I used to think I was invincible. I used to think I was indestructible. I used to think I was immune to getting sick. I used to think I was too smart to get injured. I used to think I was too strong to need to rest. I used to think a lot of stupid shit.

But all that changed last Monday, August 3rd, when everything I thought would never happen to me, happened to me hard and happened to me fast……

The Stubborn Meathead

I’ve always prided myself as having this ridiculously strong work ethic. Growing up working in restaurants, I would never turn down an opportunity to take on an extra few shifts each week. In fact, I remember working back to back doubles (which are 14 hours shifts) for 5-6 days in a row when I was 17 years old. Back then life was simple. Money was pretty good too. And I figured because I was young, I had both the time and the energy needed to put in those kind of crazy hours so that I could start saving funds at an early age.

Unfortunately for me I never grew up. Fast forward almost twenty years later and I still find myself working those crazy ridiculous hours that I did when I was a teenager.  And the most insane part about it is that I have complete and utter control of my schedule and the amount of hours that I work both on and off the floor each week!

I’ve been meaning to slow down a bit this year, but have been hesitant to do so due to the fact that our business has just been so incredibly busy during COVID-19. During a Global Pandemic when most businesses slowed down or close down, our business actually became busier and more profitable! To say how lucky and fortunate I feel would be an understatement. However the busier we became during these past few months, the more I started to put off taking care of my health. I ignored chronic fatigue. I worked longer. I trained in the gym harder. I pretty much tore my body down when it was begging me to rest.

The end result? An all exclusive 3 night stay and surgery included at the local hospital!!!

The Most Painful Day Of My Life

Can you imagine how lucky I am that I didn’t reach the most painful day of my life until the age of 34? Well it’s true. Up until last Monday, my life was fairly pain free. I mean sure I’ve had a few minor injuries, and granted I have had two really serious concussions, but none of these experiences have been nearly as painful for me as what I went though last week.

Monday, August 3rd is a day in which I’ll never forget. I honestly thought at one point I might die during this day. Around 1pm in the afternoon I returned home from working a 7 hour day on the gym floor. All morning I had felt okay. My stomach was a little upset in the early morning before leaving to work, but I just chalked this up to indigestion. I sat down in my home office to answer a few emails and started to experience a stabbing pain in my abdominal region. My first reaction was to go and lay down on my bed and crawl up in the fetal position in order to get some relief. Unfortunately after doing this for close to two hours the pain became increasingly worse. I then thought I might have been constipated so I went and sat on the toilet for another hour or so. Nothing came out and the pain was continuing to worsen. By 6pm, I could not take the pain any longer and knew something was wrong. This is when I decided it was time to go to the hospital.

Another lucky break for me in this story is that I live literally within a 5 minute walk from our local Hospital here in Downtown Vancouver. Those 5 minutes however felt like an 5000 minutes and each step I took, the pain became even more unmanageable. I thought the walk would do me better than a drive, and I was in no position to sit. In fact, the pain hurt the most when I was seated which is another reason why I decided to walk. When I arrived at the hospital I could barely stand. I could barely talk. I could barely make eye contact with the receptionist at the registration desk. Living through COVID-19 I was asked to put on a mask, which made the entire experience feel more surreal for some odd reason. I threw my CareCard to the receptionist, answered her questions as best I could, and was immediately taken into the Emergency Room within minutes upon my arrival.

What was waiting for me next was shocking to say the least…….

First Impressions

If you’ve ever visited the Emergency Room at St.Pauls Hospital here in Downtown Vancouver, British Columbia, then you don’t need me to set the scene for you. However for those of you who have been fortunate enough to have never made the visit, let me give you a quick idea.

My neighbour to the right (Bed 15) was suicidal and was strapped down to her bed. My neighbour to the left (Bed 13) had shit and puked all over himself and was being so belligerent towards the hospital staff that he had 5 “CODE WHITES” called on him within a 3 hour time span (for those that don’t know, CODE WHITES are called when security is needed asap to the area in question). Oh and who could forget about my neighbour across from me (BED 24) who was handcuffed to his bed and had two police officers standing by while he lay passed out covered in his own piss. As you can imagine, my stay at the hospital was off to a great start.

However I didn’t check in to the hospital for entertainment purposes, or for the company, or so that I could enjoy the scenery. I checked in to the hospital simply because I wanted to know what the hell was wrong with me. Unfortunately I wouldn’t find this out for another 22 hours.

The Gross Shit

After taking my vital signs continuously over the first two hours and doing a couple of abdominal examinations, the Doctors decided they needed more information and sent me for a CT Scan immediately. At first I was impressed with how quickly they were able to get me in for this CT Scan, however I soon began to realize that if I had gotten in this quickly, this really must have been an emergency and could in fact be quite serious.

The results from the CT Scan came back within an hour. Unfortunately the part of the CT Scan which was most important to view (my lower abdominal region) was obstructed my faecal matter and therefore could not been seen or diagnosed. And that’s when the nurses were instructed to bring out out the Gastrografin.

If you’re not familiar with Gastrografin, it’s a liquid substance that contains diatrizoate meglumine and diatrizoate sodium liquid. It’s purpose is to make you shit your brains out. It’s usually prescribed to people to take the day before they go in for a colonoscopy to help “clear them out”. In my case the hope was that the Gastrografin would “clear me out” enough so that my second CT Scan would be easier to read. The fist problem was that Gastrografin tastes NASTY!!! And the second problem was that the Doctors wanted me to drink 2 litres of it within a 3 hour window before my next CT scan.

Look, I have a pretty high threshold for pain. And I can handle gross shit. In fact, I regularly find myself cleaning gross shit outside of our gym on a daily basis. But to drink 2 litres of gross shit in 3 hours while being doubled over in abdominal pain? I really had to put my big boy pants on for this one.

So I drank my gross shit. One of the nurses suggested adding in more ice to make the gross shit more “enjoyable”. It didn’t work. This shit was NASTY. In fact, I was considering living with the pain over drinking any more of the gross shit.

Once the gross shit was finally finished and a few hours had passed, not much had come out of me. As I mentioned earlier to one of the Doctors, I didn’t think much would have come out of me as I hadn’t eaten very much over the past few days. Therefore just to be certain that my next CT Scan would be 100% legible, the Doctor recommended one more step – An Enema……..

FML……

Stayed tuned for Part 2 Of MY 2-Part Blog – “THE STUPID THINGS I USED TO THINK….” next week!

Yours in Good Health,

Nick Cosgrove
Forever Fit Performance