One night when I was 50 years old, I was sleeping in my bedroom. Suddenly, I woke up with a terrible pain in my chest, more than I can explain. I felt like my heart was filling up with a notably violent pressure until it exploded.

I was feeling ill (flu like symptoms) for three days, better for two, and then sick again for two more days. I went to the doctor and was admitted to intensive care of a medical center for possible infection with Rocky Mountain spotted fever. I was given antibiotics and diagnosed with ehrlichiosis. On the third day of intensive care, my heart stopped.

In 1971 during second grade, my older brother chased me through a field with a long stick. I raced up a water tower to avoid his attack. After some time he threw the stick over a barbed wire fence and told me to come down. As I started to come down, I slipped falling about 10 feet. I landed on my feet still facing the water tower. My brother ran over to me and said, "Come on let's go." I stood there looking at him, but he was behind me. I watched him reach out and shake my shoulder. There was a scared look in his eyes. I was still facing the tower and he was still behind me. He bent around my body over some piping and saw something that startled him, blood. I saw his shocked look then looked over his should to see what he was seeing. He lifted up my shirt and we were both shocked to see that I had landed on a pipe and it was stuck into my left side just below my rid cage.

It all started when I broke my arm in an accident during a conference. I fell from some sort of jungle gym unit and landed right on top of my right arm. I had an operation where they reconnected the two main bones with plates. Several months later I was again in the hospital because the plates on both bones in my right arm need to be removed. During the operation they made a mistake and removed only on plate. Therefore I needed a third operation to remove the last existing plate. I felt cheated and depressed because I really hated going through the whole procedure again.