Former pitcher Bobby Jenks has put years of work into recovering from an addiction to pain killers and has learned to manage his depression. It all started with back surgeries in 2011 that would almost cost Jenks his life.
Jenks told CSN Chicago his life was on the line, "I literally was close to death. Not just scared to death. I was close." Bone spurs would cause severe pain, and when they were removed it didn't go as planned. Jenks' spinal cord would be leaking fluid due to complications.
"I ended up opening myself up in two different spots in my spine and I was leaking spinal fluid very heavily about a week after my surgery. I didn’t realize it at the time until I went to go sit down on the couch, it literally felt that one of my kids was behind me and had dumped a glass of water down my back." Jenks said, "My back was literally like a faucet left on and fluid was just coming out."
This feeling of course was not normal and after seeing a few doctors in Arizona, Jenks was given some advice that saved his life, "I went to see a few doctor friends in Arizona and they immediately told me, ‘go to the emergency room right now’ and I went in for emergency that night (with Dr. Chris Young). Without that I could’ve gone to bed that night and not woken up."
After the surgeries came the pain killers, which Jenks recollects as a scary realization he had an addiction. "They will fool you like no other. They will make you think that you’re in control of everything. When you try to put them away, that’s when you realize you have no control at all. That’s where the realization came in. I woke up and thought that I needed them then. I didn’t want them. I needed them."
Now that Jenks has slowly put his life back together, he wants to try and make a comeback, preferably with the Chicago White Sox whom he calls his family. "When the time comes, whether it’s playing again or doing something else, whatever it might be, this will be the first organization I turn to. It’s like a family here, and I’m a part of that family."
