I’ve never claimed to be a very good husband.
I was just extremely fortunate to win the hand of a very special bride.
She’s put up with my nonsense and hi-jinx for more than 4 decades.
She is such a forgiving soul.
One of the more prominent recent examples of her special grace is the fact that she didn’t
divorce me despite the fact that I left her alone, in our marital bed, on our 38th wedding
anniversary this past August while I spent the night in another bed in the company of 6 other
women I had just met that night.
Let me explain.
My Lovely Bride and I both planned to leave work early on August 29th in order to get home to
fire up the grill and prepare a nice meal together of steak, grilled asparagus, a pear gorgonzola
salad, and some Ben and Jerry’s Oat of this Swirled ice cream for dessert, followed up by a walk
and perhaps a movie.
Being as that day was near month-end, as an accountant, I was unable to leave work as early
as I wanted.
Since my bride is a library manager she was held up at work and arrived home even later than I
did.
But fortunately not too much later.
As I waited at home I felt the weird sensation of the left side of my tongue swelling.
I looked in a mirror and noticed a strange puffiness that I now know is referred to as geographic
tongue. Half of my tongue looked like the puffy roof of the Metrodome stadium from the outside.
My wife called to say she was on the way home and as we spoke she wondered why my voice
sounded so strange. (It wasn’t entirely unusual for me to go an entire weekend punctuating
EVERY one of my responses to her with “AMUNDO!” a la The Fonz, Arthur Fonzarelli
from the tv show “Happy Days” because, well, why not? Somehow she tolerated that and didn’t have her attorneys contact mine.)
I explained to her that my tongue felt thick and that I was getting quite itchy.
Fortunately she was only a few minutes from home.
When she pulled up in front of our house she told me to jump in so we could get to a doctor.
I would have just shrugged the swelling off.
Luckily we don’t live very far from Methodist Hospital so we headed there.
A word to the wise; if you’ve ever complained about long wait times at an Emergency Room you
may want to try telling the triage staff that you have a blocked airway.
I have NEVER been admitted so rapidly. ANYWHERE!
The attention was somewhat gratifying until about a dozen healthcare professionals descended
on me and I heard talk of prepping one of the BIG ROOMS for me, “just in case.”
In case of WHAT?
I probably didn’t want to know.
My wife DEFINITELY didn’t want to know.
Thankfully, though we used one, the bigger room was not really needed.
We did find out that what had happened was an anaphylactic reaction.
To what?
We don’t know that yet.
I spent that night in the hospital, got tested for allergies, and now carry Benadryl and EpiPens.
Just in case.
The six women I referred to earlier were a doctor, nurses, lab techs, and respiratory therapists, that cared for me that night.
In sharing this episode over the last few months I’ve heard from multiple people that they are
supposed to carry EpiPens too, but many don’t because of the expense.
I’ve encouraged them to rethink that as it could potentially mean the difference between life and
death.
LIFE AND DEATH.
On Saturday November 7th, 1987, the Michigan Wolverines came to Minneapolis to play the
Golden Gophers in football.
During that game, Darrell Thompson, a man I didn’t know at the time, but would come to know
well when I went back to the U, in 1988, to work in the football equipment room, took a
handoff in his own end zone and ran 98 yards for a Gopher touchdown, (still a UofM record)
It was later found out that at some point during that game legendary Michigan Head Coach, Bo
Schembechler, suffered a mild heart attack.
Bo maintains it happened during that Thompson touchdown run.
When asked about the cardiac event, at a later date, Schembechler boasted,
“It probably woulda killed a lesser man.”
I ALWAYS loved that quote, however, on New Years Eve, Tuesday December 31st, 2019, I
damn near became THAT lesser man.
Let me explain.
After a gathering with old high school friends in the afternoon, and a really nice dinner at home
with family, I was looking forward to an early evening New Years celebration at a time suitable to
our (soon to be) 6 and 2-1/2 year old grand daughters.
But then my tongue started feeling funny,
And soon after that I felt the need to go to the bathroom, and rapidly thereafter nausea set in.
I grabbed my Benadryl, and EpiPens, yelled for my wife, and headed to one of our bathrooms.
By the time she arrived, seconds later, my wife found me with my EpiPens.
In my telling it I was too shaky and weak to use the pen.
What she saw was me holding the pen to my thigh and staring at it like one of those drug addled
addicts portrayed in bad late 60’s TV cop shows.
This ALL progressed at an alarming rate of speed.
I only remember bits and pieces of the rest of the evening.
Lost to me was;
My wife giving me the first life-saving EpiPen injection.
The paramedic giving me the second.
My daughter dialing 911.
My daughter-in-law hustling the grandkids to another part of the house to shield them from what
was about to happen.
Hopkins police in my living room.
Hennepin county sheriffs deputies in the house.
Paramedics in my bathroom with me.
The large man who single-handedly picked me up and placed me in a stair chair after I blacked
out the second time.
I was out cold for ALL of that.
Gone-zo.
NOT.
A.
CLUE.
2020 damn near became a foreign shore I never reached.
If not for the fast-action of my wife, family, and the first responders, I wouldn’t be telling you this
story right now.
Instead, you’d most likely be trying to think of what to say to my family at my funeral.
My wife saved my life that night.
My wife, and EpiPens.
German author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said, “Every second is of infinite value.”
They sure were this past New Year’s Eve.
And they sure will be, to me, from here on out.
I feel like I’ve been granted bonus time.
Time to do the important things.
One of the important things is to tell this story, in order to encourage people to get their
EpiPens.
Please allow someone to save your life as well!
POSTSCRIPT
A direct result of blacking out can be a dramatic drop in blood pressure which can shock the
colon leading to Ischemic Colitis and additional hospitalization.
Yep, I got that too.
I hope to post this story on 1/5/20, which, cross your fingers, may be the first day of 2020 that I
WON’T be in the hospital.
It can’t go anywhere but up from here!
