Fury almost dies….seriously

For some time I had been fighting the Flu. I had all the symptoms of the wretched Influenza. I had fever, chills, vomiting, fatigue, all that good stuff. I was trying to push through the cold like any other cold refusing to allow it to mess with my schedule. I had no time to be sick so I pumped my body full of over the counter meds and chugged as much orange juice I could.

At some point I developed a sharp throbbing pain on the right side of my abdomen. It lasted a few hours then after more vomiting the pain moved to the top of my abdomen right under my right boob. For a while I thought the pain came from a muscle I might have hurt while throwing up. After a few hours the pain only worsened and I found it increasingly more difficult to breathe. Ever single breathe I took now felt like someone was stabbing me from the inside.

I stupidly refused my wife’s offer to take me to the hospital. I am known for being stubborn, this was me at my worst. I made excuses playing down the amount of pain I was in as if desperately trying to convince myself the situation wasn’t that serious. I was in complete denial; basically lying in bed kicking my heels wishing there was no place like home.

I went to work that night and between my home and my office, something happened to me. The pain on my side was now unbearable and then it happened. I started coughing up blood. I freaked out and went to the Hospital that was only 4 blocks away. Triage saw me and saw I had a heart rate of 144. That’s near heart attack status and it was because my body was under so much stress trying to breathe it was working over time. Even though other people were waiting to be seen I saw a Nurse pull up with a cot just for me. She told me to lie down and I was immediately wheeled into the ER where a team of Doctors were waiting for me.

I don’t know what I expected, I thought maybe the Hospital would just find an infection and give me some pills and I would have been out in a few hours but once I saw that cot for me, I knew I was in trouble. I initially told my wife I had everything under control but once in the ER I started to panic. I called my wife to be with me. I’m a man, a manly man but there is only so much a man can take and when you’re lying there with 15 tubes coming out of you, you reach a breaking point and if I was dying, I refuse to die in a room full of strangers.

30 hours later in the ER they finally regulated me. The official diagnosis would be Influenza, which led to Strep Pneumonia and complicated by a recently diagnosed Type 2 Diabetes condition. It was the perfect storm. I had no idea I was diabetic, I knew it ran in my family but I thought I was years away from even getting near to Pre-Diabetic. I felt relatively well, so I was shocked when I found out my sugar level was at 430. I basically should have been in a coma. Due to the Diabetes I was extremely dehydrated and the Diabetes only complicated the Pneumonia. I had 103 fever, chills, I was disoriented, incoherent and dizzy. I couldn’t eat and for 2 ½ days I ate nothing at all.

With all the pain I couldn’t sleep, so for 2 days I didn’t sleep. The lack of sleep made me loopy. Everything together made for one hell of a bad time. I spent the next few days in a Hospital room shared with 3 other people. I had privacy, but what a horrible lonely experience. I’m just happy I was diagnosed with something relatively popular. I don’t want to be the guy who has something nobody else has then it’s named after me. “Type 3 Diabetes, The Fury Levels”, noooo thank you.

Now I’m on anti-biotics, working on a solid diet to combat the Diabetes and making sure I listen to my body and never ignore it like I did ever again. I’m also doing what most people do after living through a life-threatening situation; loving life. So often many of us get consumed with the trivial, we get worked up over things that are relatively small. Problems that can easily be taken care of if we just prioritize and just realize life is just too short to be worried about minor issues.

As I sat there in the Hospital bed, looking out of my 16th floor window at 3:00am, I realized I was no longer concerned with things I can’t control. Health, Family, Love, that’s what is most important and if you don’t have those things then you aren’t living life.