I just re-started this 1 exercise after a major health scare and it’s thrilling

I can barely walk today, and I’m so happy about it.

I mean, ideally, I would be able to walk today without limping around like an old man.

But considering where I was two years ago, I’ll count this as a W.

You see, a little less than 2 years ago, I went for what I thought would be a routine, unremarkable run through my neighborhood.

I got home after doing a shade under 5K and started walking up the stairs to get changed. Suddenly, a wave of dizziness washed over me, causing me to grey out momentarily and fall forward.

Fortunately, I managed to catch myself before I did a faceplant on the steps, but I was definitely shaken.

What the hell was happening to me?

Scary symptoms begin to pile up

That was in May of 2021, and as the spring turned into summer, things got progressively worse.

Not only was my dizziness returning with alarming frequency, but I also started getting numbness all over my body. Not numbness to the touch, but internal numbness.

If you’ve had it, you’ll understand.

Sometimes it would just affect my face or arms or fingertips or pelvic area, or sometimes it would hit all those spots at the same time.

Prolonged sitting was usually enough to trigger it, but exercise, ironically, made me feel much worse.

But I was stubborn, you see.

This was during one of the spring COVID lockdowns, and I had made a habit of replacing my gym time with yoga at home and running through the neighborhood with my then-11-year-old son.

This was really the only thing keeping me on the rails mentally.

I was drinking heavily as a coping mechanism at the time, so actually “on the rails” is a generous term in this spot.

But I did derive a lot of satisfaction and happiness out of my running while my wife and I tried to juggle full-time parenting/teaching with schools closed on top of full-time, demanding jobs.

So even though these scary symptoms were really starting to pile up, I stubbornly refused to give up running or yoga, both of which seemed to be triggering my condition more and more.

Meanwhile, I’d seen my family doctor and managed to get some tests, including a spinal MRI.

Finally, everything fell apart in early August of that year.

A hospital trip and a terrifying interrogation

Despite it being late summer, I had spent most of the day on my feet in a freezing-cold hockey arena.

COVID shutdowns had pushed my kids’ “spring” hockey season into August, and we were getting toward the end.

As the day wrapped up, I greyed out again and fell over onto my son’s hockey bag.

This time I also had some confusion and stroke-like symptoms, which aren’t uncommon for me because I get migraines with aura but were definitely out of place in this context.

I told my mom, who was visiting at the time and at the rink with me, that I thought I needed to go to the hospital.

I was officially scared now.

‘Does your family have a history of MS?’

At the ER, I got a head CT and heart test to rule out any major acute problems like a stroke.

As I waited for results, the ER doctor asked me the same question my GP had a couple months earlier: “does your family have a history of MS?”

This is not a fun question to have multiple doctors ask, let me tell you.

Both times I answered “no” and I hadn’t really worried about it because my initial spinal MRI had shown two minor bulging discs.

This came as a relief to me because it would explain the numbness and discomfort, but my doctor was unconvinced.

After that one came back, I was booked for an MRI designed to look specifically for Multiple Sclerosis.

I hadn’t had that one yet by the time I’d gone to the hospital and the tests there didn’t turn up anything notable, so we were down to two possibilities:

1. Multiple Sclerosis (this was the way my doctor seemed to be leaning)
2. Problems caused by bulging discs (what I suspected was the problem, and what I had my fingers crossed for)

As some of the numbness and weird sensations tapered off into the late fall, my stubborn nature popped up again.

Feeling slightly better and desperately wanting to get back to “normal”, I decided to try one more run.

I captured that November attempt in my Runkeeper App:

Dizziness and numbness returned to my hands and face in full force. I think my bulging discs were compressing my nerves, causing all kinds of problems.

At this point, I started to worry that I would never feel “normal” again.

One month later, I bent over to pick up a pylon at my son’s hockey practice and one of the discs slipped completely.

I would spend that night in bed screaming in pain every time I needed to turn over or use the washroom and the next several weeks barely able to move.

I was heartened to read that 90 out of 100 herniated disc problems resolve themselves within 6 weeks, and this one took care of itself.

In April, however, it slipped again while I was standing at the counter doing dishes after yet another day of standing on concrete in a cold hockey arena all day (spring hockey had returned to spring that year).

As I called for my younger son to bring me the puke bucket for the pain after I got up to use the washroom the following morning, I felt completely defeated.

The rebound

In fact, that second slipped disc was the beginning of the end of my back problems. The herniated disc resolved itself again within a month or so.

I was on a family Facetime call at some point around that time and my brother-in-law’s friend happened to be visiting them on the West Coast.

He had also experienced the same thing I did and told them it eventually went away completely.

Unfortunately, their friend told them, it was two full years until he felt “normal” again.

He had some traction work done with a chiropractor and said that made a huge difference as it took the pressure off the spine.

I had a bad experience with a chiropractor in my early 20s so that was out, but the traction idea appealed to me.

I looked for at-home exercises and found these two funny, weird physical therapists on YouTube.

This video changed my life:

Two years later

I was extremely diligent about doing my traction exercises from that point on and extremely careful never to bend at the waist again.

This made a massive difference. Any time I had a tinge of numbness or back discomfort, I’d go to my dining room chairs and take the pressure off my spine. I had to do this probably 10 times per day at the start, but eventually, I would get down to 1 or 2.

Meanwhile, my MS MRI came back clean, my numbness all but disappeared, and, a few months ago, I went for one last appointment with a neurologist at the MS clinic.

He gave me the news I’d been waiting to hear for almost two years: he didn’t believe this was Multiple Sclerosis.

His best guess was that it was some combination of the bulging discs (physical symptoms) and migraine with aura (neurological symptoms).

Now back at the gym and alcohol-free, I was finally starting to feel like myself again for the first time since I started feeling weird in the spring of 2021.

I wanted to look and feel the way I did in the Spartan picture at the top of this story again.

One last challenge remained, however.

I needed to go for a run.

Fear in recovery

But man, I was scared.

Given running seemed to be the initial trigger for almost two years of pain and worry, I was having trouble bringing myself to do it.

Last month, I was listening to the audiobook Relentless by Tim Grover. He was Michael Jordan and Dwyane Wade’s trainer and works regularly with NBA players.

Because NBA players get a lot of jumping injuries, they’re understandably very tentative about it when coming off a rehab stint.

After they’re healed up and regained strength via physio, Grover has them do one last jump down from a high, raised platform.

This is to demonstrate that they’re ready to go again and help them rebuild their confidence in their bodies.

It’s a scary moment for them, but necessary to regain that swagger, that confidence that they won’t get hurt again landing a jump even if it happened in the past.

This was running for me.

Losing my favorite exercise

Some people love running and some people hate it.

I love it. No exercise gets my endorphins going like it.

It brings me peace. It calms my mind.

So it was crushing that I couldn’t do it.

It was also something my son and I did together during the darkest COVID lockdown times, and I missed our camaraderie as we pushed our pace and distance.

As I started to fight through my back issues, he’d always ask when we were going to go running again.

I’d give him the same, honest answer every time: “I don’t know.”

Eventually, he stopped asking.

Do you want to go for a run?

Last week, I was listening to the audio version of the new David Goggins book, Never Finished.

Goggins is a former Navy SEAL and ultramarathoner, and he is also my “kick in the butt” guy.

And I needed a kick in the butt.

As he relived his athletic feats — many of which involve long-distance running accomplished under the most strenuous environmental and physical conditions — I finally decided it was time to stop putting it off.

It was time to go for a run.

Saturday morning, I got up, put on my sweats and runners, and called out to my now-13-year-old son.

“Hey … do you want to go for a run?”

He’d only just gotten up and was in front of the TV, so I was expecting a “no”.

But after a bit of hemming and hawing, he said “sure” and went to get changed.

And so, on March 25, 2023, we finally hit the road again.

We looped around one of our old routes, with him peeling off at one point to add another half-kilometer to his distance.

As I made my way down the last block toward my house, I pulled a Goggins and drew on my anger to push me to the finish line.

No f***ing way I was walking the end of this run.

I’ve waited too long.

I finally reached my front porch, took a deep breath of crisp morning air, and savored the moment. No numbness, no weird sensations.

Just a feeling of joy and satisfaction (and some very sore legs).

Today, I can barely walk for the pain in my calf muscles, but after almost a two-year hiatus from regular running, that’s to be expected.

I asked my son how he felt.

“Easier than I remember it,” he said, though his calf muscles were burning all day Sunday, too.

I don’t imagine we’ll run as often as we used to.

COVID is long gone and his competitive hockey takes up a lot of his time and energy.

I’ve also found a workout routine that works for me.

But we decided Saturday mornings are for running now. 5K Saturday, we’re calling it.

It’s great to be back.

Thank you very much for reading this post all the way to the end! If you enjoyed it, please give it a clap or two so others can find it!

Get an email every time I publish so you don’t miss a story!