What should families expect when a person with a spinal cord injury comes home?

I think what the family needs to be prepared for is a lot of high and lows, especially initially. Frustration, I call it “gadget tolerance.”  As an occupational therapist, we work a lot with adaptive equipment, so setting things up may take longer.  Doing things the way you were taught in rehab, maybe a little bit different at home because the set-up is very different, and we can’t simulate that sometimes in rehab.  So, patience, frustration tolerance, and I also think again, the family needs to communicate, and needs to say, you know, “I can’t do what you’re asking me to do.  Tell me, explain to me.”