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- A woman who lost mobility in her lower body and hands after breaking her neck has regained some movement.
- In July 2022, Jeanne Carrière, from Quebec, Canada, underwent nerve transfer surgery.
- Months later, she can cook, eat, brush her teeth and work by herself.
A woman named Jeanne Carrière from Lachute, Quebec in Canada, who lost the use of her lower body and hands after breaking her neck, has regained some of her independence thanks to state-of-the-art nerve surgery.
While a reporter from CBC was visiting her home, Jeanne pulled out her wheelchair and said she was going to cut an apple, which she thought she would never be able to do again on her own. Simply cutting an apple is a milestone.
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The 27-year-old has quadriplegia and lost the use of her lower body and hands after breaking her neck in 2021. "It's a miracle that I'm alive; I'm paralysed from the neck to the toes," Jeanne said.
However, in recent months she has regained some independence after a life-changing surgery to bring back some of what she's lost. In July 2022, she underwent surgery at Montreal's Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital.
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They performed surgery called nerve transfer, "What we are doing here is basically using these functional pathways, these nerves that are still working and transferring them to muscles that no longer have electricity," Dr Elie Boghossian said.
"The delicate portion that we do under the microscope [is] where we'll connect one nerve to the other," says Dr Dominique Tremblay. The surgery took nine hours, and then it took months for the nerve fibres to grow into the muscle and for Jeanne's body to adjust.
"The first time that I saw my finger move, the feeling was like that of seeing a child taking his first step. It was the first step into my new life; it's a world of difference. Now it's unbelievable what my hands can do; I can eat by myself. I brush my teeth, and I can cook."
It has now been more than seven months since her surgery.
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Nerve transfers have become common in recent years but performing them on people with quadriplegia is newer, so there's still much to learn.
"I think at the moment it really is too early to say with certainty that it will work on every patient we operate on. Hopefully, in the next few years, you will get more definitive answers on how this is working out," Dr Ming Chan said. The Montreal surgeons who operated on Jeanne have done more than a dozen similar procedures.
"We're completely determined and convinced that this is a life-changing surgery for them and that knowing that it allows more independence and not just for the short-term but for the rest of their lives."
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Jeanne is grateful for the surgery and says it was very touching that everybody was working for her future. One of the most positive changes, she said, is being able to work again and write a screenplay. She's grateful for how far she's come in her rehabilitation. "All the little things that I couldn't do, now I can, and it's like my world has changed."
Her doctor says it will take two years for her nerve fibres to regrow and for her body to adapt to these new nerve pathways that her doctors created so she could see more improvement in the months ahead.
