Gasp!

I almost died in February. It was the culmination of years of not taking care of myself and not listening to doctors. Almost dying can have a profound impact on what is and is not important in your life; at least it did for me. It is now July and my primary concern is no longer music or women or birds or turtles or even the Yankees. It has come down to four things: My family, my friends, my relationship with G-d, and surviving...not necessarily in that order!
The details of the beginning of my illness are somewhat sketchy for me, because I was out of it much of the time. I'll try to fill in what I can. Or maybe I'll make some things up. In a nutshell I entered Columbia Presbyterian on February 2, 2010, after Beth Israel in Brooklyn did their best to kill me. At that point I was pretty much unable to breathe at all. I was placed on a ventilator and under sedation for about a week. Subsequently the doctors performed a tracheostomy because they determined there was no way I'd be able to breathe on my own without it if they attempted to take me off the vent. The diagnosis? Cryptogenic Organizing Pneumonia, or C.O.P. (AKA B.O.O.P; Brochiolitis Obliterans with Organizing Pneumonia), etiology unknown. Prognosis? B.T.H.O.O.U. (Beats The Hell Out Of Us).