Being Physically Born Again

The last couple of weeks have been a helluva thing. Getting stronger by the day, the stinging in my spine, chest, hands, face, and arms, are all clearly evidence of nerve regeneration. Emanating from the base of my spine and branching out in random bursts, every sting feels like a tiny little man is pulling on the end of a thread running through my body and giving it a shake. After a few uncomfortable hours, the sensation passes, and when the next one hits an hour or two later, it feels a little less severe and sometimes comes from a totally different place. It honestly feels like I’m being rewired from the ground up.

On the night that my nervous system got fried and this whole journey began, it felt like I was being electrocuted all over, like when Mel Gibson got it good in Lethal Weapon 2. Only instead of a water-charged sponge applied to the chest, it felt like someone plugged a generator into the bottom of my spine and revved up the motor. My body convulsed and with each successive shock, the nerves running throughout my upper body were completely torched. Pins and needles ran through my head, my hands twitched uncontrollably, and everything hurt. Everything.

But those days are behind me now. Now I’m being built back up, brick by agonizing brick. As this process has taken years, it has been an awful path to tread, but in the last couple of weeks I have welcomed the pain with gratitude. This time things are different. The damage feels like it’s finally in retreat and my body is coming back to life. Oh, to be fully alive again! It’s not an enjoyable process though and it has me wondering if the reason why none of us can remember the first couple years of life is because the rapid generation of nerves is too painful to be fully conscious for. I wonder if that’s why babies really cry so much.

When the damage struck, and in the years that followed, there were a lot of tears. Now I’m ready to cry again, but this time, it’s tears of joy. Just the possibility that this might be over soon has me wanting to cry. The other day I told my wife, with the most confidence I’ve had since this all began, “I’m going to make it.” But in my head I was thinking, “Holy shit, I AM going to make it!” I’ve been telling myself for years that I can make it, but to actually feel like I really am is a wholly different experience. I don’t want to jinx it, but I’m getting pretty excited to begin my second life.

If I do make it, the only medicine that has really worked is repeatedly telling myself, “I can,” along with an increasing faith that whatever brought me into this world can help see me through. Sure there have been other things that have helped – some conventional ones like painful exercises and meditation, as well as some not-so-conventional ones like grounding mats and eating upside down (desperation will make you try anything!) But when the only solutions that doctors present are prescription meds that your body rejects, there’s not much else you can rely on besides your mind and time.  So, channeling my own version of The Little Blue Engine That Could, I’ve been able to inch my way up the hill, mostly by thinking it’s possible. It’s cheesy, but I’m telling you, when life presents you with no other options, there is power in telling yourself you can, no matter how bad things look.

And things did look bad. And there were days that the pain made me panic and I said, “No, I can’t.” But then I’d give myself a mental slap, recognizing that every time I had those negative thoughts, they caused stress that only exacerbated the nerve damage. So I’d push back on them and double-down on the positive re-enforcement. And on and on it’s gone like that for far too long. The battle for my brain has been like a never-ending slugfest between Marvin Hagler and Sugar Ray Leonard.

Who knows what the future holds. Who knows if something will happen tomorrow that will negate all of my gains. But what I do know is that the mind really can change the body. I can’t tell you what it’s like to battle addiction or overcome cancer or overcome childhood abuse. There are horrors in this life that I have never experienced and wouldn’t dare try to relate to. But I can tell you that I’ve been a prisoner in my own my body for over five and a half years and the only thing that has really saved me is telling myself that I am not my body, that I can repair my body, and there is always a chance. Because of my condition, that’s the only medicine I can take, and it’s working. (Well, that and grounding mats – that shit actually works!)