Near Death, Thanksgiving, and Lots of…

Michael S. Copeland - Information and Knowledge - Podcasts powered by Odiogo

This is the blog post you’ve all been waiting for. What the heck happened!? Well I’m going to tell you all about this week long ordeal, right here in this very post!

I guess lets start with Thanksgiving. It was great. My wife and kids were going to my wife’s Grandmother’s house, as we normally do. She lives in a 2 BR apartment in a retirement community. However, this time, I was cooking the turkey.

Now I had NEVER cooked a turkey before in my life, ever! So I wanted to kick it up a notch and maybe rotisorie BBQ it on the grill! Now that would be awesome! I went to the Pathetic Suburban Males Grill Club site to see of one of the guys had done it or if there were tips, but not at the time. (although I don’t drink)

Then I looked in all my grill books and online and found some great recipes! Decisions, decisions. When it came down to is, I just pulled out the old roaster and roasted it “like normal”. It turned out nice and juicy so I was happy. Since turkey is “so important” on Thanksgiving (to some of us) I didn’t want to try any crazy suburban male rotisserie turkey with special jalapeno basting techniques, and possibly ruin the sacred bird of the day. So I did it traditional, the way grandma did it every Thanksgiving since I moved here over 11 years ago.

Thanksgiving dinner was great. The food was wonderful and although my wife, kids and I cooked most of it and took it to grandmas it all turned out nice. Heck, I even made my first turkey gravy too. (Best I ever had, shhhh)

We packed up the left overs and went back home. Next year, as the plan stands right now, we’ll have “Turkey day” at MY house. So this gives me some time to test out some of those crazy BBQ techniques.

The day after Thanks giving though, something happened. I started getting a little cough. I’ve had this type of cough before. It’s an infection moving into the lungs! Sinus infection moving down or something going straight for it or both. On top of that, I had been having problems with asthma so it wasn’t a good sign. I got as much work done but it kept getting progressively worse.

The next morning, Saturday, breathing was very hard to come by. I went to the store, to get some OTC stuff to fight this gunk in my lungs, I needed to cough it out. It just wasn’t working as well or as fast as I had liked it to work. , then I posted this on Twitter:

Saturday night, I was in such bad shape, I almost passed out from not getting enough air. I was in the bathroom with the tub filling up with hot steamy water, trying to cough all this junk out. Inbetween me coughing, and trying to breathe, and a fever, it was just about lights out. For real! However, I survived that scary moment and kept alive.

Sunday I posted this on Twitter.

Sunday was a scary night, not knowing if I’d pass out in my sleep or stop breathing or what. I knew that First thing in the morning was going to be a call to see the doc!

Normally when you call the Doc, they say we can see you on Thurs or something like that, NO! I called and left a message with the receptionist and if there was no appointments that day I was going to go anyway! But my doc is very cool!

Like I said, I called and was waiting for the nurse to call me back with the appointment time.

I received a call back and they said to come in right away. They did all the normal checks then gave me some breathing checks. It was pretty much decided I was going to the hospital but “I’m a man, and I’m tough and I don’t want to go to the hospital” was my stupid way of thought. Mostly because of the cost of the whole thing.

They gave me a peak flow meter to breathe into. Blow1 25% of normal. “No no, you have to blow your hardest, with all you have.” (I did the first time) Blow2 28% of normal. “If that’s all you can do, I need to admit you right now!” Blow3 30%

Well I was at the hospital for 3 days. Every 4 hours getting a nebulizer treatment. Pumping me full of antibiotics and steroids to open the lungs. It was a trying ordeal. I’m glad I had the room to myself for 2 days at least.

During the time there, I had no phone, battery died. That meant not calling some people who’s numbers were “memorized” by my phone. That also meant no more tweets from Jott either. If you go back and listen to those Jotts, you’ll tell I wasn’t doing too well. You can hear it in my voice, or how I had to stop to take a breath in the middle of a sentence.

Finally, yesterday, I was happy to send this out:

I got home tweeted and then went up to take it easy, charge my phone, and call back everyone that left voice messages, and all that.

I had tons of DM and public tweets from people here are some of them:

Another thing while I was in the hospital, I had time. I had time away from gadgets and computers. It was just me, time to reflect on my life and business and where I was going and what I was doing. I drew mind maps and I came up with multiple improvements to processes and procedures.

I think the most important thing I realized is the need people have right now to make money. The recession has “officially” hit and now that it’s “OK” to say it, it’s all over. Well it’s been here for a while people. Maybe it’s time for you to take the time to re-evaluate what you’re doing or planning to do.

Times have changed, there are people out of work, there are people who are losing hours, their paychecks aren’t as big as they used to be. People don’t have the money to spend on things. I know in my business I’ve seen this across the board on multiple genres.

Businesses are trying to stay afloat so they can keep paying their employees.

So I have decided to focus my energy on those businesses, whether they have been a brick & mortar business for 45 years and are getting their first website, or if they are a new business who needs help with online marketing. It is those businesses I have decided to focus my energy on.

Businesses provide jobs and money to people and I hope those jobs and money stay here, within America. Outsourcing is a way of life for any business but there are so many people here in America who need that money. All I’m saying, is that if you’re using any of the freelance sites, think about your neighbor who has a car, rent, and kids. They want to write that article for you for $15, give it to them.

You’re going to see some changes from me in the near future. You’ll see new sites, and new offers to help you stay afloat. I’ll help in any way I can. I’ve had a lot of great comments on some of my videos especially this one: SOCIALIZER

So if things like that will help you, I’ll continue to make them.

As of now, I need to go take some medicine and take it easy. There’s still some stuff in my lungs but I can now take a deep breath, which is very refreshing, considering a week ago I couldn’t.

I appreciate you taking the time to read this whole post. I know it’s a long one, and I haven’t written one for a while.

I appreciate your kinds words and thoughts as I continue my road to full recovery.
Thank you, for being you.

- Michael S. Copeland

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