A Thank You for Memorial Day

"Your silent tents of green

We deck with fragrant flowers

Yours has the suffering been,

The memory shall be ours."

— from "Decoration Day," by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

A Recovery Story (Juan Hernandez)

"Man paralyzed in diving accident shares recovery story to give other patients hope"

Upward and Downward Contrafactuals (The Upside and Downside of Would-Have-Beens)

Many languages use a certain type of grammatical expression called a contrafactual condition (a.k.a. contrary to fact, counterfactual, or CTF) to describe what would have been or would be, if only something had or hadn't happened.  There are various types of CTFs.  Some focus on a thing that didn't happen yesterday that would have made a difference today.  Others point out what would have happened five years ago if something else had not happened five years before that.

One category for describing CTFs is as "upward" or "downward."  Upward CTFs typically reflect on how things would have turned out better: regretting poor decisions, obsessing on a mistake, or simply focusing on how much a single past event changed everything for the worse.  "If I had moved to take that other job, I wouldn't be looking for work now" and "Life would have been better if I had been healthier last year" are examples of upward CTFs.  They look upward: at how things would have been better ("looking up") in other circumstances.  Downward CTFs are the opposite.  They express relief, celebrate a good choice, or concentrate on what has made things better.  "I wouldn't have been happy in my old neighborhood if I'd stayed in the first apartment," and "If I had quit that class, I would've graduated after the lockdowns, and I'm so glad that didn't happen!" are downward CTFs.

Whether we know it or not, CTFs are a big part of our lives every day.  We use them to make decisions, determine cause and effect, play games, and do math problems.  CTF thinking about the past, present, and the future influences us.

Several studies in recent years have more clearly demonstrated the impact of CTF thinking.  In general, people who spend more time in downward CTF thought patterns seem to be healthier and happier than people who habitually practice upward CTF thinking.  In fact, upward CTF thinking more often leads to depression.

The connection is sensible enough.  If you spend time focusing on how things would have been or would be better, especially if you dwell on regrets and mistakes, those events will overshadow everything else.  It's not wrong to think about the past and alternative outcomes; remember that CTF thinking can be motivational and logical, helping you to move forward in healthy, necessary ways.  Still, where and how we focus our attention counts — and that's something worth remembering, too.

Prayers and Support for Neamya

Please keep Neamya Zacharias and his family in your thoughts and prayers.  Neamya is 22 years old and recently sustained a neck injury.

 "Man Paralyzed on New Year's Day Achieves Goal of Climbing Rocky Steps"

Eric LeGrand's Coffee Shop

 A nice update on Eric LeGrand, who keeps pushing forward since his injury ten years ago.

Yale and Your Stem Cells

"Yale Scientists Repair Injured Spinal Cord Using Patients' Own Stem Cells." 

I'm not linking to this headline just because it has to do with a discovery made by my alma mater — even though it does.  The article is remarkable for other reasons.  Here's why.

Everyone has stem cells.  What if yours had the ability to help you recover from a life-changing injury?  There may be good news.  It looks as if they just might.  In this study of autologous stem cell use to treat spinal cord injuries, over half of the participants had "substantial improvements in key functions" shortly after having injections of their own bone marrow derived stem cells (MSCs).  The key functions that were improved include walking and using their hands.  Those are huge improvements.  Just as encouraging is the report of "[n]o substantial side effects."

Take a closer look at the numbers and the ASIA designations of participants.  Here's a breakdown of the study results, as available on ScienceDirect.  Thirteen people took part in the study.  Six were classified as ASIA A (complete); three of them improved to ASIA B (sensory incomplete) and two of them improved to ASIA C (motor incomplete).  Two of the thirteen participants were ASIA B.  One of them improved to ASIA C and the other to ASIA D (motor incomplete).  Five of the participants were ASIA C.  All five of them improved to ASIA D by the day after the infusion.  Overall, of the thirteen people in the study, twelve of them had improvements.  Six months after the infusion, functional improvements remained.

It's not a perfect trial.  Researchers caution that the study was unblinded and had no placebo controls.  Nevertheless, the promise is impressive: if you have a spinal cord injury, your own stem cells can bring significant improvement in important motor function.  Possibly within weeks, or even a day.