Am very sorry to hear about your physical problems. Have been pretty lucky so far!
My experience concerning the .30-06 and .375 is the opposite of yours, not only due to my personal experience with both cartridges (have used the .375 even more than the .30-06 in Africa, on one safari as my "light" rifle), but because of my opportunity to watch MANY other hunters in action.
Most do not handle much more recoil than the .30-06 well, especially over the course of a 10+ day safari. Have found the .30-06 (and similar recoiling cartridges) far more effective overall, because (again) most hunters shoot them better. And a good .30-06 bullet in the right place beats a .375 bullet in the wrong place, by a wide margin. Have seen plenty of examples of both.
“Montana seems to me to be what a small boy would think Texas is like from hearing Texans.” John Steinbeck
