How a Cold Almost Killed Me

I don't get sick very often. In fact I pride myself in being healthier than the average Joe. I've been working out regularly for most of my life and have been taking vitamins, minerals and supplements for as long as I can remember. Now living on the stunning California Central Coast can't hurt either. Wine country is beautiful ... and so is wine.

Wimpy guy

On that rare occasion when I do get sick, I have a Jekyll and Hyde syndrome; in other words, when I get sick, I'm sick and I really don't do sick very well. I lounge around and moan a lot, while waiting for the dang illness to be over with. I don't have much experience dealing with flu or colds so I try to tough it out but am not much to be around. I wimp out.

So you say, as most normal people would, why don't you just go to the doctor? You might as well say: Send him to the gallows. I hate doctors. Well, I don't hate doctors personally - most of them are very good people - but I can't stand doctors rooms and hospitals. Let me tell you folks, when I see needles, the blood rushes out of me faster than green grass through a goose. I shouldn't admit this but even when I see needles and knives on TV, I can get queasy.

Tough guy

The other reason I don't tend to go to doctors is I thought of myself as tough. I had full-blown Bronchitis for a couple weeks when I was in high school and still played football and in fact, returned a fumble 60 yards for a touchdown. I couldn't breathe when I fell in the end-zone but somehow was able to get up (adrenaline?) and played the rest of the game. Bronchitis couldn't stop me. Another year while in high school, after blowing out my knee playing basketball, I walked around on it for about a week before my parents thought I should see a doctor. Come to find out I had torn ligaments and cartilage AND a broken knee. I played football with a dislocated hip for two weeks - again, before finally limping into a chiropractors office. I broke my fingers and dislocated them regularly in football (it was hell trying to write in high school with splints on my fingers) and along with breaking ribs, nose and other a sundry things along the way, I'd just tough it out. While managing a warehouse, I was taking some scaffolding down and it collapsed on my hand, breaking it (I think, it was something out of a cartoon, black and blue and puffy), but did I go to the doctor? No. BTW, I paid for it in the end with aches to this day. I had this sense I always could handle pain - I was tough.

Adventures in turning 40.

I felt young for someone who was turning 40. Wasn't 40 the beginning of middle age? Argh! For myself and my brother-in-laws 40th birthday (we're both the same age and have birthdays in January), the family went to Kauai. If you want to see Hawaii like it was 50 years ago, the island of Kauai is it. Anyway, it was great and we had a wonderful time. My 40th year had more in-store.

That Summer, I developed a cough. Of course I passed it off as a cold and went about my way. But the cough turned into a constant hack. BTW, did you know, hacking when you think you're going to have a heart attack, can actually save you from dying? But I digress. The cough was agitated when I was laying down more than sitting up so sleeping was not easy. My breathing was rough and I was getting weaker and weaker. After weeks (yea, toughguy still) and weeks of coughing, I finally went to a friend who was a doctor. I had researched my symptoms and had an idea what was going on was more than a cold or flu. I had Pneumonia.

Pneumonia can drag you down like nothing I had ever experienced before. It took me about 3 months before I could say I was back to normal. Ha! And you thought it would get worse. Ah, but read on.

These 40th years, sure take a lot out of you

It's Winter of the same year and I was approaching my 41st birthday. This is the season when colds and flu are rampant and if I'm going to get under the weather, this would likely be the time of year. So Mr Toughguy here (by now, you're calling me something more derogatory, aren't you), figures he has a cold. But I'm going to tough it out and go about my business working, going to the gym - hey, want to talk about an ideal place to get sick - and just generally operating like I wasn't sick; but I was.

Something told me I should take a few days off (again, I can get wimpy) to handle this cold which seemed to turn into a flu. I was visiting the bathroom a lot and stuff was coming out of every orifice. I was sick. I plopped myself down on the couch and basically didn't move unless to go to bed or the bathroom. I had a fever that came and went. I don't recall this but others would find me laying on the bathroom floor - I said it was cool and felt good. Hmmm, maybe there's a clue there? The fever was lasting for longer periods of time and eventually never subsided. I researched my symptoms and narrowed it down to a few catastrophic diseases, maybe appendicitis or a really bad case of the flu.

Pop

Are any of you screaming - Go to the doctor?! This had gone on for a couple weeks now and I hunkered down on the couch for my last day as a 40-year old, miserable as usual but hoping for the best. A few days prior, I had felt something funny but didn't think much about it. The fever was getting worse and I was finding myself in extreme pain and constant nausea. The toughguy had met his match. The pain was coming from my stomach, which felt like a knife in my side. If I curled up, the pain would decrease - yea, I was in bad shape and needed to go to the hospital. My parents gathered me and some personally belongings of mine and put me in the car and rushed to the hospital as I was getting worse, fast.

My dad had to almost carry me into the emergency area (Whittier Hospital). While sitting on a chair, waiting for a doctor, I didn't have the strength to even sit. I was laying on some chairs in Emergency and moaning. I must have been some site. My parents were frantic because they'd never seen me this way and I was in massive amounts of pain and actually becoming delirious. Finally, after much prodding by my parents to the people in emergency, they put me on a gurney in a room and said they'd be with me shortly. They asked me what my pain "number" was from 1-10. Normally, I'd laugh at this kind of question and give some wise crack, but I said 9. They were surprised. They didn't know how bad I was. A needle entered the room - remember me and needles don't get along - but it was carrying morphine so in that case, the lesser of two evils told me to just shoot that morphine - Now!

That something funny I'd felt and analyzed later as maybe a pop, from a few days earlier, was the reason I now needed emergency surgery. The doctors were pretty certain I had a burst appendix. I don't know what the amounts were but before it was over, they shot me 4 times with morphine. The pain was still there if somewhat dulled but I wasn't doing to well. I had to stand, BY MYSELF, for x-rays (to verify the burst appendix) and I still don't know how I did it. I passed out after that and remember nothing except just before they put this giant needle in my back - I think that was the final straw - lights out.

I woke up a day later and had doctors and nurses everywhere wanting to know how I felt. Other than feeling like a steamroller had run over me and I didn't have the energy to move much, I noticed the pain that had felt like a knife in my side was gone. However, I wasn't out of the woods yet as gangrene had set in. In fact the doctor said if I had gone another day, I wouldn't be here. They pumped me full of antibiotics until they were sure the gangrene was gone.

Long story short, I survived the infection plus some complications, which without going into detail, included making me look like the Pillsbury Doughboy. Also note, the doctor was concerned he had to cut a lot of muscle and wasn't sure how it would heal. After several more trips to the doctor for follow up, pounding a lot more antibiotics and a long spell getting my physical conditioning up to snuff, I was back to normal ... some six months later. For the most part, it worked out and speaking of which, my conditioning was a big reason I was able to pull through.

Different outlook

I will have to say, I look at everything a little differently, meaning I enjoy my surroundings more and take in the little things. I shouldn't admit this but during my 30's, I developed constipation, which was a real pain in the butt, pardon the pun. After my ordeal: no constipation. What a relief, if you know what I mean. The doctors aren't keen on accepting that one was part of the other but I'm not big on coincidences so ...

Moral of the story: tough guys can finish last or when you want to lose 20 pounds, Appendicitis isn't the way to do it. And Liposuction this ain't! I learned when in pain in the fetal position, figure a visit to the doctor is in order ... soon. I was lucky. I met a lot of good people who worked in the hospital and took care of me. You find out it's not much more fun for the family either when you're deathly sick and in the hospital. My family, especially my Mom and Dad, were there day and night. And how was the food? Well, since I couldn't have solids for almost the entire time I was in there, I really can't say. Luckily, I'm a big fan of pudding and jello because that was as solid as the food got. Let's put it this way; eating isn't the biggest worry when you have a brush with death.

This severely humbling and traumatic incident has taught me to be more responsive to illness; although I'll have to say, in the years since, it's been a relatively smooth go of it as far as health issues are concerned. I had a full physical this past year and came out finer than a frogs hair. Must be the wine and that clean livin' on the Central Coast. Bottoms up!