When Superman Lost His Cape: Five Years Through Hell… and Back

There's not much Dodger news today, so I thought I'd post a Blog that I wrote for my other website (That is due to launch next month), The Mountain Mover Blog | By Mark Stephen Timmons. If it doesn't interest you, don't read it!

October 5, 2020, is a day I will never forget.

On that day, my beautiful granddaughter, Violet, was born. Her arrival was an incredible blessing, bringing joy and excitement to our family. But October 5, 2020, also marked the beginning of something I could never have imagined.

That was the day I came down with COVID-19.

One of the happiest days of my life also became the beginning of one of the darkest chapters I would ever experience.

I had no idea that a single illness would turn my life upside down for the next five years.

The Beginning of the Nightmare

For the first couple of weeks, I kept expecting to get better. After all, I had been sick before. I figured I would eventually shake it off, get back on my feet, and return to my normal routine.

But I wasn't getting better. I was getting worse.

Finally, one Sunday afternoon, I asked my wife to drive me to the emergency room and drop me off.

I walked into the hospital under my own power, but I was very sick. My temperature was 104 degrees, and the hospital staff immediately placed me in isolation.

I made one thing abundantly clear: I did not want to be placed on a ventilator under any circumstances. I even signed paperwork documenting my wishes.

The doctors began treating me with Remdesivir, an antiviral medication administered through five consecutive infusions.

I will never forget the first infusion.

As I lay there, something happened that is difficult to explain. I felt as though the Hand of God had reached down and touched me. My fever broke, and for the first time in weeks, I felt a glimmer of hope.

After the fifth infusion, I was released from the hospital.

I thought the worst was behind me.

I was wrong.

The Man Who Could Barely Make It Through an Hour

I went home believing I was on the road to recovery, but something was terribly wrong.

I was exhausted. Not just tired, but profoundly, overwhelmingly exhausted. I was weak, lethargic, unmotivated, and completely unlike the man I had been before COVID.

I tried going back to work.

I would arrive at the office around 9 AM, and by 10 AM, I was finished. I simply couldn't function. I would go home, crawl into bed, sleep for hours, and wake up feeling every bit as exhausted as when I lay down.

I couldn't understand it.

I had always been an early riser, an energetic entrepreneur, and someone who thrived on activity, challenges, and solving problems. I was accustomed to getting things done, not sitting around wondering why I couldn't.

Now, making a pot of coffee sometimes felt like a major accomplishment.

At first, I wondered whether it was simply old age catching up with me.

I had just turned 67, and after all, I had never been that old before!

But deep down, I knew something more serious was happening.

The Vaccine and More Unanswered Questions

When the COVID vaccines became available, we were being encouraged to get vaccinated to protect ourselves and others. There was tremendous optimism that vaccination would prevent infection and transmission, although we subsequently learned that the protection against infection was neither absolute nor permanent.

In early 2021, I received my first dose of the Moderna vaccine.

The following day, I was sitting in a meeting at our office when I began feeling strange. I asked someone to bring me a thermometer. At the time, we were routinely taking the temperatures of employees and visitors.

What happened next was bizarre.

The thermometer readings seemed to bounce around like a ping-pong ball: 104, 99, 101, 98, 103, and back again.

I went home and called my doctor.

He saw me that same day, examined me, and advised me not to take the second shot.

I followed his advice.

I cannot tell you precisely what role the vaccine played in my subsequent symptoms, especially since I was already struggling with the aftermath of COVID. I can only tell you what happened and what I experienced.

And what I experienced was unlike anything I had ever known.

For months, I continued struggling with crushing fatigue. I would get up early, make coffee, attempt to go to work, and be back home before most people had finished their morning meetings.

Then came the fevers.

For approximately two months, something almost unbelievable happened. At precisely 5 PM, my temperature would begin climbing, sometimes reaching 102 degrees.

Then the fever would break.

Then it would return.

This cycle could repeat five, six, or seven times before 2 AM.

Every time the fever broke, I would sweat so profusely that I soaked through my clothes. Some nights, I changed shirts multiple times.

Night after night. Week after week.

My body had become a stranger to me.

Then My Heart Joined the Rebellion

Before COVID, I had never struggled with high blood pressure.

Suddenly, I did.

About a year later, doctors discovered that I had developed atrial fibrillation, commonly called A-Fib.

For those unfamiliar with A-Fib, it is a condition in which the upper chambers of the heart beat irregularly, often causing the heart to lose its normal rhythm.

Interestingly, I didn't experience the classic sensations many people associate with A-Fib. I didn't feel my heart pounding, racing, fluttering, or skipping beats.

My heart simply beat irregularly.

But the other symptoms were impossible to ignore.

I experienced shortness of breath when walking, climbing stairs, and sometimes even lying down. I was constantly fatigued, frequently dizzy or lightheaded, and occasionally felt so unsteady that I thought I might faint.

My stamina had virtually disappeared.

Activities that once seemed effortless became exhausting. I also experienced unexplained sweating and episodes of anxiety or uneasiness that seemed to come out of nowhere.

It was as though my body had forgotten how to function normally.

Over the next several years, I underwent six cardioversions, procedures in which an electrical shock is delivered to the heart to restore a normal rhythm.

Six times!

Ultimately, I underwent a cardiac ablation, a six-hour procedure designed to interrupt the abnormal electrical signals responsible for triggering A-Fib.

But while my heart was creating its own problems, the rest of my body wasn't exactly cooperating.

When Your Body Starts Falling Apart

I used to stand 6 feet 4 inches tall.

Today, I'm 6 feet tall.

That's right. I've lost four inches in height as my spine has deteriorated from severe degenerative arthritis, spinal stenosis,  and general disc disease. In fact, all my discs are now gone.

In 2023, I underwent back surgery, hoping it would bring relief.

It didn't seem to help.

By that time, I wasn't simply exhausted. I was in tremendous pain.

My back hurt. My shoulder hurt. My elbow hurt. My wrist hurt. There were days when it seemed that practically every part of my body had joined a conspiracy against me.

Pain became my constant companion.

And unlike some companions, this one never knew when to leave.

Superman Had Lost His Cape

For over twenty years, my wife had affectionately called me "Superman."

I suppose she saw me as someone who could handle just about anything. I had overcome tremendous obstacles in life, together we had built a successful business started in our garage, and I rarely encountered a problem I didn't believe I could solve.

I had always been optimistic, determined, and confident that tomorrow would be better than today.

But somewhere along the way, Superman disappeared.

The man who had once felt capable of moving mountains was struggling just to make it through another day.

What I didn't fully appreciate at the time was how much chronic illness and unrelenting pain can change a person.

Pain doesn't just attack your body.

It can steal your patience, your confidence, your enthusiasm, your relationships, and even your sense of identity.

I became consumed with how badly I felt.

I was irritable. Withdrawn. Self-absorbed. Frustrated.

At times, pain made me feel like a coward. I avoided activities, conversations, and responsibilities because I simply didn't have the physical or emotional strength to face them.

I tried to maintain a positive attitude. I smiled when I could. I tried to act like the same old Mark.

But inside, I was hurting.

Physically.

Mentally.

Spiritually.

And perhaps the worst part was that I couldn't see the end of it. The pain was only bearable when I was not moving, so I sat… and sat, and sat.

When you're in the middle of a storm, it's sometimes impossible to imagine the sunshine on the other side.

I had spent much of my life believing that determination, hard work, and faith could overcome almost any obstacle.

But how do you fight an enemy that lives inside your own body?

How do you stay optimistic when you wake up every morning knowing that pain is waiting for you?

How do you keep moving forward when every step hurts?

I never seriously contemplated taking my own life, but I came to understand something I had never fully understood before.

I could finally sympathize with people whose physical or emotional suffering becomes so overwhelming that they begin to lose hope.

Chronic pain can take you to some very dark places.

And I had spent far too much time in those places.

The Surgeries Kept Coming

Even after my back surgery, my condition continued to deteriorate.

My left elbow and wrist were causing severe pain due to arthritis, and my right shoulder had become an absolute disaster. It was painful even when I was not moving, and when I moved, I felt like I was being stabbed.

X-rays revealed extensive arthritis and destruction of the normal ball-and-socket joint, as well as rotator cuff damage.

In August 2025, I underwent a total shoulder replacement and rotator cuff reconstruction.

That was followed by two elbow surgeries and a wrist surgery.

When I began counting all the procedures I had undergone since 2021, I realized that I had been placed under general anesthesia sixteen times.

Sixteen!

I'm not a physician, and I can't say how much those repeated procedures contributed to my overall exhaustion. But I certainly wondered whether the cumulative physical stress of the surgeries, recoveries, and years of illness had taken a greater toll than I realized.

For nearly five years, it seemed that every time I began recovering from one problem, another one appeared.

I was tired of being sick.

Tired of being tired.

Tired of hurting.

And frankly, tired of being tired of hurting.

I wanted my life back.

Something Wonderful Began to Happen

Then, gradually, something changed.

Not overnight. There was no dramatic moment when I jumped out of bed, threw open the curtains, and announced that Superman had returned.

It happened slowly.

A little less pain.

A little more energy.

A little better sleep.

A little more enthusiasm for life.

Then one morning, I realized I actually felt good.

Not just less miserable.

Good!

And the next day, I felt even better.

Over the past three months, the improvement has been remarkable.

Today, my A-Fib has been absent for approximately fifteen months. My energy has returned. My shoulder pain is completely gone. My elbow and wrist pain are almost nonexistent, and even my back pain has improved dramatically.

I still have arthritis, and I probably always will. But I've adopted an anti-inflammatory diet that I believe has helped me manage the symptoms.

I am not claiming to have found a miracle cure. I am simply grateful for the improvements I've experienced.

And what an improvement it has been!

I will turn 73 next month, and I can say something that would have seemed impossible just a year ago:

I feel better today than I have felt at any time in the past five years.

Sometimes, I wake up almost giddy.

Imagine that. A nearly 73-year-old man waking up excited simply because he feels good enough to enjoy another day!

I don't take that for granted anymore.

There is something incredibly liberating about waking up without debilitating pain, having the energy to accomplish things, and feeling that you are finally in control of your life again.

For years, my world had become smaller and smaller.

Now, it's expanding again.

I want to do things. Go places. Spend time with people. Write. Think. Create. Live!

The excitement and enthusiasm that once seemed lost have returned.

And so has my optimism.

What Five Years of Suffering Taught Me

I've learned a few things during this journey.

I've learned that good health is a blessing we often take for granted until we lose it.

I've learned that chronic pain can change even the strongest person and that we should be careful about judging people whose struggles we cannot see.

I've learned that there is a tremendous difference between being alive and truly living.

And I've learned that faith doesn't necessarily mean God will remove every obstacle from our path.

Sometimes, faith means trusting Him while we're struggling to find the strength to take the next step.

There were many times during those five years when I couldn't understand what was happening to me or why.

I still don't have all the answers.

I don't know how much of my suffering was directly related to COVID, how much was due to other medical conditions, or how all those problems interacted.

But I know this:

I am still here.

I am getting stronger.

And I have rediscovered the joy of living.

My wife may never call me Superman again.

That's okay.

I've come to realize that being Superman isn't about never experiencing weakness, pain, or defeat.

Maybe it's about what you do after life knocks you down.

Maybe real strength isn't the ability to avoid suffering, but the determination to keep going when suffering seems endless.

As Winston Churchill is often credited with saying:

"If you're going through hell, keep going."

I don't know whether Churchill actually said those words, but whoever said them understood something important.

You cannot always choose what happens to you.

You cannot always control the obstacles that life places in your path.

But you can refuse to let those obstacles define the rest of your life.

For nearly five years, I felt as though I was trapped in a dark valley with no clear way out.

Today, I can finally see the mountaintop again.

And here's what I've learned:

Sometimes moving a mountain means finding the strength to take one more step.

One day at a time.

One step at a time.

Keep the faith.

Keep moving.

And never assume that the chapter you're living in today is the end of your story.

Mine certainly wasn't.

Superman may have lost his cape for a while, but he never stopped believing he could fly again.