Trouble in Paradise

I went on a dream surf trip, and learned that no matter where you are, there you are.

I was in heaven; and it was absolute hell. 

I lay on a cushioned recliner in the combed white sand, beside warm clear water teeming with tropical fish, under palm fronds that waved in a perfect and merciful breeze, with a cocktail in my hand… and I cursed my wretched fate.

“Why?” I wept into my pina colada. “Why me?”

It was supposed to have been the dream surf trip: four mates on one of the most exclusive waves in the world. Months of squirrelling away funds (made easier by the pandemic), negotiations with wives (made more difficult by the pandemic), then the ultimate escape (made necessary by the pandemic).

But moments after I paddled out on my very first surf of the trip, I felt a sharp, shooting pain along my right arm and shoulder – and I knew there was something seriously wrong. Nerve pain is different pain to that of a muscle: a sharp electric shock compared with the ache of a spasm. Like a broken bone as opposed to a strain or a sprain. 

I was on the wrong end of this equation, and as I crawled out of the water I felt a weird numbness in my hand and a cruel cattle prod stabbing the length of my back. 

My very expensive holiday of a lifetime was over before it began.

While the rest of the crew gorged themselves on a metronomically consistent and beautiful wave, I would wake up and go for a futile Voltaren injection from the resident doctor, who was primarily there to do PCR tests on wealthy Russians… not treat spinal injuries. 

I needed an MRI scan, the good doctor patiently explained, and the nearest one was about US$5 000 away. 

“It is better to be on the linoleum path to recovery than on a golf cart track to the pool deck.”

Ami Kapilevich

I didn’t know it then, but I had slipped a disc in my neck: one of the soft bits separating the vertebrae had bulged out and was squashing my spinal cord, a diagnosis made only when I flew home and went for a scan at Mediclinic Constantiaberg nearly two weeks later. 

My orthopaedic surgeon Dr Peter Polley, himself a surfer, pointed at a horrific bulge on my MRI, and recommended our best option: a plastic vertebral disc. My surgery was duly scheduled.

That’s how I found myself in the post-op recovery area, thinking: a hospital bed can be better than a beach recliner. The worst was over. 

All those days wandering around a tropical island, in the sunlight but in the dark. In paradise, but in pain. It is better to be on the linoleum path to recovery than on a golf cart track to the pool deck. 

I’m not going to be glib and tell you that happiness does not spring from material possessions. But physical injury and ailment quickly put things into perspective. And some of our toughest physical battles are won or lost in the mind. I’m living proof that it is possible to be happier in the intensive care unit at a Mediclinic hospital than a villa in the Maldives. 

Receiving the best clinical treatment is one of the top currencies of wellbeing. If you’re reading this from a Mediclinic hospital bed, rest assured: you’re likely in the best place you could be right now. Hang in there. 

You’re in good hands.

Image credits: Ami Kapilevich, Getty Images