I Hate NY #6: What the Heck Happened to me?

If you are reading this, then chances are you may have heard that something is wrong with me or that something happened or I was in the hospital, or I'm dead or I have syphilis or something. Fortunately all those things are true and I am writing this from beyond the grave with one amputated leg.

But really, what is wrong with me? I get asked this question with some frequency and I have to admit that despite my eagerness to talk about myself and have people listen to me, the frequency of this occurrence has dimmed my enthusiasm for the telling of the tell somewhat.

For a while when people would ask me what was wrong, I would refer them to my facebook profile and ask them go through the tedious process of reading everything that I or my friends and acquaintances wrote online, or they would press me and then I would give them a short answer.

So I decided that the time had come once and for all to tell the tale of woe and uncertainty that has befallen me.

In order to tell it properly I have decided to start from the relative beginning so to speak.

And hopefully when you arrive at the end you will decide for yourself whether or not it was a tale worth reading.

Having invested this much of your time reading between white spaces on a monitor shouldn't you go ahead and find out what happens?

Ahem.

12 years ago I was driving to church and eating some leftover chicken broth that my mother had given me when I suddenly and quite violently felt the immediate urge to pull over the car and projectile vomit. I barely got the door open before the spray began. Thinking nothing of it, I kept on my path feeling very queasy. I prided myself on the fact that once church began I only had to walk outside and throw up once.

At this point I was a little unnerved because usually when I threw up something I immediately felt better, instead I began to feel weaker and weaker. By the time I got home I was in bad shape, and I sat on the couch unable to sleep the entire night just shaking and shivering all over and going to the bathroom every hour or so and wondering what the heck was going on with me.

At this point some of you are probably wondering why it is that I didn't go see a doctor immediately, and the strange thing is that this thought had not occurred to me at all, nor was it voiced by any members of my immediate family. We just did not go to the hospital for anything. I had been raised by my mother to believe wholeheartedly in the healing power of prayer and God's word and that eating right and natural herbal remedies could take care of anything.

While I still believe strongly in those things, I also know that if you break your arm God doesn't want you to believe in faith that it is healed and then not go see a doctor.

I continued to not see the doctor for the next 10 years and once or twice a year I would have mild to severe stomach pains that seemed to be brought on by food.

I didn't have insurance or a lot of money and didn't want to burden my parents, so other than one exploratory visit to the doctor, I didn't seek any professional care for what was very clearly a nagging problem that I was in some stage of denial about.

Eventually after years of cajoling by my father and younger sisters, I took some dramatic steps which led to a colonoscopy that determined that I had chrohns disease. My doctor wanted to administer Remicade to me and told me that I would need to be on the drug for the rest of my life in order to put the disease into remission. Despite all that had happened for 10 years I was scared off by the possible cost and side effects which my mother repeatedly highlighted for me lest I forget.

Until finally on the night of December 19th 2010 I woke up at 11pm and my stomach felt like it was on fire and I had some difficulty breathing. Just like before I was unable to sleep all night, however this time it did not go away the next day. I still remained convinced that I would be fine and when a casting agent called that night to offer me the role of stand in the next day for Kiefer Sutherland I took it, hoping and praying that I would be okay the next morning.

I was not.

I stayed up on my lazy boy managing to sleep, or something akin to it for an hour or so at a time until 7 am when it was time to go to work. I struggled mightily getting dressed and was barely able to eat anything, for fear that I would throw it up immediately.

When I arrived on set I was asked if I was feeling okay. I told them that I wasn't, but as a stand in, my job mainly consisted of just sitting or standing all day which I assured I could still do just fine even in my weakened state.

She sent me home immediately and finally at this point I made a visit to see a doctor.

He took one look at me and my pulse rate and told me that I was a very brave man and he was going to give me 2 options. Did I want to take a cab to the hospital or did I want to have an ambulance take me there.

At that point I realized I was going down and opted for the ambulance ride just for the experience.

In the interest of time and of me getting to my Superbowl party on time I'm going to wrap this up.

Basically my stomach exploded and infection was leaking all over the place. The doctors were unable to operate beyond vacuuming up all the infection, sticking 3 drain tubes into me to remove more infection and bypassing my colon and giving me an ostomy bag to poop out of.

More story to come! Don't worry, I'm going to be okay I promise!