Be Gone Dull Pain Years before my injury, I was driving to a photo assignment and wondered what it would be like to have constant pain in my life. Seeing my freeway exit coming up, I drifted back from the daydream to the reality of driving. Eventually, that daydream became my nightmare. Being paralyzed from the chest down does not mean you are free from sensation or pain in your lower extremities. Complete severing of the spinal cord is rare.
Incomplete injury means some nerves are still connected.
Often some sensation slowly returns after the injury and is followed by pain. Every wheeler I ve asked has had severe pain somewhere where they are not supposed to feel. This was a pain like I never knew existed. It felt like a red hot nail gouged into my hip joint. The pain radiated down under my leg and could be described as sitting with a third degree sunburn on a sandy wooden chair for nine hours without moving.