Almost Gone: Surviving a Medical Crisis and Finding New Life

There was a point in my life when everything I had built came dangerously close to disappearing.

It didn't happen all at once.

Years of pain, escalating prescription medication use, and dependence gradually changed my life in ways I didn't fully recognize while they were happening. Eventually, those circumstances—and choices I made along the way—contributed to a medical crisis that nearly ended my life.

I spent approximately three and a half weeks in a coma.

When I finally woke up, surviving was only the beginning.

I had to learn how to live again in a body that had changed. I had to face the consequences of what had happened. And eventually, I had to decide what I was going to do with a second chance I never expected to receive.

Surviving a medical crisis changed the way I look at life, recovery, faith, and second chances. That's the story behind my memoir, Almost Gone: A True Story of Survival, Coma, and a Second Chance.

But more importantly, it's the story of what happened afterward.

When Pain Began Changing My Life

My problems with prescription medication didn't begin because I set out looking for trouble.

They began with pain.

After knee surgery and complications that followed, prescription pain medication became part of my life. At first, I viewed the medication for what it was supposed to be—a way to manage pain and continue functioning.

But over time, things changed.

My use increased.

My tolerance increased.

And eventually, what had started as pain management became dependence.

Looking back, I can see warning signs that weren't nearly as obvious to me at the time.

That's one of the difficult things about dependence. The transition doesn't necessarily announce itself.

There isn't always one dramatic moment when you suddenly realize you've crossed a line.

Sometimes the line moves gradually until one day you look around and realize how far you've traveled.

The Choices I Had to Face

One of the reasons I wrote Almost Gone was because I wanted to tell the complete story.

That means discussing the circumstances surrounding prescription medication during that period of my life.

But it also means acknowledging my own responsibility.

I made choices.

Some of them were bad choices.

There were times I should have recognized what was happening. There were questions I should have asked. There were decisions I wish I could go back and change.

I can't.

What I can do is be truthful about them.

I've learned that accountability isn't about carrying shame for the rest of your life.

It's about being willing to look honestly at your past so you can make different decisions about your future.

That became an important part of my recovery.

The Night Everything Changed

Eventually, my body reached a point it could no longer handle.

I don't remember the moment I almost died.

I don't remember lying alone in my bedroom.

I don't remember my daughter Cynthia and my former brother-in-law Steve coming to my house after my mother became worried because she couldn't reach me.

I don't remember the paramedics working on me.

Those memories belong to the people who found me and fought to keep me alive.

When the paramedics arrived, they initially couldn't find a pulse.

They continued working.

Eventually, they detected one in my right foot.

A tiny sign of life.

That pulse was enough for them to keep fighting for me.

I was rushed to the hospital, and what followed would change the rest of my life.

Three and a Half Weeks

I spent approximately three and a half weeks in a coma.

It's strange knowing that some of the most important weeks of your life are weeks you can't remember.

While my family waited and worried, I was somewhere beyond their reach.

Then I woke up.

People sometimes hear that part of my story and think that's where the happy ending begins.

It wasn't.

Waking up meant discovering what had happened to me.

My body had been through tremendous trauma. My left side had been severely affected, and I faced physical limitations I had never imagined.

I had survived.

But I wasn't the same.

And survival didn't come with instructions for what to do next.

Learning to Live Again

After the hospital, I spent about eight weeks in rehabilitation at the VA.

Things most people do without thinking became challenges.

Movement.

Balance.

Walking.

Everyday tasks.

Independence.

Recovery required patience I didn't always have.

There were good days and difficult ones. There were moments when progress felt painfully slow.

But something important began happening.

Little by little, I improved.

I adapted.

I learned different ways to accomplish things.

And I began to understand that recovery didn't necessarily mean becoming exactly who I had been before.

Maybe the goal wasn't to go backward.

Maybe I needed to build forward.

Living in a Changed Body

Some consequences of my medical crisis didn't disappear when rehabilitation ended.

I had lasting physical challenges.

I also dealt with wounds and complications that followed me for years.

There were times when I was frustrated with what my body could no longer do.

For a long time, it was easy to focus on what I had lost.

Eventually, I began paying more attention to what remained.

I could still think.

I could still work.

I could still love my family.

I could still help people.

I could still build something.

And most importantly, I was still alive.

That realization didn't erase the difficult parts.

But it changed how I looked at them.

Finding My Way Back

Rebuilding my life didn't happen overnight.

I returned to work.

I rebuilt my business.

I learned to adapt to physical limitations.

I leaned on family and friends.

And my faith became increasingly important in understanding what this second chance meant to me.

I began asking myself a question:

Why am I still here?

I don't pretend to know every reason.

But I do believe my life was spared for a purpose.

Part of that purpose may simply be telling the truth about what happened to me.

Why I Wrote Almost Gone

For years, my story existed mostly among the people who knew me.

Eventually, I realized it might help somebody else.

That's why Almost Gone doesn't begin with the coma.

It begins much earlier.

The book tells the story of the family that raised me, my Kentucky childhood, my service in the U.S. Navy Seabees, marriage, fatherhood, work, business, and the life I built before prescription medication dependence began changing everything.

Then it follows what happened when that life nearly disappeared—and what it took to rebuild afterward.

I wanted readers to understand that I wasn't simply a medical crisis.

I was a person with a life before it happened.

And I remained a person with a life worth living afterward.

What Survival Taught Me

I don't believe everyone who experiences trauma, dependence, disability, or serious illness will have the same journey I did.

Every person's circumstances are different.

But my experience taught me several things I carry with me today:

• Pay attention when something in your life begins taking control.

• Ask questions about your healthcare and medications.

• Work with qualified healthcare professionals and understand what you're taking and why.

• Accept responsibility for the choices that belong to you.

• Let people who care about you help when you need it.

• Don't dismiss small progress.

• Your life can still have purpose even when it doesn't look the way you expected.

• A second chance matters most when you decide to do something with it.

Those lessons didn't come easily.

Some came at a tremendous cost.

But they're part of who I am today.

Finding New Life After Almost Losing Mine

I sometimes think about that tiny pulse the paramedics detected in my right foot.

At that moment, almost everything about my future was uncertain.

But there was still life.

That's what stays with me.

Today, my life isn't exactly what it was before the coma.

Neither am I.

I've learned that a second chance doesn't always mean getting your old life back.

Sometimes it means being given the opportunity to build a different one.

I have family I love.

I have work that gives me purpose.

I have faith.

I have a story I'm finally willing to tell.

And every morning I wake up is another day I almost didn't have.

If you're going through your own difficult chapter right now, I can't promise you exactly how your story will turn out.

But I can tell you what my life has taught me:

Don't assume your h

ardest chapter is your final chapter.

I was almost gone.

But one tiny sign of life remained.

And from that tiny pulse came something I never expected to have again:

a future.

Almost Gone: A True Story of Survival, Coma, and a Second Chance is my story of how close I came to losing everything—and what happened when I was given the opportunity to live again.