Prologue
September 2001
It ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward, how much you can take, and keep moving,,, Forward.
~Rocky Balboa~
It was the worst shave of my life. I had not been out of my bed for quite a long time. Now here I was. Sitting in a reclining chair. I had a little table in front of me. The television show “Pardon the Interruption” was on. I had a little mirror, a bedpan filled with hot water, and a bed pan filled with cold water in front of me. I brushed my teeth and now was shaving. The first thing I noticed was how tired I was. Not necessarily sleepy, more like I had just ran a marathon. And I was sweating. Really sweating. A lot. Like Ted Stryker at the end of “Airplane”. I remember wanting to just lay back down. I quickly finished my shave and buzzed the nurse to help me back in bed. She came in, helped me into bed and checked my vitals. I couldn’t seem to catch my breath. When she got my pulse reading, her face had a look of panic on it. She quickly checked them again. She asked how I felt. I told her short of breath. She hit the emergency button. I asked what was wrong. She informed me that my pulse was racing, and I had a high fever. I had been in the hospital for almost two months, and I was almost ready to go home. So while this was going on, all I could think was I hope this doesn’t delay my exit. Those fears were realized when a team of doctors and nurses came rushing into my room. By now I was barely able to get a breath. Everything started to get fuzzy. I had a tube inserted into my heart. They did something to my lung to get some air. They rushed me down for a C.T scan. They brought me to the I.C.U. Then I passed out. I was in and out for the next few days. I didn’t realize until much later how serious the situation was. That was the first time I almost died. But I am getting way ahead of myself. The real story begins exactly one year before.
