Patient Blog

A clinical trial or research study uses information about your health to answer scientific questions. Some studies ask you questions about your health condition and treatment. Other studies may give you a new treatment for your condition to see if it will help you.

Many of us who have neurogenic bladder from SCI or related conditions suffer from frequent bladder infections (UTIs). Symptoms are different for everyone, but most of us learn pretty quickly how bladder infections affect us.

First of all, urologists take care of the bladder and kidneys. Any injury to the nervous system (spinal cord injury, multiple sclerosis, spina bifida, etc.) results in the bladder not working properly—this is called neurogenic bladder.

Recently, I left the snow-capped peaks of Park City, Utah, to visit Old San Juan, Puerto Rico, a collage of Sixteenth Century cobblestones, narrow streets, sidewalks and uneven curbs that immediately caught my eye as the cab driver dropped my traveling companion and I off from the airport.

Awesome. Not only do I have to fly back to this frozen mini metropolis we call Minneapolis just for a stupid mandatory county assistance meeting, but now I have to get my chair fixed in the 3 days while I’m here. Fuuuuuuuuun.

I don’t know that I will ever forget the day I laid in the Emergency Room in Grand Junction, CO and the Doctor pulled back the curtain to tell a fifteen year old boy, “Jason, you’ve broken your neck and you will never walk again.”