I have an injury the dates back to the 80s, a combination of ego and recklessness playing a sport that I loved.

It would end any hopes of continuing on with that part of my life. It did not end well and I spent a long time wandering and suffering much like Scott hall and Jake Roberts.

Eventually I would be blessed, and some sanity and normalcy would enter my life. I have now been sober and clean for 15 years. However… That was not the end of the story it was just the beginning.

Unbeknownst to me 30 years later I would find that that sport permanently injured my back. A vertebrae had been broken, healed incorrectly, and was slowly causing multiple disc failures in my thoracic vertebrae.  That was in 2013.

It cost some discomfort and I could no longer work out in any sort of a free weight at our gym or in any fashion. I had always known of DDP, I’ve been following the story of Scott and Jake, and knew that there was something special going on with the DDP YOGA family. I saw Chris Jericho‘s testimony and I decided to buy the DVD set.  It bought me time and help. But I really had no goals of weight loss or transformation, I just wanted to be able to stay active and obviously free weights were not going to work for me anymore. DDP yoga was a perfect fit. But there were no before pictures,there was no goals, just trying to hang on.

In 2015 the disk between my T 11 and T 12 vertebrae exploded. It took four months to diagnose, and I in essence lost the use of my legs. I had to quit working out, and was desperate to find what was wrong with me. After months of going to different doctors, a physical therapist of all people diagnosed me immediately. What was thought to be something that would clear up in six weeks became an emergency surgery that had to be done and no less than six days. This is where all of my thoughts of before and after pictures, participation in the group, and hope, began waning.  Yet I’ve still followed Dallas, Jake, Scott, and the rest of the family as I’ve slowly recovered and began to try and reclaim the use of my legs.

After two years of futile attempts at physical therapy, I had a follow up MRI, and the news was not good. Although I had regained a little use of my legs, the paralysis was to be permanent. I have very little feeling and sensation in either of my legs. But, somewhere in all those months and months of therapy, Diamond Dallas Page’s voice was still ringing in my head, never give up!

So, I purchased the app, still own the DVDs, and began to study ways that I might be able to modify my own work out to be able to utilize DDP yoga once again. With the help of a lot of friends on the Facebook site, some incredible motivation on Mondays, and a lot of stubbornness (which has also been confused with strength and stupidity) I continue pushing myself until I was able to regain my balance, some control over my feet and legs, and ultimately returned as some sort of normal life!

Unfortunately, my before picture is a walker that I named Paul. My second set of pictures would only be a cane that I named Michael that I graduated to as I gained more and more control of my legs.  Now after a knee replacement and a bout with a staph infection in that same knee, I am ready to re-turn to my battle and my fight and I have all of the support in the world that I need through my faith and my friends on the DDP YOGA Facebook page.  Here where I live, I’m basically fighting this battle on my own. I have never stopped working, but my rehab is basically on my own and only guided by the strength and the encouragement of my friends in the DDP family. I have taken one set of before pictures, but that was directly after the doctor released me from all therapy, and I was on my own. I even took the pictures myself.  

As of today, the battle continues and I am a true DDP warrior! I have graduated, at least in my own mind, to not needing the cane or the walker. When I am at my office, or at my home I no longer use either. In fact, the past two weekends I have begun to mow my own grass again, and I’m looking forward to challenges ahead. And my ultimate goal, is to be able to walk my daughter down the aisle in one year. And none of this would be possible if it were not for DDP YOGA. I am truly sorry that I have not done all of the required pictures and updates to mark my progress, but to me every day that I got closer to to walking was the progress I was looking for. Not weight loss, not easing the pain (which seems to never go away), and just be a better me… I am excited and hopeful for the first time in over three years!

So, as you can see, mine is not the traditional “I am displeased with myself, decided to do something to help myself, found DDP yoga, and now have reached my goal weight “...I am just a walking miracle! And thanks go to all who had anything to do with my DDP journey!