I received some bad news this week… After being told that recovery from spinal surgery would take 3 – 6 months, I have now been informed that it will be 12 months to 5 years, and the level of pain I am in now, may never decrease.
That was hard to hear, especially when I have been struggling to cope wth the pain I am in the last few weeks. I also find it incredibly difficult not being able to do much physically. I am in a state worse than I would imagine I would be if I made it to 90 years old!
How did I end up like this?
I think back 30+ years ago, I had no concept that some of my activities would have a lasting and dramatic effect. I wasn’t that crazy while at play, though did fall off a rope swing: falling around 5 – metres and landing on my back on a small tree trunk that had been cut off on an angle.
While the scar is right where the worst of my injury is, I believe it was far more subtle and common actions that led to my worsening condition…
It was in everyday life and work that the real damage happened, and I was not aware.
No one told me how to lift properly. No one told me how to stand or walk or sit properly. Or exercise for health not just competition. I don’t recall anyone telling me the importance of healthy eating for my body. Or sleep.
You might be thinking ‘why didn’t his parents tell him?’ And my mum and step dad likely did. But I couldn’t be told anything. You see, I had to succeed and perform and win. So, while at play I wasn’t too bad – at work I trashed myself.
At 12 years old I would be running around at 4am in the morning with up to 30kgs of glass bottles, delivering milk to peoples doors. After 2 hours of that I would thrash my bike 10 kms delivering peoples papers. I would then attack the school day, consistently trying to prove my physical worth to people much older than myself.
Rugby probably didn’t help, but the real damage came in moments where I ended to get something done and I was alone. It couldn’t wait (or so I told myself) so I would lift it or move it or do it alone.
From gearboxes to engines I would lift them by hand. Digging trenches for irrigation: I would work like a slave for the reward of beer. Moving limestone blocks of 90kg I would do repeatedly all th while not knowing that lifting while bent put incredible pressure (over 700mm of Mercury if you want to know!) on my lower disk (L5/S1): Pinching it down further & further until it ruptured.
I could not tell you when it ruptured: I was in so much pain / urgency / drug & alcohol fuelled numbers so often that I really don’t know. The pain in my back had been bad since I was 16 – regularly getting massages to try to alleviate it so I could keep working.
But 90% of the time I could live normal. Until it kept getting worse, so chiropractors became the normal. Driving at times, my favourite pastime would leave me struggling to walk so I set up my computer and desk work on a treadmill. I bought a variety of health aides, mattresses etc but things still got worse.
No, due to some rare disease, but due to the all to come self reliance and proud-ful thinking that dominated my life. All th while things were getting worse, I was still lifting incorrectly and far, far too much!
Engines, car parts, gearboxes and even car bodies – I would still lift them! It was the only option – I could not afford a crane and I was normally on my own. The
The smarter option of leave it – do it later – or not at all, was not even on my radar. Finally I would relent and visit a Physio who told me the dreaded news that I simply must rest and give my back a chance to rest. For once I thought I would listen and it turns out it was the very worse thing I could do. After a couple of weeks rest, I was in agony & could hardly move.
As it turns out – my exo muscles were keeping me able to move, when I rested, my spine pushed back down onto the now collapsing disk.
I was told the doctor wanted me to go to the Pain management program due to the level of pain I was in. Being in the top 1% of pain sufferers in the country, he knew I was at risk of Suicidal Tendencies (also my favourite band at that point in my life!). 6 Weeks or so at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital in the SCAMP program taught me many, many things.
- I had lifted incorrectly all my life, my diet was important,
- I was already practising many advanced mind control and pain management techniques,
- I had used my pain and injury for my own benefit,
- I was heavily addicted to substances,
- my chronic alcohol use was a problem,
- meditation is my all time worse activity ever
and the biggest: I will never, ever get a spinal fusion.
I had met people who had spinal fusion and they were in a terrible way – far worse than me – and there was now nothing they could do. I didn’t know it at the time, but this would very quickly be the line in the sand that led me to decide to end my life…
After trying my best at the coping techniques, trying to not lift or do silly things, trying to lower my alcohol / drug use (didn’t work) and lowering nicotine input, trying to eat more healthily, the pain continued to mount until one day in 1999, I was told: you have no option, you need to get a fusion.
I still remember walking out of the surgeons room, my head spinning with all the consequences of the operation and I was actually a little giddy. I had just come to the realisation that I was about to die. It was now my only option. I wanted to die – and it felt like a small relief. I wasn’t sad about it – more pragmatic. (It wasn’t just my physical state that led to this decision – it was the straw that broke the camels back…
- a number of break-ins left me angry & not seeing the point of earning money if someone stole it.
- I had very narrowly avoided being violent with a girlfriend and knew I couldn’t be in a relationship
- I was marked by the police and I could not avoid their attention
- A large vision project I planned was too big and it would never go ahead
I would sell up, use the money to splash out a bit (which was very rare for me), enjoy life & jump off a cliff. (The cliff would be my last big rush).
The next few months were a blur – living as a full blown alcoholic in my workshop, literally sleeping next to gearboxes on the shelf. I prepared a camper bus to travel in and started selling my huge stockpile of things.
I won’t go into details about that trip – but the most incredible thing happened.
- I stopped drinking
- I stopped talking
- I stopped playing victim
- I stopped running away
- I was stopped, arrested in a whole new way…
You see, the physical injury, the pain I was in, was not what was the most damaging to me as a person. It turns out, it was just a symptom of the main problem. In fact, all the issues I listed were symptoms – not the actual problem! That was news to me…
All my issues were symptoms of the main problem
Also, I was confronted by (what was at that point a new) concept to me: it was my fault! That may sound strange to you, but I really did not think any of it was my fault (victim mentality much)!
What cut through all my pride, knowledge and ‘wisdom’? The Bible. I kid you not – what I read cut me like a knife, a sword even! 1For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires. 13 Nothing in all creation is hidden from God. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes, and he is the one to whom we are accountable. Hebrews 4:12-13 (NLT)
What was immediately clear was that this was not ‘just’ about severe chronic pain, the physical consequences of my actions: it was also about my actions towards others, how I had wronged them.
But far, far deeper and more powerful than even that was the realisation that all my actions were actually against a God I was adamant didn’t exist!
I had broken His law, I had lied, I had stolen, I had committed adultery, I had hated people, I had blasphemed, I had dishonoured my parents – the list was long…
In that moment, lying in a camper van at the perfect setting to end my life, I was suddenly awakened spiritually. The gravity of my sin, the reality of my eternal predicament, my position in front of this God was bitter and sweet.
I wept over my sin – for hours – over things that I never thought mattered, suddenly broke me. I was intimately aware that this God I had opposed and hated all my life, knew how bad I was and loved me anyway! So much so that He sent His Son to pay for the sins I committed!
This revelation changed my life in a profound and lasting way. 22 years later, now in far more physical pain than before, and no options for alleviation, I have a deep peace and security in the Father I never knew.
The truths I experienced are clearly described in the Bible – it is not some dry or burdensome religious requirement, but the offer of Eternal Life – all paid for by the Son of God! The reality is that He has adopted those who respond to His offer. And this Eternal Life will be very different. No pain, no shame, no death, no problems.
Physically and Mentally I still have incredibly difficult days: we are not designed to live in this level of pain. But I take comfort in that fact that I only need to endure another 50 years or so on this planet. Most days, lasting 5 days seems too hard let alone 50 years…but with His help, I can make today!
Maybe He will release me from some of the consequences of my bad decisions – though maybe I still have to learn: do not lift this/that!!
Somehow God has used every part of my journey for my good, despite the fact that much of it came about due to my bad decisions. Self reliance. Pride. Ability to relax and be a son. There are a number of areas where God is working on me – I just need to position myself for His healing, submit to His work, stop running.
And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. 29 For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. 30 And having chosen them, he called them to come to him. And having called them, he gave them right standing with himself. And having given them right standing, he gave them his glory.
Romans 8:28-30 (NLT)
Conclusion: God is able to use everything for our good – even our mistakes!
Lord, please help us today. Help us to physically and mentally cope, help us to understand Your plan, help us to relax in the knowledge of Your love. Please guide us and strengthen us to pursue Your healing.
Notes:
https://wildeden.com.au/ministry
Footnotes:
- 1For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires. 13 Nothing in all creation is hidden from God. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes, and he is the one to whom we are accountable. Hebrews 4:12-13 (NLT)