to evade elusiveness

Just to get it out in the open, here's what wrong with RC.

I mentioned that he was in a car accident 8 years ago. It broke his back, and it took a whole year before he was really back to "normal" again. After that, his back kept hurting for another year. Yeah, talk about how much it sucks.

The accident broke two vertebrae in mid to lower back, shattered one completely beyond repair (doctors had to graft some bone taken from his hip). The bones are now held in place by a couple of screws and 2 long metal rods (I'm guessing 5 inches, but I don't know for sure). I can feel the ends of the rods when I massage his back.

So that's the structural damage. The nerve damage is scarier. He had significant spinal cord injury. The nerves to his calves are all dead, so all of his calf muscles deteriorated to flab. If you think about how a human being walks, we plant one foot out front and lift up our heels on the back foot to move it to the front. Lifting up our heels all comes from calf muscles, so when you don't have any, you have to change the way you walk. He's compensated fairly well, but if you watch him long enough, you can tell that he's not quite walking right.

The sensory nerves on the back of his thighs and butt are dead, so he doesn't feel anything. As in, if he sits on a hot bench, he wouldn't get up.

Probably biggest deal of all is that he lost the nerves that 1) controls his bladder, 2) tells him when his bladder is full, and 3) allows him to pee. So he thinks about how much water he's drank, how long it's been, and guesses when he needs to use the bathroom. When he does, he sticks a 14" long catheter through his urethra all the way up into his bladder to drain out the liquid. You may ask, so ... can he, you know, perform his other penile function? Yes, yes he can, but there is significant loss of tactile sensation.

Alright, so that's everything.

My parents know somewhat about the back. I told them that he broke his back, and has a couple of screws in his back. That's it. And they've already gone beserk. Can you imagine how adamantly against this they would be should they find out about everything else, too? Especially the catheter. God, I don't want to imagine that conversation.

parents: "WHAT???? So he can't PEE on his own??"
me: "yeah"
parents: "You have to break up with him. He can't even have kids."
me: "err, actually, I think he can"
parents: "and HOW would you know that?"
me: "errrr"

Yeah, that'd be a really fun conversation.