Injury is the best thing that ever happened to me.

onefournine

My name is John. I suffered a herniated disc in my L4/L5 space in early May, and the offending disc pressed right on a nerve cluster. I was in traumatic levels of pain, spent some time in the ER and overall was really considering suicide. I hate to admit that I was that much in pain, and that low.

I had a neurosurgeon consultation, and he basically gave me two options...let him cut me or go to the swimming pool and start doing some serious therapy. I bought some swim trunks. On my worst days I was taking percocet every 3.5 hours just to stand up. I weighed 312 pounds, and I wasn't able to do much more than walk around in the water, and that was painful.

Over the past 12 weeks I have lost 23 pounds. I am now taking one percocet a day. I have started swimming laps in the past week, raising my heart rate as much as possible. I want to start adding some weights into my workout, but my wife (a nurse) is vetoing that for now. Anyway, that's my journey thus far. I went to a James Taylor concert a couple of weeks ago, and I bought a large t-shirt. I can't remember the last time I wore a large t-shirt, and looked good. So that is a goal of mine. I would really like to lose 140 more pounds. I don't know how to explain it, but I think most of you will probably understand...my mind has made a fundamental change in the way I feel about food and my weight. I am different now.

I couldn't ask for a more serious, life changing wake up call than a herniated disc. Motivation can be a real b*#@$.