Pain will make you stronger...

That’s what they say. Well, I suffered some pain. I knew some pain before that, in my life. I even stayed for 7 years in the Navy to fight pain and stand up for aggression. But I never got that much hurt though. I got scratches and bruises in my trainings and practice. But I was always strong and fast and smart to avoid too much pain and injury. So I suppose those little amounts of pain, did make me stronger or maybe scared me to experience too much of it.

However, I never said it, but I was quite convinced, that I was pretty much unbreakable. I never had a big fracture in my body. Apart from some little bumps on my ribs and yaws while sparring and fighting.

So, I was cut in half, being separated from a crucial part of my physical self in the matter of minutes. Not because I was fighting or training or saving someone or even doing something stupid, but because of stepping in the wrong direction in the dark. The pain really hit me. I broke my back and smashed my head after 7 meters fall landing on the pieces of concrete. The fall of my back then 94kg well trained body was so violent, that I was instantly thrown out of my body hovering above the edge of where the fall had started. And I found myself wondering… This time I really did it. Did I really hurt myself that bad that I have to go now? Is my vehicle so destroyed down there, that I can’t use it anymore? Is that what they are going to tell to my kids?

I went back. Back to the pain and numbness in my body. Back to the fear and horror of knowing that I was experiencing something that is impossible to imagine for someone who has never been paralyzed before. My feet where still there when I looked at them, but they were dead. I couldn’t move them and they were hanging heavy on my body, when I tried to move. This high-pitched noise in my ears and the quickly falling body temperature that made my jaws cramp. The fear of losing too much blood before the help arrives, giving orders to make sure, the help does arrive. Helping them to help me, to get away from here, out of the cold winter, away from the place that had finally broken me. A place that had waited 34 years of my arrival and had broken me with laws of physics.

This was the beginning of my new journey. Stay tuned! 😉