Prelude to a Re-eval

Originally, I'd intended to post the third and final part of the subluxation series today, however, your normally-scheduled reading is being preempted with some breaking news. (I'll resume the subluxation discussion this weekend with some really neat stuff about FES.)


Monday night (10/06/08), when Rich touched my arm, I gasped, and looked up at him, startled.

He snatched his hands back. "What? What's wrong?"

It wasn't any different than the way he usually does it – fingers lightly brushing against my shoulder and upper arm. The muted pressure under the surface of my skin was just as it always was when his fingers reached the middle of my upper arm, but accompanying that pressure was something new. What was different this time, I told him, "That tickled!"

A grin lit up his face, and he repeated the motion. "That?"

"Yes!" I said, probably looking more bewildered than vellicated by the touch, taking in the sensation as if for the first time. It had been so long since I'd felt anything but the vague echo of presence in that area of my arm that I'd forgotten anything was ever there; the sensation was almost unrecognizable. Bright ribbons of current followed his fingers across my skin and dissolved into white hot sparks that shot through the murky ether of my forearm and hand.

And, there it was – vibrant, unmistakable, alive. Sensation.

I can now feel an area in my left, upper arm that I have not been able to feel in 17 years.

"Big deal," you may say – and it may not sound like much, because it doesn't do much for me functionally – but, I assure you, it is big. It is huge. Beyond the augmented sensory perception – which, in itself, is very cool – the significance of this regained sensory function lies in what it indicates: that after 17 years, it can be recovered.

The experience I've just recounted; the experience, in this very moment, of my sleeve rubbing against my arm as I type these words – impossible, according to conventional thought on SCI. Sensory perception at that particular point of the arm is at level T-3. After 17 years at level C-4, I should not be able to feel that.

But, I do.

Tomorrow: re-eval and documented proof.