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Being believed by Ceri Love (Spring 2026 Forward)
It took nine years for Ceri Love to be told the extent of her spinal cord injury following a car accident. She shares with us the profound impact this had on her life …
When Ceri Love, 63, from Bristol, experienced numbness in her left leg, difficulty moving, and burning pain after a car accident, she was told that surgery would solve the problem. Despite telling healthcare professionals about increasing loss of sensation, bladder and bowel function, and mobility issues, which led to further surgeries, Ceri was led to believe she had a bad back that would improve with physiotherapy.
It would be nine long years before a surgeon finally explained that Ceri had cauda equina syndrome (CES). She’d spent that time trying to overcome her spinal cord injury without proper treatment or support and crucially, as a single mother, trying to normalise things for her children.
Ceri remembers experiencing a tidal wave of emotions after hearing the news.
She said:
“I was extremely angry and upset. I felt I hadn’t been given the information I needed to keep myself safe and to make life okay for me and my kids. I’d spent so much time in hospital having appointments or surgeries – all time that I wasn’t with my kids.”
Without the proper specialist support following her accident, Ceri had to learn how to manage her neurogenic bowels on her own. She also had frequent UTIs due to self-catheterisation. She called Spinal Injuries Association for advice on bladder management to help with the issue.
She encountered a number of healthcare professionals in the years following her accident, but despite requiring further surgeries and becoming a full-time wheelchair user, she was led to believe she would be able to walk again as long as she followed a physiotherapy regime.
After a negative experience with a neurologist, she’d been recommended to see, she felt patronised and belittled. When she questioned him on why he was testing sensation in the wrong leg, she remembers being told: “It’s far too complicated to explain to you.”
She said:
“He’d clearly made up his mind that I was faking it because of my ongoing legal case from the car accident. I felt I couldn’t seek help for my injury because people would think I was faking it.”
This all changed when Ceri was referred to the spinal treatment centre at Salisbury and after tests, saw a different surgeon. She remembers feeling so anxious about not being believed, that she was physically shaking. Instead, the surgeon explained that she had CES – a life-changing condition that causes spinal cord injury.
She said:
“I was expecting him to say, ‘Why are you here?’ and when he didn’t, I cried. He was so kind and generous with his time. It was one of the most moving, positive things after having been led to believe it was my fault. I’d had nine years of thinking all I needed to do was just get up and walk.”
Despite deep frustration at the years of negligence, Ceri believes she has made the most of her life, using her experience as a disabled women to help other people. She volunteered with Refugee Women of Bristol and started a pilot to find what disabled refugee women wanted and needed before working in suicide prevention. She now works as a mental capacity advocate. Ceri said, “The experience I’ve had as a disabled woman has opened up opportunities to me that I would not have had otherwise: It’s the club no one wants to join, but actually I’ve met some incredible people along the way. It’s given me a resilience to other stuff that’s happened.”
She hopes no one has to endure the years of uncertainty and self-doubt she went through and believes this starts with mandatory training for healthcare professionals in CES awareness and care.
She said:
“If only I’d been asked different questions. Things like, how are you managing to go to the toilet? Or, are you struggling to pee? This would have helped give a much better picture to them of what was happening to me – and could have made a difference for me much earlier on.”
This article was featured in the Spring 2026 issue of FORWARD, the only magazine dedicated to the spinal cord injury community.
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