Tim Don, a professional triathlete, who suffered a very similar cervical injury recently put it like this: “It’s like flying economy for three months straight” and I couldn’t agree more, but as with anything in life it has its positives too.

I never really had a choice or any warning regarding the neck brace. I simply woke up in it already, unable to move my head. I was so heavily medicated it wasn’t terribly claustrophobic at the beginning due to the decreased sense of awareness.  After a couple of days, as the drugs faded and reality started kicking in, I quickly learnt not to ask how much longer I would have to wear the neck brace. The neck brace humbled me and taught me to be patient very quickly. When you start to think how you won’t be able to turn your head for months, it is easy to get extremely anxious. If you instead deal with it with a day-to-day mentality, it is not as bad. It’s easy to say, but days really do become weeks, and weeks become months, and by then you forget that your neck even turns. Pretty soon you get used to turning your whole torso left, instead of just looking left. The ability we have as humans to adapt to situations cannot be understated, there is almost nothing our body won’t adjust to if we have the right mindset and a big enough intention.

A silver lining of wearing a neck brace, is that it also doesn’t allow for up or down movement. Which means only looking straight, not up, not down, not away. You are basically forced to see everything that is at an eye-level in front of you, which has a beauty to it. You don’t get to look down at your phone but instead look at the person in front of you straight in the eyes. With a bit of luck if they don’t turn away then you make eye contact for an extra half a second of your day. That small connection, in my opinion, makes you feel more alive and acknowledged than looking down at your phone to check if you have a new “like” or text. This is a reminder that life goes on outside even when we are looking down at our phones, and sometimes we can miss a beautiful moment.

Wearing a neck brace in public also brings tons of attention. Most people take an extra second to stare at you, since you stand out like a sore thumb. Some awesome people will even give you thumbs up and some quick words of encouragement as they see you walking past. The most curious ones will even straight-up ask you what happened, which can be a bit rude sometimes, but in my case, I don’t mind at all sharing my story (as you guys know by now). Then there are the most amazing ones. Those that stopped me in middle of the street, open up by telling me they have also been in a neck brace before and transmit a message of kindness and tranquility that gave me extra glimmer of hope that the neck would heal with time. Which was crucial since wearing it doesn’t guarantee complete healing. There always is the anguish of having to go into surgery to repair the fracture and I hear that type of surgery is a pain in the neck (literally).

For those wondering: Yes, you must wear it all day, including showering and sleeping. I had multiple neck braces that way I could shower with one, then after the shower I would carefully remove it and replace it with a dry one without moving my neck. To sleep it’s simple, just no pillows. That means sleeping facing up only. It was extremely hard to get some quality sleep at the beginning considering the arms were also wrapped up in casts and not be able to find a comfortable spot, since you can’t really move around to find a comfy position to fall asleep. As time passes the body adapts and then the sleep improves, but I don’t think I ever really got a really good night sleep.

P.S. Wearing a neck brace in public also brings tons of attention from cute girls but let’s keep this blog PG13.