United Brachial Plexus Network, Inc.

Hi Pete! Welcome to the board. We just found the site on Monday and I cried. My fiance Jason and I were in a motorcycle accident in september and his left arm is now paralyzed. We are very early on. He is having a lot of trouble dealing with it. He was a week away from graduating from motorcycle mechanics institue so his career and dreams seem out of reach for now. Are you still having pain? What worked for you to help forget about the arm and pain?

Hi Jason & Amy,
I'm really thinking of you. It does take a long time to come to terms with this. You think you've got a rough plan mapped out for your life and then this happens! I almost feel guilty to say it (especially after reading the other entries on here) but I don't suffer much pain at all. I get a lot of what I think is called phanton sensation - severe pins and needles - and that really borthered me in the first months after the accident. Once I was up and about though I started to notice it less and less. I think it's just having distractions and other things to think about. I hope things get easier for you.

Pete

Hi Pete;

Manchester, ay? My younger son and his family live in Swinton...I was up there a few days ago...I live in Essex where it's warmer! (sometimes...!)

You've said just about the same things I felt when I first came across this site about a year ago...I have had a bpi since '93, and for years thought I was the only female in the U.K. with it. I was quite happy just bimbling along and getting on with life, like y'do, when I had this sudden urge to find out more. Don't know why, and I still don't, but I'm glad I did. I never really felt the need for 'support' as such, but just to find others with the same injury who just 'knew' without explaining, what it was all about.

I have found some real friends from this site; some of 'em Brits like us, and late last year, we had a small gathering at my house which went really well. We all went off to the pub later, and my answer to your question about how to carry two pints is either always take a two-handed friend with ya, or, drink out of girly pint pots wi'handles!!! (like we do in Essex!!)

Anyway, now you've found us, I hope you'll stick around. :0) It's good for the 'longtermers' to show that losing all or part of the use of an arm really doesn't matter in the end; it doesn't prevent you from getting on with life, and after a few years, you just kind of forget about it. I know thats what happened with me....

...still swim in bluddy circles tho!!! ;0)

All the best....Liz b xx