Christmas 2007. Right before that Thanksgiving I got sick, but thinking it was the flu I tried to tough it out for a few days. I actually had legionnaires' pneumonia and spent almost 13 weeks in one or another hospital. Early on I was hooked to a ventilator for 8 days in ICU, my body became septic and I had kidney failure. Three days before Christmas I was in the dialysis lab at a different hospital they had sent me to for physical rehab. Unlike the previous hospital where they would let me eat during dialysis, these guys wouldn't even let me have a glass of water for the four hours I was there 3 times a week.
On this day they had the balls to come back in with their free Christmas lunch of prime rib and eat in front of me. As a consolation I figured since the employees had prime rib for lunch, that's what we'd have for dinner......... ha, ha, ha, what was I thinking? I can't recall offhand what disgusting swill they served for dinner, but it wasn't prime rib.
The wife and family were all coming up on Christmas day with food and presents, but that Christmas Eve I was having dialysis, so they were all going out to a Japanese Steak House. My son and daughter volunteered to come up later that night with some hibachi steak. Problem was I never knew how crappy I'd feel after dialysis until it was actually over with. Well, that was one of the crappy feeling nights and as good as it tasted, I couldn't hold down the steak.
Christmas day was as OK as it could be laying in a hospital bed, but the family was all there and we had some pretty good food. So yeah, 2007 would be the overall worst experience I've had for a Christmas.
There is a happy ending. Just a day or two before I was discharged from the hospital my kidneys bounced back enough so I could get off dialysis. Then, with a lot of rehab, I finally went back to work after being off for just under six months.