When I finally finished filming five straight 17 hour days for the DVDs, I came home, packed my bags, and headed to Orlando, Florida to wrestle the next day. If you remember reading the last email about coughing up blood...well guess what, it started up all over again that Friday night. A lot of people told me I left them hanging in the last email about the surgery and coughing up blood, so here's the Cliff Note version on what happened. The Friday before the YRG DVD shoot, I had a trickle of blood coming out of my esophagus that just wouldn't stop, so I went to a doctor who sent me to a specialist and the next thing I know I'm in the operating room and they went in and cauterized my throat to get it to stop the bleeding. In case you don't know, cauterizing is basically like sticking a hot poker on the area and burning the hole closed... How sweet is that...

The following Saturday and Sunday I was totally burnt out and could barely swallow or move. The next day Monday we started shooting, So I had to cowboy up and take a couple of painkillers so I could get to work and shoot the videos. I took the pain killers just so I could talk... well it was really more like in between talking and shouting... if you know the way I talk... Kimberly used to say "Page in an area with 60,000 people you don't need a mike" The good news was the doctor told me that he found no cancer or polyps in my throat during the surgery. The bad news was Friday night after shooting the videos, the bleeding started again... What the F*%k... I had to fly to Orlando on Saturday with Angella to wrestle for the 6:05 Reunion on Sunday night, so I called my doctor to see what I should do. He told me that I should be ok, but to keep him posted if I have any new problems. By the time Sunday came around, I was spitting up so much blood it was ridiculous. I called my doctor numerous times and finally he suggested gargling with ice cubes... now there is something I would have never thought of...

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As I was talking to Kanyon about the match, he was getting thoroughly grossed out and was afraid to bump me during the match at all. He kept asking me if I really wanted to do this. You know me, the show must go on. If I have a commitment, I'll be there. Besides that, it wasn't just about the wrestling match, it was about helping my friend Chris (Kanyon) be true to himself. What a lot of you may not know is that Chris Kanyon is gay, and like many gay people out there who are regular people, well they have a really tough time dealing with the fact that they're gay and not knowing how their friends and family will react. It can cause them to go as far as to try to kill themselves and my bro Chris was one of those people who did just that ... he tried to kill himself. Chris has been one of my closest friends for years and, even when he was going through his deepest depression and tried to kill himself, I never had a clue that he was gay and I'm a guy who has always thought I had pretty good gay-dar.?

The bottom line is when Chris finally came clean... pretty much of all of his friends who he told were happy for him... not that he way gay but that he was at peace with himself. Chris wanted to make a statement that night and he asked me if I would help him come out... I was like tonight... in the ring... and he was like yeah tonight got to be tonight... He explained to me that there are so many gay athletes that come out after they retire, which really doesn't set any kind of example to the kids out there who are struggling with their identity and try to kill themselves. I thought at the time and still do that it took a lot of guts for Chris to do this. So, as I'm getting ready for the match, coughing up blood clots the size of small animals, and grossing Chris out big time, I've started to do my YRG workout to loosen up. Amazingly, I guess the ice cubes kicked in and the blood slows down. By the time I go through the curtain and on my way to the ring, the blood has stopped completely.

 

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