Robert Ferrier, a fellow Aikidoist whom I’ve had the pleasure to know and practice with passed away today. While there are reasons why I started in aikido, people like Bob have a great deal to do with why I continue. It was my privilege to know him and to have practiced with him. Below is an article that Bob wrote for Aikido Today Magazine in 1996 which gives a glimpse into his strength.
Aikido & Survival: my experience with ostomy surgery
by Robert Ferrier
(in Aikido Today Magazine #48 Health October/November 1996)I am still standing
Better than I ever did
Looking like a true survivor
Feeling like a little kid
— Elton JohnThese lines from a song by Elton John have become my life’s motto. I have survived, and at times I do feel like a kid. I look at the world with joy, wonder, and curiosity — with the eyes of a child.
I have undergone an ileostomy — the surgical construction of an artificial opening through my abdominal wall to my small intestine. Very likely, everyone reading this knows someone who has had ostomy surgery.
Each of us must play with the cards we are dealt in life. It is how we play the game that makes the difference. And an important fact about how I play the game is that I practice Aikido. I feel that Aikido has helped me to survive — that it has kept my mind, body, and spirit together.
Before the spring of 1982, when I was diagnosed as having ulcerative colitis, I had never been sick. The one time I had been hospitalized as a child, there was nothing wrong with me. My twin sister needed to have her tonsils removed, and our doctor (wise man that he was) decided to remove mine at the same time, reasoning that my operation would ease my sister’s trauma.
At the time I was diagnosed, I was working the midnight shift as the operator of a waste-water treatment plant in North Andover, Massachusetts. I had been troubled with diarrhea off and on for about a year, but one night I started to have severe cramps, and I found myself continually running to the toilet. By morning I was passing blood, and I started to panic. My only thought was that I had cancer. I could see my life passing before me.
As soon as I got home, I called my family doctor and set up an appointment. He informed me that I had a case of colitis — but he told me that it was no big deal. To me, seeing blood in the toilet was a big deal.
For several months, I continued to have attacks of colitis that lasted a few days and then subsided. Since I was getting no relief, I contacted a gastoenterologist, who performed a colonoscopy, found that I had a severe case of ulcerative colitis, and put me on a drug called prednisone. The drug helped immediately; I felt better in days and felt no side effects. But, as time went on, the doctor kept having to increase the dosage. Eventually, the cramps, diarrhea, and bleeding returned.
When you have ulcerative colitis, your life starts to revolve around toilets. You get to the point where you do not go anywhere without knowing that one will be handy. I do not know how many times, when on long trips, I just had to pull off the road and run into the woods. The odd part is that, after a while, the routine just becomes part of your life. It’s amazing how we humans can adapt!
By the summer of 1983, the prednisone was barely working. My doctor put me into the hospital to rest my digestive system and to try different combinations of drugs. As nothing worked and I was starting to weaken, I was examined by a surgeon, who decided that the best thing to do was to remove my colon.
Within eighteen months of first hearing the words “ulcerative colitis” I was lying in a hospital bed with my colon and rectum removed. I was 32 years old. I had a wife, two small children, a home, a job, and an avocation: I studied Aikido.
Things did not go very well after the operation. Because of the prednisone that had been pumped into me, my body did not heal properly.
The doctors told my wife that it had been a close call. My colon had become a piece of black meet that had begun to rot, and they were amazed that I had been living a normal life. When they asked my wife whether I had been doing anything unusual, she informed them that the only thing that might be considered out of the ordinary was that I practiced Aikido. Hearing this, the doctors told my wife that Aikido may have been what pulled me through — by giving me something to focus on. I know that Aikido pulled me through.
I had started practicing Aikido in the summer of 1981 and, right from the start, I knew that I would be doing it for the rest of my life.
One of the first questions I asked my doctors after the operation was whether I would every be able to practice Aikido again. He told me he did not see any reason why not, once I had fully recovered. So before I was released from the hospital, I started mentally preparing myself for getting back on the mat. Even before leaving the hospital, I had decided that the piece of intestine protruding through the wall of my abdomen was not going to stop me from pursuing my dream of becoming a black belt.
When I was release from the hospital, I was so weak that I could not climb up the three stairs to my back door. I collapsed on the first stair, and my wife practically had to carry me into the house.
I was not going to let this get me down, and I asked my wife to rent an exercise bike so that I could work on getting my strength back. I started working out on the bike a few minutes a day, and I slowly built my stamina back up to where I could pedal for about an hour. Six months after my operation, I was back on the practice mat.
My doctor had informed me that I would need two more operations, and that two operations turned into seven. But each time, as soon as my doctor gave me the OK, I was back on the mat. When I couldn’t practice, I would imagine myself doing the moves, and at home I would use visual imagery, repeating techniques in my mind until it felt as if I was actually doing them.
My tenacity paid off. In August, 1994, at the summer camp held at Colgate University, I passed my black belt test./ While the camp is an annual event, this year’s was special, since it celebrated the 30th anniversary of the New York Aikikai. People from the United States, South America, Europe, and Africa all came together to practice Aikido and celebrate.
My instructor, L. E. Perrillo Sensei, has informed me that I am the only person in the United States Aikido Federation to have been awarded a black belt after ostomy surgery. I am very proud of this fact.
I have recently come to realize that, without the support of my family and friends, I could never have achieved my goal. I am deeply grateful to my ex-wife Lorraine, who helped nurse me back to health; to my daughters, Katie and Rachel, who always encouraged me and who came to the dojo to watch me practice; and to my companion, Rebecca, who keeps me grounded. I also owe a special debt of gratitude to my Aikido friends at Northeast Aikikai in Chelmsford, Massachusetts. Without their help and guidance over the years, I would never have seen my dream come true.
I have decided to devote my life to Aikido for I know that, without it, I would not have survived.
Perhaps someone will see me on the mat (or read this article) and think, “If he can do it, then maybe I can too!” If so – if in some way my story inspires someone else to reach for a dream, then all I have been through will have been worthwhile.
If we don’t strive to fulfill our dreams, what are we? We might as well be flightless birds staring into the clouds.