Daily blog #77

The juice is worth the squeeze

Today I received an MRI on my elbow that was injured in my previous fight. My third in the past three years. For whatever reason, the hum of the machine always puts me in a lull that has me snooozing in minutes. Maybe halfway through the process, for the first time, I awoke to a throbbing pain. It was coming from my elbow/bicep area. For those of you you don’t know, the nature of an MRI is to remain completely still. The worst part was not knowing how much longer I had left. As I laid there trying to breathe and focus my mind on other things I was reminded of a realization I had following my first major surgery to the knee.

In February of 2018 I had my first reconstructive surgery to the knee. While the surgery couldn’t have gone better, the staff at Desert Orthopedic and my surgeon Matthew Diltz did a phenomenal job, the two weeks following were hell. I am ever grateful to my family and friends who were there for me. The worst part besides the pain was being on painkillers, unable to train or work and not having a good diet. But knowing I was getting closer to my goals was all the promise I needed to keep going. Ten days following the surgery, which seemed like an eternity, I was able to go into the gym to do an upper body workout. These often end with some variation of an exercise called a “loaded carry” where you hold dumbbells, kettlebells, or some other form of weighted apparatus and walk for distance or time. Since I couldn’t walk I sat on a flat bench with a pair of 50 lb dumbbells. Towards the end of my 2 minute hold there was a satisfaction that came upon me from the burn in my forearms which made me squeeze even harder. It was that moment I realized that “the greatest pain is to feel nothing at all” and I was reminded of the fact sitting in the MRI today. Naturally I wanted the pain to go away but remembering that the pain was what was bringing me closer to what makes me the happiest.