Effort

My body went from effortlessly walking about. Capable, defying flexibility & dynamic motion. I could do anything physical, would work out & play sports with ease. In an instant, of unfortunate timing, I was struck by a car while riding my bike. 

Effortless because extreme effort. My biggest challenge. Simply walking. I was always very physical and now just the simple motion of walking takes extreme effort and work. My left leg, I’ve been able to modify my movements with the support of the right leg so it works like a pendulum because I can’t feel it, it only produces pain in motion & cause & affect issues because I’m swinging my leg to walk instead of pushing off the ground.  My ankle will drop if I truly don’t pay attention to my motions. 

Effort. Every movement. Using my fast brain to literally study my every movement to see if I can do anything to reduce the amount of pain, increase my mobility & decrease the effort it takes to walk.  I have to manipulate my nutrition to control the inflammation and use soaking and heating as well. I’ve slowly found ways to improve then hit plateaus. Sometimes I slip and don’t mind my motions and it sets me back a bit. The one thing that never changes is the effort it’s taking to try to make it effortless.  

It’s truly amazing how you can repair the body & push through to continue to see improvement with effort. Really gives me the strength to keep trying because I think the minute I sit down & stop putting in the effort  is the minute my body will lock up & I’ll loose it all. I guess it’s living the dream because although it’s a struggle I’ve turned it into a positive & a better understanding of the human body & psyche! Using nutrition, mental & physical therapy, nerve therapy & excercise to repair the problems & make improvements as much as possible with THC & CBD to help take the edge off instead of pharmaceuticals. 

The one thing that has made it easier to continue to put forth such effort is eliminating the need for people to understand or know my pain. It doesn’t matter & I no longer need others to validate what I know exists & removing that part of the effort has allowed me to hyper focus on treating myself. I find that seems to be a huge road block for people who suffer from pain issues or hidden handicaps, the effort into convincing people about what they feel, limitations and needs. That’s the part of the human psyche that needs the effort to be towards a change in perspective. Knowing your effort & focus on getting better is the only validation you need to spark the ability to thrive & feel better by making the effort to improve & reduce pain to work towards becoming effortless. 

“Those times when you get up early and you work hard; those times when you stay up late and you work hard; those times when you don’t feel like working — you’re too tired, you don’t want to push yourself — but you do it anyway. That is actually the dream. That’s the dream. It’s not the destination, it’s the journey. And if you guys can understand that, what you’ll see happen is that you won’t accomplish your dreams, your dreams won’t come true, something greater will.” - Kobe Bryant

Chronic Pain

Last week I was given a devastating blow!  I was told by all medical professionals that I'm currently seeing that basically it's time to just come to terms with the fact that I'm going to need two more surgeries.  A new orthopedic doctor looked at me during a consultation for a pain management epidural and said it's been two years since you were hit by the car, you've had five cervical epidurals already.  If you think that i'm going to give you the six magical epidural that suddenly fixes everything, than I'm sad to tell you, you're sorely mistaken.  He refused to do anything but refer to me to a surgeon for a consultation.  Now, I face having my hip operated on again because I have major symptoms that should be gone by now and they want to slice my neck open through the front to fix my spine!  I'm honestly terrified. I could go through all of this and end up worse or I could have to live like this forever.  I've cried my heart out over it but as long as I keep my stress levels down I can keep the terror from occupying my mind. I don't take any pain medication so the mental strength I use to stay positive is very emotional and very deep. It's like the Ancient Greek mythology story of the man tied to the rock and a bird pecks at him for eternity. That's what it's like living with chronic  pain.  

Through out this journey I have found a routine of using alternative measures along with holistic nutrition to take the edge off and make sure that the rest of me is in tip top optimum health. I would like to share with everybody a day in my life combating chronic pain and supporting optimum health with physical restrictions: 

Wake up Marijuana Joint: curbs pain, numb limbs, spasms and stiffness 

Turn on music to keep my mind positive. Pain is less noticeable when you're singing a George Michael song. 

Breakfast: all you can eat! 

Grapefruit: curbs appetite, reduces cholesterol, support heart health, positively influences blood lipid                    levels 

Pineapple: packed with vitamin C as well as other vital nutrients and minerals, it also contains an       enzyme called Bromelain which effectively helps joint pain, arthritis, inflammation and surgical recovery 

Dates:  fiber, potassium, manganese, magnesium, copper, b6 

Cold Pressed Turmeric Latte: mix 1 tablespoon each of honey, cinnamon and turmeric with hot water and cold pressed coffee

Benefits: anti-inflammatory, lubricates joints, pain killer and a little caffeine to offset the sluggishness pain gives you! 

15/30 minutes: Cool Therapy icing to reduce pain and inflammation and get my leg and neck ready to bare the day 

15/30 minutes: Epsom salt bath to reduce inflammation

Now I'm ready to get my blood pumping so the properly functioning parts of my body get some cardiovascular work, so they can support the rest of what's going on. I smoke marijuana prior so I can do this without increased pain. Since I cannot do anything with impact, I will do 1hr of Ballet (cardio barre), stationary bike or mild incline hike as well as some hand weights. My pain is still present during these activities but because of the morning routine, it doesn't increase. While I'm moving, I know it's there but mentally I feel a release I desperately need.

Post "work out"-

Greens Juice: cucumber, kale, collard greens, spinach, celery, cayenne, ginger, lemon and apple. 

Benefits: nutrients, minerals, anti-inflammatory 

30 minutes: Cool therapy Machine to reduce pain 

15/20 minutes: Epsom salt bath 

Now, I have about an hour or maybe two where I try to accomplish a blog post, or office tasks I need to do. It's very hard for me to sit still because it hurts and my body has spasms and ticks and I constantly have to reposition. 

Lunch: 

6 cups or more- Greens (spinach, romaine, arugula): high water content to reduce inflammation, iron, B vitimans, blood health, heart health, protein

Garbanzo Beans: fiber, protein

Cucumbers: high water content to reduce inflammation, detoxes body 

Beets: detox, blood health, minerals, vitimans, mental health, digestive health

Tomato: anti-oxydents, immune system support 

Curry spice: joint lubricant, cardiovascular health 

Dressing: balsamic or red vinegar mixed with sweet hot mustard And pepper...

32 oz home brewed - muscle recovery tea with turmeric

The afternoon is usually a doctors appointment, physical therapy or some sort of treatment to help me feel better or try to fix the issues. I smoke marijuana before any of these activities so I can do them. 

Snack: Green Juice: Greens Juice: cucumber, kale, collard greens, spinach, celery, cayenne, ginger, lemon and apple. 

Benefits: nutrients, minerals, anti-inflammatory 

30-60 minutes Hot tub: increases circulation, jets help sooth spasms and soreness

Dinner:  This is where I get a little break from having to eat to support my issues!  I either eat high fat/high protein or high carb/low fat!  This purely comes down to food combining. If I eat high carb high fat, I swell up and my stomach hurts so I seldomly do that.  So it's either a ribs or meat/veggies or pasta or grains/veggies! Always all you can eat! Sometimes I have an alcohol drink with dinner if I want to.  This is the time where I usually find my pleasure factor with eating. A lot of the time I feel the impacts of these choices immensely the next morning or immediately after but I need the joy that comes with pleasure eating to give my life balance and satisfy my palletes desires. If I didn't have this 20% of pleasure from food I would explode. It's natural for us to want to eat for pleasure so finding this balance has enabled me to maintain a healthy weight, body and mind.

After dinner I usually take a medicated edible that eventually puts me to sleep for about 10 hrs which is the only time I kinda get a break from pain! 

I know it all sounds like a chore and terrible to have to do day in and day out, I do mix in fun activities but one day away from this take 2 days to get back to bare able. A lot of people think I'm anti social but the truth is when you live with chronic pain you want to be alone a lot so people don't see you hurt. You have to plan and build yourself up for events and prepare for the recovery time from the exertion but this is all better than being addicted to narcotics and having no chance to get better. I have to protect myself from inexcusably stress and all of the things that doctors say can cause us ailments because it's all true and my body and mind are so vulnerable to them. 

I could dwell on what's happened and stop living but instead I choose to use what I can to manage with what I'm faced with until a time comes along where I am better. I know what serves me and what doesn't because I do the work to live the best I can with circumstances I am faced with. 

Why I think taking pain and nerve medications is like giving up.

Pain

When do you come to the point in your recovery or ailment that you just accept that you will always be in pain? It's just your reality. Your obstacle to endure and persist to work through. Can we just accept that the repercussion from something has changed our whole life. How do we use our minds to move on to another level of comfort. Make our negative reality a positive. 

While dealing with chronic pain from my accident, I will not allow myself to become addicted to pills. Once you start using pain  and nerve medications, I think you are giving up hope of being able to make your body heal itself. 

The human body is a miraculous thing and if we treat it as such and feed it properly, it can heal and repair itself beyond our wildest dreams. If scientists can regenerate cells on their own with a chemical reaction in a dish, then you have to be aware of how much more powerful the body is. 

Throughout my journey doctors have been telling me that things are in my head. For 15 months after my accident, I was hit by a car while riding my bike, I walked around, tried to resume my life, and did physical therapy with bone on bone in my hip joint. From the impact of my hip on the ground, it shattered some bones and those fragments landed on my femur. The violence of the seat lodging where the sun don't shine tearing my hip labrum.  Eventually where my hip joint and femur were touching bone bumps developed.  Every step I took my hip joint and femur would grind against each other and my hip would try to go over where the bone bumps were, like it was off-roading on my femur. Doctors told me I wasn't really feeling that and it was something called Bursitis. I was injected 6 times into my bursa and it just landed me on crutches for a week after each injection. 

When you are going through test after test and Doctor after Doctor is telling you that you don't feel and hear a grinding with every step you take, you dig real deep to find the confidence and self reliance to fight on.  Your family and friends even doubting you because you look fine. You have to become the most honest version of yourself. You evaluate anything that causes you stress or could be toxic for you and you remove that from your life because you honestly don't have time for that bullshit.  This is your mental medicine. You're not taking a pill to eliminate the affects stress has on your symptoms. You're removing that actual cause of your stress and life becomes easier to handle. You find the truth in what really matters to you in this life because you want to live in heaven while dealing with pain not live in hell and try to be comfortable there. You find the simple joy in life and make that your heaven which leaves a lot of people, foods and behaviors in the dust. People feel hurt but you want to live in the truth to find solutions for your pain and if they don't live there too; it's toxic for you. 

I knew then and now, that if I took all the pills that they were pushing on me that I would never be able to solve the grinding. My left leg felt dead, it still does today and there was no way that they weren't missing something. I started to notice that my high protein diet was making me swell and stiff. I started reading more about holistic nutrition so I could still feel my body but reduce the pain and things that I could do naturally to combat my symptoms. If you use pharmaceuticals you can't feel and if you can't feel, you will never heal.  I decided to use marijuana for pain which makes life a lot slower and slightly more manageable. It's like living on the edge of bearable which is better than no relief. As I started to read about the affects of high protein diets and started to eliminate processed foods, dairy and limit my animal product intake. I was able to reduce some of the painful symptoms but was also able to feel my bodies issues a lot more. I was eliminating anything that could make me think I was feeling things I wasn't.  I took every tip to heart and followed every advice I was given.  Doctors wanting to continuously poke me with injections for false diagnosis. All the while still having major neck problems and nerve pains but my main focus was my hip. I knew there was something really wrong. 

Going back to a doctor who tells you that maybe things are in your head, is a very mentally challenging thing, especially when you're dealing with pain management without pharmaceuticals. Sometimes using them to give you a break for a day to do something you really want but only to have to go back to full pain the next day. I wouldn't say I found religion but I have definitely been directed to focus on the grace and divinity of my soul. You have to really learn how to perceive the world in a positive light; in spite of it. Focus on the good to drown out the bad, find your purpose and be willing to make an effort to make yourself live in that state. The true inner dialogue, the truth of who you are and what you want in life in order to overcome your reality to be strong and actually be and feel happiness while feeling pain. 

After 15 month of testing my doctor gives me my 6th injection into my bursa, a pocket along side the hip and says that it's time to remove my bursa because it's chronically inflamed and that's probably what's going on. This surgery would leave a large scar across my hip. Knowing this was wrong in my heart, I asked my dad to get me in to see another Orthopedist for a 5th opinion. 

This doctor listen to me. Months of what felt like screaming for anyone to believe me. He did. He did a diagnostic injection and ordered a contrast MRI from a different angle.  There it was. A fully torn labrum and bone on bone in my hip joint with the bone bumps. I wasn't crazy. It wasn't in my head. I cried. I never backed down. I may have had doubts. But I did everything I was suppose to do. Not just for my body but for my mind and my soul. I didn't do it the easy way and I finally got a break.  I needed major hip surgery. I actually had to have two hip surgeries within 7 months of each other. I've had to relearn how to walk and I'm actually still doing it. 

So, now back to my original question, when do we just give in and accept our reality of always living in pain.  I guess I just reminded myself that there's always a way to get to your next break and it's probably not going to be easy but it's definitely always going to get better.  If you take the pills they're shoving down your throat you take away your shot at actually getting better. 

Forcing myself to do physical therapy when I would rather be laying on the couch.