I guess there's a "Aha" moment for everyone who decides to make a major life change, for some it's an instantaneous Damascus Road experience and for others it's the final one of a succession of events that becomes the last straw.
My last straw came one Saturday afternoon in February 2005 as I sat on our bathroom floor in intense pain, sweating profusely and throwing up the barely existent contents of my long empty stomach.
It was Superbowl weekend and I was looking forward to watching the game with a friend, the refrigerator well-stocked with refreshments in anticipatiuon of the big day. On the Monday my wife and I would be flying to South Africa to check in with the humanitarian program we help operate over there, working with at-risk children and AIDS orphans.
None of those things happened. Instead, I had emergency gall bladder surgery a few hours before the big game and was sleeping off the anesthetic as the Patriots beat the Eagles. The SA trip was cancelled.
That was my third hospital visit in six months. The previous summer I had minor knee surgery, finding myself back in hospital seven days later with a blood clot on my lung. That was all a bit much for someone who had hardly had a day's illness in his life and the last episode pushed me over the edge.
As they wheeled me through the hallways of Mather Hospital to prep me for surgery, I saw a sign that seemed to bellow at me - Move More, Eat Less.
When it was all over, I decided to take that advice. I had seen enough nurses, surgeons, hospitals and bedpans and determined that I would do all that was within my own power to become healthy and stay that way.
And so the journey began!
