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As you may have guessed there are medical issues and things to be aware of with having a physical disability. I’ve had 13 surgeries so I’ve spent quite a bit of time in the hospital. I’m not going to talk about all of them, I’ll just touch on some of them. My first surgery was shortly after I was born to close the opening in my spine. After that there were a couple hip surgeries, and a foot surgery. The most memorable surgery was my spinal fusion. I have a curved spine, so when I was nine they did surgery to straighten it or try to. I say try to because they weren’t able to straighten it completely because every time they tried my blood pressure would drop too low. So they were only able to straighten it a little. They do this by cutting out a piece of the spine and straightening the rest and than they put two metal rods in to hold it. Then a week or two later they took one of my ribs and put it in my spine to fuse it. To be honest it was the worst surgery I’ve ever had and if I would have understood at the time what they were going to do I probably wouldn’t have let them. But I guess it had to be done. I know there are a lot of people with a fused spine that have pain, thankfully I’m not one of them. About a year after my spinal fusion one of the rods poked a hole out through my back, so I had to have surgery to have them removed. They ended up leaving a piece of one because they weren’t able to get to it to remove it completely.

One of the things to be aware of when dealing with areas of your body that have no feeling is sensitive skin. More specifically burns and pressure sores, I’ve had both. Make sure the water isn’t too hot when taking a bath or shower. After getting burned a couple times I tend to err on the side of caution and get the water a little too cool. Especially when I’m at someone else’s house or a hotel.

Pressure sores are big issue for those of us who have no feeling in our lower body. I have to be careful how much I sit so I don’t get sores from sitting in one position too long. After having surgery on an infected pressure sore that turned into a bone infection in 1999 the doctor finally prescribed a Roho cushion for me to sit on. It’s a 4 inch cushion that has individual cells filled with air that adjusts to your body so you aren’t putting pressure on one area more than another. I haven’t had a pressure sore since 2013 and believe God has healed me of the issue I’m still careful, just not as careful as I use to be. Meaning I don’t worry about it anymore.

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