On Friday evening, 3/3, Tanja slipped on the stairs. Not a big fall, but she hit her neck and injured her spine.

She lost a lot (almost all) movement in her arms. We all need our arms, of course, but no one does more hugging and caressing and gardening and hammering and painting and wonderful drawing than Tanja. Everywhere I look in our house I see her touch.
So this is scary.
And there are no recovery guarantees. Still there are some promising signs. I won’t try to give you much medical science (because I don’t know any) but here’s why we are hopeful today.

Tanja’s injury is “incomplete” which is better than complete. Signals are getting through. And she has shown improvement, incrementally, since the accident. This suggests to the experts that she can continue to improve through rehab. Unfortunately, it will take intense, dedicated effort over time. Luckily, nobody is better at that than Tanja.

Other details: her legs seem really good. She hasn’t been able to test them yet because she is on meds to increase her bp (it helps gets blood and, hence, oxygen to the injury) and they don’t want her on her feet till she is off her meds.

She’s got some other issues around breathing and heart rate that are probably injury related but these are not big worries right this second. Her blood oxygen is in the 90s on room air which, as fans of medical dramas know, is great.

And her spirits are back! Yesterday was tough, obviously. Today she said, “You know what? I’m a baby. Babies can’t feed themselves. But then they work at it and learn how. And eventually they’re not babies anymore. That’s what I’m going to do!”

So, that is the plan.