No longer a pain in the neck

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 17/01/2015 (3379 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Ryan Dueck was lifting weights with a broken neck he didn’t know he had.

It’s a fact still baffling for him to recall, even a year after his remarkable streak of 1,755 days with a fractured neck came to an end.

His neck, if left untreated, would have worsened. He would have gradually lost the use of his arms and been unable to hold up his own head.

“I’m out of it now, but when you think about the most basic things you can do, when you can’t hold your own head up, that’s still one of the scariest things I’ve had to think about,” said the 30-year-old.

A freak football injury sustained during a pickup game in the snow caused “two explosions at the back of the neck,” said the former football athlete for the University of Manitoba Bisons and Eastman Raiders.

He went to the hospital, and passed enough tests that after a few days his condition was deemed satisfactory enough to go home.

“I went home with a broken neck, undiagnosed,” said the former Steinbach resident who now resides in St Vital.

That was in 2009.

When Dueck’s condition didn’t improve in the six months like promised, he sought more answers. He got opinions from any medical experts. He researched spinal injuries.

“We have to take our health into our own hands and I knew something was seriously wrong,” he said. “I didn’t go to physiotherapy, and I was prescribed to go to physiotherapy within the first two months. I had this inkling—I went once, it didn’t go well. I’ve had enough injuries to know when to push and when to lay back. This one, I couldn’t do what they wanted me to do.”

Dueck and his wife Jennifer’s investigation eventually led him to a consultation session with two neurosurgeons who work in Germany. They told him his years of throbbing pain would finally come to a close if he went overseas for a surgery not being performed in North America. The surgery date was in two months: Nov. 21, 2013.

“It was terrifying to hear what I had actually been living with and how serious it was going to get,” he said, “but it was a relief to finally be given an answer and be justified.”

Thanks to the support of hundreds, the necessary funds were raised.

“That experience of people rallying around us and truly caring for us,” he recalls. “It’s mind-blowing.”

This could be the end of Dueck’s tale: the surgery worked. He still has pain—miniscule, in comparison—and has not returned to his position as fitness centre director at Youth for Christ in Winnipeg. Hopefully he will in the future, he says, but five years of an untreated neck has long-term effects.

Dueck’s spinal story, though, doesn’t end here.

As he was recovering in a Hattingen hospital, it came to him: he wanted to help others. The idea was a website that would be a headquarters for those with spinal injuries seeking further information.

“This provided a vision and dream for me that kept me positive in the months since,” said Dueck, “and then when I get to help people I get such a joy and fulfillment from that that I don’t get because I’m not working full-time, I’m not coaching, I’m not playing football.”

In about half-a-year, Dueck’s vision for what Six Degrees Freedom can become, whose name is derived from the six degrees of motion a healthy neck and spine enjoy, has come true. He has benefited more than 100 people, from Manitobans to people in the United States, Europe and Malaysia.

Without sufficient research being done on spinal injuries on this side of the pond, Dueck has found many people like him whose condition has not been properly treated and are seeking information from other sources.

Dueck has connected some individuals with the German clinic he attended. In other cases, he’s provided questions that led members of his community to find the help they need.

“People have actually gone and found answers, got the surgery, directly because of the website, directly because of the conversations we had,” said Dueck, who wants to expand his online network.

You can visit his platform at sixdegreesfreedom.com.

“I can share my story more and more, and it’s actually changing people’s lives,” said the son of Eldon and Lynnette Dueck and twin brother to Paul. “I’m so blessed that I can do that for people.”