I was in my mid-20s, playing pickup tackle football, when I was tackled from behind — a freak accident.

I literally crawled off the field and spent two or three days lying in my bed thinking I broke my back. I didn’t go to the doctor, and a few days later, I could move again and life went on.

For the next two decades, at least once a year, my back would tweak just the right way and I'd be on the floor again. I went to physical therapy and it helped, but I never stopped having these episodes. But other things felt more important.

I was climbing the corporate ladder. I wanted to provide for my family, but at the same time, there was a little bit of ego: I wanted to be the best, be the highest paid, be a CEO one day.

Especially if you have a good work ethic, work can become your No. 1 priority, over family and health. That’s what happened with me.

As the years went on, I became less active so I wouldn’t flare my pain. I spent a lot of time working on a computer, which made my discomfort worse.

Then my travel schedule for work got more intense. In one year, I had more than 10 trips to India, in addition to several trips to Europe. When you have an injured back and you’re cooped up in a plane for 14- to 18-hour flights a few times a month, that makes things worse.

I switched jobs thinking I’d reduce travel, but my new job was more physically demanding and my pain got worse. I couldn’t do yard work or help my wife carry heavy groceries in from the car anymore, and I was having a rough time getting out of bed.

It got to the point that I was in pain 90% of the time. Most of the time it was between a six to eight on the pain scale, just sort of constant, but there were times that it was at a 10. On those days, it didn’t matter how I lay or what I did — without medication, it was not possible to withstand the day.

Before COVID, I had started my own business as a side gig, and soon the demand grew enough that I was able to make it my full-time job. Once I left the corporate mindset and could make my own rules, my priorities started to shift quite quickly.

I remember like it was yesterday — lying on the couch, in pain thinking, Why in the world am I not in the hospital, recovering from surgery? I can’t believe I’ve let it go this far. I’ve put myself off long enough.

It was my moment of clarity. I needed to change my priorities.

The next day, I called for an appointment with a surgeon. My wife, Michelle, is an occupational therapist at Novant Health, and she said that Dr. Chase Bennett had a very good track record and got great feedback from his patients.

So a few days later, then-52-year-old Koliqi saw Bennett of Novant Health Brain & Spine Surgery. Here’s what Bennett observed, in his own words.

At baseline, Arben was a physically active guy who liked to get out and do things. I got the impression that this pain was slowing him down quite a bit — he couldn’t lift more than five pounds, and even to do little things, he had to ask his wife for help. I watched him walk and move through the clinic, and for being a younger healthy-looking man, he moved very gingerly. Something was really limiting him.

On his MRI results, his back looked very healthy overall, but there was one level of the back where he had developed significant degenerative disc disease, meaning that the discs between his vertebrae were wearing down and losing height. Normally, the discs and partner joints in our back act in concert to let each segment of the back bend and twist. But Arben’s disc degeneration was contributing to spondylolisthesis — meaning one vertebra in the spine was slipping back and forth on the vertebra below it, putting pressure on his nerves and causing pain.

It’s kind of like the ball joints on a truck have worn out, and instead of gliding smoothly, you get jolted. When you have that abnormal slipping motion and persistent pain, that’s often something we can address.

We try to maximize nonoperative treatment, but you don’t want to miss an opportunity to improve somebody's quality of life. Arben had already done physical therapy, modified his activity and tried medication, and he still wasn’t getting much better.

So I recommended a surgery called a lateral lumbar interbody fusion with posterior spinal fusion. What we do in this procedure is remove the worn disc and replace it with a spacer that restores height and removes pressure from the nerves. Then we take the two vertebrae that aren't moving well relative to one another and lock them in place to stop the painful motion, being really conscientious to position the bones correctly as we fuse them together and secure the vertebrae from the back.

We do it with a minimally invasive technique to speed recovery, compared to open back surgeries you might have heard about.

When we talk about surgery, I try to make sure we have an honest conversation about what I can and can’t do, and set realistic expectations. If anything, I want to underpromise and overdeliver.

If patients were cars and I could just swap in new parts, that would be different, but I’m usually trying to do something that makes you feel significantly better while working with what’s there. I tell patients, “I can’t make you feel like you’re 20 years old, but I'll do my best to make you feel like you have a healthy back for whatever age group you’re in now.”

I also tell them that surgery's one part of your care, but a lot of the recovery depends on the patient — you have to put the work in to get healthy and in shape again. Arben was up for the challenge.

When someone’s dealing with back pain, I recommend exploring these questions with a doctor: How much is this limiting me in life? And what could life be like if we fix it?

Sometimes there are problems we don't have a perfect fix for, but I can promise we'll do our absolute best to help.

Koliqi had surgery in November 2022, which put him on a path to making other big health changes. Here’s what he said happened next.

After surgery, I did the exercises I was told to and followed all the rules, thinking, I can’t screw this up. I'm not going back.

It felt great to be able to walk without pain. Then 10 months after surgery, I had another “aha” moment when I grabbed a 24-pack of water bottles for my wife and carried it into the house like it was no problem. I thought: I haven’t done this in years. I’ve been feeling so useless — and all of a sudden I have this new superpower.

That’s when I began thinking about what else I could do.

I dreamed of exercising, running a half marathon, playing tennis — a whole new life.

Before surgery, I had been fearful of the hospital and of the bills from having surgery. But once you overcome a fear, then you're fearless — not fearless to jump off a building, but fearless about doing good things.

My surgery became a snowball effect.

I got two more surgeries that made a positive impact on my health, including a knee surgery. I realized, Why would you not do them? Don’t be afraid. Invest in yourself.

Over the years, I had developed high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and pre-diabetes — all of those

things you get when there’s stress in your life and you combat stress with unhealthy food.

I knew that if I ever wanted to achieve long runs, I’d need to lose weight, gain muscle and learn new food habits. So I tackled those goals next. It was extremely difficult, but I lost 50 pounds over two years, and just a week ago I ran nine miles. I’m still not fast, but going from nothing to here has been quite a journey.

I don’t really like running while I’m doing it, but I love the feeling of accomplishment at the end. I use the time to clear my mind and brainstorm, and just enjoy the fresh air. Right now I’m training for the half marathon event at the Novant Health Charlotte Marathon on November 14. I can’t wait. It’s going to be so great at the end to say I finished.

My wife is training with me, although she’s going to run a shorter distance. I want to add that there’s no way I could have done this without her — her support wasn’t just financial and emotional, but the entire environment she created. Everything's gotta be right for you to be that fearless, and it was — because of her encouragement.

Without the surgery, things would have just gotten a lot worse. I've always been a "glass half full” person, but when you have many bad days, it starts to change you. My adult kids have said I can communicate better now after the surgery — because there were many days I was not in a good mood. You can have a great day, but that pain dulls everything, dampens everything, and you can’t enjoy things.

Now I’m so happy it's borderline annoying. It’s like a whole new life.