It started with a twisted ankle. Just a stupid misstep that triggered something sleeping deep in my spine. Four days later, my hamstring was locked like a steel cable, my thigh felt like stone, and I couldn’t sit without wanting to scream.
- Dad passed away.
- The divorce papers came through. I was already emotionally shattered when that stupid twisted ankle happened during a casual walk in 2012-2013.
“You’ll be a vegetable,” the neurosurgeon said, pointing at my MRI. “₹1.5 lakhs for surgery. After that? No forward bending, no lifting, no running. You’ll just… exist.”
I stared at him, then at the astronomical bill. “I’d rather go with this pain and find something else.”
Fast forward to 2022: I trekked Kedarnath with a 90-liter backpack.
Sometimes life has a twisted sense of humor.
When Everything Falls Apart at Once
Let me paint the real picture.
2011: Dad died. The grief was still raw when 2012 brought the divorce. I was already emotionally shattered when that stupid twisted ankle happened during a casual walk in late 2012.
What should have been a minor injury triggered sciatica that shot down my leg like lightning. The hamstring spasm that followed didn’t release for four days. Four days of my leg muscles turning to stone while I tried to convince myself this was temporary.
It wasn’t.
My thigh muscles became rock-hard. My body went into complete autoimmune mode—fatigue so deep that getting out of bed felt like climbing a mountain. The pain was invisible, which made it worse. You can’t show people a hamstring that won’t unlock or explain why your nervous system has declared war on itself.
Mom watched me struggle and couldn’t understand what was happening. “What’s wrong? Where does it hurt?” she’d ask, desperate to help.
How do you explain that everything hurts but nothing shows?
The Day Mom Realized How Bad It Was
The breaking point came when I asked Mom to come with me for a short walk. We barely made it fifty meters before I had to stop. I was drenched in sweat, shaking, completely unable to move forward.
“What’s happening to you?” she asked, terror creeping into her voice.
I couldn’t answer. I was too busy trying not to collapse on the street.
That’s when she knew this wasn’t just “back pain.” This was something that was eating me alive from the inside.
Within weeks, I couldn’t sit. Couldn’t stand for more than a few minutes. I could barely balance myself in any position without triggering spasms that felt like electric shocks through my entire lower body.
The neurosurgeon’s verdict? L2, L3, L4, L5, S1 slip discs. Complete spinal fusion surgery for ₹1.5 lakhs. “You’ll be stable,” he said, “but you’ll never bend forward again. No sports, no heavy lifting, no running.”
₹1.5 lakhs. I didn’t have ₹15,000. I was jobless, broken, and drowning in medical bills I couldn’t pay.
When You Have No Options Left
Months passed. I was basically living horizontally, watching my life disappear along with my muscle mass. Friends would visit and try to be encouraging, but I could see the pity in their eyes.
The worst part? The loneliness of invisible suffering. People see you lying down and assume you’re resting. They don’t see the internal war your nervous system is fighting.
Then someone mentioned Kabir Baug. “They do rope therapy there,” they said. “Disciples of Iyengar. Might help.”
By then, I was desperate enough to try anything.
The day we went to Kabir Baug, I couldn’t even get into the car normally. They had to drop me into the back seat like cargo. I couldn’t sit upright for the entire journey.
This wasn’t just a clinic visit. Kabir Baug offered a 10-day residential program. ₹8,000 for ten days of intensive rope therapy, complete immersion in healing.
At the clinic, this doctor came to see me in the car because I couldn’t make it inside.
She looked at me—really looked—not at my MRI or my medical file, but at me as a human being in pain.
“You’ll walk,” she said with quiet confidence. “On the 10th day, you’ll walk up to the first floor and tell me how you’re feeling.”
I wanted to laugh. I couldn’t even sit in a car seat properly, and she was talking about walking up stairs?
But something in her voice made me believe her.
The Miracle of Day 10
The residential program was unlike anything I’d experienced. Ten days of intensive rope therapy, living at the clinic, complete focus on healing. Instead of forcing my spine into submission, they taught it how to find space again. Gravity became my ally instead of my enemy.
₹8,000 for 10 days of residential healing. The neurosurgeon wanted ₹1.5 lakhs to make me immobile. These people wanted ₹8,000 to help me remember how to move.
And on day 10—exactly as she predicted—I walked up to the first floor.
My legs were shaky. My back was still fragile. But I was walking. Under my own power. Up stairs.
“How are you feeling?” she asked when I reached her office.
“Like I just climbed Everest,” I said, tears streaming down my face.
She smiled. “Now the real work begins.”
If you’re dealing with a medical prognosis that feels like a life sentence, there’s hope in the most unexpected places. More stories of unconventional healing ahead—don’t miss them.
The Long Road to Kedarnath
She was right about the real work. Being mobile again was just the beginning. The pain stayed with me for six more years.
But mobility meant hope. It meant I could start rebuilding not just my body, but my entire life.
No job, no money, fresh grief from losing Dad, divorce trauma, and a spine that reminded me daily that I was fragile. Most days, I wasn’t sure how I’d survive financially, let alone physically.
But I learned something powerful during those years: when you have nothing left to lose, you discover what you’re really made of.
By 2016, football friends at the local club started dragging me to watch their games. “Just sit on the sideline,” they’d say. “You don’t have to do anything.”
Watching them play awakened something in me. The part that remembered my body as a source of joy, not just pain. (I’ve written about how community healing transformed my relationship with fitness—because sometimes your recovery team isn’t wearing white coats.)
One day, one of them kicked the ball toward me. Instinctively, I stopped it with my foot.
“See? You’re still in there,” my friend grinned.
That small moment was huge. It wasn’t about the football—it was about reclaiming my relationship with movement, with play, with the possibility that my body could be trusted again.
From Broken to Unbreakable
By 2018, I was back in the gym. Not the ego-driven lifting of my younger days, but intelligent movement that honored everything my body had been through.
Every rep was proof I wasn’t the “vegetable” the neurosurgeon had predicted.
But the real test came in 2022. Kedarnath. 90-liter backpack. High altitude, steep climbs, rough terrain.
The same spine that doctors said would never carry anything heavier than groceries was about to haul supplies up one of India’s most challenging treks.
Every step was a middle finger to that prognosis. Every kilometer was proof that healing happens through paths that don’t exist in medical textbooks.
At the summit, exhausted but whole, I realized something profound: the things that break us aren’t our enemies. They’re our teachers in disguise.
Studies show that Iyengar yoga therapy can significantly improve chronic lower back pain, but what they don’t measure is how it teaches you to trust your body again.
What Rock Bottom Taught Me
Dad’s death taught me about impermanence. The divorce taught me about resilience. The spine injury taught me about the body’s wisdom when we stop fighting it and start listening.
The neurosurgeon saw my MRI and saw limitations. The Kabir Baug doctor saw me and saw possibilities.
Most importantly, I learned that sometimes what you can’t afford financially becomes exactly what leads you to what you actually need.
Seven years later, that 90-liter backpack sits in my room as daily proof: sometimes the best medical advice is the one you can’t afford to follow.
The neurosurgeon was right about one thing—I did make a choice. I chose to trust my body’s wisdom over his ability to predict my limitations. Best decision I never knew I was making.
Want more stories of turning pain into power? I share the unfiltered journey of building strength from broken places—physical, mental, and spiritual. Whether it’s gym wisdom, business lessons from unexpected teachers, or the real talk about healing that nobody else is having.
Subscribe here to join the conversation. And if you’re in Pune and curious about Kabir Baug’s approach, they’re still changing lives one rope at a time.
Got your own recovery story that doctors said was impossible? I’d love to hear it. Sometimes the best healing happens when we share what broke us and what put us back together.
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