I can’t remember a time that I wasn’t in pain.

When I was in my early teens, I was karate flipped over someone’s shoulder as a joke. It turned out to be a bad joke; I was knocked unconscious and taken to A&E. It turns out that I had hyper-extended my neck, tore up some muscles in my back and chipped a vertebrae.

I’ve been in chronic pain ever since. The level of pain varies. Sometimes it’s a dull ache between my shoulder blades. Sometimes the pain is so intense it radiates outwards until I wonder how anyone standing next to me can’t feel it too. And twice, the pain has been so bad I’ve been nearly paralyzed with it. My spine has grown into the wrong alignment but no amount of treatment has helped; and believe me I have tried nearly everything. My back always hurts.

Continue reading →