Things I Learned When I "Died"

To begin, I would like to create a portrait of my past. I would like to describe the beginnings of a spiral of confusion and pain that I fell into before I discuss the lessons I learned, or more accurately, I taught myself.

Early in the year of 2017, I was squatting with weights on my shoulders one day at the gym of my undergraduate college. The following day, I woke up with a sharp pain in my left leg that I had never felt before. I must have pulled a muscle. But, this was an internal pain; beyond skin, fat, and muscle. After some research on Google--how we all do when we're curious--I self-diagnosed myself and believed for it to be sciatica. I saw a doctor at my school's student health center, and he prescribed me muscle relaxers reassuring me that it would go away in a few weeks. As those few weeks passed, I realized the medication was no help. I saw a different doctor, who told me to just keep taking the pills. I finally met with my primary doctor in my hometown of Palmdale, CA a couple months later. He explained to me that I needed to stretch more, my muscles were probably tight. I believed it. I stretched, I walked, I worked out, but I still had the pain and I did not understand why.

I realized there was a real issue when I traveled abroad to study in Ireland that summer. I could not keep up with the rest of my class when going on field trips. I would need to stop and squat every ten minutes to readjust my leg and lower back. Squatting helped ease the pain and let me stretch out the back of my leg. I decided to see a doctor in Ireland and brought up the concern that it could be sciatica. She prescribed me the same medication that I had already been taking.

A year goes by, and I continue to squat everywhere I go. At this point, instead of needing to squat every ten minutes, it has become every five minutes. It was affecting my performance in school, my social life, my daily walk to work, my health, and my overall willingness to do anything. If I were offered an opportunity to do something--anything--I would consider the amount of pain I would endure. If I thought I could handle it, I would go. If it were a place with limited seating, an amusement park for example, I would say no.

In March of 2018, my life seemed to take a dark turn. The day after my grandfather's viewing, I woke up with a 104 degree fever. I had planned to take my mother to the airport where she was to fly to Armenia for a week to conduct my grandfather's funeral. I stayed in bed believing I would get better in the next day or two. On the third day, it seemed I was getting worse. My fever of 104 would not subside. I had lost my appetite and every movement brought me pain. I needed to ask for help to turn around in bed. I visited the emergency room (photographed to the left) and after some tests, they informed me that I had a kidney infection. They gave me a steroid shot in my hip, prescribed me medication, and promised it would go away after a few days of taking them. After two days, I seemed to be getting even worse; I was boiling with a fever, every part of my body was throbbing with exhaustion, I was vomiting the cucumbers I was forcing myself to eat, all along with dealing with the stinging feeling in my left leg. I saw my primary doctor who requested a CT scan. The results came in showing that nothing was wrong with me. The following night, my doctor calls informing me that I need to go to urgent care to be taken care of. I asked him if it was necessary because I could not get out of bed. He said yes, that I needed to go now because the most recent test result showed that my white blood cell count was extremely high. At that time, my neighbor had come over to see how I was doing. I told her and my father that I needed to go to urgent care as soon as possible. With both of them under my arms, they carried me to the car, then into urgent care. I was weak and breathing shallow. I was placed onto a wheelchair and was seen immediately. After some blood draws (which burst my veins as shown in the picture below), they told me I had to go to a different hospital to be treated. They had done everything they could and they considered it a "failure of outpatient." At the other hospital, I was given a custom-made antibiotic through an IV, which took about an hour for it to drain. After that, I got better day by day. I had missed a week of school, terrified my whole family, and lost fifteen pounds, but at least I was doing better... All seemed well until the same thing happened again in April, and this time, I picked up a habit of uncontrollable panic attacks.

Summer came and by that time I tried out a total of five different physical therapy centers for my lower back pain, none of which helped with relief for more than twenty minutes after I was out of the building. One of the physical therapists even told me that my pelvic floor had twisted and that I needed to exercise it back into place. Shocked with this new information about my own body that I did not know, I practiced the exercises for a few weeks, twisting the bones into the way I was told it should be. So, one night when I was out shopping with friends, I had an unusual amount of back pain. When I looked into the mirror while standing up straight, I noticed that my torso was shifted to the left. I used my right hand on my hip and my left hand on the side of my chest to push myself in together. As soon as I let go, I would spring back into the sideways position like a Slinky. I visited my physical therapist the next day who told me that it was just my body's way of "running away" from the pain.

My parents sought to pursue an alternative method of therapy for me and sent me to Armenia in October 2018. I visited a doctor who cracked my back and informed me that I may have a slipped disc. She asked me to come back to see her twice a week to receive electrotherapy. I would lay there while she placed sticky pads on to my lower back and calves. The pads were connected to a machine which looked to be from the Soviet era (pictured to the right). Then, she would place wet towels on top of the pads to hold them down while I received shocks for twenty minutes. After three weeks of treatment, I still had no relief from pain.

In December of 2018, my aunt gave me the idea to request an MRI from my doctor because long-term pain could mean there is a serious issue. I met with my doctor and persuaded him into requesting an MRI for me. He believed it was nothing more than muscular, but he put in a request for me anyway. The MRI came back showing that I had a disc herniation between my L-5 and S-1 discs. I met with more physical therapists, pain management specialists, spine specialists, and a surgeon to see what my best solution was. The surgeon informed me that I needed a microdiscectomy immediately. He described the surgery as being minimally invasive and that it will relieve the pain after the herniated disc was removed, but I had a higher risk of re-herniation in the future. I decided I was not ready for surgery and wanted to take care of it on my own first. He prescribed me with a nerve blocking medication, which, with the name alone and the amount of serious side-effects, was enough to scare me into not taking them.

I decided to take a holistic path and try acupuncture. That experience was an utter failure for me because the doctor placed the needles in to my hand too deeply and I nearly fainted. My vision went black and my hand went limp for the next two hours. It felt as if I had carpal tunnel. I didn't want to do that again.

Next, I decided to visit a chiropractor. I loved the feeling of my back cracking and the relief I recieved, but again, after twenty minutes, the pain would come back.

I decided to try swimming. I signed up for a membership at my nearest gym with a pool and went every day for three months in the mornings before work. Waking up every morning around 4:30am gave me energy and a clearer mind for the day. Swimming gave me a significant amount of relief from pain, but not enough for me to stop myself from squatting. As soon as summer of 2019 began, it became harder to wake up at 4:30am and I became more social in the nighttime.

One fateful morning, I woke up with a type of sharp pain as if a lightning bolt had struck me and gotten stuck inside my lower back. I limped around my room to get ready for work. I cried while driving because it hurt to push down on the gas pedal. I crawled into the workplace to clock in. My co-workers found me on the floor of my cubicle with my forehead to the ground in a prayer position, wishing the pain would go away. I didn't want to miss work; I did not have many sick hours left and a higher position had just opened up for me to apply to. I did not want to miss the opportunity to climb the corporate ladder by having poor attendance. After a few minutes of persuasion from my co-workers, I got up and drove to the emergency room. I stumbled inside, unable to hold my tears back. I checked in and the nurses took me inside immediately. I laid on the gurney unsure of which position to stretch to relieve the pain. I stayed in the prayer position until a doctor came in to see me. I was prescribed opioids to relieve the pain and was told to see a specialist.

I hoped and wished that the pain would go away by morning, so that I could get back to work, get that promotion, get that raise, and get going with my life. I felt it was holding me back.

Morning came and the same pain was there. The opiates were no help. I had a small feeling of horror that this would not go away easily. I texted my supervisor about my situation. I explained how it hurt to walk and I wasn't sure when I would get better. He responded to me by saying that I could get up and come to work if I really wanted to. This was when I knew that my story was not going to end well; that I am going to go through a bumpy path, and in the back of my mind, I knew I was going to lose my job.

I stayed in bed because I was unable to do anything or go anywhere. I was in contact with doctors, specialists, the surgeon's office, Human Resources from my workplace, and the the Employment Development Department trying to get my situation handled. The surgeon scheduled me for surgery on November 25th... it was August 22nd. Were they expecting me to suffer that long? I thought I would die from the pain before then. Was there no other option for me? I was just told to keep calling and to keep trying for a sooner date.

I was faced with another dilemma. My brother was moving out to college in Atlanta, Georgia, and as a family, we had bought tickets to fly with him and help him with his transition. As a stubborn person, I couldn't accept the fact that I had a incapability. I love traveling and if there is an opportunity for me to do so, I will take it. I began to feel badly that my family had already paid for my ticket, although they said losing the ticket should not be an issue. I also wanted to be there as my brother settled into his new home and to see the sites of a state that I had never been to. But were those reasons enough for me to put my lower back on the line? They were.

I sat on a four hour plane ride with excruciating pain. I felt like I was being stabbed one thousand times per second in the lower back, as I sat there quietly, praying, shaking, crying, listening to my internalized screams. People around me seemed unbothered. They seemed like they had their minds clear, they were going about their day, and were able to think. To think about what they were going to do later that day, or maybe to think about what movie to watch next on their little airplane TV sets. Everyone seemed like they had options, meanwhile, a horror film played on loop inside my brain. I was exhausted. My energy was depleting quicker than usual and all I could think and breathe now was pain. There were moments where I could not hear what people were saying to me, the pain was overpowering. On the trek to the hotel, I laid everywhere I went. I laid on the back bench of the subway, I laid on the sticky bench across the rental car service booth, I laid across the trunk of the rental SUV, and finally, I laid across the hotel bed which is where I stayed for the remainder of the trip. I took three trips outside: once to a barbecue restaurant where I laid across the seat of the booth (shown above), once to an ice cream shop where I ate alone in the trunk of the SUV while my family took a walk outside, and once to the emergency room where they had my family and me waiting for four hours with no seats available to sit. I had no choice but to lay on the floor. By the time, we got back to the hotel, we had spent a total of six hours of the night to be prescribed a pack of lidocaine patches. The plane ride back was a little more bearable because my parents allowed me to lay across them for my comfort. I had also gotten a wheelchair and guided assistance while in the airport. People were staring and some would even ask what was wrong, but I could not answer more than "my back hurts." The moment I got into my own bed, I knew that I was not leaving it until I had surgery. Pain dictated what I had to do from now on.

The pain wouldn't ease and my thoughts wouldn't cease. The electric, lightning-bolt type pain was extremely sensitive and it took over every feeling in my body. It used to shoot from my lower back down to the back of my left knee, but now it had become a sharp pain that started in my lower back down to my left ankle and down to the back of my right knee. The type of pain I had prior to this was no where near as painful. I remembered it as if it was in the past long ago. I took the pain as granted, I had no idea how much worse it could get. The pain had layers to it now. It was an uninvited guest who overstayed its welcome irritating every cell of my being. Every day, any where from three to ten times a day, I would have short muscle spasms. I would have them mostly in the nighttime, which is the reason why my sleep schedule moved all the way to 7am. I was too afraid to sleep. The spasms would make me tense my lower back making the lightening bolt more sensitive sending electricity down to my leg crippling it for a good few seconds. I would be out of breath with tears in my eyes after a spastic episode. I positioned my pillows in a way that would help me subdue the pain. I kept three to four pillows underneath my hips at all times, leaving me in a pyramid-like position. I would keep my head down by the foot of my bed making sure my back was always at a downward 45 degrees. During spastic episodes, I would pull myself further down, creating a 90 degree angle helping pull my spine apart and keeping the muscles loose. I lived upside down: I ate in this way, I watched movies in this way, I solved puzzles and painted in this way. My life was all pain. Pain was all I knew.

In fact, I was in so much pain that I knew when the floor underneath my bed would get dirty. Every two to three days, I would have my mom sweep the floor for me because I wanted a clean view, not because I might breathe in the dust. No, that was not the issue. I didn’t feel that quality of life anymore. I lost my sense of motivation and thrill. I didn't have that reason to wake up or go to sleep every day. I saw no meaning in anything and repelled everything that came my way. My family would come to see how I was doing, but I would be mad at them even before they walked in. I was mad at their footsteps going up the stairs and into my room. I was mad at the words they would say and the amount of time they would take being in my room. I was mad at my gelled nails for being so difficult to take off. I would try to peel them off day after day annoying me more and more each day. I was in such constant pain that all I knew was anger. I hated myself for doing this to my body, I hated people for not helping me, I hated friends for not checking up on me, I hated family for checking up on me too much. I felt hate fuel my blood. I grew an interest in horror films, I had been terrified of them before. I had all 24 hours of the day to find as many horror movies as I possibly could to watch. I needed a way to externalizing the pain inside, to make it visible to me.

I believed I should have been taking over the world by now, but there I was hating it. I was beginning to imagine my body breaking down at the young age of 22. I knew I was young, I knew I still had so much I wanted to do and so many places I wanted to go. But there I was, laying, unable to stand, to shower, to go downstairs and get a glass of water. I took baths, I was unable to stand for more than a minute before my legs gave out from the pain. I began to believe I was going to die at a young age; if I didn't, I might as well just want to. I began to think in this way more and more frequently. Deep down I knew I would never do such a thing, but I wanted out. I wanted to leave. I didn’t want to end my life, I just wanted a new one. I wanted to run away to an island far away and not tell anyone that I was going, not even my family. As if to press restart on a video game.

MRI scan showing disc herniation between L-5 and S-1 discs grew significantly between December 2018 to September 2019.        

I dealt with the constant requests from my workplace for documents and the in-person doctors' appointments that I had to drag myself to all while laying down every where I went and continuing the take the heavy medications I was prescribed; until one day, I received a call informing me that there was an opening in two days for me to have the operation. Without question, I booked the appointment and prepared for surgery. On October 4th, 2019, I go into surgery with mild pre-surgery terror and intense back pain. The staff make me feel comfortable although I had the small fear of not waking up from anesthesia. I weighed my options and decided I was done living in pain, even death would be sweeter than this. In the operating room, I was given a mask and told to breath. After the third breath, I was asleep. Next thing I remember, I was being interrupted from my wonderful pink dreams into the real world. I woke up woozy, but fully capable of walking. I felt like how I felt during my pre-pain era: innocent and free. I walked up and down the hospital hallways and staircase, getting a feel for my "new legs." After I was brought home, I slept peacefully for a good two days.

The pain was non-existent. I was only sore from the incision; it was very surface level, no where near as deep as nerve pain. I felt myself getting better and better every day. I had borrowed a cane and a walker from my grandmother to reteach myself how to walk. I took it one step at a time. I had been bedridden in the summer, so to go outside in a t-shirt and to realize it was too cold, was shocking in a new way. I had missed out on the transition of a whole season. Day by day, I sensed my pace getting a little quicker and the ability to extend my foot getting a little further than the day before. But why was I still sad? I didn't understand why I was so unhappy while my body was getting better.

I received a phone call on October 11th from my workplace informing me that they are terminating my position because I did not qualify for medical leave; just as I had predicted. After eleven months of working there, I did not argue or feel bad. Instead, I saw it as a fresh chapter in my life, a brand new page to turn. But where was my motivation? That thrill that I left behind somewhere while I was in the dark place, I was supposed to get it back. I needed it to do things. I needed it to start caring again. The moment I realized that I was depressed, the moment that I can officially label myself as depressed, was when I noticed that I was too lazy to change out of my pajamas. Too lazy, in fact, that I would change them once a week when I noticed a smell. I watched TED Talks about depression trying to diagnose myself. I learned how others got out of it and the things they dealt with. I tried to understand, I tried to implement what they said, but I continued on through a path of darkness, loneliness, silence, and suffocation. I continued feeling annoyed at my parents' footsteps and whatever they tried to say to me. I continued watching horror films 24 hours a day and I continued not having enough energy to go outside or eat a full meal. I remember calling my brother, for the first time since he had left, and telling him that I cannot envision my life past 25, I could not see a future, these 22 years have felt like forever.

I was not excited to go to a birthday party in a back brace. Late October, I attended a banquet party, where I sat next to one of my cousins. We made small talk, but she may have sensed that I was a little different. She asked me how I was doing. And just for the sake of being transparent, I told her that I felt something was wrong with my head, as if my brain was chemically imbalanced. There was no other way I could explain it, I believed the side effects of the opioids had put me into a mental place where I could not recover. She tried to tell me that I could fix it, but I kept persisting that I had no hope. It was outside of my reach. She said she will send me a video to watch and all I had to do was learn from it. That was fine with me, I was running out of horror films to watch anyway.

I watched a video of Dr. Joe Dispenza explaining his work in an interview. Dr. Dispenza held a chiropractic practice when he was hit by a truck while running a marathon which shattered his spine. The surgery he needed had a high risk of failure, so he decided against it. He said he wanted to heal himself. He said he imagined his spine realign and after 11 weeks of mental work, he was able to heal. He promised himself that because he survived, he would study the power of the brain. Something in my brain must have clicked because I was immediately amazed at how this was possible. I could already relate to the man by the type of injury we both had. I was amazed with his theories, the way he collects data, and the case studies behind his research. Suddenly, I knew how to get out of my depression.

I felt as if I had just told my brain how to function. I felt I was handed this new gift to detect my feelings. In reality, I had just learned how to distinguish between me and my ego. As soon as I had realized that it was my ego that had grabbed a hold of depression and wore it like a big fuzzy coat, I let it go. I simply let go of depression. I distinguished between what my ego thought I needed with what I knew that I needed. I saw the difference in how I thought and how I felt. I just realized how hard I was being on myself and decided enough was enough. I am who I am and I cannot change who I am. I felt acceptance as soon as I decided. I felt as if I gave myself permission to love myself. There was nothing that felt more real to me than my self-love at that very moment.

The realization I experienced felt like a shedding of the old, like how a snake sheds its skin. There was a blossoming and a becoming of a new person. I learned that my constant negativity towards the world and to myself had been the cause of all this. I always saw the worst in myself which amplified my actions creating the worst case scenario in my reality. I learned that negative thinking is limiting; it limited me to thinking that I am sick, I am worthless, and I will live up to nothing. I was brought down to my lowest form by my thoughts alone, but that is what I needed to help me heal. The universe needed to bring me down to help me rise. It forced me onto my knees into the actual prayer position to help me learn to teach myself positive thinking. The feeling of change creates an actual rewiring of neuro-pathways, meaning that is how you heal from, not only depression, but other traumas as well. The brain has true power that most of us do not find until life brings us down to our lowest point. I was able to change this one little thing, and my whole life changed. I have a spark in everything again, I see more beauty in the smallest things than ever before. I learned that I had to look inward for the answers that I needed, not rely on external sources to determine my fate. I decided to go back to school to work towards a Master’s degree and learn, not only in academics, but about life. I have a curiosity about life that I did not have before, I want to experience life to the fullest and learn as much as I can. I started a business with my parents altering clothing for our neighbors. We work from home, but I hope to open a business for them later on. They have provided me with so much, I want to provide for them in every way I can. I have a long list of things I want to do and aspects of my life I want to heal. I take everything, every little thing, that happens in my life as a lesson to be learned and I am happier than I have ever been before. I know my journey is not over, it has just begun.

I experienced how thinking and feeling go hand in hand with mental and physical health. My negative thoughts made me feel badly about myself to the point where it cost me my life. I decided to quit thinking negatively--just like how one would decide to quit smoking--and allowed for everything positive to flow in. I see life as a journey and the lessons it provides are never-ending. Some people will catch the grasp of this essence later in life, others will hop on and get off--not seeing the full picture, and some will never see it. I feel blessed to be on this earth and to be able to experience the things I could not see while I was blinded by hatred for being in constant pain. It wasn't the disability that kept me back, it was my deeply dark, negative way of thinking. My old self has died, a new mindset has been born. So, from one mind writing this to the one reading this, don't be afraid to be happy. Happiness is everywhere, you can teach your mind to tune in to that happiness. And your story, just like mine, will have no end. You grow and learn every day. The only requirement is to own a brain, and I know you do. Negative thoughts limit you, positive thoughts make you limitless.