Nancy Dayo: Chronic Pain, Addiction, Disability, and Redefining Resilience After Losing Everything

Welcome to the Internal Shift Show. I'm Debbie

Longo. This show focuses on how internal decisions

shape direction, progress, and long -term outcomes.

Today's conversation uses real -world experience

to examine how subtle internal shifts influence

the way people move forward. I'm joined by a

very special guest today, Nancy Dayo. Good afternoon,

Nancy. Welcome to the show. Thank you, Debbie.

Good to be here. Thank you for being here. I'm

going to ask you today to tell your story and

point out a specific situation or scenario or

life change or something where you went through

a process and the end result is positive. Now,

I do this show for a few different reasons. And

one main reason is because everybody has their

own individual story, but there are parts to

people's stories that other people can relate

to. So maybe a listener is in a situation that

they don't know how to get out of. And or maybe

they think that the scenario or the experience

that they're in is just going to be normal. That's

just going to be how they are for the rest of

their lives. And it's my experience for a very

long time of working with people that that will

hold me back 100%. And if I don't want to be

that way and I don't want to have that life,

right, then I can make a transition and I could

go from that negative situation and go through

a process and then have the end result or turn

that into a positive, whatever that is. It doesn't

have to be the end because sometimes we could

continue. But the idea is not to sit in a negative

situation or scenario or anything, because there's

no such thing as that. So the other thing is

that we want the listener to understand, to try

to relate to something that you are saying. It

doesn't have to be the thing that you're going

through. It can be something else that you're

talking about. And I'll probably give examples

as you start speaking, as you go through your

story. So we want to ask the guests if they could

really listen to what we're talking about here

and see if they could identify with any part

of this podcast at all. So if you could do that

for me, I would appreciate it. Thank you. Great.

Thank you, Debbie. Well, here is the one sentence

headline before I share my story. I went from

being a Silicon Valley CEO to a bedridden chronic

pain patient and back out in the world again

as a graduate student, then as an advocate for

girls and women, all of it lying down horizontally,

mostly on an army cut. This story I'm going to

share is a story of how I learned to redefine

what resilience really meant. When I was a CEO,

my whole MO was push harder, work faster, work

harder and longer than everybody else. I was

probably an average person at Silicon Valley

at the time. But my business didn't succeed.

I had to sell it. to my arch rival. And that

was a huge breakdown in who I was and who I thought

I could be. You might think that was the moment,

but it wasn't. I decided to climb Mount Kilimanjaro

as more than an endurance test, but as a way

to redeem myself after that failure, to prove

that I was still strong and capable. But as I

ascended the mountain, suddenly there I was at

16 ,000 feet. I had collapsed in pain so severe,

I thought I was dying. I couldn't move my legs.

They felt disconnected from my spine. And when

I tried to shift my body, it felt like somebody

was driving a metal rod. through my back. So

I thought two things. One, I think I'm bleeding

out. And two, everything I built my life on,

pushing harder, pushing through is just not working.

You think that might be the moment, but I still

kept going. For the next six months, I saw doctors

in Africa, in the UK, and eventually in the United

States who all looked at my films and my x -rays

and told me I was fine. I mean, I still remember

the day my hometown guy, my hometown doctor in

San Francisco, California, walked into my room

and there I lay weak in a hospital bed, unable

to walk, a commode by the bedside, and he grabbed

my films and he said, I have great news, you're

fine. It just felt somehow like there was a disconnect

and I wasn't being believed. The good news is

that by the time they figured out that I had

smashed vertebrae and a disc that needed replacing,

I was already highly dependent on opioids and

specifically on Oxycontin. Many of your listeners

probably know the story of Oxycontin in the United

States, but it was a very dangerous drug that

was very addicting. So I moved forward into the

life of a chronic pain patient. My life was in

bed. For some reason, because of my injury, I

was really unable to sit more than for a few

moments at a time. I was isolated. My friends

left me one by one as they were frightened by

what they saw, by my disability, by my pain,

by my discomfort. Every time I tried to get up

and push, which is all I knew, I would crash.

I would have a huge setback. I'd be completely

dependent on my husband and bedridden for weeks,

and then I'd have to start over again. Finally,

I went to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota

for a drug detox and physical rehabilitation

program. The interesting thing about this, just

knowing a little bit about my personality and

who I am, is that it's a three week push and

they take all the drugs away in week one, which

makes you violently nauseous and your skin's

crawling and you can't sleep. And then they forced

back physical function. So I was somebody who

couldn't sit. I could barely walk. I had no strength,

but they pushed that back over the course of

a couple of weeks. And at the end of it, I felt

like I can see I might be able to get my life

back. I'm sitting a little bit. I'm not lying

down as much. I'm feeling a little stronger and

I'm off opioids. I got home two days later. I

was in so much pain that I was hospitalized to

get it under control. And in that moment, in

that the depth of despair, the doctors came in

and said, we really have nothing more for you.

We've intervened and we've structurally fixed

your back. But the pain that you're living with

just needs to be managed. We're sending you home.

And I thought, this is a moment. Here's the shift.

The medical system has nothing for me. I'm on

my own. My mode of pushing and shoving and forcing

my way through everything and enduring past everybody

else isn't working. And in fact, it's actually

causing my body harm and doing wonders on my

mind at the same time. So I needed to find a

new way forward. I just had to do things differently

because the life of a chronic pain patient bedridden

and opioid addicted is no life. So as I thought

about it, I realized a couple of things. The

first is maybe being horizontal is a new normal

for me. Maybe it's just the way that I need to

be in the world. And I slowly started to learn

that we're all human. We're all individual. There

are so many ways we can be in the world, whether

we're disabled or not. But I decided to re -enter

the world. My solution was to go back to school

to get a graduate degree. I was passionate about

women and girls, and I wanted to get an international

studies master's. The only way I could do it

though was lying down. So at first I kept deferring

when I got accepted, waiting to be normal, waiting

to get myself back again. I didn't really know

who I was lying down, but finally I realized

I had to start maybe before I was even ready.

And so I concluded that an army cot that was

portable that I could set up in a minute that

I could lay a air mattress down on would be the

solution for me. No matter how mortified I was

about it initially, no matter what I thought

my cohort of students might think, I was not

willing to be identified by that disability.

So I went back to school. The acceptance I received

from that community of students was just beautiful.

They said, you have a lot to contribute to the

world. You just happen to do it lying down. And

that was a big aha moment for me. and I graduated

and I thought, if I could lie down in a classroom,

maybe I can start to travel again. I had been

on Kilimanjaro. I had been around the world.

I love to experience new cultures. And so I started

to travel lying down across three seats and coach.

And that was possible. Yeah, I got a lot of looks.

I had a lot of people trying to take the aisle

seat from me. But I realized that that was just

my way of being in the world. And that led to

my work in Women and Girls Empowerment, where

I did it in a different way. And so today I write

and speak about chronic pain and identity and

redefining resilience. I've written a book about

it. But the important thing for your listeners

is what I learned is I had to really listen to

my body and accept that it couldn't do the things

it used to do. I had to focus. on what I can

uniquely do, which was lie down, but use my brain.

And I had to find a new way forward. Yeah, that

was very, very, very good. Thank you. And this

is the exact point that I tried to make is the

reason why I have this podcast. When I just said

at the beginning in the intro and most of my

guests go through this, obviously, but you indicated

it straight out that you thought that this is

the way that you were going to be. This is how

you were going to be. This is how your life was

going to be, whatever it was. that you were thinking

exactly. And that type of situation should not

be, in my experience of working with people,

that should not be acceptable. And when that

becomes unacceptable and I tell myself, this

will not be this way, okay, I have friends that

the doctor told them they had cancer and they

said, no, they don't. And they would have not,

now I'm not saying to do this if you have cancer.

If you're going to listen to the doctor, that's

fine. But there are people out there that do

that. Whatever the situation is, I can tell myself

that this is not going to be this way. This does

not have to be this way. And I will not accept

it. And when I do that... then I'm willing to

change because all's I'm asking is that the person,

the listener or the individual to create the

willingness to want to change and want to do

something about it and then they can be helped.

But if they don't want to do that and they want

to sit in their sick and suffering and they choose

to accept this as their life and that's how they're

going to be, then that's completely up to them.

That's fine with me. I'm not like that. those

are not people that I can help. And that's really

the bottom line. Maybe somebody else can help

them, you know, but the way that I do it, that's

not my thing. That's not part of my process of

helping people. So this is a very good point.

And now my question to you is when you decided

that you got the army, army cot, and you didn't

want to lay down anymore or you didn't want to

stay in that space and that mental space. And

you decided that you wanted to go back to school

and you wanted to get out of that where you thought

that you could do something else, right? Rather

than being that way. What was that process? What

did that look like? And how did you make that

decision? Did you have extra help? Did somebody

come to you? Did somebody say something to you?

What was that process like? And what happened?

And how did that exactly come about? And if you

could be, like I said, this is a podcast, so

you could talk about it to whatever length you

want to talk about it. Thank you. I think for

me, there were several factors. that were going

on in my mind. As I mentioned when I shared my

story, I was determined, but I had limitations.

And from an analytical standpoint, I had to figure

out what I could control and what I couldn't

control. And what I couldn't control was my body's

inability to sit. I just couldn't do it. The

pain was too fierce when I tried. So that was

a non -negotiable. I realized that I had control

over whether I stayed isolated in my house or

whether I decided to reenter society in a different

way. So that was something that I knew I had

control over. I had a lot of help. My husband

was incredibly supportive. And I have to say

that after 15 years of chronic pain and hell

that we went through together, a lot of guys

might have said, I love you, honey, but I didn't

sign up for this. But he stayed and he problem

solved. And he, like me, never gave up. I also

had a fantastic psychotherapist that I found

through the Mayo Clinic. And she, for years when

I was sick, kept talking to me about the new

normal. And I kept saying to her, I hate the

new normal. It's a horizontal monochromatic.

terrible life. I want my old life back." And

she said, you just got to stop fighting for that.

You have to appreciate and accept that which

you can do and move forward with it. And she

was, she was interesting. She had her own level

of severe disability and pain and had navigated

through it. So for me, she was just the ultimate

role model. She had degenerative spinal stenosis

and couldn't lift anything. larger than a pea

and carried everything around in a rolling cart

and managed to go on about her life. And so I

saw her as the mecca of what I could do if I

would accept that what my new normal meant was

I had to lie down. But everything else was negotiable.

So another thing, too, I was thinking of was

the listener can take parts of this just like

they can do with any of my podcasts, obviously.

But with this podcast, they could take parts

of this like a disability. Do you have a disability

or addicted to pain meds or laying down and not

being able to get up? So the listener can take

parts of this and see if that's them. and see

if they could identify with that. It doesn't

necessarily have to be the whole, like, your

story. If somebody has... pretty much your exact

same situation, that's fine. But to me, I don't

know how common that is, but to have somebody

addicted to pain meds or a disability or different

things, these things are extremely common, especially

an injury and addicted to pain meds. You don't

know how common that is. Okay, that's extremely

common. They're doing all kinds of things to

stop this. So this is what I'm saying. So these

story that you're saying doesn't have to be.

your situation doesn't have to match exactly

what the listener situation is. And the point

to this is, is to get the listener to understand

and to realize that whatever that part of your

story that they can identify with, which hopefully

they can, then they could see that you went through

this process and that's not going to be their

process. It's just not. because everybody has

a different process. We are not clones. We're

human beings. Everybody has the ability to think

for themselves. Nobody can make anybody do anything.

And that's the bottom line. So. Don't be afraid

of, if you're going through anything like this

or parts of it, don't be afraid of saying, I

have to do this. I know it might be scary. I'm

not sure what's going to happen, but I have to

do it because I can't take my life like this

anymore. And again, you're a perfect example

of that. And I really, really appreciate it because

the way that you shared and the honesty and the

openness and all these things and how you shared

it and how you explained it was very, very good,

was just the perfect, very thorough and the system

and everything, the pattern and the way that

you explained it was very, very good the way

you laid it out. So my question to you is, how

do you feel right now, right this second? based

on everything we just talked about, this whole

entire podcast and everything you went through

and your process and everything. How do you feel

right now, right this second? I feel empowered.

I feel like my stories of opening up to possibility

and realizing that who we are and how we understand

ourselves might completely shift with a life

crisis. but it doesn't have to be the end of

our lives. And I sit here today having a conversation

with you, Debbie, as an example of somebody who

was able to redefine who they were and reshape

a life that seemed to be over for all practical

purposes. If people are willing to open their

minds and maybe shift how they think about things,

how they move forward through the world with

their body or with their mind, it suggests to

me that there is tremendous possibility. Very

true. And I agree 100%. And that was a very,

very good way to close. And in closing, I would

like to say that anybody could get through anything

as long as they want to, as long as they create

the willingness. And there's no such thing as

a negative situation because everything can be,

any situation can be changed into a positive.

Nobody has to sit in their sick and suffering

and say this is the way that it's going to be

Because all they're doing is holding themselves

back from their wonderful beautiful glorious

future That's basically just laid out for them

and waiting for them to come So my the universe

and my path does not hold me back I hold myself

back and that's really the bottom line and I

thank you for that. So What stands out? from

this conversation is that meaningful change is

built through consistent internal decisions,

not dramatic moments. If something resonated

with you, consider where those internal decisions

are already shaping your path. This has been

the Internal Shift Show. Thank you for listening

and thank you, Nancy, for being on the show.

I really appreciate it. A pleasure. Thank you,

Debbie.