By Thomas Warren III, Editor-in-Chief
As we approach Christmas and the start of 2024, many people are thinking about the past year in review, the ups and downs of the year, and the things they are thankful about from 2023. As for me, this year, I’m especially thankful for good health.
Earlier this year, I had a little health scare. Long story short, on Monday, June 19th, I felt like I couldn’t even drive myself to work. I ended up laying in bed all day long, running a fever and barely able to stay awake. And I was like that for about four days.
On Wednesday, my wife took me to the doctor, where I was given an IV and some antibiotics, but nothing got better. Finally, she took me to an emergency clinic where the doctor ran some tests and came back with his diagnosis several hours later.
“Well, I’m not sure what’s going on with you, but you have a swollen liver,” he told me.
“So, what does that mean,” I asked.
“I’m not sure, and I don’t want to throw this out there, but I’ll just be honest,” I remember the doctor saying. “It could be cancer.”
In an instant, it felt like my world was shutting down. I was planning on starting law school part-time in about a month. I had some projects going on at work. I was thinking about throwing my name in the hat for Tax Assessor-Collector. My wife and I had started talking about planning for having a family in a few years.
Was it all about to come to an end?
We paid our co-pay and went home, where I crashed. I felt both so physically and emotionally drained that I just didn’t even want to think about it. My wife called some family members who are in the medical field and they all advised her to take me to BSA’s emergency room. So that Friday night, I got in the car, and rode with my wife to the hospital, worried about what conclusion the doctors there would draw.
After getting checked into a room and running some tests, I saw the doctor. She came in and talked to me, asked me about my condition, and then drew a conclusion.
“Well, I’m pretty sure you have a virus,” she told me.
“Are you sure it isn’t cancer,” I asked her.
She chuckled and told me that she was 90% sure it wasn’t cancer. In fact, she predicted that in a week, my symptoms would start to clear up. However, she did say that if they didn’t start to clear up in a month, that I should come back and they would run more tests.
Well, her prediction wasn’t quite right; it took four days instead of seven for things to start clearing up. But sure enough, I ended up fine. And I felt back to full health again in about a month and a half.
I’m writing this story today because a lot of people don’t know about this little health scare I encountered or why I didn’t write much for the Pioneer in the late summer. In fact, I was even out of commission on election night for the City Council runoff elections because of this illness — the first election night I’ve taken off since starting The Pioneer. But I was incredibly fortunate to have Noah Dawson there to help cover everything.
I look back at that little health scare and I realize how lucky I am. I’m lucky to have family and friends who made the drive out to support me and my wife (some of whom drove six hours) — no matter what the diagnosis was going to be at BSA. I’m thankful to have co-workers who helped pick up the slack when I wasn’t in any condition to be reporting on the elections. And I’m thankful to have a loving wife who was going to be by my side no matter what happened.
I know many people are not as lucky as I am, which makes these factors even more special to me. Out of everything from 2023, I’m most thankful for good health and my family and friends who were there for me this year. You’ll never know how much you all mean and how much the travel, the phone calls, and the text messages meant.