A few days before the new year, while in a steak buffet at a Gary V concert in a country club (curse you Gary V), I felt a sharp burning pain in my abdomen. I dismissed it as hyperacidity like the moron that I was, and kept on chowing.
I had my elbow broken, fractured my heel, torn my big toe's ligament, busted my skull open, had a slipped vertebra, and I have been stabbed in the back with a nail cutter's folding knife (long story). None of these compared to the pain I experienced later that night. A trip to the ER reveals that my gallbladder 5 times the normal size and was about to explode. This is also the start of my love affair with prescription opiate painkillers.
How Poker Saved My Life #1 - Thanks to my bankroll, I'm not dead.
Granted it took my entire bankroll and a chunk of my life roll, but it's a small price to pay to not be dead. Good thing I had decently substantial roll that time. "But dude, don't you have a family to take care of you and pay for your life saving hospital shiznits?" Yeah I do, but I'd rather die before I throw my weight around. A grown man shouldn't run to mommy when he has a booboo. I'm not saying asking for help is bad, hell I think it's healthy. It's just that I ate all those steaks, so I get to pay the price, and then pay the price. Quick clarification: it wasn't the steaks per se that busted my gallbladder -it was merely the trigger that pushed an underlying condition to the surface.
How Poker Saved My Life #2 - Poker taught me to consider the long run.
Six months later I am still on a strict diet. I opted to skip the cholecystectomy until I've sufficiently reduced my gallbladder's size. That way they don't have to hack my side open and use robots and lasers instead for a much less invasive and painful procedure. This also makes my condition a lot more expensive (again prescription opiate painkillers, check those out). But it's that or never being able to do strenuous activities again, not with a huge gash of messed up muscles in my side.
Though the infection was quickly cured, the swelling would take year or so to fully subside. That's a year or so of no burgers, steaks and pretty much everything I like to eat. I force myself to see it as a blessing in disguise since I ought to clean up my diet and get fit for training anyway.
Speaking of training, I've recently returned to training after taking it easy for 5 months as per doctor's orders. I should be taking it easy for the whole year but screw that. I have a life to live. Hell I actually went back to training 2 months after the incident, though I was still seriously ill and Herb Dean had to step in and stop the fight. Speaking of Herb Dean...
How Poker Saved My Life #3 - Poker taught me how and when to fold/tap.
Like poker, MMA training also requires you to put your ego in check. Unchecked egos lead to injured limbs and passing out. Thanks to poker, I tap whenever I should, and always ask my coaches what I can do to remedy that hole in my game. Poker taught me to not try to focus on being better than my opponent, but instead just focus on being better.
Sadly I see some people in the gym who don't seem to get this concept of learning. To them it's about superiority and winning every sparring match. Well guess what, you don't get a medal for winning a sparring match. Not that they won any, or that there are winners in sparring matches. Also, sorry about that standing guillotine - you should have tapped ages ago.
I have a tendency to be stubborn. I should have gone straight to the hospital when the fistful of antacids didn't help me one bit. Had I stubbornly waited out my abdominal pain later that night I could have easily died.
I always make a lot of MMA - Poker metaphors in my head. But that's for another day. As for poker, I've never played a hand since I used my roll. I'll go back for sure, but for now I'm still enjoying the grind I'm in.
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