As a quadriplegic there are many limitations physically, and all spinal cord injuries are different. My injury has completely paralyzed my lower body and has limited my upper body. I have some control over my core and both my arms. My left arm is a lot stronger than my right. My right arm was damaged a lot more in the accident. I currently do not have any finger movement, but working on that through an EStim machine. An EStim machine, better known as Electrical Stimulation machine, sends electricity through my body at the intended targeted muscle.
In my manual wheelchair, my legs are strapped in to prevent me from coming out of my chair due to muscle spasms. I also wear a seatbelt for safety reasons… having a quad on the floor is no fun for anyone…TRUST ME! My wheel rims have a cool feature. They have projections attached which are designed to help people with no hand grip. This allows me to better turn the wheels. I also wear hand grip gloves to help me turn the wheels as well. Because of my lack of core muscles, it sometimes feels like I’m slumping in this chair. That is not a very comfortable feeling, but I am working on strengthening my core every day.
Living with SCI 
I saw your video. You’re making tremendous progress! Maybe Nick can come up with a support device to help keep you from slumping in the chair?
Hi Alexis! I’m one of Melinda’s classmates from junior and senior high school. I have been reading her Facebook posts and your blog entries about your experience.
I went through kind of an opposite experience a few years ago, but also had my body not obeying my commands. I had a cerebrovascular accident (CVA), or stroke. I was lucky that it was not a big one, and though my movement was not affected, my balance was off for a bit. What it did affect was my brain’s communication center and short term memory. Every word I tried to say came out wrong and I was unable to write or type as my fingers were “mapped” to the wrong letters. Some progress came as I slowly regained my typing. For the first 6 months I could not count to 10, then it took another 6 months to get to twenty (I would lose my place in the counting). I had problems following sequences (like cooking directions). In speaking I would have trouble getting certain words from my thoughts to my mouth correctly. Or I would just use a completely wrong word. For a couple of years I spoke with a bad stutter, which gradually went away.
I am nearly back to “normal” now and have been working for a company that does telephone call captioning for the hearing-impaired for the last few months. Lots of typing required and we also use a variation of Dragon Naturally Speaking to “re-voice” callers, adjusting for accents and such so that the Dragon speech recognition can understand what is being said and type the correct words. It is a challenge for me, but I know it will make me stronger in the long-run.
You definitely have some challenges ahead of you, but keeping a positive attitude and having stepping-stone goals will go far to keep you sane, I am sure!
Long post to say “keep on keeping on!” and much success to you in your progress!