Being the Mother of an Adolescent Suffering From a Spinal Cord Injury Possibilities of a Personal Narrative in Phenomenology

The single case can be a very fruitful source of knowledge. A mother's narratives of her experiences when her adolescent son suffered a spinal cord injury seemed very rich and informative. The challenge arises in the dissemination of this knowledge. With a phenomenological approach the narratives of a mother's experiences were analyzed. This revealed an experience characterized by (1) being emotionally overwhelmed due to the shock of the accident, (2) resisting imagination and acceptance of a disrupted life path for the adolescent, (3) balancing your assistance to provide the needed support maintaining the adolescent's dignity when helpless, (4) comforting and supporting the adolescent when in need for comfort and support yourself, and (5) reconciling parental assistance with the need for professional assistance. The discussion explores what the findings from the single case can tell us about being in a situation like this, and to what extent this knowledge can be disseminated to assist health professionals.