Music Good afternoon, Michael Malice here. Let that be your welcome for the next hour. Guys, this is, I think the first very special episode of your welcome we have ever done because today's returning guest is someone who recently almost made me cry for good reasons. Not bad. admit it. What? I know I made you cry admit it. No you didn't close it was close I was tearing up. We have a big mouth Ben Ascreen who won't let me do my intro. Ben is Olympic wrestler, national wrestling champion, MMA champion, shitty boxer and a real all around badass. I hung out with him several times. And like many of you, a few a while ago, I just saw this Instagram video of Ben looking like bad AI because Ben, you know, is a big dude, strong guy. And he was down to like, I must have been like around a hundred pounds or something like that. I'll hand out you had. What's that?

138 was my lowest. But I'm 38 to 200. So that's quite the discrepancy. Yeah. And you had just had a double lung transplant. We almost lost you. I am not ashamed to admit. I prayed for you and your family. I'm sure a lot of other people did. What's the harm? And you know, I've met your wife Amy. She's a badass. And when you called me last week out of the blue, it was very kind of moving because when people say everything's going to be fine, it's one thing. But when someone calls you and wants to spend more time talking about Twitter, and that's their big concern, you know, all right, this guy's going to be okay. So Ben, I don't even know where to start. I'm curious from your perspective, because you were in a coma for how long? Roughly 40 days. What's it like waking up? Is it disorienting? Do you remember any of it? I mean, no, I don't really remember any of it. So yeah, I went, I sent you out of the Vegas with a Bitcoin conference. I had this back pain and I thought it was a back spasm and it had been going on for kind of a while, you know. And finally my wife's like, Hey, let's go to the hospital. I go, okay, fine. Like, whatever. Can I ask you're like a really tough guy, right? people don't realize this of all the MMA people the rest there's are off in the toughest because it's such a

sport where it's just you you don't have a team you and another guy you really kind of developed a sense of toughness. So am I correct that for her to get your ass to the hospital it takes some work you're really good or am I or am I wrong? Know you're right because that was that was Wednesday and the painted been there since the previous Saturday

But like I said, I was pretty convinced it was a backspasms but it would have been like the worst one I ever had but it was it was in a similar area to where I've had other ones so that was kind of why I was convinced of that. I went to the hospital the first day on Wednesday and you know I told the doctor my symptoms but the weird thing was every vital I had was just perfectly normal you know heart rate blood pressure oxygen everything was totally normal and so I said man I got this pain I've had a very similar pain before I think the back spasm can you give me the medicine to you know because the muscle relaxants actually work great for back spasms and they generally heal it. And so I got the stuff and then that night everything went way downhill.

I mean, like I couldn't sleep. I kept trying to like get into bathtub, maybe to loosen up my back or whatever.

But I was still I was still stubborn and delusional. And when I woke up my wife had filled me sleeping and sent it to a few doctors that we know. And they said, get us to the hospital as fast as you can. And I was still like, just let me get some coffee. I'll be all right. You know, like, I was, what was so weird about the sleep that the doctors were triggered by? I was breathing really like short and fast Okay. Actually, like, and I,

obviously I didn't realize this about myself

because you can't look at yourself

or I didn't go into the mirror, but my face looked like shit. I mean, I'm sure Amy don't post a video at some point but my face just looked terrible. I was almost like super big bags under my eyes. Like it was just, I looked really rough. And so my friend, I had a friend and his wife with us

and they're like, dude, you should go to hospital again.

And then with that, I had a friend and her, his wife with us and they're like,

dude, you should go to hospital again. And then literally, you know, Amy got in the,

it's really funny. She told me this after that and realized it, but she had my friend and his

wife trail us to the Uber because she thought I might be non-compliant to going again.

But so I got in the weekend. I know so funny. We'll be the house of husband. I know, so funny. So we got to the hospital and literally I remember walking in the same exact one we do the previous day. I remember walking into the waiting room and then nothing. Like nothing. And then the next thing, the next thing I know I wake up in the hospital and I'm like, what happened to me? I have no idea how much time has passed. And my first thought was, okay, how did I mess myself up? And I started trying to think through all of the events in June, was I driving? Did I get in a car accident? Like, what actually happened to me? I had no idea. My God, so I mean, I'm sure you talked to her since sense about, from her perspective, that poor woman, like you didn't put her through enough already when you were awake. What, can you explain what happened there? Yeah, I mean, so basically, I'll go through the kind of the fast version. I had a staff infection. It was like a really small one. I thought it

had cleared up. I mean, you know, like you can see staff on your skin it kind of looks gross. And then if you treat it correctly, it goes away. And this one appeared to me. It appeared to go away. But at some point during the whole process, I, and it had gotten to my bloodstream. And then and then from my bloodstream, it went to my lungs,

which, who even knew that was a thing?

And that was like, some people say

I was too reckless or careless, and it's like, It had gotten to my bloodstream and then from my bloodstream it had went to my lungs, which who even knew that was a thing?

Right.

And that was like some people say I was too reckless or careless and it's like Who've ever heard of something like this? Right. Like it was never even under my radar of consideration of like, oh, maybe that's happening like I didn't even know that did happen. But it's not like you have an inhaler and you're an inhaling staff disease. Yeah. Talk about your list.

Right.

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