01/10/2026
HAPPY SECOND REBIRTH DAY TO ME 🙂
We celebrate birthdays for the day we were born. Cake. Candles. People pretending they enjoy singing. But what do you call the day you were supposed to die? Rebirth Day. And today marks my Second Rebirth Day.
Exactly two years ago today, I was meant to be dead. Not in a dramatic exaggeration kind of way. Not a “wow that was close” story you tell later for laughs. I mean flatlined. Goner. Game over. The kind of dead where there is no next chapter. And the only reason I went to the hospital that day wasn’t wisdom or intuition or some deep sense that something was wrong. I went because I woke up and my balls were the size of small bowling balls. I wish I was joking. I am not. Pain has a funny way of cutting through denial, and when something is wrong with your balls, you don’t debate it. You panic and you go.
When I got to the hospital, it wasn’t answers. It was panic. Hours and hours of tests while they were also actively trying to keep me alive long enough to figure out what was happening. I was already septic. My kidneys were shutting down. They were fighting to keep those alive too. At some point the tone shifted from “let’s investigate” to “we’re running out of time.” Once they figured out what was happening, it became very simple and very urgent… get his ass to the big city hospital. Immediately.
The diagnosis was necrotizing fasciitis and Fournier’s gangrene. Because apparently if you’re going to do something, you might as well do it all the way. Two of the worst infections known to man. The kind where survival rates aren’t encouraging and optimism is mostly ceremonial. I didn’t find out until weeks later that I was given a 5 percent chance of surviving. Five. Percent. Apparently a lot of people didn’t think I would even make it through the first surgery. There were three. Two and a half months in the hospital. Another eight or nine months at home with daily wound care. I went from thinking I was tough to learning very quickly what helpless actually feels like.
A few days after everything stabilized, the infectious disease specialist sat down with me and said something that still sticks with me. She told me my timer was already ticking when I walked in. I asked what she meant. She looked at me, completely calm, and said if I hadn’t gone to the hospital when I did… I would have died in my own bed that night. Not later in the week. Not eventually. That night. That one sentence rearranged my entire understanding of how close I came.
At one point after surgery, a female friend came to visit me. I was in a lot of pain. A lot. I kept complaining, because that’s what you do when your body feels like it’s been through a wood chipper. She joked and said “well now you know what it’s like for a woman to give birth.” I hope she was joking. The doctor was in the room. An infectious disease specialist. She turned beet red, looked directly at my friend, and said she had given birth to five children with no drugs… and what I was experiencing was ten thousand times worse. Then she told her, very calmly, that if she ever said that again she would be asked to leave. The room got very quiet. So yeah… that should give you an idea of the level of pain involved.
I owe my life to a lot of people. The paramedics who transferred me. The doctors and specialists who fought for me. The nurses who watched me nonstop. The health care aides who had the absolute worst job of all… keeping me clean and comfortable when I couldn’t do it myself. There is no dignity in that moment, only gratitude. And my physiotherapist, who gave me back something I didn’t even realize you could lose so completely… the ability to walk. When you’re stuck in a bed for weeks and not allowed to move, your muscles don’t weaken. They shut off. She brought me back from that one painful step at a time.
This experience changed me. It showed me who I can actually turn to when things stop being theoretical. It stripped away a lot of noise. It made me appreciate the little things we treat like guarantees. Standing. Walking. Coffee in the morning. Breathing without machines. Every single day since then hasn’t been a right… it’s been a gift.
And as for the reaper… yeah, we’ve met. He showed up confident, clipboard tucked under his arm, already writing the report. Thought this was a routine pickup. No drama. No resistance. We danced a little. He leaned in close. And I told him not today. Not because I’m brave. Not because I’m lucky. Clearly not lucky. But because I’m stubborn, inconvenient, and apparently immune to being taken on the first try. I’m still here out of spite. Out of irritation. Because I have an impressive number of people left to p**s off, annoy, disappoint, confuse, and mildly traumatize. So here’s to my Second Rebirth Day. You had your shot, death. You missed. And when you come back… bring coffee, bring help, and bring patience… because I’m clearly not done being a problem yet.
