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September 19, 2024 45 mins

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Imagine being a successful business owner and mother, and then, in an instant, everything changes due to a devastating car accident. This episode of Bed, Back, and Beyond brings you the awe-inspiring story of Erica Sosna, who faced the unimaginable challenge of being paralyzed from the waist down after a car accident during a snowstorm in December 2022. Erica provides an unflinching account of her traumatic experience, from the terrifying 45 minutes trapped under a vehicle to the daunting realization of her spinal injury's long-term implications. Her narrative is a poignant reminder of the unpredictability of life and the extraordinary resilience of the human spirit.

In our conversation, Erica delves into the emotional and physical hurdles she encountered on her road to recovery. She recounts the intense pain and isolation during her hospital stay, the grueling rehabilitation process, and the mental resilience required to regain mobility and find a new normal. Listeners will gain insight into the therapeutic approaches that played pivotal roles in her healing journey, including McTimoney chiropractic care, Frequency Specific Microcurrent (FSM), and acupuncture. Erica also speaks openly about the significant impact her injury had on her family dynamics, underscoring the importance of a supportive partner in navigating such life-altering events.

But Erica's story doesn't end with recovery. She bravely shares how she found purpose and strength in returning to her career and even launching a new podcast, “The Career Equation,” aimed at guiding others through their professional journeys. Erica’s story is not just one of survival but of adaptation and triumph, offering valuable insights and inspiration for anyone facing adversity. Join us for an episode filled with raw honesty, hope, and a testament to the power of resilience.

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I don't know if people have ever considered it,
but if you are paralysed fromanywhere below your hips, then
you're paralysed inside andoutside.
So there are all kinds ofthings about your bowel, your
bladder, your sexual function,your digestion that are really
problematic, and managing thoseoutside of your home is really
stressful and then in placesthat you don't know.

(00:21):
You know, I used to love tokind of go to new cities and
wander around and have longwalks, and I can't do that
because I don't know when I'mgoing to run out of energy, I
don't know where I am, I don'tknow how long it's going to take
me to get back.
So I really feel less abled thefurther I am away from home.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Welcome to Bed Back and Beyond, sharing positive
stories of recovery from seriousback or neck injury.
Your host is CK, a fellowchampion who draws on her own
experience with herniated discsurgery.
Join her as she talks withothers who have overcome the
physical and emotional trauma ofa painful injury and discover

(01:02):
for yourself how you can findhope and encouragement in
recovery.

Speaker 3 (01:08):
Hi Erica.
Thank you so much for joiningme on this episode of Bed, back
and Beyond.
Before we jump into your injury, how about you tell us a little
bit about yourself?

Speaker 1 (01:18):
Yeah, for sure.
Thank you so much for invitingme to be here today.
So my name is Erica Sosner andin December 2022, I was dragged
under a car and broke 15 bones,but the most serious of which
was my back, leading to a spinalcord injury at T12, which left
me paralyzed from the waist down.

Speaker 3 (01:39):
Oh my goodness, sorry , what year was that?
Again, that was.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
December 2022.
So we're coming on for like 20months.
Wow, at that time, I was amother of a two-year-old.
I was running a very successfulconsulting careers consulting
business that I'd grown fromscratch, with blood, sweat and
tears, and was running a teamand we were on a kind of growth
trajectory.
So, yeah, it was a pretty major, full stop, cataclysmic event

(02:07):
in my life just about two weeksbefore Christmas Day.

Speaker 3 (02:10):
Were you just crossing the street?
How did that happen?
Yeah, it was a little bit.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
It was a little bit fiddly.
So I was on my way to a yogaworkshop and the sun was shining
and I was crossing over thisbeautiful hillside near where I
live.
My gym is, like you know, 10minutes drive, beautiful drive
and halfway across the drive, tomy surprise, it started snowing
.
I hadn't really been payingattention that day to the
weather or whatever.
It didn't look like it wasgoing to snow, but I didn't

(02:36):
think that much of it because itseemed to be pretty light and I
thought it was quite fun andsweet and Christmassy.
But by the time that I got tomy studio, the yoga teacher had
decided to postpone the classbecause the snow was continuing
and other people live deeperinto the countryside.
So we all turned around andcame back and I decided to go
the same route that I had comeacross, over the hills rather

(02:58):
than on the motorway.
And that was a bad decisionbecause sort of five minutes
later it'd gone from reallyreally light snow to really
heavy snow and because I was uphigh on a hill, it was really
coming down heavy and becausethere wasn't lots of traffic, it
was also staying there.
So what happened was I wasabout five minutes from home

(03:20):
when I realized that I wasn'tgoing to be able to get up the
last hill.
Car kept sliding back and,unfortunately for me, where I
was didn't have any lay-bys.
I couldn't stop off the roadbecause either side there was
quite a steep verge now coveredin snow, and so I couldn't get
off the road.
So I put my like hazards on andI got ready to leave the car

(03:43):
and then someone came up behindme and I expected them to stop
behind me because they could seeI was on a hill.
And I got ready to leave thecar and then someone came up
behind me and I expected them tostop behind me because they
could see I was on a hill and Iwas stuck.
But they didn't.
They tried to accelerate pastme, thereby blocking the other
side of the road.
That incoming vehicles werecoming down the hill and I'm
here in the UK, so by that Imean the right-hand side of our
roads, right, so the wrong sideof the road for people coming

(04:05):
down Okay, he also.
He tried to accelerate past me,he failed and that meant that
he and I were parallel in theroad, blocking the road at the
bottom of a hill in a snowstorm,and I just knew that something
bad was going to happen.
Like my heckles went up.
I just knew.
I sort of started yelling atthe guy going you need to get
out the road, you're blockingthe road, you need to get out
the road.
And, as I said that, a car camedown the hill towards us.

(04:28):
Now that first car managed toslow down enough to.
It did hit us, but my airbagsdidn't even go off.
He'd really slowed down a lot.
So now there's three cars Nowthe road is definitely full and
I attempt to get out the car andas I get out, I have to get out
into the road and I get out andas I do, a fourth car comes

(04:52):
down the hill and I can see thatthis car is like hell to
skelter.
It's completely lost control.
I turn my back to walk away andthen the next thing that I know
I'm under the car and I'm beingdragged.
So the car had gone through allthree of our cars.
It had taken me, dragged me,200 meters.

(05:12):
It turned and I was like underit going.
I'm under the car, I'm underthe car Like I was.
I didn't know how I'd got there,oh, wow.
And then I saw the car turn andI thought, oh my God, if it
flips it's going to land on meand that is literally this is my
last moment on earth.
But it didn't flip, it spun andit stopped.
But in stopping it spat me outbetween the verge and the back

(05:33):
wheel of the car.
So I was trapped between thetwo.
But even if I wasn't you know Iwas.
I had to be cut out eventually.
But even if I hadn't beentrapped, my legs weren't working
, like I knew immediately.
I was lying there and Icouldn't feel them.
It was like one minute theywere my legs and the next minute
there was just a kind of cloudof air where the intention that

(05:56):
was my legs had been and I couldnot move and I knew that any
pain or just actually, amazingly, no.
If you have a very severespinal injury, your body goes
into spinal shock and that meansthat it shuts down everything
it can to save your spinal cord,because obviously spinal cord

(06:21):
is like the fuse box foreverything that your body does.
And so, remarkably, I don'tremember a lot of pain, wow,
which I think made people think,oh, maybe she's just cold and
that's why she can't move herlegs.
I wasn't screaming with pain orwhatever.
I was quite sentient, but I knewthat I couldn't feel my legs

(06:45):
and I knew that I had a spinalinjury and someone tried to drag
me out and I really yelled athim because I was like, don't
touch me, my back is broken andI have no idea whether I have
taken my last step in life or ifyou leave me the hell alone, I
might walk again and that'sgoing to make the difference.
But I even had the sentience tosay to the people who I couldn't

(07:05):
see, I could only hear, becauseI couldn't move my my head was
just trapped against the wheelum, can someone please go up the
hill and flag off the next cars, because the next one will kill
me, because they don't know I'mhere.
So could you please stopflapping around me and someone
go up there and tell themthere's a massive crash down
there.
If you get into it you couldget hurt.

(07:26):
But also you need to.
You need to drive off into oneof the fields to left and right
Cause, otherwise you're going torun me over and I'll be dead.

Speaker 3 (07:33):
So so you're directing from under.

Speaker 1 (07:38):
True, so you're a business owner, true, but also
just thinking about my son.
Son, I was like I'm fiveminutes from home, I can't die.
I, you know this can't be.
I'm on my way back home forChristmas holidays.
This is not happening to me,I'm not dying here.
So, yeah, and then probably ittook like 45 minutes to get me

(07:58):
because the snow was really badand they had to get fire engines
and by the time that theyarrived, you know, it had
started to hurt, not so much myback, but I'd broken pretty much
every rib and I'd punctured alung, so breathing was starting
to be painful and the kind ofshock was wearing off, I guess.
And I, you know so, I rememberit.

(08:19):
Then you know, so, yeah, thatwas what happened.

Speaker 3 (08:23):
And so the 45 minutes you're underneath the car, the
ambulance, I'm assuming, comesin and gets you.
Did the paramedics haveanything to tell you what kind
of condition you were in, or wasit all just waiting till you
get to the emergency room?

Speaker 1 (08:38):
I mean, one of the things that I'm sure that anyone
listening who has an SCI willtell you is that there is so
much ambiguity around spinalcord injuries.
No one will tell you anythingbecause they don't know.
Spinal cord is like afingerprint like you can, you
can all break your t12 or yourc3 or whatever, and each of you

(08:59):
will have completely differentconsequences and side effects
and so so very you know, no onewill say anything committal.
But you know, I vaguelyremember the conversation with
the paramedic.
Obviously they dosed me prettystrongly, like immediately they
had to get me out from under thecar, they had to get me, you
know, onto a stretcher in thesnow, up the road and stuff, and

(09:22):
by then you know it would havehurt, like.
So I don't really remember allof those bits, but I do vaguely
remember saying you know, Ican't feel my legs, I can
slightly move my left toe.
What does that mean?
What do you think that means?
But I'm a big believer in, like, the power of your mind and the
way that you use your mind andI knew it was very important

(09:43):
that I didn't panic, that that Iwas like I am here, I am
breathing, nobody knows, yet Iknow I can't move my legs.
That might be the last yogaworkshop I ever attend.
Those might be the last stepsI've ever stepped, but I need to
stay alive because I have atwo-year-old and he needs me and
I'm going to do that.
So I was pretty calm from myrecollection.

Speaker 3 (10:05):
Yeah, wow, yeah.
And so how long did you stay inthe hospital?
Four months, four months in thehospital.
How did you get ahold of yourfamily once they got you to the
hospital?

Speaker 1 (10:16):
Yeah.
So it took a while becausethere was no reception there.
I'd asked a few people to callmy husband because my husband
was five minutes away and Iwanted him to be there and to
know what had happened to me andnobody did or could and my
phone was left in the car.
So it took until I was in thehospital for me to give someone
his number and the police camealong they said do you want

(10:37):
anything from the car?
And I said I think I think myphone is there.
Can you call my husband?
Can you call call?
We don't really have any familyor like super close friends who
could babysit nearby.
So when he came he brought mytwo-year-old, who was pretty
panicked and, you know,obviously wanted to touch me and
get on me, which he couldn't doright.
So actually I had to send themhome pretty much immediately and

(11:00):
and ask a friend to come and bewith me instead of him, because
it just wasn't the right.
You know my son needed to gethome and not see me like that
and we weren't going to be ableto sort of control him to keep
me or him safe.
So but you know I had no ideaat that point obviously that I
would be in hospital for months.
I mean, I knew it was bad.
I knew it was bad, but thefirst thing that they did was

(11:22):
give me loads of ketamine sothey could drain my lung.
And so the next thing that Iremember is going ah, I'm flying
play.
Oh no, I'm not, I'm, I'm here.
And as I woke up, they they'relike right, we need to explain
to you we're going to performsome emergency surgery to try
and save your legs.
We need to explain to youwhat's going to happen and get

(11:42):
your consent.
And I remember saying to themI'm high, I'm high like how can
you possibly consent to orunderstand what you're telling
me?
Right, I'm filled with likeketamine and morphine and
fentanyl and goodness knows whatelse.
How can I consent?
And anyway, I'm not going tosay no, like right, say you

(12:05):
think you can save my legs, thenI'm going to let you have a go.
But I'm just saying you know,like previous to my spinal cord
injury, apart from having my son, I had actually broken my,
fractured my neck 15 yearsbefore by diving into swimming
pool, which is how a lot ofpeople spinal cord injury is
pretty bad, but I just walkedout of the pool.
I was very lucky.
I just fractured the bone.

(12:26):
I didn't hurt the cord.
But apart from that and havingmy son, I'd never been in
hospital no appendix, notonsillitis, no covid like I'd
never been in hospital.
So I really knew nothing aboutlike how the how the system
worked and kind of consents andmedicalization, and I was about
to find out an awful lot aboutthat.

(12:47):
Yeah, so basically I then hadwhat they call a spinal fusion,
so they fuse two vertebrae aboveand two vertebrae below to
stabilize the bit that wasbroken, and then they put in
what they call harring rods, solike titanium rods, that's like

(13:10):
a kind of scaffold.
It's sort of like a cast foryour spine, because your spine's
in there and they can't put acast on it.
So they go in and theyliterally put these enormous
screws and scaffolds to hold theinjury in place until it
recovers, to hold it in thecorrect place and therefore, in
my case, to take the pressureoff my cord.

Speaker 3 (13:26):
Okay, was your spinal cord partially severed at all,
or was it just so compressed andthat's why you couldn't feel
your legs?

Speaker 1 (13:33):
Yeah, it was really severely compressed.
Okay, again, it's quite hardeven from like an MRI or
whatever to tell that somethingis or isn't.
I could feel people touchingparts of me so I had some skin
based sensation and I could movemy left foot a little bit.
I didn't move my right leg atall and I couldn't move any

(13:56):
other parts of my left hand sidefrom the waist down except for
my foot.
So I knew it was bad.
But what they explained was Imean, I was lucky in a lot of
ways.
Firstly, like it was a Sundaynight at like 2am and one of the
most experienced surgeons inthe country was in that day.

(14:17):
So they bumped whoever had thendeservedly scheduled operation
and stuck me in the priority.
Because with a spinal cordinjury the timing is really
important that the less timethat you can be with your injury
, especially compressed and notsevered if they think there's a
chance they can release it, thequicker they do that, the less

(14:40):
damage you have.
But nobody could tell at thatpoint if I was ever going to
walk again or not.
I mean I think they saidsomething like you've got an 80%
chance of not walking again,which means 20% chance of
walking again, that's for fairlylow odds and we're about to do
a nine hour surgery and afterthat surgery you will need to
lie flat on your back for 24hours for five days.

Speaker 3 (15:03):
Yeah, so how long was it between you arriving at the
hospital and then getting thespinal fusion?

Speaker 1 (15:10):
Maybe eight, 10 hours .
They had to sort out my lungbecause I couldn't breathe so
well, and then they had to doMRIs and scans and things, and
then they had to prep me forsurgery.
So I guess I had to be nailedby mouse for a certain amount of
time and then the surgeryitself was something like
between six and eight hours.

(15:30):
I can't exactly remember.

Speaker 3 (15:34):
Holy cow.
So you get the surgery, but youstill had to stay in the
hospital for four months.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (15:41):
Why was that?
Months?
Yeah, why was that?
Uh, because, well, cause Icouldn't move.
So you have the surgery.
For five days after that you'rein basically in solitary flat
on your back, which is superscary because I had all these
broken, other broken bones, andso when you you can't cough

(16:02):
because your ribs are broken,you can't sit up, and so when
you have kind of phlegm on yourchest which I had quite a lot of
, you're basically choking andyou have to be taught ways to do
kind of respiratory rehab sothat you can breathe.

(16:24):
If you can't do that, then theystick a track in you, right?
So that's all you know.
So then, like I've had all theseinjuries, now I've also got a
very major injury in the back ofmy body and the you know the
work of the surgeon in there,all this metal and stuff.
And then you know graduallyover the next week, surgeon in

(16:45):
there, all this metal and stuff,and then you know gradually
over the next week or two theyget you at like 20 degrees, 40
degrees, until you're sort of 45degrees, and then at about sort
of 10 days to two weeks theytried to get me to sit up.
And if you've ever been flat onyour back for 10 days and then
you sit up, you pass out.
I was only flat on your backfor 10 days, and then you sit up

(17:05):
, you pass out.
I was only flat on my back forthree days.
It's not fun, right, and it'skind of so the equilibrium goes
and it takes you a while to justhave that, you know.
And also, spinal cord injuryreally makes your blood pressure
low anyway.
So the first step is can we getyou to sit up without passing
out?
And then can we get you tostand and you passing out, and
then can we get you to stand,and you stand on these kind of

(17:26):
they put your feet down andobviously my feet can't bear any
, can't do anything at that time.
So you're holding on for dearlife to these kind of joysticks
and they then lift the joysticksand you go up with them to see
if you can be perpendicular.
So that was the first thing.
Then it was Christmas, soeveryone bogged off for

(17:48):
Christmas and New Year and therejust weren't really any people
available.
And then they, they got me awheelchair and then I had to
learn how to transfer out of thebed into the wheelchair.
But even sitting in awheelchair was something I could
only do for a couple of minutes.
So I was just too poorly to beanywhere else except the
hospital for at least a month.
And then they were waiting toget me into a spinal rehab

(18:11):
hospital.
I was in Stoke, mandeville,which is the national spinal
unit here in the UK.
But you can't just get intothere like that.
It takes a while.
So I was injured on December the11th.
They said we'll get you intoStoke by the end of January.
There'll be a space for you,and there was.
So my son's birthday was on the19th of January.
I did come home for like a fewhours to be here for his

(18:34):
birthday.
But when I got here, that's whenI realized, okay, like my life
is going to change forever.
Like I can't do anything.
I can't stand up to make a cupof tea, I can't pick him up from
the floor, I can't get into mybathroom, and even if I could, I
couldn't get onto that toilet.

(18:54):
I am pretty seriously injured.
And then the next two months atStoke were about seeing if I
could get better.
So then I I moved from thewheelchair to crutches and like
I really needed those crutchesbecause both legs didn't work.
I, you know, the first time thatI got to have an actual shower

(19:14):
was like seven weeks after theinjury and I just cried and
cried, and cried, and that waswith like three people helping
me.
That's the other thing aboutspinal cord like you have to
learn to quickly develop.
No shame, because someone's gotto help you.
Go to the toilet, actually goto the toilet, not just visit
the toilet, but proceed.
You know the procedure of thetoilet.

(19:35):
Um, someone's got to wash you,dry you, everything you can't.
You're like you know work.
They're more incompetent than ababy.
So, getting to actually just beon crutches a little bit, being
able to sit on a shower chairand wash my own body, even if it
took me an hour to get dressedon my own office, those were
like big, big milestones right,and I was really desperate to

(19:58):
get home.
So by the time that I couldwalk up the stairs there's that
being like the stairs would takeme half an hour, but I could do
it.
Once I could do that, I waslike I'm going home now, and so
I had to sort of start rehabbingon my own.
From the time that I dischargedmyself early, they would have
liked me to stay about sixmonths, wow nope getting home.

(20:21):
I'm going home.
I've missed enough my littleboy already.

Speaker 3 (20:26):
At what point in the hospital did you have a almost
emotional realization?
I mean, you were acting as theemergency director while still
under the car and then I imagineit was so much information
thrown at you at once.
Once you're at the hospital,Did you have a switch of an
emotional response at all?

Speaker 1 (20:48):
I did, but it was very intermittent.
I mean, first of all, you're ona lot of morphine, so my
response to morphine is tobecome pretty chill, even given
the circumstances.
But often I think what wouldhappen is they would combine
that with a different drug.
I was on something calledgabapentin, which is a nerve

(21:10):
drug, and when those two thingswent in at the same time they
would often make me like superagitated.
I'd get really hot, reallyitchy, really panicky.
When I was moved up to the neuroward I was in a bay with six
other people and none of uscould get out of bed.
So there'd be nights where Iwas just kind of scream, snot,

(21:32):
ugly crying, because I reallywanted to go home and I really
missed my husband and I wasreally scared and I couldn't
bear to be away from my boy.
And it's like New Year's Eveand you know, hospitals are
incredibly hot in the UK and Icouldn't see the sky and I
didn't know what was going tohappen and like you'd be sort of

(21:53):
ugly cry, boohooing in front ofsix people who couldn't even
come and pat you on the shoulder.
They could just say from theirbed, you know, hey, are you okay
, like me, you know.
So, yeah, I mean there weredefinitely like moments of
breakdown.
Just you know, by the time I gotto rehab also, just the pain of
it.
You know the like, the drudgeof it, the uncertainty.

(22:16):
If you're lucky enough to beincomplete and I do consider
myself to be very fortunatebecause I had neither a
traumatic brain injury norcomplete paralysis right the
downside is that you live inthis place of real uncertainty
because you don't know whereyour body is going to end up.
You don't know if you will, youknow what you will be able to

(22:38):
do and you can't really plan.
Therefore, like my sort ofroommate also had a t12 injury,
she fell through her loft hatchand her injury was complete,
which is absolutely devastating,really challenging, because she
is an a single woman.
So support is, you know,differently structured than in a
family setup.

(22:58):
But you know where you areright.
So you, so you begin from.
You know a sort of shockingbaseline, but a clear baseline.
When you're incomplete, youdon't know what.
The baseline changes every dayand therefore for me, the kind
of obligation to work as fastand as hard and as far as I
could to get away from thatbaseline was, you know it's very

(23:21):
painful and uncertain, yeah,and so I sort of found that
uncertainty.
You know someone who told medefinitively either you'll never
walk again, or you willdefinitely walk again, or you
will definitely be running andsprinting by this time next year
.
That would have been helpful,but no one will.
So, yeah, and I was.
I was, you know.
I've spent 18 months working myass off.

(23:43):
Yeah, lots of really eclecticthings as well as more
conventional things, and I dowalk now, and I also ride a bike
and do yoga.
The goals that I'd set myselfwere ride a bike, do yoga and
run.
I'm away from running yet, butI'm pretty determined that I'm
going to make all three.

Speaker 3 (24:03):
Is there a residual back pain from the fusion there?

Speaker 1 (24:06):
was for a long time, for a good sort of 10 months
after, I could actually hear itcreak as I walked up the stairs
I could hear it and feel it movebeside me and that was
extremely disconcerting.
And yeah, the sort of musclesaround the rods would hurt a lot

(24:31):
, not so much the actual rodswhich is weird because it's like
a random massive piece of metalin your back right, but almost
like the soft tissue around itwould get really tired really
quickly.
And this time last year I wouldhave to lie down like every
hour or 90 minutes or so andjust lie flat and let the rods

(24:51):
kind of go like kind of backback into the ground back at you
know, sort of not work againstgravity nowadays.
I don't really feel, you know,if I, if I think about it, I can
feel where they are andobviously it restricts my
movement but it doesn't hurtanymore.
But I do think having themremoved because they're just
there, like cause it's difficultto get them out, they aren't,

(25:15):
they don't actually need to bethere.
Okay, so that is the kind ofongoing conversation with my
surgeon.
Mostly they keep them inbecause there's no especially,
you know, needful reason to takethem out and it's still major
surgery to take them out.
But when someone is a bityounger and they're a bit more
mobile and they make a sceneabout it, they, they might take
them out, you know, in the nextyear or two.

(25:36):
But that in itself is also amajor operation that I'll then
have to recover from.
So, yeah, ought to be takenlightly, but it was more.
Just, some muscles work and somedon't.
Like I, my quads were reallystrong and that's why I could
stand up and kind of shufflealong, but I'm, you know, my
butt didn't work, my hamstringsdidn't work, my calves didn't
work, my toes didn't work, myankles didn't work.

(25:58):
So walking with your quads islike if you've ever had, like
those ski shoes, you know, thissort of tennis rackets on your
feet and you can't like liftyour feet off the ground.
That's what I had to work with,that's how I, and in order to
make that movement I had tocompensate for the lion's share
of my muscles not working at all.
And then over the last year,gradually, like a fuse box, one

(26:24):
and two and three have come on,but I'm still short of the
muscles in my calf and in mytoes to raise my heels and push
off my foot, which is what givesyou the momentum to run and
jump and move freely.
So I'm still fairly disabled,but I'm a long distance from
where I was, as in, I couldn't.

(26:44):
Even if my foot fell off thebed, which it did often, I
couldn't put it back.

Speaker 3 (26:49):
Are you still actively?
Are you working with aphysiotherapist or have you been
doing a lot of your recovery onyour own?

Speaker 1 (26:55):
First I needed a lot of support because I just
physically couldn't do a lot ofthings by myself.
Now I can do a lot of thingsmyself myself, but I need the
discipline of somebody spendingtime with me.
So once I checked out of UKrehab and I partly checked
myself out because I was gettinglike four hours of physio a
week or something and I was twohours away from home and I was

(27:16):
like I can get more physio thanthis at home and not be away
from my family.
So as soon as I was kind ofwell enough to survive, I just
went and found my own team.
So I have a neurophysio whocomes to my home and she
specializes in spinal cordinjuries and she's been working
with me now for like 16 monthsand she's brilliant Becky Eason

(27:38):
her name is and so she's watchedthat gradual recovery.
I also work with NeuroConnects,which is a charity set up by
the Christopher Reeve Foundationthat specialize in using like
sports rehab and stims ofvarious kinds.
So we use a lot of kind ofelectrical stimulation for
spinal cord injury and I workwith them and I used to go every

(28:00):
week.
Now I go like once every threeweeks but I still go.
But I also did a bunch of otherthings that I think made a huge
difference because I haveunusually for someone with
spinal cord injury noneuropathic pain and no spasms.
So I really want to tell yourlisteners about what I did,
because I did some things thatare not very conventional, okay,
please.
So the first is that I hadacupuncture every week from the

(28:22):
first week of my spinal cordinjury, and acupuncture is an
amazing and ancient tradition,and anyone who tells you, oh,
but there isn't like a researchbody for it, it's like uh, dude,
they were writing like how tofix all kinds of conditions
using needles on the back oflike ox bones 3 000 years ago.
So there is a lot longertradition around acupuncture

(28:47):
than there is about westernmedicine, and what's about
acupuncture is that it looks atthe whole body in a completely
different systematic way, and ifyou've got a spinal cord injury
, you will know that the reasonthat you can't move is because
some of your channels areblocked, some of your receptors
do not work, and acupuncture isall about channels and receptors
.
In a nutshell, so acupuncturewas huge, really, really helpful

(29:11):
for pain, for scarring, and Ireally think it's why I don't
have any of the really kind ofdebilitating neuropathies.
I also use something before theinjury I'd use something called
mctimony which is a very gentlespinal mechanic work.
It is a form of chiropracticbut it's not like click, click,
bang, bang.

(29:31):
It's very gentle and I'd usedit before because I always had a
wobbly pelvis so I needed aboutonce a month to get adjusted
and mctimony got me straight andoften relieved pain and
discomfort and musculardiscomfort that I had from being
all twisted up from the spinalinjury.
So that's something I still use.
And perhaps most importantly issomething called frequency

(29:53):
specific microcurrent, thewebsite's frequency specificcom.
It is a way of gently giving thebody a jumpstart using
electricity.
It doesn't hurt at all, itdoesn't sound, it doesn't hurt
like it sounds.
It doesn't hurt at all but itis a way of matching the
frequencies of different partsof the body.
It was used to heal brokenbones.

(30:14):
The Victorians and Edwardiansused it for broken bones and it
is incredibly powerful modalityfor like the things you can't
see, because spinal cordinjuries, like the scarring and
the trauma and the inflammation,are mostly in places that you
can't see and touch so it's verydifficult to intervene on them.
And so frequency fsm has beenlike really, really helpful and

(30:35):
it cures all kinds of thingslike lyme disease and
fibromyalgia and shingles andthings like that that people
don't know.
It's like the best thing thatyou don't know about, right?

Speaker 3 (30:44):
Obviously, I've never heard of it.

Speaker 1 (30:46):
Exactly, and obviously the pharmaceutical
environment don't want you toknow about it because it works
like it cures things, so theyreally don't want you to know
about that.
So, frequenciespecificcom, youknow it's really amazing and
it's not that.
It's really not woo like it'sused by like physios and you
know very highly trained people.
It's not in the realm of likeReiki or energy healing or you
know, if you feel like it's sortof in that it's not, it is a

(31:06):
science thing.
So those three things reallymade like a huge difference and
they're things that I add in andwould always encourage people
to look into if you can affordto do so.

Speaker 3 (31:17):
I have a girlfriend who's an acupuncturist in
California and I keep meaning tohave her on the podcast, so
you've just inspired me to justask her to be a guest.

Speaker 1 (31:25):
Yeah, for sure, I mean what I learned.
You know I had been exposed toacupuncture before and
definitely helped me with likeniggles.
You know I didn't have anythinglike super serious, but it was
really interesting to learn likehow some of the acupuncturists
like specialize in like scarringand reducing like scarring
internally internally.
Some people focusing on trauma.
Some people are really about,like in Chinese medicine, the

(31:49):
focus is on wellness, not on illhealth.
If one of your patients dies,you have to hang a lantern
outside your door to say youfailed them.
You know you are supposed totreat them, to keep them well.
So it's a completely differentway of thinking and really,
really powerful.
So definitely something tocheck out.

Speaker 3 (32:08):
And how has your family come through this?
I imagine it was just astraumatic for them as it was for
you.

Speaker 1 (32:15):
It was pretty sucky.
I mean, I'm lucky to have ahusband who's pretty like stoic
as a character.
Uh, he was sort of like okay,this is really terrible for us,
this is really terrible forerica.
How do we just get through thisstep by step?
So, you know, he wassingle-handed with our, our son,
for all of those four months,yeah, and they had a great

(32:36):
relationship anyway, but they'relike super close now.
You know, I sometimes feel likeI'm, you know, kind of the very
much the second in command,because there are things I just
can't do and things that itisn't safe for me to do
unsupervised with my son.
So, like you know, gallivantingaround in nature or kind of
very physical activities, I needanother pair of hands in case

(32:59):
he runs or he gets hurt.
And also we were very fortunatebecause my husband was retired
and so he had a lot of time tohold on to everything and then
start doing, you know, all thelaundry, all the.
You know shopping and you know.
So at the beginning there were,you know, there was very little
that I could do to contributeto the house.

(33:20):
I certainly couldn't like makea bed or go shopping.
I remember dragging myselfaround like Quasimodo around the
supermarket and, like you know,40 seconds in realizing I can't
even get to the till, like howam I going to get out of here?
Very forceful about you know,pushing myself towards things
probably before I was ready, buteven things like you know

(33:42):
cooking a meal.
You know I'd be able to do themeal prep and cook a meal, and
then I have to go and lie downfor four hours because I've
broken myself from trying to dothis thing.
Being upright was very, verydifficult, whereas now I can do
pretty much, you know, a fullday of like home and work and
childcare, except if I'm awayfrom home.

(34:03):
When I'm away from home Irealize how disabled I am.
I don't know if people haveever considered it, but if you
are paralyzed from anywherebelow your hips, then you're
paralyzed inside and outside.
So there are all kinds ofthings about your bowel, your
bladder, your sexual function,your digestion that are really
problematic and managing thoseoutside of your home is really

(34:26):
stressful.
And then in places that youdon't know, you know I used to
love to kind of go to new citiesand wander around and have long
walks and I can't do thatbecause I don't know when I'm
going to run out of energy.
I don't know where I am, Idon't know how long it's going
to take me to get back, so Ireally feel less abled the

(34:49):
further I am away from home.
From home, I've got you knowrituals, I know the environment,
I've got you know supportaround me and and also I've got
rehab structure around me.
And that's the other thing.
I did loads, I do loads andloads and loads of things in the
water, because you can do wateryou can't do on land.
So also I need access to a pool, I need access to a gym.
So, being somewhere else, Ioften realize, okay, I'm still

(35:12):
quite an injured person, whereasI'm sometimes able to forget
that at home.
But my family have been, yeah,completely amazing.

Speaker 3 (35:20):
How do you process that emotionally?

Speaker 1 (35:22):
It's up and down.
I had some EMDR, like the posteye movement therapy.
I don't really understand howit works, but it sort of did and
it worked for the injury itself, so like, and the accident
itself, because I have to driveover the accident site almost
every day to get to my gym and Ican go past it and go.
It was there and that's kind of, you know, very rarely hits me

(35:46):
in any way.
I suppose my predominantemotion that I really struggle
with is kind of grief at thethings that I feel like I'm
missing out with as my son getsbigger, like I can't carry him
and soon, even if I fullyrecover, which I probably won't
but you know, even if I recovermore soon, I won't be able to
carry him because he's, you know, too big.

(36:07):
So I feel super sad about thatand things like not being able
to just chase him up and downthe garden and and and like
really simple, but they kind of.
We went to a festival recentlyand it was a total disaster, way
too ambitious for me, way toobig a scale of thing to do, and
I feel quite like look at allthese people just walking, just

(36:28):
doing their walking everywhere,just getting up and walking
without even thinking about it.
They're just walking to go tothe cafe and they're just
walking in front and they'rejust doing their walking.
Like I get super pissed about,you know, the simplicity and
effortlessness with which peoplemove about, because every step
that I take fires a measure ofthought, increasingly less and
less.
But you know, yeah, so mainlylike grief and kind of

(36:51):
frustration and anger and I getkind of down about you know, now
I'm in this sort of grunt workrecovery phase.
So it's like, on the one hand,wow, amazing, you've recovered
like 80% of your function, buton the other hand, it's the last
20% that will truly give me myfreedom and my life back, and I
don't know how much of that Iwill get.

(37:13):
And I'm crawling along withthese little increments and yeah
, it's tough.
But I remember being in thehospital and you know I've kept
a diary for like 35 years, notevery day but fairly
consistently, and I did not wantto write about the injury and

(37:33):
the hospital, not interested incapturing any of it.
I was like I have no desire toremember any of this shit, but
one of the few things that I didwrite down, I've written a book
2014, called your Life Plan,which is all about like how to
project manage your life to getthe things that I did write down
.
I've written a book, 2014,called your life plan, which is
all about like how to projectmanage your life to get the
things that you want, andthere's a method in that called
life projecting, which is aboutstarting with the end in mind,

(37:56):
getting clear what you want todo, run, swim normally, whatever
and then working backwards fromthere, and the one thing that I
did write was this is a lifeproject, and one of the things
that I teach in my method isaccept it as though you chose it
.
You know, when crappy thingshappen, the more that you resist
it, the more energy is wastedon it like it's a reality.

(38:16):
I've had a spinal cord injury.
I'm paralyzed from the waistdown and I don't know where I'm
going to end up.
That is fucking shit.
Let's go.
You know all I can do is tomove away from where I am now.
If I collapse back into that'sreally going to make it much
worse for me.
Okay, so that has always beenlike kind of guiding philosophy,

(38:39):
and I think that really, reallyhelped a lot.

Speaker 3 (38:42):
I was just about to ask you what would you say to
someone who is just beginningtheir spinal cord injury journey
?
What's the name of the book?
Again?

Speaker 1 (38:51):
It's called your Life Plan.
I have a couple of books, butthat's the one that's really for
the individual going throughkind of transformatory
experience.
And that would be, you know,like, accept it as though you
chose it.
I mean, that's the kind ofcrazy thing to say, isn't it?
Something terrible has happenedto you, but what other choice
do you have, like you know, andthat that doesn't mean that you

(39:14):
immediately find peace with itor it doesn't cause you pain or
you don't rage against thecircumstance.
But arguing with thecircumstance is really just what
you resist persists.
You know, it's kind of.
The thing is as it is.
What can you do to move forwardfrom there and more towards the
things that you want and andthe life that you can have?

(39:35):
And that is not to say thatyou're not entitled to your
grief or or your pain, like andI'm not saying that you escape
those things, I'm just sayingthat being mindful about how you
work with yourself around it isreally important.
And the other thing I would sayis, like, do not accept the
medical model as the only way toget better.
Like you know, I obsessivelyI'd stay up late and watch loads

(39:59):
and loads and loads and loadsof like videos from people who
had a spinal injury, who youknow the ways in which they
recovered, whether they werewheeling or whether they were
independent.
You know all these differentrehab centers.
I read hundreds of books onlike spontaneous recovery and
you know why people heal.
And you know, and I wasn't thatinterested if the medics didn't

(40:20):
know and were therefore weren'tprepared to tell me a prognosis
, then I wasn't that interestedin really what they had to say
about much else.
And the other thing that'sreally challenging with a spinal
injury is that you have someonewho performs your surgery and
that's your spinal surgeon, butthen, because you've had a
spinal injury, you have problemsthroughout your body, as I said

(40:41):
, you know your bladder, yourbowels, maybe you can't use your
hands when you're on a vent.
You, you know you've gotneuropathy in your feet.
All of those require adifferent specialism and a
different doctor in the medicalwestern model.
So really don't stop there, goand find something that's more
holistic and it doesn't.
It doesn't have to be where.
If woo works for you, thengreat, do woo right.

(41:03):
But like it isn't either orisn't like either it's medically
proven or it's bullshit.
There is like loads of thingsin between that and don't accept
just what Western medicine hasto say, because you have to go
and see hundreds of differentpractitioners to cater to all of
your issues, whereas in some ofthe other alternative medicine
models you can see one personwho will treat a lot of things

(41:23):
and give you a lot of benefit.

Speaker 3 (41:25):
Erica, thank you so much.
That is a lot for people tothink about and so thankful that
you're willing to come on andjust share your journey and be
transparent with your experience.
Have you been able to focus onyour career again?

Speaker 1 (41:40):
Yeah, thank you for asking.
It's been hard, you know.
I mean, if you run your ownthing, then there's a limited
amount of sick pay and sickleave that you can take.
Eventually, you've either gotto get back in the seat or shut
the thing down.
And I was fortunate enough tohave work that I really liked,
that I was really good at andthat I could still theoretically
do post-injury injury.

(42:05):
It definitely took me a fewmonths to kind of find my feet
and my energy.
I probably could have done withanother six months off, but I
think what it really prompted meto do was to move from the work
that we do with the careerequation.
We work primarily with bigcompanies and with their talent
to help them to really pinpointwhat they want out of their
career, and it really motivatedme to go.
How can I touch many, many morepeople than that?
Because you're kind ofrestricted, therefore, by only

(42:26):
working with a company that'sgiven you permission to work
with their people, and so, onthe back of that, I decided I
was going to start a podcast,and that goes live in a couple
of weeks, on the 14th ofSeptember.
So I decided I would start a newpodcast and that's called the
Career Equation, and the CareerEquation podcast is a way of
empowering lots of people to beable to use the equation method

(42:48):
to get super clear about what'sworking and not working in their
career by listening to people'sreal life stories and career
moments where we help them eachweek to solve a career conundrum
.
So that's been an incrediblyenergizing and wonderful
opportunity to just startsomething new, start something
creative, do something that hasnothing to do with recovering

(43:11):
from this injury and startfeeling back in the driving seat
of being of service and beingable to attend to other people's
concerns and needs, rather thanbeing overwhelmed by the
physical and emotional andmental concerns and needs that I
had as a result of the accident.
So if any of your listeners arethinking about careers, career

(43:33):
direction, making a change, I'dlove it if they checked out the
Career Equation podcast.

Speaker 3 (43:40):
Is there a website as ?

Speaker 1 (43:40):
well, there is.
So the website isthecareerequationcom.
And, yeah, if they want to findout more about how to work with
me or, you know, as anorganization to work with us,
thecareerequationcom will answerall of those questions, as well
as all the places you get yourpodcasts.

Speaker 3 (43:56):
That's great.
That's exciting.
I hope the podcast is a hugesuccess.
I'm sure it will be.

Speaker 1 (44:01):
Thank you very much.
I really appreciate yoursupport and the chance to talk
about it really, because it'sbeen quite a journey and I don't
really talk about it that much.
So if it's been useful foranyone and if they want to get
in touch, you can find me onLinkedIn or via the website.
I would always love to hearfrom you and be useful in any
way that I can.

Speaker 3 (44:21):
Perfect, Erica.
Thank you again for joining meon the Bed Back Beyond podcast
and if you are a listener thathas a positive story of recovery
from a serious neck or backinjury, head over to
bedbackbeyondcom and click shareyour story.
I'd love to include your voiceon the show.
Again, Erica, thank you so much.
My pleasure, Thank you forhaving me.
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