• Life

    Everyday is a bonus day!

    Sunday August 11, 2019 – Bonus Day 76 I woke up without pain on Monday, May 27 2019. It was Memorial Day.  I lived with severe pain for 18 years 8 months and 5 days. I accomplished more in those first 11 weeks than I had over the past 19 years combined.  This is a long summary.  It has taken almost 19 years to get to this point!  Please forgive me if it looks like I’m writing a book – I am.  I appreciate you taking the time to read it!  This is not a good time to live with untreatable chronic pain.  Chronic pain patients are the modern day version…

  • Life

    Thoughts Before the Storm

    Dark clouds on the horizon. Written on 12/5/21. Funny story… Eh, not really. This is not a happy story but I’ll make a joke whenever I can. I just wanted to start on a positive note. This story is a bit depressing so far.  This chapter is going to be a bit raw. I am frustrated and writing helps. One of my favorite movies is 1992’s Captain Ron with Martin Short and Kurt Russell. It’s a cute story with lots of great one liners. There are some beautiful sailing scenes midway through the movie that I compare to the last 915 days of my life. Beautiful water, beautiful sky, just…

  • Life

    Letting Go Is Difficult

    Monday 11/22/21. It isn’t easy to let go of dreams…or ego. Recently, I’ve come to the conclusion that I have been working very hard to avoid telling my story. I wrote this on is Bonus Day #910 since my Memorial Day Miracle in 2019. It still feels weird to refer to my experience as a miracle. However…it was, indeed, a miracle. It’s just odd to think that I, Kent Morrell, have actually experienced a miracle. Being healed of permanent nerve damage in a large section of my thoracic spine is still mind-blowing to me. How does one process that? I wish we knew the story of Lazarus after Jesus woke…

  • Life

    90 Days of Despair

    Hopelessness is soul crushing. I knew life was going to get very difficult after I lost access to pain management in March of 2018. I just didn’t have a clue as to how difficult living would get. Background info is at the end of this post. I reached the end of myself beginning in September 2018. This was the lowest point in my almost 20 year journey. All hope was gone. The decision to continue living was a breath by breath decision for the next three months. I was terrified that I would never feel hope again. Jennifer started to fear calling home after work because she was afraid I…

  • Life

    I Remember Everything

    I had a discussion with a family member recently that exposed an ability that I thought I had lost. They reminded me of a discussion where I had said something I had no memory of saying. I actually had no memory of the conversation at all. This person is, by far, the most detailed individual I know. If they said I said it, I likely said it.   This disturbed me greatly. I was unable to recall any part of that conversation. How is it possible that I had a conversation that I had no memory of, a serious conversation with an important person. I needed to work this out. For two days I concentrated,…

  • Life

    Thoughts on Fatherhood, Faith and Suffering

    Letter to a friend with a terrible father: Written on April 20, 2020  I knew being a good father was important, but I didn’t truly realize the impact and importance of the “why” until recently.  My father was in the hospital with double pneumonia back in February.  It almost killed him.  I think he had Covid19.  All tests were normal when my Mom and brother finally talked him into going to the ER Monday 2/17/20.   Before releasing him that evening, the ER doc ordered a CT of his lungs just to be sure everything was ok.  Things were not okay.  It was bilateral pneumonia that the X-ray missed.  He would…

  • Life

    Return to Oz…

    There is a magical place on a mountaintop in Western North Carolina.  The Land of Oz was a theme park that operated from 1970 through 1980 on top of Beech Mountain.  Fortunately, the Yellow Brick Road remains to this day.  The park is privately owned, but is opened to the public several weekends a year now.    At an elevation of 5,506 feet, the Land of Oz is perched among the highest peaks in the eastern United States.  There is an observation point near the entrance called the Judy Garland Overlook.  On a clear day, you can see 130+ miles in almost every direction.  It is an amazing location and…

  • Life

    Adjust your life accordingly…

    “But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” ~ C.S. Lewis “Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.” ~ Helen Keller “No man knows till he has suffered from the night how sweet and dear to his heart and eye the morning can be.” ~ Bram Stoker “The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way…