What it means.

 It's been 1 year.

May 1st, 2022, I went to fitness 19 with my dad and deadlifted, dunno what happened, my dad coached me, but to put things into perspective, that was the ignition to a dark wave in my life.

This will be a reflective blog post. From a lens of someone who just ran a 10k at PPIE yesterday smiling, from a lens of someone who goes to the park for 3-5 hours on Saturdays. I lie down underneath the trees at orloff park and reflect sometimes too, but here I will lay out all my emotions formally.

The deadlifting wasn't the reason, my back ended up getting infected with a rare disease for someone of my age, called "discitis." Basically the disc in my back was inflammed for whatever reason, from bacteria getting there. This could low immune system or the bacteria seeping in somehow through eczema or other things. It is TRULY a mystery that I will never know. My back really hurt like the day after I deadlifted, but there is no way there is a connection between my deadlifting and a whole infection. How it all started is very incomprehensible. But what I do know is that in October, after the most frustrating doctor appointments, after everything, a step in the right direction was made.

My whole back pain timeline is insanely messy. There's so many waves and stages that I legit can't remember. But to put things briefly, it was pretty fine from May to July, but then I went to the gym 2 days in a row in July and went really hard in the stairs machine, and it went really bad. From then on it just wouldn't improve. 

I remember the most frustrating doctor's appointments, we kept insisting that it was something more than just "soreness," but the doctors just gave us some dogsh*t back muscle easer pill that did absolutely nothing, along with telling me to take advil to reduce the pain. I will say that the advil part helped a lot, that stuff was like a temporary magical potion that really reduced the strain of my back, I remember when I first took it before a marching band practice, I felt so happy. I felt like I was myself again, I was reimmersed into a world that I wanted to tap back into so bad for so long. But it wasn't fullproof, my back still felt weak on advil.

I remember leaving school one day 2nd semester, my back hurt so much from sitting in those absolute terrible chairs in music theory. I couldn't do it, I remember I was holding on to Rathul and Austin, trying not to cry, just yelling out how much it hurt every step I took. There was a staff guy in a golf cart, i begged him to let me sit in there so he coudl drive me to the parking lot to my car, but he was confused and gave me a firm no.

Then there was that other time in AP Human Geo, it might've been in civics, but one of those classes. My back hurt so much, I left class and walked to the band room practice room to lie down. It felt nice, but after 10 minutes of just lying down there, I couldn't get back up by myself. It was terrifying, I was alone in a dark room, and I wasn't even sure if I could get out. I did manage to though thankfully, there was a chair that I pressed against. I remember going to the office and going straight home after that experience, I couldn't handle the rest of the school day.

Then there were those times where I couldn't shower because it required standing up for some time. When I tried, I would suddenly collapse on the ground to my knees. The first time that happened in the shower, I straight up remember just being on the ground thinking, "wtf do i do??"

Then there were those times where I would sneeze and feel that sharp, intense pain in my back. I grew a great skill of being able to retract sneezes somehow, it was just all my body wanting to avoid it, it would somehow just prevent some sneezes from happening. But when it did, it hurt my back so bad, even if I was sitting down.

There were moments of happiness, like when I first took advil, or when I told myself that I felt better after my mom massaged me, but to be honest, those were all a product of me so illusively wanting to just be normal again, wishing I could find out what was happening to my back. I knew so vividly that it wasn't just back soreness or whatever bullsh*t the doctor said it was. I remember the first time, May 2nd, 2022, I told my dad, "this doesn't feel like normal back soreness, this feels weird."

After so much frustration, they finally referred me to a specialist and let me take an MRI after we told them that NOTHING they were giving us was working. I remember falling asleep in that MRI machine lol, that was such a nice nap. Ok anyway, from that, we found out it was infected, and we scheduled an appointment in Pleasant Hill with a spine specialist, Dr. Policy. 

So the day comes where we go to that appointment. And that's when it all changed. I thank you Dr. Policy so much, I thank you so much Mr. Policy. Oh my goodness.

So calmly, so methodically, explained stuff, a back brace, and sent us to an emergency room, before slowly relaying that we would need to stay in the hospital for a while. I remember it was like a Thursday. I thought this was a one day appointment, but before you know it, I spend the next 5 days in the hospital. What an experience. And that's when it led up to this: https://cavs4tw.blogspot.com/2022/10/5-days-at-hospital.html.

Rereading this post is a pain, idk why but none of my images load, that's ridiculous, that sucks. Here are them in an album form: https://photos.app.goo.gl/kMYgNUXG3dWnvLbf9.

My stay at the hospital was sad, yet happy. I knew that they were going to do something for my back, I felt a real push to actually do something for my back, I felt a sense of hope, a sense of relief, that maybe this would all work out. I remember my dad telling me so many times that this is just another hardship that I have to endure, and that all of this will end so soon. 

I just stayed positive, I had my mom beside me most of the time, and I was just on my computer playing basketball heads or cubing or watching youtube. My back hurt so much during that, I remember it hurt a ton on my left side, but not that much on my right side.

But they did a biopsy to see what was going on, and treated me with antibiotics, and that was all, my inflammatory levels pretty much were decreasing, and they released me once it was a very good trend for my inflammatory levels through blood markers. That's really all it took: MRI, an operation, and antibiotics.

And quoting from that blog post, from a view of remnants of franticness, nervousness, and a fear that my back pain would all erupt again, "Hopefully this post was the peak of my back pain, and everything gets better. :')"

And it did. 

There's no more "I remember," or "Then there were those times." It's all present now. It's all gone now. I play basketball at the park with my friends, like how I used to long for it so bad. 

It's been one year. Another hardship thrown at me, worst than all the rest. 

If you are ever going through a darkness that seeps into your soul, a type of despair, hopelessness. Just know that it will all be over soon, and that the best thing to do for the sake of ... you ... is to be positive. I promise you that you will come out of it happier and more changed than you've ever been. I promise you that life is tough, but you are tougher.

Lyric(s) of the Post: 

Finally Find You - Derivikat, Netrum