2017-- 12 Months to Reflect

As the year comes to an end, and another begins, we are reminded of what we have been through and what we are hoping will be a bit better than the last!

For me, its about survival. Plain and simple. I survived 2017.

It started right after the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic, where Wisconsin beat Western Michigan, and I had left AT&T Stadium, drove back to the Downtown Dallas Omni Hotel, and, its there, that I didn’t feel well.

Well lets back that up a bit, I hadn’t been feeling well for a bit of time now, and it came to a head on New Years Eve, at the Anatole Hotel. I had gotten on the bus to go back to pick my car up, and my lady, wanted me to go to the hospital, because I was having pain in my chest, and couldn’t catch my breath. Then on top of that, her Mother called in the middle of the night to inform us that my date’s father was dying in Bonham, Texas at the V.A. hospital.

So naturally, she’s upset, and I having to deal with my own situation.

So now we have New Years day, (that’s on a Sunday) and we once again are doing a show from the Downtown Omni, and getting ready for the next day.

I go to the game, and it’s afterwards that I really feel the effects of whats going on inside of me. I go home and I start to cough, and can’t control it, and its not getting worse, and I know what it is, and I make the call to 911, and have an ambulance come and get me. They arrive, and I am outside of my apartment, and the last thing I remember is seeing red and blue lights, they haul me to Baylor Garland, and with in the six minutes it took them to make that trip, I coded (died) in the ambulance. They brought me back, and once in the ER I coded again, but this time, something occurred.

I don’t tell this story much, and when I do, it makes people treat me differently.

The story goes, that in the ER, when I coded, all I saw was black, no bright light, no heavenly music, no follow me towards the light, no lifting my body, or my soul from my body, I did see coming out of the darkness, were two images, as the got closer to me, and I was able to focus on them, it was my parents. Both had died in the 80’s. My father spoke to me, and with his deep baritone voice, informed me that “It wasn’t my time” and I was brought back.

Five stents later in my heart, 18 days in the main hospital and another 12 days in “In-Patient” rehab, I was out and staying with a friend who volunteered to keep me at her house while I recovered. (13 days). I am grateful to her and to all of my friends and family who came to my aide during the first three months of the year.

In June, we are broadcasting the Championship Bowl game for the Champions Indoor Football league, and where the Home Team, Texas Revolution were playing the Omaha Beef in Allen, Texas.

After the game, I had collapsed on the field, and had to be rushed to a hospital where my blood pressure was out of wack!

That started a chain reaction of events, of having a stress test, then Angio-Plasty done and then being informed that I am in need of open heart surgery, and that one of my arteries has closed off so badly that they tell me I have a “Widow Maker” in me.

So on September 11th, of 2017, 9 months and 9 days after the heart attack, they are cutting me open and doing a quadruple-bypass on me, and another 6 days in the hospital, and another 14 days in Rehab, and today, I am out and in Cardio Rehab in Plano.

During this entire ordeal, I have had good friends stand by me, and help me get better, Doc Moorefield J.R. Schumann, Richard Levy, George Scott Allen III, Jerry Tipper, Doug Walsdorf, Pete Puckett, Dr. Jay Capra, my lady, Amanda Rowan, Shelly Dorzinski Amy Anderton, my sister Shelley Wylie, her husband Daniel Wylie, my nephew Andrew. This list is on and on! Suffice to say, there are a ton of people during this past year, that came into my life, and were already there, but became a bigger portion of what I was needing!

Some say that what I have gone through, is a lesson in the fact that G-d is not finished with me on this earth. Some would say, that even though the doctors gave me a 50/50 shot of living, my friends were the ones that informed Doctors and anyone else with in earshot-- I am not a quitter, and that I am a fighter!

I am all of that, I know I am, but at one point I didn’t know how serious I was and that I was on borrowed time.

Now a year later, I am stronger, and I am better-- with in the year of getting healthy, my friends have all gotten better as well. One of my friends, well she needed to find her heart, and did, and now is on the road to which she is in love again! (been a long 12 years for that to happen) so I am grateful that my heart attack, she was able to repair her’s and fall in love again!

In the process of that, the lady in my life, grew to love me more, and tried to protect me, and came to my aide. I am the one that is scared of what life would like with a ready made family! I have had that trip before, and it didn’t end all that well! So I am a little afraid of that and it might be unfair, but it is what it is!

I lost my life, not once but twice, and in doing so, I appreciate the sunlight in the morning and the warmth of the colors at sunset! I enjoy the life that I have, and want to keep it, and maybe give something back. I just don’t know how, and I don’t know what is expected of me.

There are those who say that I gave them their craft, their lively hood, there are some who say that I was the one that gave them a direction to live. There are even some, who tell me, that it is because of me that I am reason they are also still here, that they didn’t give up when they thought they couldn’t go on any more!

To my friends, and family that have stood by me these last 12 months, we have had a trying time. I wish there was more to this story than, I got ill, went to the hospital, got fixed, went to rehab, and fought to get back to normal, only to be set back and have to go back into the hospital for another surgery, and still fighting to get back to being myself.

Thank you all for your support, for your prayers, for your constant vigil of watching over me.

I have faith, and I have family, and I have friends. Those are the three “F”s that I tell those who have had adversity in their lives, and now I have to inform myself, that I have to keep my course!

May the NEW YEAR be a sight brighter to you, and bring you all a fulfillment you had never had before!

Here’s to 2018! AMEN!