I Almost Died

I almost died this week.

Five small words that hold such weight. Especially when they're real.

We joke around saying them, but this wasn't a joke. I was literally hours from being dead.

From what I've been told, I was about 6 hours from my body giving up.

Let me explain. This will be long.

This last year has kind of been hell health-wise. Surgery, complications, repeated issues, and so on. But I was able to make it back from each issue. Cause it's what I do, right? I fight and make it back each time. Maybe a little more scarred up and beaten up, but I make it back.

Then two weeks ago, my family came down with the flu. It goes from one to the next to the next. But I'm not sick, or I didn't think so.

Friday comes, and I have a day full of meetings and appointments. I'm on calls, driving around, and at my last medical appointment, they told me I have a low fever. I'm confused. I don't feel like I have a fever and am still not feeling sick.

I got home, and I'm doing the usual. Listening to music, making dinner, and talking to my girl, Sarah. At this point, though, I realize, damn, I am sick. I just felt run down.

Sarah and I agreed I should go to sleep and see how I felt the next day.

This is where it starts getting strange for me, and I have to rely on others and what they've told me. Which I know is entirely accurate.

I talked to Sarah Saturday, and I don't sound right. I tell her I have a migraine, feel horrible, and am just going to sleep. She's worried, and I'm being a prick. This isn't me; it isn't how I treat people, and if I had realized what I was doing, I could have acted sooner, but I don't remember this. Still, it's not an excuse for how I acted toward Sarah. But my acting this way got her very worried.

The next day, Sarah has been waiting to hear from me for over 24 hours, over 48 for family members. Even my mother, who lives with me. They verified I was sleeping, and they all settled in for me to wake up later. We all figured I was just sick with the flu.

Then enter Monday. I woke up because I kept hearing this strange sound. I don't know what this sound is, but it woke me up. This was step one in me not dying.

On the other side of this is Sarah. We work at the same place, and she sees that I'm not online. She's constantly watching for me to get on. She checks my calendar and sees my first meeting is at 10:00am.

10:00am comes, and I'm not online. Enter the strange noise.

She's repeatedly calling. She knows I wouldn't miss a meeting.

I figured out how to answer the phone, which seemed utterly foreign. She's panicked and asking me what's going on. What's happening.

This is where things move into two different worlds for me.

I'm trying to talk to her and say words, but they aren't the words I want to say. She's insisting on coming over to take me to the hospital, and what I'm physically saying is that I don't want to go. I'm embarrassed. I need a shower.

But what's happening to me is I'm staring at myself in the mirror, screaming in my head. "I need help!"

I hang up the phone on her. Also, something I'd never do. It pissed her off, and rightly so, but she wasn't giving up.

As the phone grew more foreign to me, I decided I needed more light to see myself better. It makes no sense. But I take apart my ceiling light, trying to figure out how to get more light.

I stopped that because I was starting to get a feeling I'd never had. I realized it was fear.

My world has turned into a place where I'm in a box in my head, looking out at a world that my body is in, but I can't control anything in it.

Fear sets in, and I can't figure out how to make my phone work. The only thing I can think of doing is putting in an earbud, and I start saying Sarah's name. She is one of my phone's emergency contacts, so thank God, It actually calls her.

She answers and is freaked out and pissed. She should be.

I'm sitting in a chair and back to hearing myself say words that aren't what I want to say. I go back to the room and need more light, I'm talking to Sarah, and she hears me break my ceiling light. I hung up again.

I get the phone to call my sister and can get out that I need to go to the hospital.

What I don't remember is that I asked her to drive me. She can't drive because of physical items. She can drive, but we don't let her. It isn't safe, and I'd never put her at risk and ask her to drive. Another thing that is totally out of character.

My sister gets my niece on her way to my house. I started going down the stairs, and I fell down them. I get up, and for some reason, I go back up my stairs, turn around and start going down again. I fall again.

My mom is up on the main floor of the house now, sees me, and starts freaking out a bit. She knows something is wrong. By this time, I'm not speaking very coherently, and the box I'm in inside my head is getting smaller. I'm really scared now and am not too fond of the feeling.

I make it to the garage, grab a light hoodie I have out there and open the garage door. It's 20 degrees, so I'm cold. My mom is standing at the door asking what is happening. I decided she needed a coat. I get her one but don't get one for me.

I go back out to the garage and see some matches. I decided I needed fire and started lighting matches. In my head, I'm yelling at myself to stop. I'm standing next to my grill and two bottles of propane, just lighting matches and throwing them at the propane bottles.

I see this going on, and I can't stop it. My view of the world is getting smaller.

My niece gets me, and I manage to say where to take me. We got to the ER, and I got out, telling her to leave. In my head, I'm saying no, don't leave. But I told her to leave, and she did.

I go in and make it to the check-in desk. The lady at the desk asks if I need help; at this point, I can only say, "need help." She asks what the problem is and who my insurance is, and I can't answer anything. She asks my name, and I can't tell her. In my head, I'm screaming, "I need help. My name is Jeremy. Something is very bad."

But nothing comes out. She tells me to sit down, and I do. I watch her and the ER staff, but nobody looks at me.

I walked out. My phone rings, and I still have an earbud in. I must have looked crazy cause all I could think to do was slap my ear. But it worked. My brother-in-law was coming to find me. He finds me outside, and he takes me to a different ER.

He says he'll get me in, then call my sister and get some gas because he'll need to go get her. Another moment where in my head I'm saying, "please come with me, don't leave. I need help." But I mutter that I'll go in and he can come back, and I open the door.

I watched him circle slowly, and I walked through the ER door.

I'm confused and am not sure what I'm supposed to do. I see a guy sitting behind a desk at a window and walk there.

"Hi, sir. Do you need some help?"

"Yes, help."

"What's the problem, sir?"

"Help," is all I can say.

"Sir, what's wrong?" he asked again.

"Help" its my new favorite word.

As I'm watching that box to the world get smaller, I'm screaming. "Something's wrong. It's bad. Help me, damn it!"

"Sir?"

"Help."

"Sir, I need to know what's wrong," he said. A logical question, but I only had one word in my vocabulary.

From the little box in my head, things are becoming even smaller, but I know what's about to happen. It's strange, but I'd never felt fear before until this, and that feeling was at its peak. I'm yelling at myself again. I know I can't let what is going to happen, happen. "Don't you do it, you idiot. You stay right there. Don't you fucking move!"

But my body turns, and I see the door and watch myself walk out of it. I look around, and I don't know where I'm at. I see people walk in and out of a place, and I'm walking in circles. I watch more people, and I'm looking for the car that got me there. I know it's white, and I start walking in front of every white car. Horns are honking, and people are yelling at me. There are a lot of white cars. I sit on the curb, putting my head in my hands.

The box my mind is watching everything from is a pinhole. I start thinking the last things I can, hoping that God will let people know somehow.

Cause I know when that box I'm in disappears, so do I.

"Sarah, I'm so sorry. You don't deserve this. Your engagement ring is almost here. I love you. Please forgive me. Don't give up on love.

Sis, Darryl, Mom, I'm sorry. This is going to be so hard on you. But you'll make it. It's what we do. Take care of Sarah for me."

I go through apologies and messages to my close friends; Natalie, Robin, Katy, Caroline, Scott, Kris, Hope, and Marshall. Damn, I've had a good life, I think to myself. Who has this many people in their life that they love and love them?

I pray for forgiveness and ask God to take care of those in my life who will be rocked by this.

The box is almost closed now.

"Sir, what's going on? Do you need help?" It's the guy from the window and another person.

I look at them with tears rolling down my face, "Help me, please." I plead. The last moment for a while that my words on the outside match what's inside.

They picked me up and put me in a wheelchair. "He has to be on something. He's overdosing," I hear the new guy say. I start shaking my head as inside, I yell, "I'm not on drugs, asshole!"

They put me in a room on a bed, the door is open, and I hear the nurse talking to the doctor.

"He has no wallet. He can't talk. I think it's drugs."

"Okay, check him in as John Doe while I go see him," the doctor said.

The doctor comes in, and I can't talk at this point. The window I'm looking through is almost closed. My body is quitting.

The doctor tries asking questions, but I can't say anything intelligible. He's nice. He pats my leg, "We'll figure it out," he says as the nurse walks in.

The doctor says, "This isn't drugs. He might take a prescription, but it's not drugs like you think. It's something else."

"How do you know?" the nurse asks with attitude.

"Look at him. He isn't a drug user. His shoes are clean aside from where you can tell he stumbled around outside, his jeans have creases, he's wearing a damn pink Polo shirt, and look at his eyes. His eyes aren't checked out. They're panicked. Take blood and run everything," he said.

"Thank you, God," I said. Then the window my conscious mind lived in closed.

I'm confused at this point. But I hear a voice that means something, and I see him then yell out, "Brother-in-law!" My brother-in-law turns around and walks into the room with the doctor.

The doctor asks, "Do you know him?" pointing at Darryl.

I nod.

"Who is he?"

"My brother-in-law. Darryl," I say.

"Okay, that's great. What's your name?" the doctor asks.

"Huh?" I say.

"Your name, what is it?

I try thinking, and I'm getting upset. The doctor tells me it's okay and not to worry.

I don't know my name.

Darryl and the doctor are talking, and my head is just bouncing back and forth between them.

Darryl tells them I haven't felt well, been throwing up blood, and had the flu.

The doctor is patient and is touching different parts of me, asking how it feels, and I can say bad at areas like my chest and neck. Though the neck is natural at this point, but he asked.

The next few hours, test after test, CT scans, x-rays, blood cultures, and other blood work.

Several hours later and a new doctor walks in who is mad. Not at me but at the hospital. She explains I need to be at the main hospital, but they won't allow an ambulance to get me. She's called and set things up. Darryl needs to put me in the car and drive there. They can't refuse me. She gives us the paperwork that's needed, and we leave.

The car ride is a wrong conversation because I can't talk, and everything that should be familiar looks like a foreign country.

Getting into that ER was an event. Darryl pulled up and wasn't wanting to leave me alone cause, well, I'd lost it at that point. A guy yells at him to move his car. They talk, and Darryl is mad but hands me the paperwork, gets me to the door, and tells me he'll be right there.

Going in was a mistake. It was chaos. They're pushing me through security, and then I'm inside and totally lost. The guy at the check-in counter starts yelling at me, and I can't find any words. I try handing him my paperwork, and he won't take it. He keeps yelling, and I'm on the verge of a mix of two things.

The first is just panic and running. The second is my brain digging up things, and I knew exactly how to disable him and the other guy. I was mad he was yelling and wouldn't just look at the paperwork, scared, and then I had a possible violent solution which confused me.

I turned around, and thankfully Darryl was running in and found me. From there, he took care of things. They finally figured out who I was and why I was there.

By this time, we'd been in ERs for over 15 hours. Darryl is still sick, and he's exhausted. A doctor explains it isn't going to be quick and he should go home. They had a lot of work to do.

It was strange. Once Daryl left, so did my ability to communicate at all.

Doctors and nurses came in, and I couldn't say anything until a nurse came in asking if I knew Sarah, and I said yes, she's my girl. The nurse talked about their conversation, and I fell asleep.

The next time I woke up, was Sarah walking in. All I could do was look at her and say hi, and I was sorry.

She didn't waver in being by my side from that moment.

The following two days were a blur of things. A lot of anger and frustration because they always ask for your name and date of birth. I couldn't remember those things. I couldn't remember most things.

I could remember the people that loved me, and strangely I could remember lyrics to songs cause Sarah knew me and brought a speaker to play music for me.

They finally found out what was wrong, and I had pneumonia, and the infection got out of the lungs and ran the course to my brain. I would have been about 6 hours from dying if I hadn't gone to a hospital.

I'm not done yet, I still have almost a month's worth of medical stuff to deal with, but I'm here to do it, so that is what counts for that.

But there are lessons and blessings in everything.

Lessons first.

When people who love you tell you something is wrong. Listen to them. Accept help. Being strong and stubborn isn't the answer.

Prayer is key. I had an army of people praying for me, and that put the pieces in place that were needed. Some may not share these beliefs, but I don't doubt them for a second.

You need people. You need love.

This was a literal fight for my life. When it was at its worst, I had people there I knew loved me, and while I didn't know me at the time, they were an anchor that prevented me from slipping away. I didn't know why but I knew I had things to live for because of that. Having that anchor, so you know what you're fighting for, is tantamount.

Listen to doctors. I'm going to have to take some time off work, and I'm not good at even going on vacation, so this will be hard, but for the first time in my life, I'm going to listen.

And the blessing.

The time had come to stop waiting Friday night, and I asked Sarah to marry me. She said yes.

I can't explain how blessed I am because of her. Now I get to live a life with her, and one thing this whole thing made me know is that we will be living that life.

I hope you all are well.

Be safe, God Bless, and stay warm.