Editor’s note: Bassmaster.com photographer James Overstreet had neck surgery about two weeks ago. This post originally appeared on his Facebook page.
Finish reading this before you give up and call me a whiner, because there are people all over this world that are hurting. And for some, their pain is the type that will never leave. So I promise I’m not complaining.
This morning I’m hurting after multi-level fusion surgery on my neck. I woke up a bit discouraged cause it’s been like that a few days now. My pain level has been elevated, and it just felt like I was having this huge setback.
I’ve had lower back issues for years — surgery and procedures to keep that part of my body functioning. Though it hurts almost every day, I’ve lived with it so long now I don’t really even think about it. It’s like drinking coffee, just part of the morning routine. I just keep on keeping on and do what I do, and truthfully, just put it in a place where I rarely dwell on it. I know I can and almost always do. I work and play with it always there. Very few times will I allow it to limit or defeat me. Days when I can’t, days when I’m losing the fight to the pain, most will never know or be able to tell.
Now here I sit typing, two weeks to the day after the fusion surgery on my neck. My pain level has sustained somewhere around a 7 to 8. And my threshold for pain is pretty high after years of built up tolerance to pain. I’m just used to it. A ’10’ on my pain level scale would probably take something more like a gunshot or stab wound. For instance, I passed a rather large kidney stone while shooting the weigh-in at an Elite Series tournament at the St. Johns River this past season. LOL. But only Steve Bowman knew of it, but only because he kept having to come out to ‘spell’ me with a camera several times while I went to the portable ‘facilities’ behind the stage.
But for some reason, yesterday my lower back “went out,’ as people with back troubles call it. And it’s still ‘out’ today. It has me shuffling my feet because it hurts to take a full-walking stride. So now here I am, when I thought by now I would really be, or should be, doing much better…and I get the double-whammy going. Both the neck fusion surgery and the lower back pain.
Today was going to be a big day for me. Two weeks in was to be the first day I could drive again, with my neck brace, of course. And only short little drives to the store, etc. But it was a day marked on my personal calendar as one that would indicate ‘progress.’ A day I had really been looking forward to.
But that’s not what this is about. It’s about the first thing I saw when I opened up my Facebook Timeline this morning. It’s about the first thing I read, and about who it was from, and what he said. The very first thing my eyes saw other than a coffee cup. It was the words of David Cosner.
Cosner is a young man who loves to fish and lives in Austin, Texas. He fished on the Texas State College fishing team when he was healthy enough. He amazes me, and I don’t say that about many people.
This young man that has endured nearly 200 surgeries related to a rare lung disease. His fighting spirit and the way he looks at life earned him the name ‘Superman.’ He spends more time in the hospital than Mark Zona does in Bass Pro Shop. When he’s not in the hospital, he fights tooth and nail to live a normal life. Fishing and socializing and not letting his disease get in the way of living.
I started to follow him on Facebook over a year ago. Started to keep in touch with him, texting etc., and we became friends. We got him VIP tickets to the Classic at Guntersville last year. Dave Mercer and Mark Zona and his wife Karin got involved and helped me make it happen. We all keep in touch with him, along with others like Don Barone. We have all been more than touched by this young man. He is special to all of us and keeps us in our thankful place.
This morning I opened Facebook, after moaning and groaning at the simple task of trying to lift my laptop. I opened it and read his words. It was as if they were meant for me. To lift me up. To remind me how to fight and prevail. But I know better — the words were there indeed to help me along, but they were remarkable words what would do that for anybody. The words he typed started like this:
From his journal. David Cosner – Dec. 8th 2014
“It’s 11:33 p.m., I’m laying in my bed staring up at my ceiling fan, watching it go around and around, thinking. Thinking about how tough this last month has been on me and those closest to me. I lay here, watching my chest rise and fall, appreciative of every breath that God blesses me with, for I have fought tooth and nail for every one….”
He went on to type his favorite quote, one from the Dalai Lama:
“Men surprised me most about humanity. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.” ~ The Dalai Lama
Today, despite my pain, I will live. I will take that first drive in some time and I will think of David Cosner. And as God is my witness, I will prevail over this trying period of time. I will live…love…smile, roll the windows down to smell the fresh air, enjoy every minute of it. And like David, I will not let my troubles dominate or overcome my spirit to fight, or the things and people I am thankful for. And I will be thankful for this young man. Getting to know him and his story has blessed my life. And it did so again this morning, when I least expected it.
If you’re the praying type, or you just want or need inspiration, there’s a Facebook group called ‘Pray for David‘. Show him your love and support; it will come back to you tenfold.