Life After a Broken Neck: How I Traveled the World With a Fractured C2 Vertebrae

The long version of how I travelled the world with a neck fracture… and how life after a broken neck  is shaping up to be.

Odd Beginnings

In May 2015, after a casual visit to a chiropractor I started experiencing some… weird symptoms. Tingles would cascade down my face and around my eyes.

A fiery, vice grip would take hold of my upper neck- just about daily. I felt like my vision was off, but in an odd, indescribable way that made it just out reach of any real articulation. But what could this be? At the time, all I could think about was how.. nothing had happened? (…Or so I thought.)

I thankfully hadn’t been involved in any serious accidents, and I didn’t even play any sports, so my symptoms seemed strange- and startling- to say the least. I remember googling and googling and convincing myself of all the possible things it could be.

But, nevertheless, my 19 year old self was pretty terrified of doctors and figured that I guess I’d just have to wait and see. (Um… not recommended for a mystery medical condition, folks.)

So wait I did, and whilst time progressed I sure didn’t just sit around. In March 2016, just shy of a year from the beginning of this bizarre ailment, I left the United States for the very first time.

Granted, it was to the Bahamas, just a stone’s throw from Miami, but nevertheless, it did get me my very first passport stamp.

Ignorance is bliss

In those days, the symptoms were still relatively mild. I road my bike to school, ran frequently, and attended 3- day music festivals which consisted of 10-12 hours of standing.

Stubborn as I was (…am) I brushed off any ideas of contacting a doctor in hopes that all this would magically disappear, and I’d be back to baseline soon enough.

That following summer, I even got involved with weight lifting and daily workouts, something I had painfully neglected my first two years of college. How could I possibly be lifting this heavy if something was seriously wrong?

In due time, I would learn just how resilient the body, and more specifically the spine, really is. (Read: Or… maybe I just got really really lucky.)

As Summer 2016 came to a close, I was finally fed up with pain and unknowns and sought out my first real medical professional. Dr. Georgiy Brusovanik, an orthopedic spinal surgeon, gave me my first confirmation that the problem WAS in my neck, and according to him, was likely a congenital defect.

I breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that perhaps my ailments would end with this visit, and I would just learn to live with these pains. I could still lift and do cardio, it couldn’t be that bad right? Right.

International Neck-ventures

As the pain became an ever-increasing part of my daily existence, my life soon took an unexpected international turn. After a year collecting dust in my nightstand drawer, my passport and I were finally going to reconnect- and this time, on another continent. It was March 2017, and I was headed out of the country-and out of the hemisphere- to Ecuador.

While the Bahamas was nothing more than a nice beach and an official stamp, Ecuador, as cliche as it sounds really infected me with what is cheesily known as the “travel bug.”

Despite daily aches and pains, for that one week, my neck issues were packed away and pushed aside. I zip-lined over a river gorge that coasted along the length of a mile.

I held on for dear life on top of a horse as it galloped beneath me through the plains of Cotopaxi National Park. I sat in the back of a pickup truck for 3 hours as it trudged through hills of jagged rocks that popped us up and down like popcorn. And miraculously, I lived to tell the tale.

But why is that miraculous, you might be wondering? Well a doctor’s appointment with a second opinion (who was, ya know, a neurosurgeon) about two months later finally brought everything to light.

A cracked Atlas

Still riding my Ecuador high, I wanted nothing more than to travel again, and this time, I wanted to go somewhere even farther. And within a few weeks, Charles and I had some brand new tickets: this time to Europe, along with a stop in Bahrain to visit his brother on the way back.

So as the school year came to a close, I counted down the weeks and eventually days until our expected departure on June 20th. But the news I received after a follow-up CT Scan on June 12th had… some other plans for me.

Dr. Michael Wang walked into the exam room, his face stoic and far more serious than I had ever seen before.

Your C2 vertebrae is fractured, and appears to have been for quite awhile. Samantha, you’ve been living with a broken neck.

It took me a second to even process the information. Fractured? Fractured?!?! But how… I’ve been doing so many things!!!

How could I have been living with a broken neck this whole time? On one hand, I guess I was a bit relieved. I finally, finally had an explanation for all these straight-up strange symptoms.

A reason for the indescribable pain, the tingling, the lightheadedness. I should have been elated right? But I wasn’t… because I was supposed to be leaving for Europe in 8 days and this man in front of me was talking about scheduling surgery for next week.

 

After the initial shock, I insisted that I just could not have this procedure right now. I had lived with this for presumably 2 years now, what hurt could 6 more weeks do? His expression morphed into a look of horror … and looking back I guess I could see why.

Here I was going fiercely against medical advice, proposing a world trip with a broken and unstable C2 vertebrae. But knowing that he couldn’t force me, he digressed and insisted that I be as careful as possible.

And that was when I did go ahead and schedule surgery. But rather than being next week, it was set to be performed on July 21…roughly 36 hours after our flight was poised to touch down from Bahrain.

Country Hopping & Wire Fusions

Traveling with a known broken neck wasn’t much different than traveling, or living, before I was appraised of the news. Sure, I maxed out the daily dose of Advil and slathered on more Icy Hot than most people went through in a year, but I was used to all that by then.

If anything, the trip made me forget about my neck. I rode a bike for hours in the Netherlands, hiked a wadi in Oman and walked nearly a dozen miles in Krakow. While I knew the surgery was pretty low risk, I wanted to have had those experiences if anything were to go awry.

So while I see now that my “intentional detour” from surgery may have been a bit crazy, it was 100% worth it. But would I do it again? Perhaps with a bit more reservation, but yes, absolutely.

Less than 12 hours after returning to Miami, I found myself at the hospital bright and early. That day? Just a blood draw. The next- a full-blown C1-C2 fusion. Was I scared? You betcha. But the memories of the past 6 weeks and the desire to see more of what was out there kept me going.

Yes, surgery was horrifically painful, but due to how determined and headstrong as I like to think I am, my recovery moved along quickly- and the relief from constant stabbing pain was tangible.

I was making it through days, and even weeks(!), without Advil. I no longer relied on Icy Hot to get through my shifts at work. The ever-present bizarre symptoms seemed to disappear for the most part. All in all, life after a broken neck was shaping up to be pretty swell.

Stiffer but oh, so much better

While my range of motion was severely restricted, (no more looking over shoulders for me!), it soon became my new normal. Heck, I’ll take restricted motion over pain any day.

So what did I do after I received confirmation that the bones had fused 6 months later? Well, i booked my next adventure. If I could travel and carry a backpack with a broken neck, I couldn’t see why wouldn’t be able to without one!

And I was right. My Summer 2018 backpacking trip to SE Asia / India proved that life after a broken neck really is that much better.

Carrying my backpack was a bit strenuous at times, but it was nothing compared to the literal tearing feeling I had felt prior. I rode as a passenger on a motorbike, climbed waterfalls and hills, ran, jumped, and walked for hours on end.

I had been terrified that a C1-C2 fusion would leave me in chronic distress, unable to do anything I loved. But- the exact opposite happened. I wasn’t in more pain, I was in less, and often, none.

I was significantly less stressed seeing as I wasn’t constantly wondering what the heck was wrong with me. I felt… normal.

Life after a broken neck might be a bit different, and might require adding some tools to your tool box, especially as a traveller, (Read: Neck pillow, prescribed muscle relaxers, and a backpack with lots of hip support) but it is far from being over. More like it begins again.

While I might never be able to do a headstand or go bungee jumping, I can still hike, swim, climb and everything in between. This neck has taken me all over the world, both broken and fused!

Injuries and surgeries can be limiting, but they don’t need to be blocks in the road. Sometimes you just have to do a little improvising- and that’s sure okay with me.

Have you ever had a life altering surgery or injury? Did you land here because you’re facing some cervical work yourself? Leave me a comment below, or send me an email @ samantha@intentionaldetours.com !