As a child, I couldn’t imagine that my body would ever fail me. I explored thinking only of what was right in front of me — the trout stream winding through our backyard, the snowmobile trail connecting our field to the neighbor’s, the cherry red chicken coop at the field’s edge.
I bent to clear the coop door, knelt to pluck eggs from straw. I rode my bike down Oak Hill, spinning rod in hand, creel slung over my shoulder. I crouched streamside and pitched a nightcrawler into a deep pool and watched a silhouette dart from the undercut bank; I lifted my rod to set the hook.
I shoveled the front steps, helped Dad drag deer he’d harvested, stacked firewood, hiked Katahdin, played catch with my sister, set my tent beside Upper Pierce Pond, dunked a basketball, ran competitive 5- and 10Ks, paddled five miles up a remote tributary of the St. John River.
Year after year I asked of my body, and it responded. Until it didn’t.
The incident itself, the moment it all changed, was laughable. I bent to grab my laptop. My back seized and a jolt of nerve pain shot down my right leg. Within seconds I turned gray and nearly vomited. That’s how I found out about my herniated disc.
The X-ray showed no space where the disc should have been and the report, which I read in the online portal before I’d unpacked the results with my doctor, said something about Degenerative Disc Disease.
Certain positions triggered sciatica — sitting in a canoe, for example — and I’d sweat and see pixels like you do at the start of an optical migraine. I tried to breathe. I half-crawled to get to the bathroom. I got constipated from pain meds that didn’t do much to manage my pain anyway.
My then-girlfriend ran errands for me, brought me take-out, helped me get from bedroom to kitchen and back again. Doctors suggested injections or surgery and my chiropractor said avoid surgery and finally I settled on physical therapy.
I hadn’t cleared my 30s and yet here I was, asking of my body and my body not responding as it always had.
I’m glad I chose physical therapy. My therapist, Dan, pushed me. We met for five months and I regained strength in my right leg as the sciatica dissipated. I woke up with cramping but could walk for a while.
I focused on core strengthening and worked to lose weight I’d gained sitting in bed all summer. I thought of all the things I’d miss out on if I didn’t recover: the hard, satisfying work of backcountry camping, or guiding clients to smallmouth bass on the Androscoggin, or drilling holes through two feet of ice on Messalonskee Lake.
That was not a life I wanted. The fear of losing those moments motivated me, and, after five months working with Dan, I ran for a half mile, pain-free, astonished at how much a body can heal.
Two years on from the injury, I sit in my tree stand for four hours at a time, though I have to stand and stretch often. I haul my canoe over the river’s rocky shallows but prefer to have a friend help me, to save my back.
I dragged Dad’s deer in early November with the help of my brother-in-law. I dragged my own small buck later that same month, alone, which was probably a bad decision, though I felt no pain afterward.
But how fast it can all change is always in the back of mind.
Things break down. All those cliches about middle-aged aches and pains seem true, so far. I’m fighting a losing battle with time, as is my father, who will turn 80 in April and still cuts his own firewood. I warn him but he does it anyway. It’s his way of moving, his way of staying useful.
I know I’ll evolve as I age, too, that I’ll modify the ways in which I adventure, relying more on smarts and teamwork and efficiency than on my strength alone.
I’m teaching now, casting and fly-tying lessons for one of the big outfitters, helping younger anglers learn the basics so that they can head to our waters with their full mobility and memories to make.
I have some guiding trips coming up, too, and I’m trying my best to keep my body ready for action, ready for whatever opportunities arise.
I’ll keep moving; I have to. As I do, I’ll keep praising this beat up, resilient, healing, capable body.
