What Doesn't Kill Us: How Freezing Water, Extreme Altitude, and Environmental Conditioning Will Renew Our Lost Evolutionary Strength

by Scott Carney

He would need surgery, complete with screws. The doctor told him it would be a long recovery. Furthermore, a large purple horseshoe-shaped bruise stretched over his kidney. A nurse offered him an opium-based pain medication while he waited for surgery, but he turned it down. For him, the broken bone was an opportunity for him to practice pain control. The nurse was shocked. She’d never had anyone in his position refuse morphine, but he did. So, long after adrenaline had blunted his pain, van der Meulen breathed consciously for hours and visualized light moving from his lungs to his arm in lieu of a much easier path to painlessness. The doctors fitted him with a temporary cast and scheduled a surgery for 4 days later. He spent the evening meditating on his injuries, and when he came in for a follow-up appointment the next day the bruises on his ribs and kidneys were gone. The nurse wondered why van der Meulen wasn’t healing like a normal person.