A Painful Anniversary

Newsletter 2023-08-10

It’s the one-year anniversary of the day I almost died. Sort of. Almost dying is actually a multi-day process, especially if you get misdiagnosed the first time. Hospitals figured out they can double their emergency room revenue if they make you come back twice. On August 11th, 2022, after a day and a half of debilitating pain from what the first doctor diagnosed as a bad case of being a whiner, a surgeon removed my ruptured appendix. That event kicked off a twelve-month period that included four surgeries, two rounds of septic shock, and an extended battle with C. diff. The most impressive part is that all four operations were completely unrelated. After a lifetime of relatively good health, my own body attacked me over and over again with a string of seemingly random misfortunes. Each was as unpreventable as it was unpredictable. Yet, at the one year mark, I’m setting new PRs in the gym and living my life exactly like I did before this all began. That’s probably not a good thing. My various parts did everything they could to kill me, but I’m still here. On the anniversary of my first catastrophic collapse, I’m left with one inescapable conclusion: I’m the luckiest unlucky guy I know.

The surrealness of it all hit me earlier this week when I sat down with my family doctor.