Alton Ryder's TM in a nutshell
Alton Ryder, age 63, retired engineer/physicist.
Transverse Myelitis since 7/24/97, slowly healing.
Cause unknown, possibly a blocked artery between T9, T10.
All the nasty illnesses have been ruled out; I'm very lucky!
Initial symptom was a feeling of pressure in the right kidney
after dinner [500 miles from home.] Ten minutes later my legs
were "on fire"; another fifteen minutes and I was paraplegic
with severe back pain.
Three months in acute physical therapy [St Joseph's in Nashua,
New Hampshire --- God bless them!] My memory is vague, but I
think I was barely able to wiggle my left foot when I came home.
Three to four months of physical therapy at home and now on
outpatient PT. At the end of February (seven months) I was in
a wheelchair, using a slide board for transfers. The right leg
was moving but without utility. I could use a walker to go about
eight feet, twice a day.
At nine months I could walk slowly for fifteen minutes with both
legs with arm support, two steps without. I couldn’t manage stairs.
Now at over ten months I have started to use forearm crutches and
to do stairs.
I think I will be able to safely drive a stick shift car soon.
Not as safely as before, perhaps, but adequately. I would be
functionally descriptive if I were to carry a large yellow sign
saying, "Student Driver." The safety level is probably the same.
[I think I am writing this for an audience of fellow TM people.
If that is not the case, I'm going to be very embarrassed.]
It seems that most of the motor functions will recover, although
the right leg wants to be bow-legged, club footed, and hammer-toed.
It also wants to be to the left of my left leg. A real beauty, I am.It
also wants
3/18/09 8:05 PM
Transverse Myelitis Internet Club List: Alton Ryder's TM in a nutshell
Sensory functions are really screwed up. For the first few months,
all contact was perceived as pain, “like stepping into a blackberry
patch.” Then slowly a return to normality in some areas, nada in
others. I have enough sense of pressure in my feet to maintain
balance, and I feel pain when the toes of my right foot get
crunched, as they often do.
Like many others with TM, my lower thighs often feel as if I had
tight tourniquets there. But only when I am sitting.
Basic bodily functions came back under control after about three
to five months.
Lessons learned:
1. My wonderful wife of 41 years is a stalwart supporter.
This has been harder on her than on me.
2. I live in a supportive community.
3. The able-bodied don't understand obstacles to handicap mobility.
4. By the time the control nerves heal, the muscles are gone.
Therapy now means working hard to rebuild muscles.
I couldn't find this in the archives, so here the rest is recreated.
A year after the onset I was walking on the treadmill for 30 minutes
at a time, but it was becoming painful. Spasticity was twisting the
right foot such that I was walking on the outside edge, not the sole.
Botox had no effect.
Surgery corrected it and some other, minor, problems. The large
tendon connected to the muscle causing most of the problem was cut,
passed through from back to front between the leg bones, and
reconnected next to the big toe. Henceforth spasticity would pull the
foot flat. A toe tendons were cut. The little toe, having been walked
on painfully for months, was removed. The remaining problem was a
contracture tilting the calcaneus (heel bone) outward. It was a
serious mistake to not have fixed it at the same time.
I now could again walk with crutches, albeit with an AFO bracing the
ankle.
An accident nearly severed the left Achilles tendon, and I was back in
the wheelchair.
Inattention to what I was doing to myself kept me there.
Alton
