of the head with a 2x4. I actually drove myself home (my wife was at home with a 1 and 2 year old so I couldn't call her to come get me) but I knew something was seriously wrong. I remember walking into the house and saying to my wife, "something is wrong" and then walking back into our bedroom and laying down with my head under the pillow. I then started throwing up. I took 2 Tylenol and 4 Advil (which I now know Advil is the worst thing I could do for a brain bleed) and somehow managed to get to sleep. When I woke up the next morning, I was still in pain, but the headache was a 5 on the 0-10 pain scale (the night before it was a 10) and my mind was in a total numb fog. My wife made me go to a minor emergency facility. Normally I would argue with her, but I was a little freaked out by the night before. When the doctor saw me and I told him my symptoms, I was trying to blow it off, but he left and came back and said "I called Boca Regional, you're going to drive yourself straight to the ER right now, and doctor XXXX is going to meet you at the front. You have to promise me you will drive straight to the ER". So I did. I'm surprised in retrospect he didn't call for an ambulance, but maybe he sensed I would have pushed back.

I was admitted, they did a scan and the next thing I know, a doctor comes in and tells me they're transferring me to Hollywood memorial hospital by ambulance. A nurse comes in and takes my hand and says she'll be praying for me. I was like "Okayyyy......???". No one had fully explained what was going on at this point, but when I get to Hollywood medical center they admit me directly into the ICU, and a neurosurgeon comes to see me and proceeds to tell me that I had a brain bleed, that most brain bleeds are caused by an aneurism and then tells me that something like 80% of people with a brain bleed don't make it to the hospital conscious or alive. They have me scheduled for interventional radiology the next morning to do a cerebral angiogram and if they find the source of the bleed, they'll either do a coiling procedure to fix the aneurism if possible or if not possible, doing open surgery to repair the aneurism. He then tells me all the risks associated with the procedures... none of them good. It was at this point that the shit got real for me. Although in the back of my mind I drew comfort in the fact that I was still alive ~18 hours after the incident originally happened. I told myself if this thing was going to kill me, it would have happened last night.

In any event, to make a long story short (too late I know), the angiogram was negative, they couldn't find the source of the bleed (which is a good thing) and they said it was likely due to bursting a smaller vessel in the brain from exertion. They kept me in the ICU for a few days for observation because of the risk of vasospasms from the presence of blood in the subarachnoid space, and then a few days in a step down room. I was released after 6 days with a new outlook and lease on life. I'm apparently uninsurable now, but I did at least already have a 20 year term policy in place.