My partner and I had just arrived in from the bush of Alaska where we had been living for a year. We moved out there, built a cabin from scratch, hunted, fished, and gathered for our food and traveled 120 miles on a river just to check out mail. I could not lift my arms above my shoulders at all without excruciating pain and my knees were so bad I couldn’t get up into the boat without steps being built, It was very sad.

The injury occurred back in 2014 while living in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan out in the woods, off grid. We were raising a wind turbine tower and the pole I was using sheared off in the sub zero temps and the tower fell back to earth. I caught it just in time to get my head into the frame without crushing my skull but I was pile drove into the ground in a squatted position and my arms were pinned to my shoulders. I was freed by my partner and seemed to be alright except for some wounded pride.

It was about 4 months later I began to have torn cuff symptoms and knee issues. We had made the decision to move to the bush of Alaska and I didn’t get help for the injuries. At that point I was already splinting my joints and short stroking muscles to try to keep from hurting. I was at 330 pounds.

May 2016-May 2017 We spent in the bush building and living 300 miles from a road system, we were RURAL, very RURAL. Through all the work my symptoms became worse. There were days I could barely walk, I was using walking sticks or just cutting my movements to the bare minimum.

Through that year my weight fluctuated with the massive amounts of work and the lack of crap food. Which was a good thing. We also had lean times as we got closer to the river ice breaking up so I lost a bit of weight then. When we came to town I was around 325 pounds.

Of course we got into a our boat just a few parking lots away from Safeway where all the food we didn’t have for a year was stored. We kinda went nuts and I gained right up to 345#.