One should always pick up on the warning signs.
Two weeks before I suffered a catastrophic health crash, my wife and I were doing sprints on a beach…and she was winning. WHICH UNFORTUNATELY FOR ME, HAD NOT BEEN THE CASE. On November 17, 2019, I went to a local urgent care at the urging of my wife to get checked out after not feeling well during the day. What I thought was going to be a quick trip to the clinic for a prescription turned into a series of ambulance rides that ended ten months later almost to the day spent in a hospital and discharged on August 18, 2020.
They call patients like me “long haulers”.
The prior year I had been diagnosed with liver disease. Not understanding the seriousness of it I went about my life never contemplating the need for a transplant. Later the next year I crashed on that fateful November day and began a journey or more appropriately an odyssey that would take me to the depths of medical misery. Facing a myriad of health issues and crisis, putting my wife and family through a roller coaster ride of torturous emotions, I endured physical trauma on an epic scale. What began as a routine organ transplant transformed into something much, much more. I was in an ICU unit for nine of those months.
Throughout Those Dramatic Ten Months
I became more than just another patient on the ICU floor but a part of the UMMC Baltimore SICU family. I got a front row seat to the trials and tribulations of doctors and nurses at their finest. Exploring all options of treatment and care to address a series of unending challenges that I and my poor body faced.
The high level of sophistication of medicine I received from the doctors and constant compassionate care from the nurses exceeded all expectations a patient could ever have. Their care and actions not only saved my life but my mind (sanity) as well. My hospitalization occurred at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, and I was separated from my wife and family for over five months exacerbating an already mentally tenuous situation. Because of my frequent intubations and large tracheotomy and ventilator, I was unable to speak for over 6 months. This silent suffering only made worse by my family’s absence made my connection to the nursing staff more critical to my day-to-day existence. In addition to my lengthy stay, my hospitalization was rife with medical challenges that I almost did not survive. I coded multiple times (8, one time for 2 minutes), bled out 3 times, and was the third largest consumer of blood products in the hospital’s history. There wasn’t a procedure I did not endure or a part of my body that was not affected.
It Has Become My Mission
On February 23, 2021, I was in contact with a few of the nurses that cared for me. I happen to be driving south from Massachusetts to Florida and wanted to stop in Baltimore at the hospital that had become such an important part of my life and say hi to a few of my caregivers and now friends. When hearing of my pending arrival, the powers that be thought it would be a great opportunity for the staff who cared for me and saw me through the worst of medical experiences, witness first-hand how their tireless efforts paid off. Forty doctors and nurses showed up.
The video you see on this site was my sincere attempt to simply thank the people who saved my life and never gave up the fight even when my body tried to. I stand today healthy, active, and fully cognitive, much to the surprise of anybody familiar with my case. For anyone who knows me, I am back to golfing and boating. Playing with my adorable dogs and cooking elaborate love filled dinners for the ultimate care giver in my life, my darling wife. Who along with the doctors and nurses of UMMC fiercely fought harder and smarter than anybody to bring back her husband from the brink of death. Realizing how unique my story was and how underappreciated the work of doctors and nurses are in this complicated system our healthcare has become prompted me to give back to the industry that gave me so much.
It has become my mission to spread the word to those who need a reboot of enthusiasm for the often-unsung jobs of being a doctor or nurse, hope to those challenged as I, and inspire all of those facing insurmountable odds never to give up. It is also a story for the drug and blood products companies whose development of cutting-edge products and technology give a patient such as me, a fighting chance. And finally, recognizing the insurance industry and the mere act of approving a customer’s care can be the difference between life and death. My story does not only appeal to the medical community but also those battling life’s constant struggles. Recovering from something so catastrophic that one does not know where to begin. Finding lost hope and hearing from someone else that it is ok to crash, but more important to dig deep and find the strength to move on and more importantly up. To be a better person to yourself and to those you love and who are around you. Hope is universal and my life is a testament to that.
