I’m in pretty good shape now, but for the better part of the past decade, I dealt with a significant health issue that made life more than a little difficult at times. When things were really rough, I needed to vent, and I posted a lot of entries here on the site, which was not at all my intended purpose when I started wandering matt. I wanted this to be a space solely dedicated to the outdoors, and perhaps some creative writing pursuits. Life had other ideas.
After sharing a snippet of what I went through in 4000s by 40, I’ve been asked by some to write about the full extent of my health challenges in a new book, because it was a pretty crazy situation where every doctor I met—some of the best New England had to offer—all agreed that there was nothing they could do for me. One doctor even told me, “You’re fucked.” Another told me, “You’ll probably never heal.” Talk about some real cliffhangers.
Finding a Way
With help like that, there was only one thing left to do: go on a quest to find solutions outside of traditional medicine. I consulted every type of healer you can shake a stick at, experimented with supplements that didn’t work, and took out my frustration with the painfully slow progress by hitting the boxing bag—a lot. I tried yoga, weightlifting, meditation—any kind of exercise you can imagine—and I eventually found a few things that really moved the needle. It’s not fully over (maybe that second doctor was right), but I am 99% functional again after about five years, so almost back to normal. Well, if I was ever normal in the first place…
The full drama covers a stretch of about nine years and there were some really dark and crazy days along the way. People who have followed my journey have told me that they think a book about it would be helpful for others dealing with undiagnosed disorders and chronic pain. Given those requests, I believe I’ll probably write it someday. If knowing the full story can help anyone find their own way through their difficulties, I would be honored to play a part in that. But I just can’t write it yet. See, it was pretty rough.
Reliving the Pain
Now to be honest, I wrote the first few chapters of it and while I like what I wrote, I have to tell you: it was hard. Reliving the trauma of nerve pain coursing throughout your spine and back, every day, brought up a lot of anxiety as I wrote. There was a real sense that I’ve lived through enough of this already—why put myself through it again, even if the pain isn’t physical like before?
More importantly, this story affected more than just me of course. It hurt my whole family. We all had to live through my suffering, and while we did a great job of gritting our teeth and smiling through it, it doesn’t feel like we need to experience all of that again anytime soon. So, the book about my healing journey will sit on the shelf for a while. Who knows—maybe in ten years I’ll take it off the shelf and give it another try, but in the meantime, I’m going to take stock of where I’m at, have gratitude for what got me to this point, and enjoy the time I’ve been given. I’m going to pour my energy into some novels, keep improving my body, and look forward to what comes next.
And maybe someday that will be to finally write the full story of how I got here.