The Times Magazine 11SPINAL COLUMN
MELANIE REID
his year, for me, looks like it’s
going to be about hard graft.
My equivalent of the
physical labour that has
vanished from the lives of
so many of us – like digging
ditches or cleaning dirty
houses from top to bottom,
the stuff that leaves you
bone weary at night.
By the time you read this, barring Omicron
and anything unforeseen, I’ll probably have
started a medical research trial into spinal
injury. It will mean going to hospital three
times a week for four months to undergo first
physical training, then treatment, then more
training. It will, in short, take over my life.
Getting this far has been eye-opening, with
a tough assessment process. Non-scientists
make assumptions about medical research. We
imagine it’s fairly passive, that you lie on a bed
and have a rest while scientists give you drugs,
prod you, feed you tea and biscuits. A bit like
sleep researchers paying students to have a kip
wearing electrodes. What’s so hard about that?
This research is different. It’s an attempt
to improve function by applying electrical
stimulation, not test the efficacy of drugs. It
follows, therefore, that your existing physical
function and sensation have to be recorded to
a high degree of accuracy as the base measure.
The criteria for participation are narrow
and specific – patients, all tetraplegics, have to
have some function, but not too much, and tobe taking a limited amount of anti-spasmodic
drugs. So far, I’m within the parameters.
Several people assessed sadly haven’t been, and
I feel a considerable sense of responsibility: my
hope is that if the technology is as promising
as first results indicate, the sooner it will be
accessible to more people.
I’m talking ifs. I don’t know what’s in store.
But I can tell you being assessed involved
pushing my frozen body as hard as I could.
It felt like a dark parody of being in the gym,
trying to impress a new personal trainer
with your maximum repetitions – only with
one hundredth of the muscles available to
normal people.
How far, for instance, and how often could
I reach out in front of me, at shoulder level, and
touch a red dot within 30 seconds? (Right arm,
OK; left arm, iffy; number of reps, lamentable.)
How often could I lift 2 dice and move them
10cm in sequence in 30 seconds? (Right hand,
OK; left hand, total fail.) Could I straighten
and lift my arms? (Right, only partial; left, fail).
I started to feel sorry for my poor old left arm.
Normally I can conceal its uselessness.
For how long could I lift my backside,
through my arms, without putting weight
through my feet? Then a killer: the therapists
put arrows on the floor by either foot. I had
to bend forwards, touch the right arrow
with my right hand and return to an upright
sitting position without using my arms to
haul me back – as many times as possible
in 30 seconds. Ditto the left. It left megrunting and panting like a pub footballer.
When my heart had slowed, the devilish
finale: typing a long number into an old-
fashioned button calculator, first with my
right index finger, then the left, while being
timed. Sounds incredibly simple, but it asked
daunting questions of incomplete nerve
connections – brain, eye, fingers. Finally,
holding an old-fashioned flip phone in each
hand in turn, I had to dial with the thumb
on the same hand. (Total fail, both hands.)
I face many weeks of related physical
exercise. I also face, every other day, driving
through the turmoil of city centre traffic,
which seems to have grown so much faster
in the 12 years since I left it. Plus the ongoing
chores that come standard with disability.
So I’m going to be tired.
But I’m crystal clear about one thing: I’m
fortunate. I have a dear friend who’s making
the same frequent trek into the city, to a
different hospital, to be treated for cancer that
has returned. For her, for me – for many of us- 2022 isn’t about choosing a new you, slimmer,
fitter. Chronic ill-health, be it from injury or
illness, has removed that privilege entirely.
No, today is about giant hope for tiny
improvements; about giving it everything
we’ve got to keep going as long as we bloody
well can. Bring on the journeys and the gym. n
@Mel_ReidTimes
Melanie Reid is tetraplegic after breaking her
MURDO MACLEOD neck and back in a riding accident in April 2010
T
I’m taking part in
a medical trial. For
you it would easy.
For me? It will
take over my life