How Disneyland Broke My Back and Saved My Life

This is almost the exact moment when my back broke.

Okay, it's California Adventure, whatEVER.

And again, in close-up.

This is the face of agony, y'all. But it is pretty funny.

I talked about this in my first post, but I felt like it needed some fleshing out. This was a big moment in my life, and Disney was a huge part of it.

First thing you need to know is that I LOVE Disneyland. Disney, too. Talk all you want about their negatives, that company has brought me more honest joy than any other. Joy is something that I have learned not to expect from any corporation, except from Disney.

Want to know why?

 Doesn't really matter. Imma tell you.

Disney creates magic. There is an attention to detail present in Disney films, Disney TV, and Disney theme parks that I haven't found anywhere else. And that amount of focus paid to the tiniest little things is exactly what makes the magic happen.

It's real, y'all.

Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.

Any post is better when there's a Princess Bride reference.

Basically, here it is. Most theme parks have about two levels of detail. There's a ride, and the general surroundings might be decorated to show the theme of that ride. Maybe the employees are dressed up to indicate that theme.

At Disneyland, the detail goes down like seven or eight levels. There are no breaks in the illusion. Take the Indiana Jones Adventure. Everything you encounter builds on the theme. The decor leading up to the ride is phenomenal, some of the best production design I've ever seen at a theme park. All before you even step onto the ride.

You never see the back side of a ride. Even the sounds come from speakers that are designed to look like whatever environment the ride's theme embraces. It's unreal.

And that's what makes it magic.

Kids, going for the first time, are completely immersed in all of these different worlds that the Imagineers created. They aren't distracted by the how, because the how is so cleverly hidden. It's just... real... for them.

I'm a kid at heart. That's part of why I love Disneyland. But as I've gotten older, I've grown to appreciate other aspects of the parks.

One of my greatest joys is to go to Pooh's Corner at night, sit down on a bench, and just watch and listen. Some others that make the list--The lighting of the lights in Radiator Springs when the sun sets, Bugland at night (I know, it's gone now--sad face), the scents along Main Street as you enter.

Even the smells, y'all. No one else puts that amount of care into the details.

And yes, that was a summation. I could wax poetic about Disneyland and California Adventure for days without a break. Hell, I could talk about just the Indiana Jones ride for hours.

That sets the scene pretty well for what happened.

We had an extended family vacation planned to go to Disneyland and California Adventure. We have a big extended family, and pretty much everyone came. We were so excited!

I had been having back trouble for five or six months before our trip. Every doctor and specialist I met with told me it was just muscular and should go away in a few weeks. It didn't. In fact, it kept getting worse. There was nothing on my x-rays or in my labs that showed anything unusual. I tried everything: PT, bizarre exercises, chiropractic care, even a physiatrist (which I didn't even know was a thing).

Then we went on the trip.

At first, I was careful. I went on rides that I knew wouldn't exacerbate the pain in my back. But have I told you how much I LOVE Disneyland? So, after a while, I couldn't help myself. I went on Indiana Jones.

I was fine.

Like, no problems whatsoever. I consider Indiana Jones to be a pretty vigorous ride, so at that point I started experimenting. Big Thunder Mountain. Fine. Splash Mountain. No prob.

Then, we went over to California Adventure and went on the Incredicoaster. And that's when it all went south.

Just a reminder, in case you forgot.

What I hadn't taken into account was the g-forces involved. And I knew it from the first moment that ride started. There's the countdown, and then you're launched into the ride.

That's when the pain started.

It was bad, y'all. I couldn't breathe. And what's worse, I knew that the loop was coming. As bad as the rest of the ride was, that loop just about killed me.

When the ride ended, I lurched off the ride and down the stairs, my mind numb with agony. I have only flashes of memory from that walk to the nearest bench.

You know those signs they have at Disneyland that tell you not to go on the ride if you're experiencing back pain? Yeah. Pay attention to those.

I would find out later that one of my vertebrae (T-11, to be precise) had collapsed by 50%.

Here's where you truly understand how much I love Disney. I stayed at the park. I wouldn't go home. I was in so much pain, but I didn't want to miss out on our Disneyland trip.

Fast forward. We're home, and my back is worse than ever. I finally get fed up and decided to go to a pain management clinic. It was a last resort. I don't like treating things with a Band-Aid. I'm reluctant to take meds unless I really need them. I want to get to the root of the problem.

I was done with the pain.

So, they asked me to get an MRI, so they could see what was happening in the soft tissue. They needed to know so they could target the injections they were going to give me.

Up to that point, I'd been told that an MRI wasn't necessary, especially since my x-rays and labs were all normal. And MRIs are expensive, y'all. I didn't want to spend money that we didn't have, only to be told the same damn thing I'd been told all along:  this problem is muscular in nature.

Yeah. That's not what they told me once I got my MRI.

The day after I got my scan done, the doctor at the clinic asked if I could come in to talk to him. I thought, wow, they're really on the ball. I'm going to get some pain relief TODAY.

That was not how it went down.

I feel like I need to take a moment and acknowledge how difficult this must have been for the doctor at the pain management clinic. He normally is giving shots to people with back pain, not delivering life-altering news. I'm pretty sure I saw him crying while he was giving me the low-down. I felt bad for him. It must've been tough.

He showed me the MRI, which had only been taken from about my ribcage down to my pelvis, since that's where the pain was. The scan showed an eight centimeter mass wrapped around my spine, a shattered vertebra, and another six centimeter mass in my kidney. He told me that it was most likely cancer. That began my journey, which, if you haven't already, you can track from the beginning by going to my first post.

Again, let me sum up.

Disneyland saved my life.

No lie, y'all. No lie.

If I hadn't gone on that ride and broken my back, I wouldn't have gone to the pain management clinic. I had found some exercises that were helping with my back pain (this book is amazeballs, y'all; if you have any chronic pain, I highly recommend it), and I would have just continued with them. I wouldn't have found out about my cancer. I would have gotten a lot worse. The lymphoma was fast moving, already at stage four. I shudder to think of what that could've looked like. The renal cell carcinoma could've metastasized. Metastatic clear cell renal carcinoma has like an 8% chance of recovery.

This isn't an exaggeration.

I just finished going through what will hopefully be the last major procedure I have to do to kill Todd off completely. I'll do some light follow-up radiation, and possibly some maintenance chemotherapy, but essentially, I'm done, at least for now.

Know what I want to do to celebrate?

Yep. Go to Disneyland. You know, as soon as we pay off all our medical debt. Priorities and stuff. But given my druthers, I'd be headed there TODAY.

Because if it weren't for them, I might not be alive. And I like being alive.

So, from the bottom of my heart, thank you Disneyland. Thank you so much. You've given me joy for years, and now you've helped restore me to health.

It's a good day, y'all.
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Coming soon: a scathing denunciation of all things sugary and what they do to my chemotherapy altered tastebuds.

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