Hey there. Matthew Lentz was an engineer at Boeing for decades, and not the stereotype

engineers are anything, but he's not super demonstrative. Like, when I asked him to tell me

the story of how he almost died, this is how he begins.

When my merry go round started, I was 56 and I'm 72 now.

Oh, yeah, it was pretty crazy.

That's Matt's wife Diana. Matt will tell you, he would never have survived the merry go

round without her. Well, let him get the story going.

I worked for Boeing for over 34 years, and one day I had a pain in my lower right side.

A pal of his had his appendix burst, a real mess. Matt wanted to avoid that, but committed

Boeing employee, it's not like he was going to clock out early.

I sat there all day doing my job and I took the bus home and I decided I was going to go

to the doctor.

A few hours later, he's in the hospital getting his appendix out. It was messy, what they

call perforated. Matt spent a couple days in intensive care, recovering, and then he

gets a visit from the surgeon.

He asked for everybody else to leave the room, except for Diana. And he says, I'm so sorry.

I'm so sorry. I'm just sorry. And I looked at him for what? I said, did you leave a tool

in there or something? You know, you forgot to take it out. I mean, cancer was the last

thing in my mind, but there was Matthew was back in surgery next day, getting a third of

his colon removed. Then there was chemo, two flavors. The second one left Matt with neuropathy,

nerve damage. 15 years later, he still can't feel the bottom of his feet, except when they

tingle or when the lower half of his body feels like it's on fire. But at least the doctor

...