Douglas Schorr

Picture this: a boy standing 5’9″ (1.75m) at age 9, shooting up to 6’3″ by 13. Perpetually ravenous, I became everyone’s leftover disposal unit – “Don’t let it go to waste, give it to Waste.” Carbs especially, but bits of fruit and a spoonful of vegetables served to fill a corner – the good stuff like meat rarely made it down the pass-me-down line.

This carb-loading marathon set the stage for decades of cellular rebellion. The crisis came when I should have been enjoying freedom.

“Nervous Meltdown” represents the deepest part of my rehab experience. Though I found my mental decline the hardest to handle, it’s by far the shortest story to tell. I was heading rapidly toward dementia – frightening. I’ve always found emotional pain nearly impossible to manage. Of course, as much as it seems mental, it isn’t all in the head. Without a blind spot, nerves are constantly sending instructions and receiving feedback. Although I’ve compromised nerves in my left shoulder, my primary “issue-zone” has been the junction box in the lower back.

The spine injury story began three decades ago with a kick to my back. The specialist explained how the precise combination of spinal tension, kick angle, and shoe type created the perfect storm – breaking through my spine and leaving bone shards in the spinal column. Pain was immediate, but worse followed. Within weeks, my left leg began failing, and I found myself wheelchair-bound as my lower left leg stopped responding to commands.

Post-surgery was like awakening to a miracle. The intense back pain vanished, I could walk immediately and I had a little bottle of bone chips and splinters. Months of rehabilitation followed, starting with the simple task of carrying a book. As previous sections showed, I achieved a remarkable recovery, but two lasting issues remained: a constant buzzing sensation in my left calf and unpredictable responses from my left foot. Sometimes parts would go numb, other times they wouldn’t respond to brain signals leading to “unexplained” falls or discovering my toes grotesquely misaligned after exercise, all without pain sensation.

Around this time, vicious rheumatic-like pains began striking my legs and forearms – sharp, sudden attacks that disappeared as quickly as they came. “Burning feet” syndrome joined in, particularly at night, though the temperature remained normal. Both conditions worsened as my health declined over the years.

Then came the hip complications. As mentioned in Section 2, abandoning jungle jogging led to shot put as my reason to keep fit. They said it contributed to my right hip being driven up into its socket; but one specialist noted shot put was just the tipping point. I’d spent twenty years subconsciously protecting my left leg, straining my right side and aggravating nerve damage in my lower back. The decision between nerve decompression surgery and hip replacement was complex – the hip won. Recovery was swift – being 6 weeks into carnivore when I had the op had to have something to do with it. And I feel “something” was validated by the transformation in the lower back. Six months into carnivore, without me making a decision, the nerve operation “became unnecessary”, the calf buzzing quieted, burning feet subsided, and foot responsiveness improved dramatically.

My mental decline was more concerning. Depression cycles began appearing when I was in my early sixties. They happened without clear trigger points. Though I could argue they coincided with intimate relationship and loneliness challenges, everything else – pension matters and basic fitness (the hip was still to come) – was going well. Sleep became horribly fragmented – three to five nights of minimal physical rest while my mind ran everywhere. Then I’d crash – literally. Getting up in the morning became a “what for” struggle. My typically positive personality shifted; I became impatient and harshly critical, especially toward those closest to me.

Research and writing, once my passion and escape, became a stark indicator of decline. Even my penciled notes in the margin of a book failed to ignite memory chords. My son’s feedback was devastating – he couldn’t believe I’d ever completed a master’s degree given the quality of my recent work. I reread stuff I’d marked “ready to show” and dejectedly recognized nonsense. Memory issues spread to daily life – misplacing items, days vanished, forgetting conversations, repeating stories, and losing track of PIN numbers. Even watching television became an exercise in “have we or haven’t we” seen this.

As if in union with my lower back, the transformation through carnivore wasn’t just physical – it reached into every aspect of my nervous system’s function, gradually restoring both physical coordination and mental clarity. The fog began to lift – weekly I could review the changes revealing the person I used to be.

I was returning!

It wasn’t a Hollywood-style overnight transformation. More like dawn breaking – gradual, then suddenly you realize it’s light. Eight months into carnivore, I noticed I’d stopped checking my wallet and phone were with me – they just were. The morning fog that had clouded my mind lifted. I began waking clear-headed, eager to get up and get into my schedule. Warm up with writing, hit the morning’s exercise, clean up, and settle into researching, learning, and hopefully writing.

And writing did become fluid again, exciting. Ideas flowed naturally, and more importantly, stayed organized. I could hold narratives in my head while crafting them on paper. No more scrolling back to check what I’d written – My son noticed too: “Dad, this is beginning to read like you again.”

The depression cycles simply… vanished. The pool tiles 15 floors below became just tiles again, not a permanent option. Those overwhelming feelings of worthlessness disappeared, replaced by genuine enthusiasm for each day. Sleep normalized – though in theory still not enough, deep, refreshing nights became the norm rather than the exception.

Physical improvements paralleled the mental clarity. The burning feet sensation faded to “it happens”. The beehive in my calf quieted to an occasional whisper. My left foot began consistently obeying commands, allowing me to trust my body again. Even the rheumatic pains that had plagued me for years retreated. You know, I cannot remember when the last stab was.

Most surprisingly, the person I used to be emerged from behind the veil of inflammation and neural chaos. The sharp-tongued critic was replaced by the measured teacher I’d once been. Patience returned. The ability to listen, really listen, to others came back.

This isn’t a story about just getting better – it’s about rediscovering myself. The person I thought was lost to age and deterioration was actually just buried under years of inappropriate nutrition. The fog lifted, the pain subsided, and I found myself again.