Nerve grafting, the future cure for Tetraplegia

Early in the summer of 2012, a twelve-year-old me walked through a grocery store in Aledo Illinois with her grandmother and mother. The lights were bright, and the air conditioning gave me the chills. The three of us walked towards the registers towards the front when I spotted it; a discount bin of books for 50 cents. I became excited and started rummaging through it, picking up anything that looked remotely interesting. The books were all young adult novels and likely out of my age range, but I grabbed a large stack of them and proceeded to the check out with my family.

After I paid for them, they were packed into grocery sacks and loaded into my grandmother's minivan. From there, they made their journey back to Stafford Virginia in my suitcase.

I picked through the books several weeks later, whilst sitting atop my pink and green colored comforter. When I finished dumping the contents of my suitcase on to the floor, I settled in with a book. At that point in my life, I read a lot of books. I liked to get lost in the characters and imagine myself in their worlds. The one I'd chosen to read was titled "The Ideal Man" by Julie Garwood. I threw the book jacket off to the side and read. The hours melted away as I started and then finished that book, all in one evening.

I wasn't the kind of person that enjoyed romance novels, but I fell in love with the main character; a female trauma surgeon, Ellie. Ellie was everything I wanted to be and more. She was the kind of person I could only dream of being someday. Ellie Sullivan was the reason I fell in love with modern medicine.

Seven years later, in early February of 2019, an 18-year-old me finds herself obsessively watching Netflix instead of reading books. My neurotic behaviors had me watching the same shows over and over and, in this month, I had been watching Grey's Anatomy for the 3rd time through. The medicine in the show, though dramatized and somewhat theoretical at times, got me interested in the idea of nerve grafting. My brain latched on to the idea and for weeks I obsessed over the idea. I couldn't keep myself from asking the question "Could nerve grafting be the cure to tetraplegia?"

Tetraplegia, formerly known as Quadriplegia, has permanently changed the lives of thousands of people and their families for the worse. Every year, it is estimated that around 17, 700 people in the United States will have spinal cord injuries, 11% of which will result in full tetraplegia. The largest cause of these injuries being vehicle accidents, followed closely in percentage by falls. Less than 1% of all spinal cord injuries allowed for full recovery by the time of discharge, meaning the other 99.2% of all spinal cord injuries result in complete or incomplete tetraplegia or paraplegia, according to the National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center.

The 11% of spinal injuries that result in full tetraplegia leave patients without the ability to breathe. The body below the spine no longer functions. Catheters must be used to control the bladder and colostomy bags are often used to prevent accidents from disrupted bowel movements. They are left with no movement in the legs or fingers, and often, the entirety of their arms. The lives they lived before the accident that resulted in their paralysis is gone. Tetraplegics are completely codependent on caregivers and others for every day tasks. Those afflicted will never be able to live completely independent ever again. One such person with this disability is Jim Ryan.

Jim Ryan and his wife were vacationing in Hawaii, enjoying the clear blue waters, when tragedy struck. As he and his wife swam, they noticed a large wave coming. When they dove underneath a wave, Jim was struck by a cresting wave and pushed into the sea floor. His wife quickly searched for her husband and found him unconscious and unable to breathe. She began to scream for help and immediately onlookers ran to her and her husband's aid. After pulling him from the water, preforming CPR, and transporting him over rough terrain to an ambulance, Jim was transported to a hospital in Maui. From this point forward, Jim was no longer able to breathe on his own, being kept alive only by the ventilator and tube down his throat. Though Jim lived, his life is forever affected by his injury. His Hawaiian vacation turned into a freak accident, which would require a lifelong battle with severed disability.