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Cheating Death 25 Times Haibun

Cheating Death Hanibun Poem

I have cheated death 25 times in my life. I was born in Oakland, California, in 1955, two months premature. As a result, I spent my first couple of months in an incubator. When I came out, the doctors said it would be tough for me:

I would be blind, partially deaf, with a weakened immune system, and severe learning disabilities. They said I might not survive until adulthood.

So, I faced many medical challenges early on. I had all the childhood diseases between two and five: bronchitis, influenza, measles, German measles, whooping cough, mumps, and pneumonia. I almost died.

I had to repeat the first grade because I only showed up for two days the entire year. I was half-blind, one-quarter deaf, with a severe speech impediment, crooked, evil teeth, and a slight learning disability.

On the plus side, I was reading PhD-level material by age six!

In high school, I survived pneumonia and a car crash. In the Peace Corps in Korea, I contracted typhoid fever and spent five weeks in the hospital. Later, I came down with asthma, bronchitis, and pneumonia.

But the closest I came to death was in 1996: I went jogging one morning and fell down a ledge I didn’t see in the dark. I broke my heel into a million pieces and needed reconstructive surgery. My wife was in the military in San Antonio, while I was with the State Department in DC.

The Army doctors treated me with an experimental protocol using shark cartilage. Unfortunately, the antibiotics didn’t reach behind the cartilage, and the staph infection grew, becoming drug-resistant.

I spent almost six months in Walter Reed Hospital, endured fourteen operations, almost lost my leg, and nearly died. Fortunately, they were able to do a last-minute bone graft operation from my hip. They said that they had a 40 percent possibility of success, but if they operated, they recommended amputation. I told them I would take those odds, and fortunately, I survived.

Later, excessive antibiotic use caused acute gastritis, sending me to the ICU for two weeks.

         While at WR hospital dealing with the MDR staph, I also developed a rare parasite that lies dormant until steroids activate it, causing it to swell like a basketball and kill within 30 minutes. I developed frozen shoulder syndrome from the antibiotics and needed steroids, but the doctors discovered the parasite just in time. If that doctor had not figured out the parasite, when I took the steroids, I would have died in 30 minutes, and the doctors would all be saying. WTF?” and I would have died due to a medical mystery.

I also developed arthritis, fibromyalgia, and hammer toes, requiring surgery.

When I taught at a Korean university in the late ’80s, I was tear-gassed daily for three years. Once, a tear gas canister flew over my head and exploded, nearly killing me.

Later, I contracted dengue fever, had COVID twice, survived two car crashes, and narrowly avoided a 25-car pileup in 1990 in Korea. Something told us to get off the freeway; when we returned minutes later, we saw the pileup we would have been in. I also almost got run over by a train and a bus.

         In 2024, I came down with an unspecified bacterial infection that led me to lose 20 pounds in two months, and I had constant severe coughing and wheezing. The doctors did not know what was wrong with me, gave me steroids and antibiotics, and I recovered in about a month. Fortunately, I kept the weight off.

         In 2023, I was diagnosed with pre-diabetes, which fortunately has not progressed to full-blown diabetes, but I have to watch my diet and check my blood sugar levels frequently.

Ever since, I’ve believed that something is looking out for me. In the end, I have cheated death 25 times in my life.

I have cheated death
More than 25 times by now
Still alive at 69