Here is the message I tried writing originally:
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The Point of It All Jan 7th 2018
not sure how long I willl last as Im quickly realizing that I am on fire and freezing at the same time nd quickly realizing yhs just not using a keyboard fora week or two...
Im not overly concerned with the reception of this message as I am ever growing to now that thte message and seeker find each oher at unspecified times and ways
the point is not that I am interesting, it is that I am interested. I had become someone who was shrkinking and dying long before I nearly deid last week, and I could sense something about that, but now I see it for what it was. I was not interested in life. my interestes were diminishing to a trikk everything about me was shrinking. withering away. The point is not nececarrily about my nearly dying. I don't know, maybe those deteails are probably interesting because they are my details, but it;s more about the fact that I now have an incredible appreciation that had been sqweeeded off to such a trikle. Life for me, is worth living, and even if I die unexpectedly, I fucking want to experience things.
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I have been extremely busy since then, so let me clue you in a little on what happened. As I wrote in the last post "The moment of truth", I had just gotten my wisdom teeth taken out and had a reset of sorts internally. It turns out it was a moment of truth in a few ways. When I woke up from the procedure, the first thing I told my wife was "I'm ready to die. Not because I am sad or depressed, but because I am at total peace with everything. But, I want to live and enjoy this beautiful life with you."
I couldn't really explain the peace and acceptance I had about it all. I did record a video of some other things I was saying, but I haven't even watched it yet. It turns out that another moment of truth was about to take place. As the day passed on I began to really feel strange and kinda miserable. I woke up the next day and immediately started working on our minivan, as it needed to have a radiator hose replaced. I fixed that and then went to work that day. I don't recall too much besides being grateful by the end of that day that it was a shorter shift for me. By the next day (Friday) had was apparently feeling so bad that I didn't go back to work. I don't even remember this day at all for some reason.
Saturday is a blur as well. I literally only recall a few events. I know I felt pretty miserable though. My wife had an appointment to go get the battery replaced in her iphone, but was reluctant to leave me alone. I convinced her that I would be alright and that she should go. I think long before this, probably Friday, I had called the surgeon and explained what I was going through. I expressed that I was having trouble swallowing and that my throat was swelling, along with the fact that there was now a pain in the center of my jaw that felt like a red hot fish hook was tugging at me every time I swallowed. He simply ignored me, telling me that swelling was supposed to increase for the first 5 days before subsiding and then ended the conversation with "If you reach a fever of 104 degrees call me".
Anyhow, I convinced my wife to go take care of her phone. I decided to get a bath to warm up, as at this point I was running a fever and felt like I was freezing. By the time I had finished my bath and was ready to get out I didn't have the strength to get out. I ended up having to call my neighbor and he came over to help me. We ended up chatting and somehow got on the subject of dying, and he told me that he had drowned before in the ocean. He had swam out to a buoy hoping to grab onto it for rest before turning back, but it turned out to be very slippery and he could not hold on. He decided to start swimming back but had begun to lose energy in the waves and he knew he had to make a decision between trying to make it back to shore or use the last of his energy and breath to scream for help. He chose to scream for help and then he ran out of energy to keep himself above water. He described the experience to me, but the details are fuzzy. All I recall really is that he was told that it wasn't his time yet and that he woke up on the shore being revived by someone.
Turns out I not only reached out to my neighbor but my mom as well, and I think she maybe drove up to see me, but I don't recall exactly. This is really all just a crazy blur to me. At some point my wife got home and she said we were going to go to bed when she looked at me and her instincts told her to get a hold of the doctor regardless. I don't remember what was said other than him telling us to meet him at the office in 15 minutes. I remember getting there and standing outside in the freezing cold pacing back and forth for the fresh air in an attempt to stay conscious and as comfortable as possible. He arrived, saw me and immediately told me that I had an infection that needed immediate attention.
We drove back home to grab some things and proceeded to the nearest hospital's emergency room. This is a blur as well, but I recall at some point getting a Cat Scan, and an ambulance ride.
Although it was a blur to me, my wife said that we were there for five and a half hours as I continually fell asleep and woke up due to my lack of ability to breathe. Also, with my explaining that I could barely breathe, no one ever even looked down my throat... Apparently after the Cat Scan was performed and they determined it was a dire emergency and I needed immediate surgery, they also decided that no one in the hospital was going to "Touch another surgeons work", I guess because of liability. Hence the ambulance ride to a hospital further north where the original surgeon had operating rights.
Upon arrival I was sedated, intubated (that's when they put a tube in your throat to help you breathe) and had my neck cut open. Oh, I realized just now that I forgot to tell you that my neck had swollen up crazy and that was why I couldn't breathe. After the surgeon was finished he came outside and (according to my wife) sort of bragged, stating that had it been another 15 minutes before I got there odds are I would have suffocated to death, basically coming off with the self exalted demeanor that he had saved me. He asked if she had any questions. My wife had a long list of thoughts written down in her phone that she wished to express to him, mainly about how his complacency nearly got me killed, and that if it continues someone will eventually die because of him. He actually did admit to her that he ignored something he should have paid attention to, and then proceeded to exalt himself again saying something like "You know there's not many people who can take criticism in a situation like this so well".
The story is long, the details are many, and unfortunately time for me is short so I will be trying to sum the whole thing up rather quickly. Perhaps in the future I will give more detail as I find the time and motivation. I am not even really sure why I'm writing this other than the fact to actually clarify a post I tried to write initially and left alone because my fingers weren't doing what my brain wanted them to.
Although I don't remember this part, I ended up being in the ICU under heavy amnesia inducing drugs for 7 days while I was tied down to my hospital bed losing my mind. I kicked nurses with my free leg, and also pulled my fully inflated catheter out (without flinching) as it sprayed blood and urine all over the nurses. I am fucking amazed and lucky as hell that I didn't (so far it seems) to do any damage to myself with that. I was also hallucinating and forming crazy delusional realities in my mind that scared the shit out of me once I was out of the ICU and conscious. These delusions were very powerful and stuck with me for a long time, even after several attempts by people to explain to me what the truth was that had happened to me.
This was to date the most difficult thing I have ever experienced. I didn't get sleep for days after "Waking up" from my pseudo sedation. That mixed with all the drugs made me a crazy person, literally. It was only after I was home for a few days that I began to get some sleep and the hallucinations began to fade, and my mind was actually able to start understanding with clarity the things my wife was explaining about what had really happened.
So what had really happened? Simple. It turns out I was/am a carrier of a rare bacteria that lies dormant, until it is woken up. The specific condition is called "Ludwig's Angina". John Ludwig being the man it was named after, and "Angina" meaning "Strangling". The bacteria releases gas as it does it's thing, thus filling you with a choking pressure. I had a tube placed down my throat to keep my airway open, and was placed on a breathing machine. The cuts in my throat, of which I now have scars, were to relieve the pressure on my esophagus and also to allow the infection to drain out. That's it. That sounds so damn simple doesn't it? That is only the outside, physical aspect of it all, and there is a much larger emotional and psychological story that I have yet to express.
To be continued...
