After weeks of torture, my second surgery was upon me. I was finally going to be free of the traction device. I was very excited to get the second surgery so I could get closer to going home. I looked forward to living a more normal life because of reduced pain. However, I was unaware of how much my life was about to change.
The surgery took about ten hours. I was under for over twenty four hours. When I finally woke up, I was intubated, as if I was not already tortured enough. Doctors and nurses came flooding in, asking questions when I obviously could not answer with a neck brace on and a tube down my windpipe. It was a tremendous relief when that finally came out. Once it was out, they immediately got me walking.
They were surprised by how well I was walking right off the bat. To me, it felt very weird. It was going to take a lot to get used to. I remember little of the hospital between my mind blocking out the trauma and the fact that I was on medication stronger than morphine. I remember being in a lot of pain at certain times of the day as the medication wore off. It was miserable.
I was in the hospital for about five days after the second surgery. The day I could finally go home arrived. I was ecstatic. I could not wait to get back to the comfort of home. Plus, I had not seen my cats in almost a month. I needed them. I remember getting emotional when I finally got home because I was so relieved. I was unaware of what was in store for me on the road to recovery.
One extremely unexpected part of recovery was that my left arm caused more pain than my back. It was swollen to probably three or four times its normal size, and no one knew why. It was extremely painful and stayed that way for a couple of weeks.
The real wrench came about a week and a half after I left the hospital. That day, I learned from one of my doctors that I could never move my neck again. At first I had no response. I was mind boggled. About thirty minutes later, I tried to move my neck while looking in the mirror and it did not move at all. That is when my new reality truly hit me. I broke down on the spot. This sent me into a continuous spiral of depression.
It made it much harder to recover.
The depression began with breakdowns where I would suddenly start crying. My whole life, I just wanted to live a normal life, and now that was further from my grasp than ever before. It then turned into a much quieter depression. My mind would go blank. I wrote a text to a family member that took an hour, but I thought it took five minutes. I could not eat, sleep, or even play video games without my mind going blank. I was completely lost.
I have been through a lot in my life, but nothing had ever made me feel lost. This was unlike anything I had experienced before. It felt as if my life was at a standstill while time moved on around me.
How did I turn this around? It is no secret, and it is not much of a surprise either. It was with the help of a therapist. Therapy helped me understand my emotions in a much better light. I had gone through a lot, and video games had always been the answer. They allowed me to escape reality and immerse myself in something I loved. When that no longer helped me, I had no idea what to do.
I realized I had been using video games to cover my emotions. It was a suppression method. It worked for much of what I went through because I was not bottling up emotions. I was relieving negative thoughts. But all the sadness I felt about being unable to live a normal life had never really been addressed. It pooled up and collapsed with this final blow. Once I understood this, I could better address my emotions. It allowed me to come out of the depression.
I once again realized that I was capable of anything. I had already been through so much to achieve my goals. I would not let this be the end.
I adopted a more positive outlook on life. I will not lie, it was difficult, and I still have negative thoughts about my reality to this day. Every day, I wish there could be some way to restore my mobility. My career in sword swallowing was destroyed. How could I not be upset? I have never swallowed swords and never wanted to. However, all the things I love are still accessible to me. I know I can do anything I set my mind to, except move my head. Trust me, I have tried.
Titanium is stronger than my neck. It is not stronger than my will to rise up again every time I am knocked down. You can say a lot about humans, but you cannot deny the powerful will we can access. There are so many baffling stories about people overcoming the odds. I am one of many. I want to spread my story to inspire others in the same way those stories empowered me to continue reaching for the stars.