Making your own path

# 07 Jun, 2013 09:13
Zen_Beats	I thought I would make my first post about how the Drunken Taoist has become something I look forward to every fortnight. Since the conclusion of the very first podcast, I was instantly a fan of Daniele, Rich and Evan. I would like to thank all three of you for the time and effort you put into the podcast and don't stop! You are truly an inspiration. I am an avid listener of the Joe Rogan podcast since ‘10 and without that podcast I would have never been introduced to Duncan Trussell and without Duncan Trussell’s podcast I would have never made it here. One of the most (to me at least) important themes that comes across is that you need to be honest with yourself, find what you are good at and question anyone who says ‘you can’t do that or that's a bad idea'. This is very evident with your guest and sponsor choice, Datsusara especially; "to leave the salaried/corporate worker's life' With that said I would like to do an introduction of who I am and how ironically, I am entering the salary/corporate worker life because I was told ‘no’. So, where to begin? warning this tale is a bit of a book I was born with a very rare congenital disorder called Larsens Syndrome Due to this, my muscles were very lax and my feet did not come down from around my head in the womb. This cause my feet to form to the shape of my skull. This left me with really deformed feet and joints (shoulders, hips, knees) that would dislocate constantly. Back in 1985 in Australia no one had heard of it or knew how to treat it. They thought my feet were deformed due to ligaments in the bottom of my feet being too tight. So when I was 6 months old surgeons cut them in the hope that this would cause my feet to ‘relax’ and return to a normal shape. The opposite happened and my feet deformed further. From 6 months to age 13 I wore full legs splints, casts, orthotics, custom shoes… you get the idea. This was a very painful child hood. I suffered constant pain as my bones rubbed against each other and I could only walk for up to 20 minutes if I was lucky and run for maybe 100m. At age 13 my doctor/surgeon had a meeting with my family to say he had trialled a new surgery technique and it had worked 100% for a girl in a similar position. He wanted to perform the surgery on me and as a 13 year old boy sealed the deal by asking me the one question every boy that age wants to hear “You want to be on the football team and play with all your mates’ right?” My parents shied away from the surgery because it was a total foot reconstruction, including shaving bone off my hip and using that for form artificial heals pins and staples to hold the whole thing together. They thought it was too much for me to go through and after the first surgery were afraid of the outcome but I had made up my mind in that doctors office that anything that let me play football was worth it. I begged and pleaded with my parents until they finally caved as they only wanted their son to be happy. Fast forward 9 months and I'm being rolled into the operating theatre. The surgeon stops my mum and says “Look, this is a big operation and you don't want to see him go through this twice, so sign this form so we can do 2 feet at once” My mum pushed back but he wouldn't operate until she signed. I woke up from surgery with two feet in plaster and a tube sticking out of my hip as they drained blood from where they took the bone. Several months after it was time for the plaster, pins and staples to come off and for me to take my first steps on what was to be my new feet and a new lease on life. Those fateful steps will be with my family forever. My feet collapsed as I attempted to learn to walk for the second time. Bones hit bones, my arch that had been built came crashing down and threatened to push through my skin when I walked. The surgeon quickly got us out of the office, setup a review in a month or two. When we returned and demanded to know what happened the surgeon refused to see us and when we requested our medical records (13 years of x-rays) we were told they ‘had been lost’. I was left on my own, unable to walk for longer than a few minutes, Chronic and now permanent pain and no proof or information on what the hell happened in that operating theatre. By now I was in high school and in a wheelchair unable to walk or do anything. My parents attempted legal action (I won’t go into detail what happened here but I'll say it never made it to court) and during this discovered the girl who was a success, never existed. She was made up so I could be a guinnie pig and see if the surgery would work. With nowhere to go and my pain and condition getting worse I ended up dropping out of high school. My pain level was so high I could no longer manage much at all. The following years were spent floating from doctor to doctor looking for answers. When I was 16 I met a surgeon who was the first person in years to say ‘Yes I can help, we need to reconstruct your feet again and fuse them so the joints will not move and that will help with pain’ This time, the surgeon was open about everything and was very outspoken about what had happened and said he would only do 1 foot at a time. I had to travel interstate to have it done, so off I went and had it done. On the way home I had 1 foot in plaster and freshly stitched wounds. We had organised with the airline to purchase 3 seats so I could have my foot elevated for the entire trip. As we came to land I was informed that due to safety regulations they would not land the plane unless I put my foot down. An argument ended with the airline refusing the land until I put my foot down. I gave in and put it down. The combination of steep landing and fresh surgery rushed blood straight down to my foot and popped all the stitches along the side of my foot. By this stage I had such a high tolerance to pain that I wrote it off as surgery pain and though nothing of it. Over the next 6 weeks I grew increasingly tired and my foot hurt more and more and became very itchy. What I didn't know was that I was bleeding out. The blood was coming out of my open wound but had nowhere to go as the cast was sealed. Because it was sealed and there was no oxygen, the blood sat on the wound and started to rot my foot. I will never forget the day I went in for the first cast change. I was lying on the bed in the surgeon’s office and he started to cut the cast away, immediately the smell hit us. Rotting flesh is disgusting. As he pulled the cast away he turned white. I've never seen someone turn white like a cartoon character who has seen a ghost before. He threw a sheet over me immediately and pulled my mother into another room as he frantically called for an ambulance. I was told not to move and DO NOT LOOK. Curiosity killed the cat. I looked…and what I saw was the entire side of my foot eaten away. Out of shock I moved my big toe and saw what was left of my muscle and tendons flex to complete to movement. I was immediately sent to hospital for emergency surgery. As I went in they told me, “We have to tell you this so you are prepared when you wake up. We are more than likely going to amputate your foot.” Four hours in surgery and I wake up and check instantly what’s under the blanket. I see a big bandaged lump but it had toes sticking out of the end. I got to keep my foot. The next 30 days were pure hell. I've never experienced anything like it and I hope no one else ever will. They had cut so much flesh away that I had to try and grow it back. How they did this was putting a medical sponge into the hole and attaching a vacuum to it was force blood to the surface to form new blood vessels and flesh. The problem was that as this happened my flesh would form and start to scab over as it attempted to heal. So every morning to start the next layer of flesh I had to have the sponge ripped out and replaced with a new one. Words cannot even come close to describe how that felt. It was torture. With tears streaming down my face every morning they would tear it out. If you've ever had a motor bike accident and suffered extreme gravel rash where they have had to pick the clothing fibres out of you, you know what I was feeling. 20 days of this they finally decided that I had enough flesh for a skin graph to try and finish off the process. The day of surgery arrives and they come down and say “there has been a major car accident today and all operating theatres are used up. So we're going to do the surgery in your hospital bed” So they do it in the bed. They pull the curtain around my bed and put 9 locals into my leg. After they begin. Taking a skin graph is like peeling a potato. So they get the ‘peeler’ and take the first cut. I felt it. I tell them that I can feel it. They say it's too late to stop now and to grit my teeth and go with it. 20 minutes of pure agony. I can honestly say I know what it means to be ‘skinned’. At day 30 the graph died. At day 30 I lost my sanity. After some negotiation I was allowed to go home if I used special hospital kits to treat the wound myself and went back for check-ups once a week for 3 months. I'll gloss over the next few years as nothing happened except I ended up on a disability pension, a lot of meds and no answer on how to fix my body. When I turned 21 I went to the doctor for a check-up and was informed that I would be permanently wheelchair bound by 30, my life was over, and I should sit on my pension eating pain killers like candy. This woke something inside me. I could not accept after all this that I was pretty much crippled and that was that. I started searching with my parents like a mad man looking for someone to not say ‘no’ but ‘yes, we can do something’. That took 9 months and I think I saw ever doctor and physiotherapist in my town. I finally found one lady who said yes and wanted to start from scratch. So what started off as daily visits I started to learn to walk again. This was very intense physiotherapy at times where I could do nothing by lie on my back she gave me anatomy books and mini anatomy lessons so I under stood exactly what we were doing and the benefits. That spark that awoke in me was now a fire as understanding anatomy and how my body worked was empowering. I purchased a bench press, some weights and got to work. 6 months later I was now walking (still in chronic pain but on a scale of 1-10 I was now a 15 down from 20) and really starting to get in shape. After having no options in life everything was opening up in front of me. I decided that I was so in love with how the human body worked and how you could manipulate it I was going to become a personal trainer. At this stage I had discovered Mixed martial arts that thought it was the greatest thing I had ever seen in my life. My college initially refused to let me study saying that I would not be able to do the physical requirements required to become registered and pass training. My inner warrior was now fully awakened; I refused to accept this as partitioned to be allowed to study saying that even if I failed, they had my money so they were not losing anything. Turns out it was just the admin who had an issue with it. I met the most amazing teachers of my life there who showed me, much like Daniele that there are passionate teachers out there who really do want to teach and show people something amazing. They did everything in the power to help me because I would not give up. It took me 3 years (was a 1 year course) but I graduated with top marks and picked up a boxing coach certification as well. In those 3 years I suffered 1 burn out due to pain threshold being reached and learned that I do have limits but also managed to drop 50KG (110lb). Going from 286lb to 176lb. The only thing I couldn't do was admit I have a disability. Now this post is getting out of control so I'm going to speed things up a bit. I graduated, opened my own business (Take that people who said my life was over) and started to get things up and running (no pun intended) when disaster struck…again. The home I was renting and running my business out of was destroyed in the floods of 2011(Google Brisbane 2011 floods) I lost everything I owned and my entire business went down the river. Heart broken and unable to get the business/capital together to start again. I got a desk job. That took an entire year to get. As no one would hire someone with a physical disability that could only work 4 days a week due to pain management. I finally landed an IT job for a very popular global phone/computer company and after 1 year and a half just received the first promotion of my life 3 weeks ago. What does this have to do with podcasts? Without them I never would have made it this far. Every person I listen to, especially this podcast has always stuck it out and pushed the extra distance to get where they are. In my darkest hours high on morphine feeling sorry for myself and wanting to give up on life I entered a world of people who never quit and I used that as my motivation. So, I am entering the corporate world to pay my medical bills and set myself up for the rest of my life and I feel damn good about it But I wanted to say that everyone needs to find their own path, discover who they are and what they stand for. Sam Sheridan said it on the latest podcast, ‘Never quit’. Thanks quote

# 07 Jun, 2013 09:13

I thought I would make my first post about how the Drunken Taoist has become something I look forward to every fortnight. Since the conclusion of the very first podcast, I was instantly a fan of Daniele, Rich and Evan.
I would like to thank all three of you for the time and effort you put into the podcast and don't stop! You are truly an inspiration.

I am an avid listener of the Joe Rogan podcast since ‘10 and without that podcast I would have never been introduced to Duncan Trussell and without Duncan Trussell’s podcast I would have never made it here.

One of the most (to me at least) important themes that comes across is that you need to be honest with yourself, find what you are good at and question anyone who says ‘you can’t do that or that's a bad idea'.
This is very evident with your guest and sponsor choice, Datsusara especially; "to leave the salaried/corporate worker's life'

With that said I would like to do an introduction of who I am and how ironically, I am entering the salary/corporate worker life because I was told ‘no’.

So, where to begin?
*warning this tale is a bit of a book*

I was born with a very rare congenital disorder called Larsens Syndrome
Due to this, my muscles were very lax and my feet did not come down from around my head in the womb. This cause my feet to form to the shape of my skull.
This left me with really deformed feet and joints (shoulders, hips, knees) that would dislocate constantly.
Back in 1985 in Australia no one had heard of it or knew how to treat it. They thought my feet were deformed due to ligaments in the bottom of my feet being too tight. So when I was 6 months old surgeons cut them in the hope that this would cause my feet to ‘relax’ and return to a normal shape. The opposite happened and my feet deformed further.
From 6 months to age 13 I wore full legs splints, casts, orthotics, custom shoes… you get the idea.
This was a very painful child hood. I suffered constant pain as my bones rubbed against each other and I could only walk for up to 20 minutes if I was lucky and run for maybe 100m.
At age 13 my doctor/surgeon had a meeting with my family to say he had trialled a new surgery technique and it had worked 100% for a girl in a similar position.
He wanted to perform the surgery on me and as a 13 year old boy sealed the deal by asking me the one question every boy that age wants to hear “You want to be on the football team and play with all your mates’ right?”
My parents shied away from the surgery because it was a total foot reconstruction, including shaving bone off my hip and using that for form artificial heals pins and staples to hold the whole thing together.
They thought it was too much for me to go through and after the first surgery were afraid of the outcome but I had made up my mind in that doctors office that anything that let me play football was worth it.
I begged and pleaded with my parents until they finally caved as they only wanted their son to be happy.

Fast forward 9 months and I'm being rolled into the operating theatre. The surgeon stops my mum and says “Look, this is a big operation and you don't want to see him go through this twice, so sign this form so we can do 2 feet at once”
My mum pushed back but he wouldn't operate until she signed.

I woke up from surgery with two feet in plaster and a tube sticking out of my hip as they drained blood from where they took the bone.

Several months after it was time for the plaster, pins and staples to come off and for me to take my first steps on what was to be my new feet and a new lease on life.

Those fateful steps will be with my family forever. My feet collapsed as I attempted to learn to walk for the second time. Bones hit bones, my arch that had been built came crashing down and threatened to push through my skin when I walked.

The surgeon quickly got us out of the office, setup a review in a month or two.
When we returned and demanded to know what happened the surgeon refused to see us and when we requested our medical records (13 years of x-rays) we were told they ‘had been lost’.

I was left on my own, unable to walk for longer than a few minutes, Chronic and now permanent pain and no proof or information on what the hell happened in that operating theatre.

By now I was in high school and in a wheelchair unable to walk or do anything.
My parents attempted legal action (I won’t go into detail what happened here but I'll say it never made it to court) and during this discovered the girl who was a success, never existed. She was made up so I could be a guinnie pig and see if the surgery would work.

With nowhere to go and my pain and condition getting worse I ended up dropping out of high school. My pain level was so high I could no longer manage much at all.
The following years were spent floating from doctor to doctor looking for answers.

When I was 16 I met a surgeon who was the first person in years to say ‘Yes I can help, we need to reconstruct your feet again and fuse them so the joints will not move and that will help with pain’
This time, the surgeon was open about everything and was very outspoken about what had happened and said he would only do 1 foot at a time.
I had to travel interstate to have it done, so off I went and had it done.
On the way home I had 1 foot in plaster and freshly stitched wounds. We had organised with the airline to purchase 3 seats so I could have my foot elevated for the entire trip.
As we came to land I was informed that due to safety regulations they would not land the plane unless I put my foot down. An argument ended with the airline refusing the land until I put my foot down.
I gave in and put it down. The combination of steep landing and fresh surgery rushed blood straight down to my foot and popped all the stitches along the side of my foot.
By this stage I had such a high tolerance to pain that I wrote it off as surgery pain and though nothing of it.
Over the next 6 weeks I grew increasingly tired and my foot hurt more and more and became very itchy.
What I didn't know was that I was bleeding out. The blood was coming out of my open wound but had nowhere to go as the cast was sealed. Because it was sealed and there was no oxygen, the blood sat on the wound and started to rot my foot.
I will never forget the day I went in for the first cast change.

I was lying on the bed in the surgeon’s office and he started to cut the cast away, immediately the smell hit us. Rotting flesh is disgusting.
As he pulled the cast away he turned white. I've never seen someone turn white like a cartoon character who has seen a ghost before.
He threw a sheet over me immediately and pulled my mother into another room as he frantically called for an ambulance.
I was told not to move and DO NOT LOOK.
Curiosity killed the cat.
I looked…and what I saw was the entire side of my foot eaten away.
Out of shock I moved my big toe and saw what was left of my muscle and tendons flex to complete to movement.

I was immediately sent to hospital for emergency surgery.
As I went in they told me, “We have to tell you this so you are prepared when you wake up. We are more than likely going to amputate your foot.”
Four hours in surgery and I wake up and check instantly what’s under the blanket.
I see a big bandaged lump but it had toes sticking out of the end. I got to keep my foot.
The next 30 days were pure hell. I've never experienced anything like it and I hope no one else ever will.
They had cut so much flesh away that I had to try and grow it back.
How they did this was putting a medical sponge into the hole and attaching a vacuum to it was force blood to the surface to form new blood vessels and flesh.
The problem was that as this happened my flesh would form and start to scab over as it attempted to heal.
So every morning to start the next layer of flesh I had to have the sponge ripped out and replaced with a new one.
Words cannot even come close to describe how that felt. It was torture. With tears streaming down my face every morning they would tear it out.
If you've ever had a motor bike accident and suffered extreme gravel rash where they have had to pick the clothing fibres out of you, you know what I was feeling.
20 days of this they finally decided that I had enough flesh for a skin graph to try and finish off the process.

The day of surgery arrives and they come down and say “there has been a major car accident today and all operating theatres are used up. So we're going to do the surgery in your hospital bed”
So they do it in the bed. They pull the curtain around my bed and put 9 locals into my leg.
After they begin.
Taking a skin graph is like peeling a potato. So they get the ‘peeler’ and take the first cut.
I felt it.
I tell them that I can feel it. They say it's too late to stop now and to grit my teeth and go with it.
20 minutes of pure agony. I can honestly say I know what it means to be ‘skinned’.
At day 30 the graph died.
At day 30 I lost my sanity.
After some negotiation I was allowed to go home if I used special hospital kits to treat the wound myself and went back for check-ups once a week for 3 months.

I'll gloss over the next few years as nothing happened except I ended up on a disability pension, a lot of meds and no answer on how to fix my body.

When I turned 21 I went to the doctor for a check-up and was informed that I would be permanently wheelchair bound by 30, my life was over, and I should sit on my pension eating pain killers like candy.

This woke something inside me. I could not accept after all this that I was pretty much crippled and that was that.

I started searching with my parents like a mad man looking for someone to not say ‘no’ but ‘yes, we can do something’.
That took 9 months and I think I saw ever doctor and physiotherapist in my town.
I finally found one lady who said yes and wanted to start from scratch.
So what started off as daily visits I started to learn to walk again.
This was very intense physiotherapy at times where I could do nothing by lie on my back she gave me anatomy books and mini anatomy lessons so I under stood exactly what we were doing and the benefits.

That spark that awoke in me was now a fire as understanding anatomy and how my body worked was
empowering.

I purchased a bench press, some weights and got to work.

6 months later I was now walking (still in chronic pain but on a scale of 1-10 I was now a 15 down from 20) and really starting to get in shape.
After having no options in life everything was opening up in front of me.
I decided that I was so in love with how the human body worked and how you could manipulate it I was going to become a personal trainer.
At this stage I had discovered Mixed martial arts that thought it was the greatest thing I had ever seen in my life.

My college initially refused to let me study saying that I would not be able to do the physical requirements required to become registered and pass training.

My inner warrior was now fully awakened; I refused to accept this as partitioned to be allowed to study saying that even if I failed, they had my money so they were not losing anything.
Turns out it was just the admin who had an issue with it. I met the most amazing teachers of my life there who showed me, much like Daniele that there are passionate teachers out there who really do want to teach and show people something amazing. They did everything in the power to help me because I would not give up.

It took me 3 years (was a 1 year course) but I graduated with top marks and picked up a boxing coach certification as well.

In those 3 years I suffered 1 burn out due to pain threshold being reached and learned that I do have limits but also managed to drop 50KG (110lb). Going from 286lb to 176lb. The only thing I couldn't do was admit I have a disability.
Now this post is getting out of control so I'm going to speed things up a bit.

I graduated, opened my own business (Take that people who said my life was over) and started to get things up and running (no pun intended) when disaster struck…again.

The home I was renting and running my business out of was destroyed in the floods of 2011(Google Brisbane 2011 floods)
I lost everything I owned and my entire business went down the river.

Heart broken and unable to get the business/capital together to start again. I got a desk job.
That took an entire year to get. As no one would hire someone with a physical disability that could only work 4 days a week due to pain management.
I finally landed an IT job for a very popular global phone/computer company and after 1 year and a half just received the first promotion of my life 3 weeks ago.

What does this have to do with podcasts? Without them I never would have made it this far.
Every person I listen to, especially this podcast has always stuck it out and pushed the extra distance to get where they are.
In my darkest hours high on morphine feeling sorry for myself and wanting to give up on life I entered a world of people who never quit and I used that as my motivation.

So, I am entering the corporate world to pay my medical bills and set myself up for the rest of my life and I feel damn good about it smile

But I wanted to say that everyone needs to find their own path, discover who they are and what they stand for.

Sam Sheridan said it on the latest podcast, ‘Never quit’.

Thanks smile

# 15 Jun, 2013 09:45
Daniele	DAMNNNNNNN, MAN!!!!! That's intense–to say the least. But props to you for being tougher than hell quote

# 15 Jun, 2013 23:06
Zen_Beats	Thanks for taking the time to read. Every time I ever have to explain things its always a book which i never intend. I'm currently trying to make time to get back into MMA/BJJ. To me it is the most complete and almost perfect sport I have seen. When you said you mentally quit and came home and thought “I can't believe I quit” I did the exact same thing in training when I couldn't get my body to do what I want , so I really want to get back into it. It was nice to hear someone else talk about feeling the same way. If you ever have a chance to come to Australia I'd love to buy you a beer(no kangaroo balls required). quote

# 15 Jun, 2013 23:06

Zen_Beats

Thanks for taking the time to read. Every time I ever have to explain things its always a book which i never intend.

I'm currently trying to make time to get back into MMA/BJJ. To me it is the most complete and almost perfect sport I have seen.
When you said you mentally quit and came home and thought “I can't believe I quit” I did the exact same thing in training when I couldn't get my body to do what I want , so I really want to get back into it.
It was nice to hear someone else talk about feeling the same way.

If you ever have a chance to come to Australia I'd love to buy you a beer(no kangaroo balls required).

# 16 Jun, 2013 07:50
Daniele	thanks, man! quote

# 16 Jun, 2013 14:58
DrReefer	The universe kicked you in the balls and wound up breaking it's foot. You're one bad motherfucker. quote

# 18 Jun, 2013 03:17
Carlitozwei	Wow! Thanks for the story. Inspirational and I need to be as bad ass as you. quote

# 19 Jun, 2013 18:52
Khan	That story was intense man. That IS a book! So inspirational and well written. I was getting cramps in my foot reading that! I hope you are keeping a memoir. Congrats on the new promotion! These days, if you have a job, you are blessed! quote

# 19 Jun, 2013 18:52
Khan	. double post. delete quote

# 22 Jun, 2013 22:15
Zen_Beats	Khan These days, if you have a job, you are blessed! That's the truth. One of the biggest hurdles I've ever faced was just getting a job. Thank you to everyone who replied. I'm glad this didn't turn into a pity party as that's the last thing I want. I've been entertaining the ideas of a journal as(if you can believe it) there is so much I cut out(no pun intended). Keeping in line with the theme of the Drunken Taoist and creating your own philosophy I believe that having a good sense of humor and being able to laugh at anything no matter how dark or wrong can get you through anything. If you having a shit day and can't find something to laugh about go watch some stand up you'll feel a million times better. quote

# 22 Jun, 2013 22:15

Zen_Beats

Khan
These days, if you have a job, you are blessed!

That's the truth. One of the biggest hurdles I've ever faced was just getting a job.

Thank you to everyone who replied. I'm glad this didn't turn into a pity party as that's the last thing I want.

I've been entertaining the ideas of a journal as(if you can believe it) there is so much I cut out(no pun intended).

Keeping in line with the theme of the Drunken Taoist and creating your own philosophy I believe that having a good sense of humor and being able to laugh at anything no matter how dark or wrong can get you through anything.
If you having a shit day and can't find something to laugh about go watch some stand up you'll feel a million times better.

# 23 Jun, 2013 00:37
SatanaJoy	Zen_Beats I'm glad this didn't turn into a pity party as that's the last thing I want. Hell, no! Your story is incredibly interesting and inspiring. Best of luck with your promotion! Did the original doctor who used you as a guinea pig suffer any consequences for his behavior? (If you don't want to answer this, that's okay; I don't mean to pry, but my sense of justice WANTS something to have happened to this fucking brute.) quote

# 23 Jun, 2013 00:37

SatanaJoy

Zen_Beats
I'm glad this didn't turn into a pity party as that's the last thing I want.

Hell, no! Your story is incredibly interesting and inspiring. Best of luck with your promotion!

Did the original doctor who used you as a guinea pig suffer any consequences for his behavior? (If you don't want to answer this, that's okay; I don't mean to pry, but my sense of justice WANTS something to have happened to this fucking brute.)