Buckets of Blood for Everyone

If you don’t follow my wife’s blog, you might be under the belief that I haven’t updated here because there’s been nothing to update. That would be wrong. Very, very wrong.

I don’t really feel like reliving what went down moment by moment, so here’s a summary: I starting coughing up blood again on May 2nd, ultimately culminating in my coughing up so, so much God damned blood right before midnight May 5th that an emergency embulization had to be done. This involved three of the most dude-bro surgeons I’ve ever seen rushing into my room in the ICU, knocking my ass out, sticking a breathing tube down my throat and a wire through the artery in my thigh so they could plug up the causes of bleeding with science-magic. Incidentally, they couldn’t find a cause of bleeding, so they just plugged up anything and everything that could potentially be a cause of bleeding.

The next concern was that with my lungs as shitty as they are, the doctors wouldn’t be able to remove the breathing tube and I’d be living indefinitely in a drug-induced half-vegetative state until my transplant. This was a very real concern and I had to sign papers stating as much. Thankfully, the anesthesiologist was a wizard of some renown and I came around in record time. No joke, doctors and nurses kept coming in to see me because they didn’t believe it, and my doctor is actually writing a paper about the procedure.

Having to have a transplant forced me to come to terms with my own mortality. And while I still vacillate between Heaven and the stuff of stars, I thought that I was ultimately at a peace with my demise, that if things took a turn I’d be OK and calm. But in that moment — unable to stop coughing up blood, a half-full basin in my lap, blood in my beard hair, spattered on my arms, the gown, the sheets; the nurses all running out of the room to get supplies and call in IR — I really thought I was going to die. And I was terrified. I was desperate. And I felt small, like, physically small. That was the weirdest thing.

Anyway, I’m fine now, so whatever.

I would like to say thank you again, though, to everyone who’s donated to COTA or wished me well or prayed for me or played Words with Friends with me. I’d also like to single out Jennifer Simpson and Andy and Susan Paquet for all their help turning the DimeStories’ anniversary event into a mini-fundraiser for me, and Jersey Devil Press and their authors — Danger_Slater, Mike Sweeney, Ryan Werner, Craig Wallwork, Amanda Chiado, and Ally Malinenko — for dedicating an entire issue to me and my wife. Ally’s story, in particular, was something special.

I’d also like to thank everyone involved with the Concert for COTA, a fundraiser being thrown at the Nutley VFW on May 31st. If you haven’t already purchased your tickets, you should do so soon; they’re selling out fast! Lots of great stuff for auction, lots of great bands on stage.

That’s about it. After being cured of whatever gypsy curse it was causing me to hemorrhage my insides, I’m back at the apartment now, just chilling. Waiting. Staring at my phone for extended periods of time and drifting off into fantastical daydreams where I walk to nearby places.

And, finally, another reminder: the Exponential Apocalypse e-books are on sale until I get transplanted. All three books for less than five bucks. They’re never gonna be cheaper than this again! Tell your friends!