Posted on 05/21/2003 7:16:43 AM PDT by theFIRMbss
Booker: ‘I thought I was going to die’
by Phil Speer
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – May 18, 2003 -- Booker T isn’t 100 percent yet, but he says he’s well on his way to recovering from pneumonia.
The five-time WCW Champion became violently ill on May 10, and had to be rushed to the hospital late that night. Booker -- who wrestles in the Intercontinental Title Battle Royal today, his first in-ring action since becoming ill – says he’s never been that sick in his life.
“I thought I was going to die actually, because I’ve never really felt like that before,” Booker told WWE.com in an interview this afternoon before Judgment Day. “When you see blood and you can put a Band-Aid on it, that’s one thing, but when you’re hacking it up, you know it’s something different. It’s internal, and it’s something you can’t deal with.”
Booker said he may have caught pneumonia simply as a result of his rigorous schedule.
“Doctors told me it’s not something that comes with age or anything like that,” he said. “I’d been feeling sick over the past three weeks a little bit -- I wouldn’t say sick, but just not myself. I’d been coughing a little bit. But I didn’t feel sick. It was just something that my immune system had been trying to fight off. But me coming to work and wanting to be on the job and not really taking rest when I need to -- and even when I’m at home, I’ve got stuff I’m doing also -- my immune system just broke down for a moment.”
The Houston native said he started feeling chills just before he left his hotel in Philadelphia to travel to Newark, Del., for a non-televised event that night.
“All of a sudden, it just got a little cold,” he said. “And it was good weather – there was no reason to be cold. It was golf weather. As time went on – from 5 o’clock to 6 o’clock – there was about a 30 percent drop off as far as the weather to me, as far as my body. By 6:30 it had probably dropped off another 30 degrees. So to me it felt like it was probably 20 degrees outside. I felt like I had a fever, but I didn’t know if I had a fever. Finally, I just got to the point where I felt like I would’ve been at risk if I would have gone out and worked.
“I went to the training room and I told them I couldn’t work. It was kind of cold in there to me, but it wasn’t cold to anybody else. So I went out in the car and put the heater on. They didn’t want me to go back to the hotel by myself, so I waited a while. (WWE agent) Terry Taylor drove me back. (At the hotel) I pretty much just passed out. It woke me up an hour later.
I was in pain. My kidney was hurting really, really bad, like it was swollen. I couldn’t breathe really. I could only take really, really short breaths. Then I realized I was spitting up blood. I knew I had to go to the hospital.”
Booker was taken via ambulance and was admitted immediately. Doctors said he had either pneumonia or a blood clot; tests soon revealed that it was in fact pneumonia. For two straight days, he received antibiotics intravenously, which cleared out the fluid in his lungs, and helped him recover enough that he could fly home to Houston on Tuesday evening.
“I was really anxious to go home, so I think they let me out a little bit earlier than they would have let out somebody else,” Booker said.
Flying home was a struggle because Booker had no appetite and hadn’t eaten in three days. He said his girlfriend, Sharmell Sullivan, came to Philadelphia, took care of him, and helped him make it home.
Booker was scheduled to sign autographs yesterday in Dallas, but was replaced by Eric Bischoff, giving him an extra day to recuperate. Today is his first day back on the road. Booker said he spent the entire week doing nothing but watching television and drinking juice.
“Even when I felt like I was OK, when I’d go to do something, I’d feel groggy and weak, and my head might start hurting a little bit,” he said. “I’d feel like I’d need to just sit down and kick back.
“Right now I’m just taking it day by day, just trying to get my strength back. I haven’t been able to work out or anything like that. I feel good, but I’m not myself right now. I’m not 100 percent. I’d say I’m probably 75 percent, something like that.”
Booker said he took his last prescription pill just yesterday, the same day he finally got his appetite back. “It was the first day I was able to eat a full meal,” he said. “That felt pretty good.”
Booker said he expects tonight’s Battle Royal to be less physically strenuous than a singles match. (He laughingly said that even at 75 percent, he felt like he could win.) But he said that if was scheduled for a singles match tonight, he could have done it.
“If I would have had to,” he said. “The thing about my body, it seems to pull out of me what I need at that time. I don’t know how I would’ve felt afterwards. But I’m sure I would’ve been able to go. And the fans always give you that adrenaline rush. A lot of them were probably concerned about me also, wondering why I wasn’t on TV last week.
A lot of them probably heard I was sick. I got a couple of calls at the hospital from a couple of fans. I think I would’ve been able to get through it, but it would’ve been much more taxing on my body as far as getting back to 100 percent.”
He said he’s uncertain about his status for tomorrow’s RAW in Greenville, S.C.
“Right now I’m scheduled to be at RAW,” he said. “I’m not sure what I’m going to be doing, or how much of a role I can play tomorrow. It’s going to come down to how I feel after I do this thing tonight.”
This hit him real fast. And real hard. Either this shows how bad "regular" pneumonia can be, or this is what SARS looks like here in the US.
Regular pneumonia (called walking pneumonia around here) is rough, I have had it several times over the last 40 years. The last time I got it, I knew within two days of the first symptoms what I had, beat feet to the urgent care facility and told the doc what I thought. He pooh-poohed me and took an x-ray. Came back and apologized, circled the spot and said "What is your recomendation for treatment?" LOL!
One of the reasons
I put up this thread, is to
counter some posters
I've seen in SARS threads
who dismiss "plain" pneumonia
as something almost
trivial. Booker's
description of his symptoms
should scare anyone!
I'm surprised he didn't talk about the fever and the weight loss. When I traveled to St. P, Russia in late January and February, I'm 90% sure that I got the SARS. I lost over 10 pounds in sweat in just three days and I'm not overweight. Just this month I finally got over the problems with my lungs. I was not able to breath 100% freely for all this time and apparently SARS does some inner lining damage to the lungs. When I talked to CDC they said I was about a week or so early to catch it, but I don't think they had fully tracked its initial spread properly.
If Booker really had SARS he won't be a 100% for a while.
Partly true - viral infections open you up to bacterial infections too.
This made me wonder.
Many "normal" diseases
are now getting worse
because they've become
drug-resistant. And some types
of pneumonia
are caused by agents
"difficult to isolate."
I wonder if SARS
could be a mutant
of "normal" pneumonia
that's acquired some
antibiotic
resistance. I wonder why
scientists look to
animal virus
cross-over, before looking
at this "common" change...
[laughs] You might be right.
I'm guessing that when this guy
gets a chest cold, then
he get a chest cold...
(I suppose we might wonder,
too, if he might use
steroids or such stuff
which would impact on his health.
Yikes. SARS on steroids!)
Not to mention the runs.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.