Quad Oddities

Anyone with high spinal cord injuries has a condition called autonomic dysreflexia, or AD for short. Whenever something is going on in the body, such as needing to use the bathroom, the person's blood pressure will go up. In my case, it happens for something as simple as passing gas and will cause my blood pressure to go up or down for a few minutes. It's very common and those who know me hardly notice it.

While in the hospital last week, it was part of their routine to take my blood pressure (BP) every four hours. On Monday, the nurses noticed my I.V. wasn't working anymore, so it was removed. They couldn't find another place to put one, so we chose to leave it out as I wasn't using it much anyway. Early that evening, it was time to take my BP, except it happened to be while I was having minor AD. My pressure came back low, at about 78/50. This is a little down from my usual, but not a lot. However, it's apparently very low for most people.

Within about two minutes, I had at least five nurses in my room all wondering what to do and retaking my BP via different methods. I tried saying this wasn't unusual and shouldn't be a concern, but my comments didn't get anywhere. My parents were also visiting at the time and tried to say the same. The nurses concluded I needed to quickly get some fluids by I.V. to help bring everything up, but I no longer had one. Therefore, I ended up having one placed via a type of ultrasound and getting the needle in a larger vein.

After the fluids, everything was good again, and was long before due to no longer in AD. I'm very glad the nurses were responsive and worked to solve the problem. I almost find it comical though that a dangerously high BP received no response a few days earlier and a not very unusual result had a large response.

On Tuesday, my doctor wanted to keep me a little longer in order to monitor everything further. Thankfully, she was willing to listen and I was able to help teach her about normal responses with SCI. The explanation satisfied her enough that I was released a few hours earlier than originally planned.

Since returning home, I have been very tired when doing much of any activity. Thankfully, yesterday I was finally feeling back to normal and have been today as well. Like it or not, I've been living the quad life for over three decades and I should expect longer recovery times for these situations. I'm thankful for God's continued care through so many people and look forward to a regular week again.