Overcoming the Unthinkable: Ariel's Inspiring Story of Strength

Can a single moment redefine your life forever? Join us as Ariel shares her powerful and deeply personal journey from a gym accident that left her paralyzed from the hips down to defying medical expectations and hiking her favorite trails again. Her story isn't just about physical recovery; it's a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the critical role of a positive mindset.

Throughout this heartfelt episode of Lifestyle Strength, Ariel opens up about the emotional and physical struggles she faced and the unwavering support she received from her medical team. She reflects on her fears of never running again and how her neurosurgeon’s daily encouragement played a pivotal role in her recovery. Tune in to be inspired by Ariel's incredible journey of perseverance and to discover how the right mindset can help you overcome even the most daunting life challenges.

Support Ariel by booking a massage:
https://www.competitorsedgemassage.com/

Support Lucas by booking training:
https://www.hydefitnessconsulting.com

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to Lifestyle Strength, your guide to mastering health and well-being in the real world.

Speaker 1: 0:04

I'm Ariel, a massage therapist with over a decade of experience in holistic health, and I'm here with Lucas, a seasoned fitness coach who's transformed the lives of hundreds in Northwest Arkansas. We're here to share real stories and expert insights about embracing a healthy lifestyle while balancing the everyday hustle. Join us as we explore practical ways to achieve wellness and thrive amidst life's challenges. Let's dive in. Hey y'all, welcome back to another episode of Lifestyle Strength. Today, things are a little bit differently, gonna be a little bit different, I guess you could say it's just Ariel and I realized that over the last few episodes pretty much from the beginning I have teased a little bit about an injury I sustained and I thought that today would be a great opportunity to talk about kind of what can happen in life when unexpected things take place and it can kind of derail your routines, your health, wellness, fitness, even if you're doing everything right. Life can happen. So my story was very unexpected. I sustained a compressed fracture to T12 and a spinal cord injury on August 19th 2019. So my five-year anniversary is coming up. This injury actually did paralyze me from T12 down, so think, kind of hips down, I was paralyzed, and it not only derailed my life in the health, wellness, fitness, it also derailed relationships and I kind of want to talk and dive, dive deeper into kind of what that looks like. So when my injury happened I did sustain it at a gym and I won't go into too many details there was a manufacturer, there was a malfunction of some equipment that I was on, um, and it actually happened while I was standing up. Uh, when it compressed, fracture the t12 vertebrae, it actually uh, partially tore the spinal cord. So at the time they pretty much were like, hey, listen, you get back, you get back what you get back, you don't what you don't. You're lucky that you don't have a complete spinal cord injury, meaning there was no room for improvement. But if you have a partial tear there's possibly room for improvement. So, as you can imagine, there's no cure for a partial or full spinal cord injury tear. Here I am, I wake up from emergency surgery, I've got two rods, eight screws in my back and I am paralyzed and I'm being told all these things. So that in and of itself was pretty traumatic.

Speaker 1: 2:59

But the first thing I thought when I woke up from the surgery and I heard like, hey, you're paralyzed, hips down, was I'm never going to run again. Like, am I going to run again? Right, that was what I was thinking, because from the age of 12 up till 26, when this injury happened, I was an avid runner. I had just started getting into bodybuilding because I wanted to gear up for a physique comp. That was kind of my goal. But my love of running kind of was like the heart and soul of like athletics, of like what I did, and so my again, my first thought was like, oh my goodness, like, am I going to ever run again? And, mind you, I said at the beginning, like it wasn't, I'm not going to run again. It was am I going to run again? Right. And that goes back to like that, that mindset. I'm going to dive a little deeper into that as well. But the second thing I thought was am I ever going to be able to hike this particular hike? I love to hike this particular hike. I love and as you are in Arkansas and you are listening, then you will maybe be familiar with the Buffalo River and there's this beautiful hike called Big Bluff, or also known as the Goat Trail, and it's my favorite place to be and I just thought am I ever going to see this view again? And luckily, and I was able to do this hike last November, actually for the very first time.

Speaker 1: 4:34

But to get there a lot of things had to take place and one of those things was my mindset, having a neurosurgeon come in every morning and his mindset wasn't you're not going to be able to do things. His mindset was 7 am sharp every morning. He was in my hospital room going show me what you got, ariel, and I would attempt to move anything. And if you've ever had any kind of brain-body disconnect, it can be very traumatizing to try to get your brain to activate a portion of your body that just simply will not function. And I remember I come in like a typical morning and I would say I was only in neuro ICU for two and a half weeks and I would say it was probably two weeks in, maybe maybe a little less, than I moved my toes on both feet and I just remember I just wasn't all I, I, I, you know, because I had sat there for two weeks, you know, willing my brain to connect with my body and it didn't.

Speaker 1: 5:55

And my neurosurgeon you know this man, talk about that mindset, this man. Already it was almost like he already knew like this is going to happen. When, again, you know, statistically I'm a walking miracle and I'm not supposed to be walking, and so you know, his face lit up. I was in awe. There was another individual in the room and they were just like wow, and they even say, like you know, wow, I got to be a part of that special moment, because it is a very, very special moment. It's a moment I will always remember, always remember, um, and what one thing that I would pause here and tell y'all is.

Speaker 1: 6:34

I really want y'all to remember that in unexpected circumstances and in times when you are faced with a trauma, no matter if it's physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, whatever is going on, it can be the small things, and we do talk about this on the podcast. It can be the small things and we do talk about this on the podcast. It can be the small things that you need, those small wins, and for me, that was moving my toes and that really helped mold my perspective moving forward and it really actually challenged everything I had always told my clients in massage therapy, you know, with the whole concept of the mindset and the mind readiness, and to be in a position where you're consistently speaking things into existence. So sure, I couldn't even feel my legs yet, but I was moving my toes. I couldn't walk yet, but I had gained bowel and bladder control. I mean, not to get TMI with y'all, but like this is how traumatic this event was Right.

Speaker 1: 7:37

And so I went off to Baptist Health for a month, had amazing PTs, amazing OTs, and I remember my first session with them and the PT said, okay, he got me out of the wheelchair, he got me on my feet. Um, I was holding on to bars, he's holding on to me. And he says, hey, so I want you to put pressure through your feet. And I thought, what feet? Because I could not feel my feet. Um, my brain had no connection to my feet. And, yes, believe it or not, there are people with spinal cord injuries that actually walk and they still cannot feel their legs or their feet how they do it. It's human anatomy. I mean, the body is beautiful, but in my case I couldn't fathom being able to walk if I could not feel my feet.

Speaker 1: 8:29

And I was there for a whole month. I had lost so much weight. I weighed 82 pounds. I was in excruciating pain. I didn't sleep at night. I'd wake up at 7am. I would put my lifeless legs into my clothes and I would go and I would do PT for two hours in a body I was very unfamiliar with, and I think you learn a lot about yourself in moments of struggle, in moments of injury, in moments of trauma. And looking back, I'm so humbled to be where I'm at now and to go through this experience and to know like you're capable. If there's one thing, sorry guys, if there's one thing that I would want y'all to take from this, it's that you are way more capable than you realize.

Speaker 1: 9:31

And as far as when it comes to how it kind of derailed my health, wellness and fitness, like I told you, all you know, I was an avid runner. I was gearing up for a physique comp, um, I meal prepped every day. I was technically, by all, for all intents and purposes, I was actually at my peak fitness level and to have such an unexpected event, it really threw off my routine of my sleep, my eating, obviously, my working out and, aside from just thinking man, will I ever be able to do these athletic things that I want to be able to do. I realized how much I relied on these certain things to create my identity. And when those things were stripped away, I really had to sit with myself and I had to be like who is Ariel? And at some point in life I think we're all going to face that.

Speaker 1: 10:33

But coming to terms with my identity isn't. I'm a runner, right. My identity is not bodybuilding. My identity is not my plant based diet in my routines and these kind of almost security blankets that I had created around myself because I love routine, and it certainly, at the end of the day, also wasn't my success as a business owner and my business, because here I was, I couldn't even work with my clients. But again, the experience was humbling because I had to really sit with myself and and say, okay, what is your purpose, what is your identity and where are we gonna go from here? Like I didn't even know what life was gonna look like from day to day, right, but it was like where are we gonna go from here? And I think I had mentioned a little bit ago at the beginning of this podcast. I mentioned like how humbling it was and how my experience with my injury has kind of been a living example for my clients of not just that mindset but the body's ability to heal and the ability to get it just a little good.

Speaker 1: 11:49

If you're sitting here and you know you're listening to this and you're like, but Ariel, I have so many injuries, but Ariel, I can't even walk for 10 minutes and you know I'm hurting or I have too much weight on my joints or I don't even know where to start when it comes to meal prepping or even just eating healthy or self-control. You know, my reminder to you is just a little bit. All the body is asking for is just a little bit of good. Okay, it is not out to hurt you or harm you. I've had clients say they come in. They're like, oh Ariel, is it a tumor? Am I gonna die? And it's like, guys, your body is advocating for you. You know your body, it wants to be here long term, just like you do, right. And so the idea is we want to give it just a little bit of good and be that catalyst for your own temple.

Speaker 1: 12:49

So with my injury, my clients kind of got to see that played out and so many times people ask me, ariel, like what, what got you walking at four months time, when you're supposed to be living in a wheelchair, peeing in a bag. You know they're like what. What got you walking, um? What got you to the point where you can work out again? What got you to the point that you can carry a baby like? I'm currently 31 and a half weeks pregnant and it's incredible to be in a position where I've been able to do that, and I always tell them like it was not one thing, guys.

Speaker 1: 13:28

First of all, it was being humbled. It was finding my purpose and my identity outside of the physical activities and the comforts I'd surrounded myself with. And then it was by giving myself a little good um, by allowing myself to sit there and and have a breakdown. It was in bringing my massage therapist in and working on me when, honestly, when the nervous system is healing, it's excruciating. Nothing I went through was pleasant. I would never wish it on my worst enemy. However, I was willing to put myself under a little bit of pressure and discomfort, knowing the outcome it would have, knowing my body was for me, not against me.

Speaker 1: 14:17

And so if you're in this place where, again, everything kind of seems overwhelming, or maybe you're in a place where you had something traumatic happen in life and it has derailed you. I'm here to confidently remind you that you will get through this and that if you give yourself just a little good, be a catalyst. Be a catalyst in your own body, with your own life. I'd love to think that my injury is an example of that. I recently actually ran across a notebook that I had when I was in the hospital and it was of my goals and guys. It was simple things like get off of blood pressure medication, move my toes, be able to transfer onto a toilet. I mean these were very, very minor, small things, but for me at the time they were very, very big things. So when I say small, I'm talking very, very, very small. We don't always have to be thinking grand, big picture and it's all these small things, in my opinion, that I've led to my success and where I am today within this injury.

Speaker 1: 15:40

I hope my message has gotten across to y'all and I hope that my injury and my story kind of is that gives you a little bit of hope. You know I don't want people to see my injury and feel sorry for me. I want people to see it as an opportunity to to make good changes in their lives, um, and to be able to do some of your own reflecting and go, man, like, what more can I do? Right? You know, if you ever notice somebody, um, and you see them struggling and you see them overcome something, it should fuel you, it should motivate you in your own life to go, oh, oh. I want a little bit of that, but understand a little bit of that air quotes here. What that is is going to look different for everybody, but at the end of the day it comes down to that mindset and being able to persevere and get through some of these things and be able to put yourself under pressure and make yourself uncomfortable, knowing your future self. It's gonna thank you until next time, peace.