulation.
Thanks for the article. It is the most positive one that I have read.
Stacey

[Wise Young]

Thanks, everybody. I will work on the punctuation and the html coding so that it would appear properly. The reason is that I have been using a rented computer and don't have all the programs that I normally use to create html pages.

KLD, try the forum again. I have looked at it with Netscape, Explorer, and Safari. It seems to be okay for me.

Wise.

[~Patrick~]

Nice!, I think that is just enough info to keep their hopes up. I know if I would have found this place sooner I would have had alot better care. I will print this out to hand to people who dont understand and want to learn more. Thank you Dr. Young.

Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got
..........Janis Joplin

[Chris Chappell]

Wow! Great information.

Not only for sci sufferers but quite possibly for those who control a major portion of the purse strings and policy - gov't.

[antiquity]

Very indepth and comprehensive. An excellent reference guide for old and new injuries.


Jeff, Dr. Young, I'm on a Mac too and this forum is off center for me as well as was the Legislative forum until recently.

[ijan01]

I thought your article was an excellent overview and you crammed a great deal of info into it without it becoming too overwhelming. On my computer, apostrophes and quotes aren't reading correctly.

The article was particularly helpful because my family is arguing with workman's comp right now about trying to get my father to a rehab facility better equipped to deal with his level of injury. He's C3 since Dec 26th of 2002 and the little local hospital isn't the best at this sort of thing but workman's comp doesn't want to fund sending him elsewhere.

I used some of your statements (credited you too!) in a series of letters I've sent to them. Don't know if it'll help but at least I've tried.

Thanks for your efforts on behalf of this group.e

[Wise Young]

ijan01 and others, thanks. I have updated the article and hopefully some of the html coding problems are gone and the page should be showing up properly. Wise.

[TD]

A great and informative article, Wise. I emailed my suggested changes to you.

TD

"And so it begins."

[drberg]

Dr. Young, your article is very educational ! I learned a lot. I'm 31 years post C6 incomplete and I often wonder what kind of return I may have had if methylprednisolone was available in 1972 when I was injured.

~Dennis

[SCI-Nurse]

Wise - I have just finished reading your new post on this new forum. You have put a complex subject/injury into terms that are understandable for those who need it most. As has been noted, most importantly, you have presented this so that the newly injured family can find reason for hope. The "negative, done-deal and no words to offer realistic hope" is what we hear daily from the people that call the NSCIA Resource Center, when there is a person with a new SCI in the family. I am asking our staff to read this article, bookmark it and refer our callers to it. Thanks so much! CRF

[lilsister]

well done.

[Wise Young]

Thanks.

[handibob]

in the early stages friends and family are asking what they can do to help, maybe a reference as to how to get politically involved. like calling or writing thier politicians for funding like the crpa. as we all know, people trying to help are in the greatest numbers shortly after the injury so a suggestion to try this, may be the best time. bob

[Wise Young]

Handibob, good idea... I am not sure that I am the best person to write such an article. Wise.

[handibob]

from the legislation forum could do it, i'd like to help but my typing skills are less than poor. bob

[Brian S]

Dr. Young,

Thank you for an excellent article. I can only echo the thoughts of everyone else in this thread. It was months after my injury before I really understood what was going on. Your article would have helped immensely back in those early days.

I like the idea of printing this article and distributing it to local trauma centers and ERs. I think it could help new SCI patients as well as help train the medical staff. Dr. Young, do you mind if I take copies of this to the hospital where I was originally treated?

[Wise Young]

Brian, I put a pdf file of the article on the main site that should print out with page breaks. Sure, no problem with distributing it. I will be continuing to update it with comments and suggestions from people. Wise.

Dr. Young, the article is very good. And the phrase " recovery is the rule and not an exception after spinal cord injury" is just wonderfull and makes me very happy.
Chris.

[Wise Young]

Christiane, thanks. I just edited the article a little and also added a pdf file of the article for those who may want to download the file. Wise.

[duceno1]

Thanks Dr. Young for taking the time to write such an insightful article. The time following the onset of a SCI is one filled with endless questions and concerns, and not always are the answers easily accessible. Thank you for providing a resource making them so.

"I will drive the lane,
I will drain the three,
I will finger roll,
but the one thing I will not do is FADE AWAY"