The worst thing was not believing I might die. The worst thing wasn't having an operation I didn't think I could survive. The worst thing actually was not sleeping really for weeks at a time. Because after not sleeping for about a week or so you cannot easily separate reality from dreams. So, rationality becomes elusive. The other thing you do not want to do is to drive a car or truck. My experience of doing this was realizing I couldn't do it because I would just black out on the freeway and come to with my head on my chest. So, when this happened I pulled over and called for help from friends because I knew it was just too dangerous to drive anymore.
However, at the time I realized I could die but in the convoluted logic of sleep deprivation I believed I was saving my marriage. A day or two before I walked out of the house and walked over to the fire station because my wife and her friend were driving me crazy. So, after that experience I just had new tires put on my motor home and I left. I didn't tell my wife where I was going. I just headed north to Mt. Shasta. But, when I blacked out I was forced to call my 1st ex-wife and a friend to come help me drive the rest of the way to Mt. Shasta. I had made it that far without blacking out while driving. You don't just nod off while in sleep deprivation your brain just suddenly shuts off without any warning.
So, I knew I wasn't safe to drive anymore. So, 4 or 5 hours later my first ex-wife and my friend showed up in his 4 wheel drive and I let her drive my motor home back to Mt. Shasta while my friend tagged along with us.
That night I realized I wasn't functioning very well and realized I might freeze to death in my motor home so I just went over to the Hotel and set the thermostat to about 74 took a bath to warm up and went to sleep. This likely saved my life because I wasn't really thinking straight from lack of sleep for several weeks time. I think I slept a few hours that night with no one there to bother me in any way.
I woke up the next morning and decided I wanted to drive further north into Oregon. So I did. The best thing that happened to me was stopping at the Klamath River on Interstate 5. I pulled out the awning on my motor home at a pull out where I could just watch the river. It was warm enough to sit outside in a folding lounge chair. I realized I really wasn't safe to drive to Portland to see my older daughter so I got a room in Ashland Oregon at the Bard's Inn. This was really great because I started to be able to sleep finally about 3 to 5 hours in a night and started to get more rational with a little more sleep. My windpipe was starting to heal from the inflatable piece put there during my Burst Appendix Laproscopic surgery.
I stayed there in the Hotel and slept whenever I could for 4 or 5 days. I became much clearer in my thoughts the more sleep I could get every night. I realized I was still recovering and in a state of shock from almost dying a few weeks earlier and I realized I really wasn't safe to drive my motor home to Portland so I parked it at the Medford Airport and flew to Portland.
However, I couldn't breathe at altitude in this plane because I started coughing from the sore windpipe from the operation and I had to have the stewardess put me on oxygen because when you fly you are at around 7000 feet in the plane so the oxygen is relatively thin when you fly. So, even though we flew around 12,000 to 20,000 feet the air pressure was too low so I felt like I was going to faint. A medical doctor on board sat with me until we landed. Then my daughter didn't want me to rent a car because they knew I wasn't exactly right for driving yet. So, I let them drive me to my hotel without any car.
The next day it cost me about 70 dollars to go back to the Portland Airport to rent a metallic Red 2015 Camaro convertible Muscle car for my celebration of life that I hadn't died. My wife and her friend flew up for the Moody Blues Concert on April 24th in Portland. So, it was a great celebration of life. I hadn't died and we needed to celebrate that so I could actually believe I had survived everything. My scars were now the size of the tip of my little finger (4 to 6 of these) where they had drilled holes in my abdomen several places and put in little cameras and devices to remove what was left of my appendix on April 4th the night before Easter.
So, anyway I survived all this in this last year which to me is a miracle after talking to what happened to other people with burst appendixes which was usually much much worse than what I experienced this past year.
So, I'm grateful to God to still be alive now so my wife and kids and my grandson didn't have to have a funeral or cremate my body by now.
It's great to be alive!
Thank you God!
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