“Stories of Trust” Disc Herniation — The Drawer Is Still Closed

On my 30th birthday in 2012 I earned Gold at the IBJJF Houston Open Adult Purple Belt Lightweight Division. I felt stronger, more confident and in better shape than ever before.

Seven days later I was practicing a lumberjack sweep with a training partner. It’s a standard BJJ move — drop low, trap the heel, drive the hips forward with a rotational twist. During that move I felt an explosion in my lower back.

I tried to keep training. The immobility became immediately apparent. Not so much the pain but just couldn’t stand up straight.

By the next morning I could barely stand. I looked like a hunchback. My lower back tingled constantly for days.

After about a month I went to the doctor and had an X-ray. It looked perfectly normal. I thought perhaps I just pulled a muscle and I’d be back to training and exercising in no time.

That relief didn’t last.

Over the following months I slowly started moving again — walking, then eventually attempting to run. The pain and sciatica kept returning. On one of those runs I stepped into an unseen depression in the ground. My back gave out instantly. Hunchback again for days. Tingling shooting into my buttocks.

After more than a year of recurring pain and sciatica I went back to the doctor. That’s when he ordered the MRI.

I sat with the doctor who read those results in April 2013. He was genuinely sad. Not clinical. Sad. When he looked at me and said “I’m sorry” it felt like he was delivering a death sentence.

The measurements explained his reaction: 11.17mm wide by 17.8mm long central disc herniation — physically invading the spinal canal.

He handed me referrals to a spine surgeon, orders for epidural cortisone injections, and a Percocet prescription.

I left his office not knowing what to do. I couldn’t believe this was happening.

Then I went home and researched. I read about microdiscectomies and spinal fusions. The failure rates. The long term complications. Adjacent segment disease. The more I read the more I realized — surgery may not make things better.

I thought about where I was. Painful. Limited. But functional. Surgery just wasn’t a gamble I was willing to take.

“I am still good enough the way I am. I can live like this — I can still hike, walk and lift weights.”

I put the surgeon referrals, the injection orders and the Percocet prescription in my desk drawer. And I left them there.

That was 14 years ago.

The drawer is still closed.

— Kevin