I Broke My Spine At Pastranaland

[Music] oh my god dude he's flying oh my god no it's actually pretty funny that i'm wearing this shirt because i noticed that i took a picture randomly with the surgeon and doctor that i ended up like assigning as my doctor for this injury and i was wearing this shirt in the picture so that's random that i'm that i put this shirt on today yeah so today i'm going to talk about the time that i broke my back at pastrana land what doesn't happen at pastrana land i was headed out to pastrana land just to go visit and i know that sounds ridiculous but my girlfriend and i at the time were planning a trip uh to new york city we were gonna go up to vermont and you know spend some time in that area i love that area so on the way there i was like you know what i'm gonna go a few days early and go meet up with these guys because there was a film shoot i haven't seen them in a while i'll go say hi so i jump on a plane and next thing i know i'm in maryland headed to pastrana land in an uber and i'll just start off by saying that i plan to go on this trip and just go visit i was healing my ankles i was healing mentally and i was simply going out there to help them support you know show some love and and just hang out with the boys for a few days so of course when you get there um there's what is in psychology referred to as a trigger everywhere for an adrenaline addict like me and a lot of people i think asked that question what is adrenaline addict is it a thing a lot of people get defensive about that and i'll get into that a little bit later but if you care to hear my my take on that absolutely it's a thing and you've got to guard against that because i'm the biggest victim of it because it's the best thing ever it's it's great i'm not going to say that adrenaline addiction is a bad thing but it's real hey it's impossible for it not to be real since i've studied psychology understanding the chemicals of the brain how it all works why we do the things that we do it's real so in this story i get to the pastrana land in the taxi and we just start filming we start we were basically building this pile of leaves we're going to build for the holiday season just this massive air bag out of leaves and from the start of the idea i was like this is pretty stupid i didn't think the idea was very good but i don't care like i'm here and down to help so um we basically built this massive landing out of a huge pile of leaves and tons of just uh one of those things leaf blowers and uh when the session started going down it was pretty mellow and no one was real i mean my friend brandon was doing a few flips on it and um it was just kind of pretty mellow and not that interesting i would say to me so we were all just kind of standing around like okay now what what are we gonna film we we've set up these two days to film stuff what should we film so then i was standing there and i was like okay i guess i'll just jump on this pit but i can do a backflip in the end of the leaves like why not literally not even a thought of my mind of like worry my guard was completely let down like i said when i showed up there i was planning on just chilling just cruising but there was nothing going on all of a sudden i'm in this environment where we all want to have fun all the time and i was that plan of chilling went right out the window and next thing i'm on this bike all right man you taking the bike i'm thinking about it this is the bike i learned my first ever backflip on well yeah i guess i gotta keep the trend going somehow so backflip and then i'll make my decision once i'm up there all right we'll get it wish me luck i'll just bail off yeah either backflip or dead sailor i like the dead sailor yeah all right um rock paper scissors for it for what for a backflip or a dead sailor okay so if i win it's backflip and if i win instead sailor okay it's easier one two three shoot okay ready one two three shoot [Laughter] okay if you decide you do what you ever feel comfortable with but if you hit that back flip dude dinner's on me a deal is a deal i was lost oh my god oh my god dude he's flying oh my god no and i noticed the brake the front brake didn't really work like uh it was stuck in so the front tire barely moved and it was all wobbly and the side of the front wheel was hitting the fork and it was very sketchy and i'm like whatever i'll be good no worries and i go up to the top those guys are filming and then not even thinking i literally have done so many flips on pit bikes and bikes and different things it didn't even cross my mind once to be scared or worried or whatever and that's a problem i felt like i was just kind of rushing things or not thinking things through so whatever didn't straight jump it didn't test the distance nothing just went backflip okay and if you watch that footage i think no one even really got that on film it was barely like a cell phone clip or something because no one even knew i was going i literally was going up the the running area to turn around and i just turned around and then just went because i didn't even care if anyone got it on film or not i was just gonna mess around and do a backflip no worries so i turned around hit the jump and didn't gauge the speed anything like that because it was a super small jump for the most part so i did i wasn't even worried about it so upside down i thought oh i don't exactly know the distance of this jump so i'm gonna bail on purpose like i've done a million times just about just over halfway upside down i'm going to build a bike and i'll come around and i'll be able to spot my landing and land on the leaves perfectly and whatever failed jump didn't land it i wasn't planning on landing in any way because i was in a pile of leaves i misjudged the speed just a little bit and i overshot the thing so when i came around i bailed the bike upside down to come around to spot my landing i was still way too high in the air for the trajectory of my flip and the speed that i decided to flip at so as i'm spotting my landing the leave pile i missed the leaf pile by like six inches or maybe a foot just enough so then from that six inch period of height from the from the leaf pile um i missed it and then i had like another 10 feet to the ground but when i had another 10 feet to the ground it was like okay it looked like leaves it was just leaves everywhere so i wasn't really that worried about it but i landed and as soon as i i overshot basically so my feet kept spinning so my feet were up in the air and i wasn't going to be able to s stick my landing on my feet so i was still flipping so now i didn't have it really an option so i land i was not worried about it still because my optical illusion of what i'm looking at is just all leaves on the ground but the leaves on the ground was just one layer of leaves to solid rock hard dirt and so i fell from 20 feet 25 feet straight to my butt on rock hard dirt like that and as soon as i landed i just went numb like my body just went numb and then i remember falling over to the left and screaming at the top of my lungs so loud i couldn't even get it out my mind was screaming louder than i've tried i couldn't even get screams out it was that painful and so then everyone came over to me and they thought i was kidding they thought i was playing a joke on them because what it looked like to them was that i just landed in the leaves and no worries but what they couldn't tell was under those leaves rock hard dirt so i'm laying there in agonizing paint just screaming and i can't feel anything but i'm i'm just laying there like a and this i did have a out-of-body experience where i'm looking at myself in so much pain and that's happened to me before and i'm watching myself going oh my gosh not this again you know i'm watching you just screaming screaming screaming and i couldn't feel anything so i'm laying there but i was watching my legs kick uncontrollably i was just panic kicking so then i was thinking i'm like okay cool you know my legs still work like i can still move but i can't feel any of it so i just kept just rolling around the dirt not not rolling around but just just fidgeting and in so much pain that i wished i was passed out but i wasn't and that's that fine line of just oh it sucks so bad and then everyone came over thought i was kidding and then they realized shortly after that oh he's not kidding he's in excruciating pain call the am call 9-1-1 somebody calls 9-1-1 i'm just laying there screaming finally i can move a little bit my feeling and my hands start coming back and i'm can move my feet a little and i'm kicking kicking kicking and i'm realizing okay you you jacked yourself up really good but i think you got lucky but the thing is with a lot of different spine injuries like that there can be severe damage after the injury takes place uh due to swelling purposes and different things that can happen if somebody moves you if you if you are moved if you move yourself things can get damaged worse than they are which is a super terrifying thing and i won't get into some of my friends that are permanently injured in this story i'll just leave this story to the story but i will say that i have you know quite a few friends that are permanently injured from spinal cord injuries and it is the worst nightmare you know and um and so at this point i'm going okay i don't know what's what's gonna happen but here i am and uh you know and it's cold it's a cold cold winter day and it's just miserable i'm laying there in misery so the ambulance shows up everyone's grabbing me put they actually took really good care of me and they got me in the ambulance pretty fast but the way that this story happened was that my girlfriend is on a plane to the airport and i'm supposed to be at this point driving to meet her this is crazy the story gets so crazy right here so i need to be driving basically at this point to meet her and i had left my phone in a windowsill uh in the barn and so i'm getting trap they put me on the stretcher and i'm going into the ambulance he is we're and screaming my freaking head off so much pain and they're trying to give me the morphine uh iv right away and i'm saying no no no be out of uh i'm gonna protect i don't know if we're gonna be able to backboard with this i'm gonna pretend that i'm not in pain for a second can you grab some sort of blankets michael a deal's a deal so we can put him up underneath i said that i was gonna do it dude you're insane and i don't know what i did but i mean a lot of people easier we can get him out of the river kids out there put them on the board be smart so we can get to always wear your helmet and uh that looks good just stick to your word we're gonna we'll see at the hospital [Music] performance and i'll get into more about not taking pain pills and not taking morphine and that kind of stuff in a later video uh maybe i'll get into it a little bit in this video but they get me on the stretcher there's you know plenty of people there carrying me over the ambulance and i'm just saying slow down slow down every bump every teeter my butt and back and whole area is so swollen and i feel it's just the sh worst thing ever they're carrying me over to the ambulance screaming getting the ambulance they're trying to put the morphine thing in me and i'm denying it no no no no no because in the past i know as soon as you get that drug stuff put into your veins you're gone like you're not even you're not you're not coherent you're not aware you're not yourself because i've had it done to me before pain pills same thing and that's why you know addiction and different avenues of drugs can affect athletes in such a way that it can destroy their lives which i'm also very passionate about which i'll talk more about um but so for this example get in the hot and the girl's like what are you talking about i'm like no no no sitting there screaming but saying like no don't don't put no and she's like what are you like this person's crazy she's like every single person always just is begging me for this stuff and you're saying no and i'm not telling the viewer this right now to sound tough or i'm better than that or anything like that i tell her i just don't want that right now i just don't feel comfortable i don't need that and i don't something right now intuitively is telling me do not do this so i denied it she's like okay so now we're headed out but when i left the phone on the windowsill as soon as they close the ambulance doors i'm like wait my phone because i i'm on the east coast you know like those guys are there but they have things going on people have lives to live and i just screwed everything up by going and getting hurt and you know now i don't want to depend on anybody i want to depend on myself go get my phone that stopped these the doors are closed they're out on our way out of the air or out of the driveway get my phone and stop the ambulance someone goes and grabs my phone i think brandon schmidt grabbed my phone thank you brandon throws it in the back i get my phone call my girlfriend i'm like hey i'm not gonna be at the airport he's crying you know crying crying and so much pain just screaming and she's like what are you talking about so this is where it gets crazy now i'm on my way to the hospital and i don't know which one there's tons of hospitals around there um and they ask which hospital do you want to get dropped off at i'm like i don't know i don't know i don't know where i'm at i've never you know and uh she's like okay well there's one that's i'm just taking me to the closest one she was giving me options this one's probably a little bit better this one's closer so now we start driving down the road and it's bumpy bumpy and miserable and i'm screaming my head off i'm just in excruciating pain driving driving down the road slow down slow up f down and they're like we're going as slow as we can you know we got to get you there they're like okay the you know this hospital or this ambulatory is going to be 35 or 40 minutes and i'm just so they're driving me to a hospital in some sketchy area of washington dc sketchy and i'll get into why it's sketchy but on the way there we're on the freeway at this point hitting the little you don't think about this like when you hit an overpass some little bump boom everything's shaking and my whole i don't i don't know what's wrong at this point later to find out i completely shattered or exploded my l2 vertebrae so i don't know that that's what's wrong but it's it hurts i know my back hurts and we're just going down the road so ah screaming and now all of a sudden the nurse or the paramedic in the ambulance is looking out the back window and i'm like what are you looking at there's cops around us like what's happening now so it turns out the ambulance was not was was uh there was traffic of some sort and someone had blocked us like a car had blocked us on the freeway wasn't letting us pass and so i don't know how the timing all worked out but the cops were pulling over the car that wouldn't let us pass i don't on the way to the hospital i'm sure that happens more often than you would think but i'm like great you know it was just a miserable ambulance ride all the way there um but the crazy part about where it goes next is the part with my girlfriend okay so she had a um i was supposed to meet her in new york city which was maybe two hours from where i was but i wasn't gonna get there so as she arrives in new york city to nobody no one's there to pick her up her dad works for the airlines and her dad was randomly i'm not kidding you how crazy this story is was working a flight and was at the new york airport the same time she arrived and so then they're trying to connect her dad had gotten her on a plane that left two minutes after she had landed in new york straight to washington dc so there was a plane literally as she landed in new york was leaving for washington dc and he held the plane because of his seniority with the airlines held the plane waited for her to get there which was like 10 minutes it was there's a cut off where they legally can't wait any longer of some some sort but they push that limit so she gets on the plane in you know they close the door right behind her get on the plane to baltimore or wash washington dc but this point i'm i'm i'm arriving in the hospital but what's crazy is the fact that that was able to happen for her to come there and comfort me um in such a random chain of events it was almost like it was meant to be where she was no worries i'll be like you know it's just that's a wild part of the story to me and i don't understand how that kind of stuff you know falls into place sometimes but at this point i'm arriving the hospital still screaming still no pain pills just in excruciating pain and they roll me through this back you know the back loading dock to to the er and they left me outside for a second it's zero degrees and they left me outside and what's going on now there's a gunshot guy just got shot like a bunch of times okay he has priority obviously puts him in then somebody else that just got shot and i'm like where am i what is happening you know so then they finally reel me inside maybe five minutes later and i'm laying there and there's all these people and i'm screaming at the top of my like just screaming and just oh and then they came over to me and they were basically forcing me to take the morphine you have to we have to be quiet you can't be screaming like that in here we're we're going to give you this because you can okay i'll be quiet you're not giving me that i'll be quiet so now i'm biting on my shirt oh just trying to be quiet but i can't just in such excruciating pain like i said and uh then i'm just laying there you know i'm alone i luckily have my phone talking to my girlfriend and trying to figure out what they so then this lady comes over to me wearing full um what is it called soaps or uh um whatever the surgeon gear surgical uh you know stuff i can't remember what it's called and um she's like hi mr jacob i'm so and so we're taking you into immediate surgery and this is kind of what the plan is and what we're gonna do here so i had gotten x-rays at this point and man with broken bones getting moved on an x-ray table it sucks more than anything in the world and i'm not here to whine about it but anyone out there that's had it done it sucks so i got that done and then they're like okay mr jacob you know we're taking you to surgery this is your l2 vertebrae it's exploded into your spinal canal it's basically there's bone fragments that are touching and impinging your spinal cord and you know there's really no way around this uh we're gonna go ahead and go in there and they basically this lady this surgeon was explaining to me what her plan of attack was so i'm laying there obviously in level 12 out of 10 pain thinking about my options you know what am i what am i going to do so for me at this point all of my surgeries and i've blessed to have said this have been done by olympic team you know you know u.s doctors that they're the best in the world at what they do and not to say that that certain people aren't the best in the world at what they do as far as surgeons go but that had just been my level of understanding and experience with having surgeries like that so this lady comes in gung-ho this is what we're gonna do this is what we're doing you need to sign this paper right here we're going into surgery in five minutes hold on hold on a second i know i know i'm in excruciating pain and and and but here's the thing i'm not and there's a lot of situations you can't avoid that right if things are that bad you know where people are since you have there's no other option you do that or you die but i knew that i had time because there was nothing i'm like hold on a second and i hold on so that kind of took my mind off the pain for a second and i look at her and i'm like there's nothing internally bleeding there's nothing internally wrong no nope nothing nothing that we can see or find i look at her i'm like no risk no disrespect to you but i need some time just put me in a room and leave me there because they're basically just trying to pump out numbers in the in the er you know just in and out in and out like in and out just handle all of them as fast as possible but my pain started to have a different feeling to it when i realized hold on let me just let me just take some time and figure this out so she looks at me when i tell her put me in a room and leave me there i wasn't kidding i looked at her square in the face she's ready to push me to the surgery thing sign this paper like i mentioned and when they said sign the paper thing you know when this is gnarly but my friend will and will if you're watching this you're such a maniac dude and such a badass he had exploded his arm in an off-road vehicle and basically uh we were i was right there and his arm compound fractured exploded and uh there's actually a story of this on my channel if you care to watch it it's called the exploded arm story um but his arm got crushed by the roll cage and i'm we're trying to hold his arm his arm is flailing and all his bones are in the dirt with guts and it was it was horrifying but when we got him to the hospital you know i was the one that had to sign these papers and basically get like get his consent from his parents and just gnarly stuff you know and so when they pulled the papers out that time i'm like hold on a second and so i looked at her square in the face like i said i said leave me in this room and just leave me there i need to figure out my life just leave me there so they're like we can't what are you you're do not so you're denying it so she started to take it personal kind of like so you're denying my profession basically it was i'm like look no hard feelings towards you but just you know and so she took that personally kinda and i could see it but i didn't care i'm like this is it's always surgery's last resort surgery is always last resort no matter what you're if you can heal something without having surgery do that option first unless there's you know really really take into consideration your options so they put me in a room they left me there they wheeled me over to a room and left me there this is the craziest i was picturing being there for you know days alone and you know travis and all the people that were there that day came and visited they've they've they came to visit found the wrong hospital they went to the wrong hospital like two hours in the other direction i'm like where are these guys and then they come back come to the other hospital finally there but then i'm in this room alone for i figured i'd be there alone for a while but my girlfriend shows up like an hour later and at this point it's like midnight but the blessing of having her there when everything was just shattered no pun intended um and i'm just in so much pain and miserable but just the way that worked out to have her comfort there as soon as i arrived basically was just pretty mind-blowing and then you know my mom came out and was helping and then i was there i think six or seven days in the hospital but i was laying there i just you know and when endorphin kicks in when you have an injury like that an endorphin kicks in basically what endorphin does is let's say a gazelle is getting chased by a lion and it sees that it's getting chased so endorphin makes that thing run as fast as it can and will ignore pain completely so let's say it steps on every sharp rock and bush and breaks an ankle it will keep running forever and that's what you see a lot happen in you know mma fighting and boxing and different skating things a lot of people if there's a skate session going down someone just slams over and over and over it's the story of my life is endorphin you just or somebody that can run you know 48 hours straight hundreds of miles without stopping endorphin kicks in and that's what allows us to just keep going but at the same time if that gazelle gets eaten by the lion it dies in oblivion basically so that endorphin is just overriding everything it ignores pain it ignores so that's what was happening to me kind of was my body was kicking in all this endorphin or as much as they could so it was coping with the pain as much as it could and then yeah i woke up the next morning at like 3 a.m and all that endorphin had worn off and i'm laying there luckily my she's laying there next to me sleeping on a couch upright just the biggest freaking legend sleeping in a couch upright just like this i look around the hospital room and i i'm just like oh i'm here this sucks because reality kind of kicks in when you're in that endorphin state you don't really know you're just you're trying to process everything as fast as possible but you're in that like everything's happening and then i woke up and that had all gone away my back's still hurt i'm in a hospital she's laying on sleeping on a couch upright and i'm looking around just thinking this sucks this is actually happening so then that morning um nothing you know really happened i think it was the next day that surgeon came back in to the room comes over and oh at this point i'm making phone calls to um every you know olympic doctor i could talk to luckily you know the us team doctors have been so helpful or they're always been supportive like hey you know whether you're on the olympic team or not and this sounds kind of um what is it like a special person important type of thing to say but it's just a blessing and i'm just saying this how it is is that they've always been that connection was made they're always hey you know you have anything in the future that you need us for we're here for you and that's been really amazing and really meaningful because they've they've stayed true to that and they've actually meant that and that's that goes to show you know so i'm calling them i'm sending the x-rays to different surgeons travis's surgeons on it there's five different surgeons at this point that i wanted their expertise from not to take away from this original surgeon but i didn't know her so i'm getting these other opinions five out of five all say no question about it you have to get that surgically repaired and removed and cut that out your bones are literally jamming your spinal cord in like there's no there's no way around it buddy sorry that was one of i'm not gonna say any names but um yeah and it was so i'm laying there like damn it this sucks but at least i have time the pain's warmed off now a little bit and now i'm laying here trying to figure out my best option so we were gonna get down to this different spine center in north carolina and then you know just kind of figure out the options at this point my mom arrived and uh the lady surgeon walks in the door and looks at me and goes you know i think it was actually a smart call of you to hold off on this surgery because for swelling purposes and trying to figure out the best plan of what we're going to do because here's the different types of surgeries that that are probably going to be most effective and kind of explaining like this plan of attack or this plan of attack so i think it was a good call that you weighed it off and i'm like you're about to rush me in and just cut me open and do whatever the who hell knows what and now you're telling me that my you know my whole so my intuition spoke to me in that way and i'm just saying you know if you have the opportunity if you can deal with that pain and there's nothing internally bleeding or going on and you can deal with it wait just if you can if that's a smart decision because i'm about to tell you why so now travis is a surgeon all right well we can take him here and and operate on him now i got the olympic team surgeons okay well let's get him to this spine center and i'm laying there like i feel like i could deal with this um for a little bit and this is probably day two and so you know by day three of course my sweet sweet girlfriend sleeping in the freaking chair wouldn't leave my side like that'll never never means yeah it's kind of unexplainable so i'm eating you know and this is where it gets pretty interesting is i'm just having meals but i haven't left this hospital bed i'm laying on my back in this hospital bed of course my spine has exploded so i probably had three or four meals hadn't gone to the bathroom just not even really thinking about it and then i'm not kidding you i woke up or sorry had dinner maybe three nights in had a dinner hospital food dinner right and i eat i remember eating and then someone mentioned hey you haven't been you haven't gone to the bathroom since you've been here right and i'm like yeah it's been pretty interesting and street bike tommy and my girlfriend are there my very very first food delivery oh my gosh a legend just them too and as soon as we had that conversation my stomach just starts hurting like i've never felt pain before in my life hold on what's going on so now i'm like four fourth story up in this hospital in this room and there's really minimal care going on there's like one nurse on duty don't get me wrong they were very helpful but there was limited access to things as as though it felt and tommy and my girlfriend are standing right there i remember the last thing i had was some yogurt and my stomach just hits me so hard and it starts hurting and hurting and hurting more and hurting more and hurting more so i developed what's called intestine lock and when your body gets shocked so fast and gnarly like this basically your whole system just freaks out and just freezes so your intestines freeze your whole bowel movement everything just stops working it stops it's delayed because it your your whole body's in shock basically so what had happened was all this food was trying to be processed through but my intestines weren't working they were they just froze and so there was a lot of stuff trying to happen in there that wasn't happening and i'm not kidding you it just got worse and worse and worse and worse and worse to the fact of i'm screaming screaming and they're looking at me like i felt like i was about to die i felt like i was just like about to just curl over i couldn't breathe i could it was horrendous and those poor guys for sitting there watching me go through this was just terrible terrible so then tommy was like i've done this before i've been through this before let's grab your knees and put them into your chest that should break up the gas so we try doing that of course like imagine with a broken back trying to put your knees to your chest so we're trying everything they're trying to push on my stomach it just gets worse and worse so finally i'm like get me to the bathroom i need to try to get to the bathroom so now i have her on one side tommy on the other side and they're carrying me to the bathroom with my shoulders like this with a broken back and i'm trying to just get there as fast i can and my stomach's hurt just you're just oh the worst finally they get me into the bathroom and i'm sitting on the toilet with a fresh broken back which is so horrible wish that upon nobody and i'm lit i'm just standing there trying to go but there's nothing happening there's no nothing nothing but i'm just [ __ ] so then i start uh getting like i think tommy or her his look is there uh well they're both there but they're looking and it's like yo your face is getting just pale white like you are white as a ghost i start sweating and i'm holding on to like the handicapped like thing right here just screaming my back is just like in the worst gnarliest situation and i'm shaking i'm panting my stomach it's just like it sucked and i'm not sure i'm not sitting here trying to whine but i'm just telling you this story is horrible it's a horrible situation i'm trying to give you a lesson from it so just bear with me here is i'm laying or i'm sitting on the toilet just screaming start fading i almost pass out almost just fall forward onto the floor but i saved myself and they're like helping me saving me and then nothing happened literally nothing happened for like an hour i'm just sitting there excruciating pain finally this nurse shows up with some prune juice and then nothing happened but it was just that excruciating pain for the whole night into the next morning and then finally finally i farted and then from there it was like starting to get better and better and better and then i was laying there and um then my mom arrived then i finally i think four days in took my first steps down the hall with the help of my girlfriend and she's walking me down the hallway and uh never forget this we're walking around there's like naked gangsters walking around the hospital one dude's just bat like blasting biggie smalls through one of those mini speakers just rolling down the heavy situation at any point i felt wherever i was i can't remember that hospital but it felt like somebody was gonna could have shot the place up no question about it definitely probably has and i was it was scary i was terrified just you know felt really uncomfortable and here i am with my mom and my girlfriend you know blonde like just like anyway we didn't fit in very well and so i'm like we got to get out of here i gotta get out of here now and of course my girlfriend and my mom being them and caring for me they're we're not going anywhere what are you talking about we're chilling here until we have a place to go we need you know you need to get surgery you have to have a plan nope i don't need a plan [Laughter] i called an uber i will make it to that uber downstairs whether you guys are here not you're not going you're not leaving here we're not leaving this hospital to it i just wanted to get out and i needed to get to a place so just out of there call the uber put my clothes on took me like an hour and i walked out of the room because at this point i could walk six or seven days later i could barely walk and uh like you guys they're not leaving here you guys can stay here if you want but i'm leaving of course i knew they were going to come with me so we getting this i i just refused i'm like hey i'm not staying another night here the nurses and the doctors everyone's freaking out what is he doing he can't be what i'm do do i need to sign a thing i'm leaving and yeah you need to sign this paper okay give me the paper okay so i walked down these steps with the help of them took me an hour get out to the curb uber arrives ordered one of the big ubers dude shows up we're going to this hotel thank my mom okay let's find this hotel and on the way there i didn't want to say anything because i didn't want him to treat us differently because then people get on edge in sensitive situations all of a sudden oh he has a broken back i'm gonna be careful and then when you're careful things happen so i didn't say anything obviously we're leaving a hospital but it took me a while to get into the car and we're driving to the hospital i'm laid down in the back seat there on one seat you know she's on one seat my mom's in the front seat and i'm just laying there just like trying to just bite my freaking own cheek just being quiet car runs a red light we almost t-boned a car this is just not funny but really real and that happened long story even longer we make it to the hotel and uh i laid there i think for two days got a first class seat back to california i just wanted to get to california i'm just just getting me home i want to get home laying crawling through the airport literally on my knees and elbows crawling through the airport people are you know complaining there's securities watching me what is this guy doing i have this back brace this whole entire setup on i'm crawling through the airport being that guy but i didn't care i just wanted to get home and i the reason being is that i had a doctor in mind in california that i was planning on going to get to but for now i'm just you know dealing with it and got one of those first class lay down seats laid down got there by the love of my girlfriend and mom made it to california help me there go to the surgeon and then by this point i'm doing my research online and i'm going okay what am i going to do what's my plan here how am i going to proceed with this 85 percent of back surgeries end up worse off than if you would have just left them before if it's not life-threatening or completely you know impinging and destroyed you obviously have to do things but 85 percent of non-life-threatening i would say that's the research that i was starting to realize so i come to him you know still in level 10 pain just but and i and i said that to him i'm like look i'm here i'm in excruciating pain but i'm reading these you know that a lot of back surgeries end up way worse than if you wouldn't have touched them and he goes yeah that's exactly right you're absolutely right so we did some more x-rays and i dr watkins jr in marina del rey incredible guy if you have anything spine related i would highly recommend him um just to know that he's done a lot of pro athletes and a lot of different people that i know speak really highly of him so uh we're sitting there coming up with a game plan and i'm like look i can i can live like this even though it sucks my back hurts so much but i can live like this and i want to wait and he goes okay you're looking at me like this and i like a questionable mindset and i go what would you do if i if you were me what would you do because you're the expert you know like you've seen a lot of stuff he looks at me and goes if i were you i would go home and count my blessings because you are the luckiest mother effer i've ever seen in my life he goes i've seen everything from the smallest fractures to death and i've seen thousands of these injuries and you're the luckiest guy i've ever seen walk through these doors i'm like okay okay so i went home and i laid on a couch for like two months just laid there on my back meditating because at this point i'm starting to read and learn a lot about psychology and spirituality and understanding this and if you're curious more about this story there's a very parallel story in this movie called heal with dr joe dispenza who went through something very similar to what i did and i hadn't actually watched this movie heal up until a few months ago many you know two years after this injury had occurred but i laid on this couch and i just meditated sometimes eight ten hours a day just meditating imagining myself getting better imagining my body healing and imagining the bones shifting and and moving i just i know the mind is a powerful thing and what you think you become and i just started focusing on my healing just so hard i need to get better i'm going to get better i'm i'm healing every moment i'm healing started eating just perfect clean nothing but water fruits vegetables clean meats like that's just what i my plan was and that's what i did so i had a checkup appointment with this same surgeon we agreed that we were going to come back in three weeks and see how i'm progressing and at that point we'll decide on a surgery decision so i show up back to his office you know in three weeks and we did x-rays and he looked at me a little bit confused saying that the healing is going it looks like it's already healing you know and and so i just he we were about to operate on it the next day he was we had the surgery scheduled like okay you know if this was kind of the decision point well then here's the slot open tomorrow if we do decide to go with that route i'm still in a chronic excruciating level 10 pain moving around but i'm i'm dealing with it i'm there and i just told him what i've been doing i'm saying i'm meditating i'm healing i'm eating right and dr watkins jr looks at me and goes good keep it going because then he started to tell me and i don't have the research or the knowledge to know but he mentioned that there's a lot of studies being done right now that particular surgeries are showing the same effects and progress as certain people that are meditating through their healing no bs if there's certain things that are needing to be moved in certain ways you know i'm not an expert on this but i know for a fact if there's not serious stuff that needs to be done that's a very real thing so i tell him what i'm doing he goes good keep meditating keep doing it keep doing what you're doing so for another two months i just kept meditating kept envisioning my healing eating super healthy eating right and this is if you told me this kind of thing a few years ago i would have called myself crazy but i just every day i just promised myself every day you're going to be feeling a little bit better every day your bones are healing every day and you know a few months went by and i'm at this point so much more mobile starting to stretch and let's just say that to this day i have not had a surgery uh for that injury and for a long time my don't get me wrong i still have pain um but from where i was not being able to move to being able to slowly repair the body wants to heal itself it wants to repair itself it wants to get better and this was my experiment with myself i didn't take any morphine or pain pills or anything like that just to be able to make you know my own decisions clearly but this story is to go to show for me standing here that i made that journey without i remember everyone travis everybody like damn dude good luck not getting surgery that sounds like a horrible idea you know just because of it and i thought so too at the time originally because the x-rays that i think i'll be able to pull up on this is you're looking at it like yeah there's no way like you know there's and so it's literally hitting and so i think basically three months into the to the healing i went back to watkins and we did an x-ray and the whole entire vertebrae bone had started to pull back and come out of the spinal canal and was starting to heal back into itself and i'm like okay this is real this is actually happening um so you know i still do feel some some pressure and pain on my spine um and especially when i'm doing something active especially mountain biking when i'm pulling on my my legs quite a bit then then i notice my spinal cord will swell up and my bone will hit there a little bit so it's not perfect but it's there and from this point um i started slowly just getting back into the things that i love to do i was so excited when i started snowboarding i took my first snowboard runs my back was hurting oh man i'm just paragliding and starting to do the things that i loved again i was just it gave me a new lease on life where i realized how blessed and lucky we are just to be able to walk down the street you know and being able to be healthy and and and healing is everything being healthy is everything if you don't have your health you have nothing so really take care of yourself as much as you can especially with the activities that we like to do and being outside and being active you really got to take care of yourself because it's really really important and the overarching message of this story is to listen to your own intuition and when something doesn't feel right don't do it because in that situation when she's walking up to me with the papers sign these papers we're going into surgery right now it just didn't feel right it just didn't feel okay and so i made the decision to know i'm holding off from this let me think about this and i'm not saying under any any under any i'm not saying under any circumstances to always go that route in fact that could be the worst decision of your life but for me in that situation it felt right follow your intuition it probably knows better than you think and that's about it so if you're dealing with an injury just know you'll get through it believe in yourself anything's possible the body and mind are amazing things you can do anything you set your mind to so thanks for listening much love we'll talk to you next time

Channel: TrevorJacob

Views: 118,574

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Id: EHPpZglRLzw

Length: 50min 0sec (3000 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 27 2021