A lot has changed. Everything looks the same but internally I'm in the middle of an upwelling of some kind. I think it must have been activated by two key events. First, I met a coworker who inspired me to start eating a lot healthier. Second, I suffered a mysterious, almost crippling back injury of some kind. These two situations have really had a synergistic effect (or is it affect?) on me.
As a professional environmentalist, I've been aware of the benefits of a plant-based diet for a long time. While I've experimented with it several time I've never committed to it fully. Even with piles of evidence right in front of me such as weight loss, disappearing heart-burn, reduced joint pain, more flexibility, and just feeling better all around. Under normal circumstances I wouldn't (and haven't) given this much thought due to the fact that I'm constantly bombarded by a meat-based diet, and my life moves so fast I don't always see what I need to see. This changed about a month ago when I couldn't get out of bet one morning.
The pain had started as a dull back ache in early October. My lower back had been getting weaker and weaker everyday. I had been suffering from planter fasciitis for about a year (pain in the connective tissue on the bottoms of my feet) and now I was having back problems too. It was getting harder to walk and every morning was harder and harder to overcome the stiffness and pain. Until one morning I was in too much pain to roll over or even sit up. It took me an hour to get out of bed. I have no idea how many times I gasped, screamed and collapsed. I had been reduced to walking with a pair of old ski-poles so I could brace myself whenever my back decided to lock-up or cut-out on me. I had also been reduced to sleeping in a reclining chair so I could get up in the morning. The doctor said I did not have a spinal injury and my discs were fine, but all the muscles in my lower back had stopped working and I needed to develop my core muscles again. He also said that the fasciitis was a bruising issue and needed to go away on its own over time. The chiropractor told me the same thing. Based on these two coinciding theories, I set out to rebuild the muscles in my core and lower back. I got a personal trainer and even went to see a guy who fired electricity into my back to "jump-start" my muscles. I did low-impact stuff at the gym and it didn't help at all. My trainer added more weight to the routine and suddenly I was right back to where I had begun; unable to walk and in constant pain. I was still sleeping in the same chair after a month of torture with absolutely no results at all. I was starting to accept that this may be my quality of life forever; that I would never run with my kids again, never snowshoe or kayak again; and never go hiking in the woods with my family again. I started to wonder if maybe I had a tumor growing in my spine and was just about ready to call the doctor for an MRI appointment, but I had a bizarre thought at 3:00 AM while sitting in my recliner, "Could the fasciitis and the lower back pain be related?"
I'm no doctor, by any stretch of the huge imagination. I'm sure if these two things had been related they would have told me...right? Wrong! I Googled "LOWER BACK PAIN + PLANTER FASCIITIS" and I got about 50 solid hits, and they all gave the same diagnosis - "SHORTENING OF THE HAMSTRING MUSCLES." My hamstrings had shortened, pulling the back of my pelvis out of alignment while simultaneously pulling the connective tissue off of the heal bones in my feet. I just had a four day weekend for Thanksgiving and I spent it stretching out those hamstring muscles every hour on the hour for every waking hour. I am now 90% better. I can still feel some bruising in my pelvic joints from the prolonged situation, but it gets better every day. The only pain in my feet is a small area in my left heal. I can't believe that this simple fact was overlooked by an M.D., a chiropractor, a muscle therapist, and a physical trainer. But I'm thankful that the thought popped into my mind at that ridiculous hour...however it got there.
You're probably wondering where the diet comes into play. As I was hobbling around the house for almost a month, it really slowed my life down and forced me to look at things I would normally skip-over or dismiss. I experimented with all kinds of foods and after 30 days of on-line research and countless YouTube instructional videos I've discovered that vegetarians and vegan are quite possibly the most beautiful, amazing, positive, and fun people on the planet...and I want in.
Now that I'm physically able to take that next step, I'm going to place my feet on this new path and see where it takes me. I grew up in a house full of carnivores, I was raised a carnivore, I live in a house full of carnivores. I expect this to be the greatest personal challenge of my life. As Oscar Wilde Said, "I can resist everything but temptation." I wonder which steps will be more painful; the ones on this journey or the steps from the journey I just finished.
-Deano
