|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Kevin Leung is back home in the Bay Area after recently competing on the Emmy award-winning series “Survivor.”
The 34-year-old finance manager from Livermore spent five days vying for the $1 million prize and the title of Sole Survivor. But after a shoulder injury on set, Leung was the second contestant to be eliminated from season 48, which was depicted in an episode that aired March 5.
Since then, Leung has processed a whirlwind of emotions about his time on “Survivor” and nursed his shoulder back to health.
“I can hold my head high”, Leung told the Weekly. “I just never gave up.”
Shortly after 18 contestants stepped foot on the Mamanuca Islands of Fiji — the filming location of season 48 — they were greeted with the first challenge of the game. That competition involved crawling under a net while muscling through mud. At stake were camp supplies for one of the three competing teams, referred to as “tribes.”
Leung was among the first of his tribe to take on the netted obstacle. But mid-way through, he is heard saying, “Ow my arm! Ow!” Soaked in mud from head to toe, he later identified that his shoulder was in pain.
Once the challenge was over, Leung called for medical assistance, he wrote in an Instagram post. Off-screen, he said series host Jeff Probst and a doctor found he had a torn, dislocated shoulder.
Afterwards, Leung was chosen to represent his tribe in a follow-up challenge to win supplies for his team.
“It was hard, mentally and emotionally, to just stay strong, stay positive,” he told the Weekly.
In the televised confessional, he considered the challenge as a pivotal point for his game. To him, it was a chance for the tribe to consider him an “asset.”
As it turned out, Leung won the one-on-one challenge and was rewarded with team supplies.
Upon watching the televised victory with his family, Leung’s dad celebrated the win with a fist pump.
“That’s when I knew this whole experience was worth it”, Leung wrote online. “We’re not just playing for ourselves, we’re playing for everyone who supported us throughout the entire journey.”
But his victory in episode one wasn’t enough to maintain his place on the show, as Leung was eliminated from the competition in the next episode.
“I think you can call that a blindside. I thought I was in control the entire game, but they outed me,” Leung said in a confessional after his elimination. “I played as hard as I could, even though I hurt my shoulder on day one in the first hour. I kept (persevering) and kept trying.”
He continued to process his participation on “Survivor” in the months following his elimination.
“What I wasn’t expecting was not being able to understand what I was feeling emotionally and mentally about the whole experience,” Leung wrote in a post on Instagram March 17.
Initially, the feeling that stuck was one of failure. He fixated on being eliminated second — how would he tell his family or viewers, he had asked himself.
While Leung said he’s much more likely to crack a joke than divulge vulnerability, being honest about the experience was really important.
“It’s hard to really say, ‘everybody, life was great on ‘Survivor’’ as they’re watching me go to tribal council multiple times. I got blindsided. I tried to orchestrate a blindside. My shoulder was hurt,” Leung said.
While he didn’t set out to be vulnerable per se, it emerged anyway.
“It would be such a disservice to not just me but to the people watching and people who supported me to be like, ‘yeah it was amazing. I had the best time,’” Leung said. “No actually, I didn’t have the best time, but I had a really rewarding time at the end of the day.”
Through his “Survivor” experience, he also learned to embrace his inner and outer self.
Prior to the show, Leung relied on intelligence and social cues, rather than brute strength in his daily life. Meanwhile, he always felt lacking in muscles.
Leung worried about being strong enough on “Survivor,” so he worked out and bulked up for the program. Later on, he found peace in being himself.
“I realized, I don’t need to focus so much on my physical aspects to even prepare for life. I’m very much ok being a ‘David’ and a ‘Goliath’ in some ways and just being me,” he said. “Being me is good enough.”
Not just mental and emotional, his post-game journey was also one of physical recovery.
“Hopefully I can get an MRI and heal this bad boy,” Leung said in an Instagram video, as he waited for his first doctor’s appointment after the competition.
With his arm in a sling and a smile on his face, he added, “But was it worth it? Yes. And would I break my other arm to do it? Yes.”
The recording then jumps to Leung exercising his arms with a resistance band and weights.
For months, he said he underwent rigorous physical therapy to regain the range of motion and strength in his shoulder. If the physical therapy hadn’t worked, surgery would have been the next step, Leung explained in a social media post.
Since undergoing physical rehab, Leung said his shoulder is much better. He’s able to work out, play tennis and “the whole shebang,” he wrote online.
“And emotionally, I am still happy, sad, grateful, disappointed, and excited for the rest of the season. And what an awesome combination to feel,” he wrote online just last week.
