Coma's Road to Recovery

[coma]

First things first, since I've never made an introduction thread here, a brief history...

I left school in 1999, a typical ectomorph. You could count every rib and my forearms were pretty much uniform in diameter. I was a great distance runner but not so great at any other sports. I decided it was time to look like I wanted to, equipped with a £50 york weight set from argos and using a sturdy garden bench I religously followed the program set out in the instructions. From what I remember it wasn't too bad for a beginner routine, largely compound stuff and progressing from 3 sets of 10 to 6 sets of 6 over the weeks. My diet involved eating more and faster, mostly milk and meat. I was also working as a house removals porter and over the next two years I saw some decent changes and started to look average.

After a brief dispute with my boss I applied to university and secured a place on a robotics engineering course. There wasn't room for my weights but a gym membership was only £30 for the year so I wasn't too worried. As it happened the university social life and work started to get in the way and the gym got left out far too often.

Then in January 2001 I attempted something stupid involving a steep hill, a fast longboard and unfortunately no helmet. I woke up in hospital having spent the previous 36 hours in a coma, caused by pressure from my brain haemorrhaging. I lost a a bit of memory and with it a large amount of speech, mostly nouns, my sense of humour went for a while and I picked up a form of dyslexia while also losing my sense of smell. On the plus side I was still alive and had gained a really decent tolerance for spicy foods.

3 months later I got out of hospital, still suffering from the most incredible headaches I have ever had in my life. By now I was off painkillers and suffering. My memory and speech were recovering though I've kept the dyslexia and anosmia. I returned to University for the last couple of months and spent very little of it in lectures, predictably failing the year. The following year I increased my study, along with my beer and pizza intake passing the year and sadly regaining a lot of the muscle weight I had lost in hospital as fat. During that summer I saw a photo of myself which made me realise quite how much fat I had gained and it worked as my trigger to make some decent changes. As soon as I returned to University I applied to the Muay Thai club and spend the next two years training very hard, despite a crappy diet I out-trained it and lost the majority of my fat, also reaching what was probably the fittest I've been in my life. I eased off for my final exams, when I again gained some weight. This time I decided I wanted to gain some muscle and went on a 'See food' diet and started Poliquins 10x10 German Volume Training. It worked and I gained a lot of volume, not all of it good. I cut back with a modified V-diet using milk and whey but balancing the calories to 2000Kcal a day. Unfortunately by now my bench had outreached the point that I could do it by loading the bars on the bench and rolling it up my body to lift them, so my bench had stalled indefinitely.

I finished University and moved up to London, where I trained with just a pair of dumbells since I had little access to anything else and didn't yet have enough income for a gym membership. Once employed, I had a look at the local fitness first which was basically a cardio factory with a dumbell rack in the corner by the swiss balls. After an interesting conversation with the receptionist in which her response to me questioning the need for membership vs a pair of running shoes involved the phrase 'upper body cardio' I decided to look elsewhere.

As it happened an internet friend only lived a few miles from me now and as I complained about the lack of a decent local gym he asked if I wanted to train at his, his previous training partner having been bitten by the fitness bug but not managed to contract anything. I started training at his place, an olympic weight set, power cage, dipping bars and weight belt covered just about everything I needed. Cue almost two years of various training strategies, diets and supplements.

I peaked at ~200lbs @ 11% body fat, with my Bench press max at 120Kg, my ATG Squat at 145Kg and my Deadlift at 190Kg. However half way through a slow bulk, I started to develop what felt like a hamstring pull in my right leg, which was confirmed by the nurse at work who recommended a couple of weeks rest. After a month and a half I booked an appointment with my GP who diagnosed it as a trapped sciatic nerve and booked me in for physiotherapy. While on the waiting list I travelled out to Egypt for christmas where the pain intensified. Despite not having taken painkillers since my original accident 6 and a half years ago, I was now on a maximum dose of ibuprofen and paracetamol. I saw a GP out there who booked me for an MRI on the same day, which confirmed L4-5 and L5-S1 degenerative disc protusions. Currently I'm not exercising and my lifting has been limited to no more than 3Kg. I'm concentrating hugely on diet at the moment, and have a PT appointment on the 21st where I should get to find out whether I'm going to need surgery or not. I'll also be able to determine what my rehab will be like, as well as when/if I can return to lifting weights.

[CosmicFish]

Good to see you're keeping a positive attitude. Keep us posted on your progress!

[Luffers]

Any clue as to what the cause was? deadlift form perhaps?

[LionHair]

Wow coma, you've certainly had a journey mate.
P.S. And, now we know where the name comes from ... at the coma was certainly a kind of pause (",") in life for you - more so than only the weeks out of it unconscious... that kind of stuff marks a person for life, but it seems to have given you a positive mental attitude, grab it by the horns mate & stride forth I say !

[coma]

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Any clue as to what the cause was? deadlift form perhaps?

Maybe, my form when I started left a lot to be desired. Hopefully I can get an idea of the cause when I chat to the PT.

[coma]

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Wow coma, you've certainly had a journey mate.
P.S. And, now we know where the name comes from ... at the coma was certainly a kind of pause (",") in life for you - more so than only the weeks out of it unconscious... that kind of stuff marks a person for life, but it seems to have given you a positive mental attitude, grab it by the horns mate & stride forth I say !

Cheers, the whole incident did make me concentrate more on life. The original report gave me an initial 50% chance of recovery, when you consider that in that 50% of recovery sits a whole range from permanent brain damage to not recovering my speech I actually ended up doing pretty well, with barely any long term effects. As cheesy as it sounds it does make you think about what you've been doing with your life.

[LionHair]

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Cheers, the whole incident did make me concentrate more on life. The original report gave me an initial 50% chance of recovery, when you consider that in that 50% of recovery sits a whole range from permanent brain damage to not recovering my speech I actually ended up doing pretty well, with barely any long term effects.

So, in effect your recovery sat within an even smaller % of very lucky folks then - most fornuate indeed !

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As cheesy as it sounds it does make you think about what you've been doing with your life.

It does indeed... me & hubby have lived through some unfortunate holiday experiences... an earthquake (Caribbean) and a hurricane (Mexico - without food/water/bedding & no comms-lines for 3 days)... kinda focuses the mind on what is important in life don't it !

[Was_once_fat_dave]

I was in a hurricane in cuba, was a scarry experence but strangly exiting too. the eye was 50 miles from us and was a grade 4 when hit us. Hurricane dennis was it's name, was biggish news for a small time as hit florida as at grade 3, however was quickly overshadowed by katrina that hit new orleans 2 weeks later. Katrina was less powerfull/destructive then what hit us, but because the damage was done in america naturally it got more coverage.


Coma I doth my hat to you, you've gone thru a remarkable recovery, I bet it's made you appricate life a lot more than most of us can.


edit: dennis not george

[LionHair]

Ours was Hurricane Wilma when we were at Cancun
Hurricane Wilma - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[coma]

Cheers guys!

The reason I mentioned it in the history is because it was a large accident and could have been responsible for the initial injury to my spine, even though it was 7 years ago.

My recovery plan at the moment is something like this:

My physio appointment in 2 weeks and I'm completely off exercise until then, bar some basic walking. I'm going to be sticking to the recommendations I get, especially if I can avoid surgery. In the mean time I'm reading Dean Moyer's Rebuild Your Back, at least I'll have some kind of idea what advice I'm being given as well as the risks/recovery chances for the different options. I've got the MRI scans which I might post up if anyone is interested and also if I can take a decent picture.

For exercise I can't see myself heavy squatting anytime soon! I suspect I'll be told to stick to light exercise like cycling, jogging or swimming initially as I recover. I want to get back into Thai Boxing and have found a decent Muay Boran place in Ealing which is only a bus ride away. When/if I do get back into resistance work I'm going to avoid any maximum test days indefinitely, since I'm fairly sure these were aggravators of the injury. I've been playing with the idea of physique training instead of the strength focus I've had in the past, though that's a little way off for now.