In spring 2003 I started my diet for the NOC in New York City. This so-called Night of Champions was the third highest ranked show in pro bodybuilding after the Arnold Classic and the Olympia, the latter of which is the highest ranked pro event. I had won that show (the Night of Champions) before (in 1995) and I was also second there (in 1994). About two weeks out of the 2003 show I started feeling very sick, and also my lower body began filling up with water. I had to cancel my photo shoot with Chris Lund from Flex magazine. I started coughing and got hiccups. The hiccups did not stop, not even at night time so I could barely sleep. I still wanted to make it to the show and I had only two more weeks to go. But it got worse and worse. My right rear shoulder started visibly producing pus. I did not call the doctor but instead called my mom who flew in from Germany right away to help me out. I still did not comprehend the dimension of this sickness. When my mother arrived here shortly after I called her to help me out, she also began extracting pus from my deltoid with needles. It went on for two whole days and the syringes never stopped filling up. Pus was just pouring in colors white, yellow and brownish.
My mother vehemently urged me to go to the hospital but I still wanted to do the show and wanted to go to the hospital afterwards. As a bodybuilder you are used to pain, so I just wanted to endure it until the show was over and then I would consult a physician. Finally the needles were not long enough to reach the bottom of the infection on my rear right deltoid, so I went to a local hospital in the north of San Diego County and intended to stay there for one day only. I got hooked up on IV’s and was supposed to stay there. But I still wanted to do the show and checked out after almost a whole day of being there. At home again, I continued experiencing hiccups and my shoulder swelled up even more. Two days later I called a good friend of mine and told him that he should pick me up take me to the hospital. My friend told me that he must first have breakfast and that he would come by afterward. I told him: “you do not understand, you have to come right now, I am dying.” My friend and business partner, Fred, then came immediately and drove my mother and me to the La Jolla, CA hospital where I was put right away into a wheelchair. My blood was checked and all my values were off, my blood sugar level was off; I did not have any minerals in my system. And I was close to kidney failure. A doctor told me that he had to open me up right away to drain my delt. I had a staph infection.
I just took a seat on a hospital bed and the surgeon started out – without anesthesia – draining, cutting and scraping dead tissue out of my delt while my mom held the tray behind my back so that all the removed substances could be collected there. It was very smelly, so much so that my mom told me later that she almost had to throw up. For sure I had to stay in hospital and I remained there for ten whole days. I lost almost 70 pounds during that time. The more time passed, the less I trusted the four doctors on my case. Every one of them had a different theory about my situation and my future treatment. They just pushed my medical chart from doctor to doctor. I also had to give blood samples four times a day, every day. And they woke me up once at 4.00am, eight days after I was hospitalized, to place me on a scale to check my weight. I got really upset and asked them why this did not happen way before but I was told that they “did not have time before.” I also had IV’s in my left forearm for the first five days and my right delt was packed up in a huge dressing. So, when I went to the bathroom I had major problems because the IV stand was with me and I had to pull it behind me. I could barely turn because of the freshly surgically opened shoulder. Also it was not possible to close the bathroom door behind me because of the long IV cable.
Once, at night time, the wound broke completely open from the blood pressure inside my shoulder and there was blood just spraying out like a water fountain. The nurse panicked and I had to tell her to calm down and apply a new clean dressing. Supposedly there was no night doctor there. At the same time I was put on a 1600-calorie diet in order to regulate my insulin. But this was almost unbearable. Going from a bodybuilding pre contest diet to hospital and basically continuing a diet while also being so sick and being off my pre contest drugs (anabolic steroids and GH) so rapidly, created complete chaos in my system. I got the impression that the doctors experimented with me; they never had such a freak on their hands before.
I was so starved that I began taking away food from the lunch cart (all the different meals for all the different patients). Also another friend of mine started smuggling food in for me. I just could not help it. During my stay some fans recognized me and took two T-Shirts, one tank top and my slippers away. The nurse did not want to believe me, she thought I was making it up and she told me that no one wanted her clothing (laughs).
Also there were several desperate attempts from the side of the hospital personnel to get water out of my legs and elephant-like looking calves. Nurses wanted me to wear high heals to get my water out – just ridiculous! Then they wrapped bandages around my extremely swollen legs and calves to get rid of the excess water. My mom called these peoples’ attempts to help me “animal treatment”. I was given diuretics for water loss but my body was so used to diuretics from competing that a regular amount was barely anything for my system. It was nothing. So my dad who had also meanwhile arrived from Germany and my mom brought from my house more and stronger diuretics, which I self-administered to get my water out. We three had been concerned that the accumulating water could move to my heart and by seeing what the doctors did we just could not trust them fully. One of the doctors even started screaming at me because I wanted to have it explained exactly what the plan was and how they wanted to proceed with me regarding my treatment. I told him that he should lower his voice because “we are not at the marine recruiting center in Camp Pendleton “. And I also told him that I was very well educated despite him thinking that I was just a self-abusive bodybuilder.
As I said, I checked out after ten days despite the demands from the doctors to stay longer. Originally I was also supposed to stay there for much longer, they also wanted to put a tube into me, going from my left biceps to my left front delt. I was supposed to receive antibiotics via an IV because they claimed that I still had bacteria in one of my heart valves. I later went to another independent doctor who did a so-called cardio echogram on me. The result was that my heart was completely bacteria-free. My final experience showed that I had only one capable doctor; it was the doctor who got my pus-spewing delt clean. It was the same doctor who had done another surgery on me in 1998.
Asiduo.
Muerto por dentro
Baneado
Veterano
Freak
Freak total
