TMI Talk

A person with a spinal cord injury (SCI) not only loses the ability to walk, but all function and control below the level of injury. This diagram shows the levels and what is affected by an injury in each. My neck was broken at the C6/C7 level, so everything there and below was affected.

Way down there at the bottom, you'll see that it says "Bowel, bladder."

Just so you know, if you're opposed to TMI stuff, stop reading now.

Before my accident, I just assumed people in wheelchairs would just go in the handicapped stall, get onto the toilet somehow, and do their business like anybody else. Yeah, not so much.

#1. Most quadri- and paraplegics use intermittent catheters inserted into the bladder through the

urethra roughly every 4 hours. For REALLY TMI reasons I won't go into, I have a suprapubic catheter, which is a catheter tube that goes through my belly into my bladder. The other end attaches to a tube with a bag on the end that I change twice a day. During the day I use a smaller bag that I attach to my lower leg with straps. I empty it as necessary throughout the day directly into a toilet or into a bottle if we're on the road or at my mom's or aunt's where I can't fit into the bathrooms. At night, I change to a larger nighttime bag that I don't have to worry about emptying until morning.

#2. Spinal cord injury leaves a person with little to no control over when they have a bowel movement. Problematic, right? To avoid accidents, we have to do a bowel program daily or every couple of days. Daily for me. ChristopherReeve.org describes it this way:

The program usually begins with insertion of either a suppository or a mini-enema, followed by a waiting period of approximately 15-20 minutes to allow the stimulant to work. After the waiting period, digital stimulation is performed every 10-15 minutes until the rectum is empty. 

As a quad, I need tools to help me do this, namely a suppository inserter and a digital bowel stimulator. Or as Reanne, the lady who trained me on doing my bowel program independently called them, "party sticks." 😄

So now you know! There are lots of odd things about spinal cord injury, but I'm grateful that someone figured out how to manage this stuff!