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It all started about ten years ago when I was living in Cuernavaca, Mexico. I became good friends with another person, Charley who was just as interested in Health as I am. A more dedicated person you will never find. Myself, I have been going to gyms and working out since the age of nine years old. That was when I joined the Y.M.C.A.. That experience taught me discipline because the physical instructor, Mr. Filsinger was a little like a platoon sergeant. We were divided up into two groups, Junior Leaders and Senior Leaders. We had to learn, not only to use all the equipment in the gym, but to teach some else how to use it. Under his guidance it left an indelible mark on the way I approach things in life in general. I became Life Guard at the Y pool, then took Jr. Red Cross Life Saving, Senior Red Cross Life Saving and finally Instructor. I am forever indebted to that gentleman for giving me one of the most important tools in life – discipline along with dedication. I firmly believe that without these nothing will be accomplished.

Because of the latter remarks about how I became someone with discipline, that leads us up to a partnership with Charley. I was designing web pages at the time and after much discussion with Charley we decided to go into business together, he providing the where-with-all and I doing the designing. Untold hours were spent on one page in particular. It had well over 100 pages and was done in English and Spanish. Working for sixteen to eighteen hours a day was the norm. This went on for almost two and half years. Meanwhile, of course no thought was given to exercise or even taking what should have been normal breaks once in while – don´t forget DEDICATION AND DICIPLINE. It goes without saying, too much of anything makes a negative. One day I left the apartment to go to the Zocalo (downtown) and on turning the corner a horrific pain shot down the side of my left leg. It put me on the ground and someone had to help me return to the house. The pain was unbearable and taking a cab everywhere was the order of the day. Needless to say, working on the computer took a back seat. I went to a specialist and after much to do about nothing in particular I was given one shot in the backside every day for five days along with a short discussion about an operation since there are two damaged vertebrae at the base of my spine.

It just so happened during that very time frame a new procedure came out which only took fifteen minutes in an outpatient clinic. The procedure involved the insertion of a wire loop between the vertebrae which was heated-up to boiling. I am certainly not an expert, but that must have destroyed any feeling in the nerves. Fifteen minutes and you were out of there under your own power. Suffering from extreme pain makes decision come along a hell of lot faster so I tried making appointment in California University where they were doing the operation. I only have Medicare so I was turned down, to make a long story short. Meanwhile, another friend from Canada loaned me a book by a famous back doctor. Sorry, his name escapes me. He was very emphatic about NOT operating under anything but the most severe conditions. His explanation being: The scar tissue from the operation can cause worse problems that you had before. I remembered knowing three different people that had that happen exactly as he said. Reading that made me realize I was on my own and I would have to come up with a different approach and go back to basics.

Never having been a person to just sit and stew in my own juice, I finally got off my butt in a literal sense and decided to return my old standby, exercise. A real struggle took place for a long time and as time passed progress was noted more each day. As mentioned in the beginning, ten years has passed and my back has never once given any more problems. Again, the discipline and dedication applied in the right direction and given the correct application – NEVER OVER DOING is the only answer from my point of view. En fin, it requires a very definite mind set in order to avoid panic which results in making the wrong decision when one experiences seemly never ending pain.

It does not end there. I feel it necessary to relate another additional happening which started several years ago. My daughter Kim, her husband and I moved to Florida and lived in St. Petersburg for about two years before we all returned to our previous States, they to New York and I returned to New Jersey. While we lived in Florida Dave, Kim´s husband and I worked for a high school buddy of mine in the Fire Sprinkler business doing sprinkler installations. One day I working in a ditch putting in a 6” x 21´ length of black iron water pipe for the water main which was connected to a fire hydrant and supplied water to the sprinklers in the building. In the process I hit my right knee cap causing a small piece to break off. Of course, I was not aware of the damage it had caused until some two years later when I was back in New Jersey. A couple of weeks later my friend and I ran a 6K race and the following day my knee felt as if it were on backwards. After going to a Sports Medicine doctor who took x-rays and examined the surrounding area of the knee, his determination was; everything looked normal. Time passes and in New Jersey I continued going to the gym as usual, but every time I rode the bike it was obvious something was not right with my knee because of the constant pain. Another doctor later did a preliminary exam and stated that it must be a tendon. I insisted that is not the case so he took more x-rays and this time he had to admit that there a piece bone separated from the knee cap.

Next step: to find a doc that would not break the bank and at the same time do the job right (?). That is always the question in your mind when an operation is in the offing. Another sports medicine doctor was found at a good hospital around 75^st St. on the east side of Manhattan. His x-rays also verified the trouble and an appointment was made right away for the next week. I had to appear at 6:00 am and the operation was scheduled for 8:00 am. The nurse asked me if I wanted to watch the operation on TV and I answered: “I don´t want to know anything. I am chicken.” When the doctor was finishing up I was just waking up and could feel him moving and bending my leg to make sure everything was working alright. About that time the nurse passed by again shaking a small jar with piece of bone in it and asked me if I wanted a souvenir. As I am not much for such things I said no, but thanks anyway. The doctor then commented that while he had my knee joint exposed he noted some arthritis around the lower inside of the cap so he removed it by scraping it off. I am sure that he though he was doing me a favor, but after some twenty years later the only joint pain I have is the very place he removed the arthritis. I am a believer in: “If it works, don´t fix it”.

I am going to follow this article with another on Fasting and vegetarianism. The two have been instrumental in how I feel physically and the results I have obtained by sticking to that particular life style. I repeat, what works for me does not necessarily reap the same results for everyone, but from my experience and investigations on the subjects I find more positive results than negative. About the negative side, I firmly believe that many times those that do not have the results they expected by following a certain regimen is because of the lack of discipline and dedication mentioned at the beginning of this article. Nothing, regarding body changes when making 180 degree turnarounds in diet or supplementation, happens overnight. People expect to see results faster than is physically possible and the fact is that changes sometimes are so subtle as to go unnoticed because the change is spanned over such a long time.

By
Bruce Stokes

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