Fitness influencer and personal trainer Alexia Clark started 2021 with pain—lots of pain.
At first, she thought she had a bout of food poisoning, but things got much worse throughout the night. After throwing up for the third time, “I was in excruciating pain,” Clark tells SELF. “I was on the floor curled up.” When a friend came over to take her to the emergency room, “I tried to put my shoes on, but I couldn’t lift my foot,” Clark says, at which point she realized things were much more serious than food poisoning.
“On the way to the hospital, it was unbearable. I almost passed out three times,” Clark says. “I 100% thought I was going to die.”
At the hospital, Clark was diagnosed with cecal volvulus, a condition in which a part of the intestines twists over itself and causes a bowel obstruction. Certain underlying issues can make volvulus more likely, such as scar tissue after abdominal surgery or Hirschsprung disease (a birth defect that can lead to bowel obstructions), the UCSF Center for Colorectal Surgery explains. But volvulus can also present suddenly even without an underlying condition. If the condition is left untreated, it may lead to tears in the abdominal wall, which can be life-threatening.
In Clark’s case, the twisting also cut off blood flow to that part of the intestines. So doctors performed emergency surgery to remove 17 inches of her large intestine as well as her appendix, Clark says.
After recuperating for several days in the hospital, Clark is now continuing to recover at home and, after a few weeks of walking, just started “day one” of her new post-surgery fitness journey. Below we talked to Clark about how she’s recovering and how she’s finding a way to stay positive in the new year—even after surviving a life-threatening medical emergency.
SELF: What has your recovery been like so far? What does it look like long-term?
Clark: Every day gets easier. My incision is still pretty sore when I move in certain ways, but I have a lot of mobility now, like getting in and out of bed was the hardest part at first, but that’s getting a lot easier.
As far as recovering from surgery, I have to be careful with what I eat right now. Starting out, I could only eat clear liquids. Then I could start graduating myself into fuller liquids, very soft foods, like purées and mashed potatoes. But I have to be careful because my system is trying to learn how to digest all this food again. So I’m eating smaller meals more times throughout the day. As far as the physical aspect, I have to be careful with how much weight I’m moving around. Even with groceries and things around the house.
How are you staying positive after starting the year off with such a traumatic emergency experience?
When I was in the hospital, especially in the last couple of days, it was starting to get depressing and lonely. With COVID, I couldn’t have any family or visitors. I couldn’t go outside. So being alone in there was really hard. I also couldn’t go outside, and I didn’t realize how that affected me until the first time I stepped outside.
But I’ve just been thinking about how this is such a crazy thing to happen right at the beginning of the year. I’m having to start from scratch again. I’m going to have a day one just like anybody would have a day one, whether they’ve never worked out before or they’re coming back from an injury; it’s all about taking one day as it comes.
My goal is going to be back where I was or to even be stronger, but staying positive with that is not just about looking at how far you have to go. It’s about looking at every day that passes as one day closer. It’s looking at it as “I’m getting closer” rather than “That’s so far away.” It’s all about small wins and being proud of yourself each day.
It’s not like it’s an easy thing to just wake up and be positive. It takes effort and being able to tell yourself, I’m going to stay positive today, today’s going to be a good day. It’s not going to be easy to stay positive every single day.
I saw your recent Instagram post about your scar—can you tell me a little bit more about why you decided to share that?
We will all have some sort of setback at some point. Nobody has gone through a journey that’s gone perfectly well. We all hit speed bumps, and we all have things that happen, sometimes unexpectedly.
But what makes those things so beautiful is that you come back stronger from them. You learn something that you didn’t expect. I look at that as my scar, it’s going to be tougher skin than if I didn’t have the scar. Through this whole journey that I’m having to go through, I’m learning a lot about how strong I can be, and it’s something I never expected would happen.
[I also learned about] the power of having a community around you. When I shared my photo and what happened to me, the community, especially the community that I have around my workout program, has been so supportive, and having a support group around you helps you get through hard times like this. Even coming up to my day one of when I’m going to start on my journey again, having the support of people cheering me on and cheering each other on whenever they’re starting on their day one makes a huge, huge difference.
We’re told so often these days that the right foods or the right wellness products can keep us healthy. How does it feel to go through something like this that isn’t necessarily preventable?
[My doctor and other experts have told me that] there’s literally nothing you can do to prevent this from happening. You can’t do any sort of exercise, you can’t eat any sort of diet, you can’t take any sort of supplement to prevent this. It can happen to anyone at any time and they don’t know why. It’s such a scary, scary thought.
But that’s how life is. Nobody is going to have a perfect life, a perfect journey—it doesn’t exist. Going through life, you know you’re going to have bumps on the road and you don’t know how intense they’re going to be. So it’s all about taking it just one step at a time.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
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