Death Clutch

by Brock Lesnar

  Now I had a real problem. My health was getting worse by the day, and the fight was getting closer. I had to make a decision. I wanted to be fair to the UFC, because they were already promoting the fight. But I knew there was no way I could continue training camp and be in any kind of shape to fight. Something was wrong with me. Very wrong.

  I’m not a quitter, so postponing the fight against Shane Carwin was one of the toughest decisions I’ve ever had to make. I talked it over with my wife, Marty, and my lawyers, and we all agreed I had no choice. I was sick, and I needed to take care of myself.

  I went to the local doctor, and was diagnosed with mononucleosis. It made sense to me at the time. Training camp can wear you down. My immune system was fatigued. I was susceptible to something like mono; it happens to fighters all the time. This time, it was happening to me. Or so I thought.

  I wasn’t happy about letting so many people down, and I really wasn’t happy about being sick, so I took my family on a trip to Canada. I figured we could spend some time in the wilderness, and I could rest and get healthy again.

  Not long after we got to western Manitoba, I woke up in the middle of the night with the worst pain I have ever experienced. I never felt like that before. I was sweating buckets, just drenching the sheets, and I was delirious. I didn’t even know where I was. I remember seeing Rena looking at me, and then I fell back asleep.

  I woke up a short time after that, and told Rena I needed to get to a hospital.

  Fast.

  I couldn’t stand up on my own. That says something right there, doesn’t it? Brock Lesnar. The ultimate fighting champion. You know, Baddest Dude on the Planet. And I couldn’t even stand up. Couldn’t help myself. Couldn’t get from the bed to the car to save my own life.

  My brother Chad was with us, and he is big enough to carry me to the car. He loaded me in, and we took off like crazy men. But as fast as he was driving, I still felt like punching him in the face because it wasn’t fast enough. Poor Chad. He could have put both feet on the gas pedal and redlined the tachometer all the way, and it still wasn’t fast enough for me.

  I was in so much pain, and I wanted help, but we were in the middle of nowhere. It may sound funny to you, but the Manitoba prairie is at least two hours from the nearest town of any size. The speedometer is only reading ninety-nine miles per hour, and I’m thinking of how I can fight through the pain and beat up my brother because he’s driving at a snail’s pace. At least that’s how it felt to me.

  We got to a hospital in a town called Brandon, and they put me on morphine right away. That took care of the immediate pain, but I still didn’t know what was wrong with me.

  After I stabilized a bit, the doctors took an X-ray of my stomach, but that doesn’t show tissue, and doesn’t give you a full view of what’s going on. The doctors knew it, and wanted to do a CT scan, but they only had one machine at the hospital, and it was broken. They told me it would be fixed at 11 A.M. the following morning.

  The morphine was giving me a terrible migraine. Eight hours come and go, and they still don’t have the CT machine fixed. Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The worst part about it for me was the total lack of control.

  You can call it ego, or cockiness, or arrogance, or anything else you want, but I’m used to being in control. Some people were meant to lead, others were meant to follow. I was born to take charge. It’s not only what I do, it’s who I am.

  All morphined up in that hospital, I was helpless, and I was hating every second of it. Rena, who, unbeknownst to us, was pregnant with my third child, our second son, was sitting next to my hospital bed, watching the hours go by. She had never seen me like this. She was scared, but she was ready to spring into action the moment we made a game plan.

  More time went by. Still no new part for the machine. My condition was getting worse. I didn’t know if I was dying, but it sure felt like I was.

  The hospital gave me more morphine, and started me on chicken broth. They wanted to get something inside me, some nourishment, but my body rejected the chicken broth and I started throwing up everywhere. I may have been all zoned out on morphine, but I could tell something was seriously wrong with me. When your body can’t even handle chicken broth, you’re in big trouble, but that was secondary to the fact that I had no clue what was wrong, since they couldn’t get a picture of my stomach. The doctor didn’t know either. He was waiting on the part for the machine. Time was slipping away, and I was wondering if I would ever make it out of that hospital alive.

  I put my faith in the doctors at that hospital. I shouldn’t have. It almost cost me my career. It almost cost me my life.

  Another day goes by, and I’m still going downhill. I’ve been in the hospital all weekend, and they still don’t have a CT scan. They keep telling me the part for the machine is coming, and that I just need to wait a little longer.

  I’m more than a little concerned. How much longer is this going to take? Can you please be a little more precise than “We’re waiting on the part” or “It’ll be here very soon”? What’s very soon? How much time do I have until you’re going to need to cut me open just to keep me alive?

  When I told Rena I was going to die waiting for them to fix the CT machine, we both knew what we had to do. I said, “Let’s get the hell out of here.” She was happy to hear me say this because she was thinking the same thing.

  I called one of the nurses in and asked for more pain medication. What I didn’t tell her is that I needed the pain medication because I was planning to bolt, and had a long drive ahead of me. Rena and I intended to get in the car and head for the U.S. border just as fast as we could go so I could get myself into a real hospital.

  Before we left, however, we needed a plan. Bismarck, North Dakota, was the closest U.S. city, so I called Kim Sabot. His son Jesse had been my roommate in Bismarck State College. Kim had dealt with his own health issues over a long period of time, and he assured us that the hospital in Bismarck could take care of me.

  Destination? Bismarck!

  Rena wheeled me out of the Canadian hospital, got me into the passenger seat, and we were off. Like Chad, she was only driving ninety-nine miles an hour, which made me bat-shit crazy. The damn vehicle had a governor on it. It wouldn’t go any faster.

  It is a four-hour car ride to Bismarck from the Canadian hospital I was in, and the pain on that drive was unbearable. I have a high threshold for pain, higher than most guys, and I couldn’t deal with it. It felt like I had taken a shotgun blast to the stomach, and then someone poured in some salt and Tabasco and stirred it all up with a nasty pitchfork.

  Rena got me to Bismarck, and we could tell the people in the hospital were on point. Within twenty minutes, I was already getting a CT scan and antibodies. A few minutes later, the doctors diagnosed me with diverticulitis. I was told I had a hole in my stomach. I was being poisoned from the inside with my own body waste. No wonder I felt like death.

  The Bismarck doctors knew who I was, and what I did for a living. That means they knew that cutting me open would end my career, and they did not want to do that if it could be avoided. The doctors made a decision.

  They said I had eight hours. If the medication appeared to be working on the infection, they would give me some more time. If it wasn’t working, they would be forced to recommend immediate surgery to remove a large chunk of my colon.

  I spent the next seven hours in the hospital with a 104.3-degree fever. The doctors started discussing the surgery. It was becoming a life-or-death situation.

  With fifteen minutes left to go, my fever finally broke. I didn’t have to have the radical surgery. I got a reprieve.

  If the doctor who made the decision to wait hadn’t been on duty that day when I arrived, I would have been using a colostomy bag for several months, and would have had to undergo several surgeries. He made a brilliant decision. He and his twenty-eight years of G
I experience saved my life . . . he gave me a chance to have a good life with my wife and children. I’ll never forget that. Thank you, Dr. Bruderer. I will forever remember you for what you did for me and my family.

  Although I had avoided immediate surgery, it didn’t change the fact that I still had a hole in my stomach, and that it was slowly killing me. I was dying.

  I spent the next eleven days in the hospital with no food or liquids. All I had was an IV solution and a ton of pain medication. I was living in a fog.

  When I looked around, all I saw was my IV tubes and my wife sitting by my bedside. Rena tells me my lawyers were on the phone with her constantly, but I didn’t know that. She tells me they had been in touch with Dana White, who offered to have a UFC helicopter take me to the Mayo Clinic. She tells me Marty was on his way. I didn’t know that either. How could I know anything? I was so medicated I couldn’t stay awake, and when I was awake, all I could think of was that I was dying.

  One time when I woke up, I got ahold of my cell phone, and I started calling everyone . . . my managers, attorneys, trainers, you name it . . . and I fired all of them. If your number was on my cell phone, I either quit working with you or fired you.

  Once I came to, I put those relationships back together. I was an ornery cuss when I was sick, and every now and then I have a good laugh about what I did from my hospital bed. It’s funny, but not a lot of people on the other end of those phone calls have a sense of humor about it, even to this day. Oh well. I hope they get over it somehow. I’ll admit, I was in a pretty bad mood, and had no idea what I was doing during most of those calls.

  Rena just kept telling me to focus on positive thoughts, but while I was there in that hospital bed, I decided to retire. One of the people I called on the phone was Dana White. He’s the one guy who laughs about the calls from me when I was in the hospital. That’s just Dana’s personality. I like that about him, because I’m sure he got an earful from me that week and a half I was laid up. I do remember telling Dana I was retiring. We both laugh about that conversation now. Not so much then. But certainly now.

  I wanted to live. I wanted to get out of the hospital, and be with my family. Everything else was secondary to me. I was going to be a farmer. No kidding. Everyone still asks me if I was scared about losing my UFC career, never having a chance to see my title reign the whole way through. I wasn’t that concerned about it, because when I was in that hospital bed, I had already resigned myself to the notion of being Farmer Brock.

  At the end of my eleven-day hospital stay, I was wheeled out to my car because I was too weak to walk. And that’s when it really hit me. Four months ago I was invincible, and now I’m in a wheelchair. I looked over at Rena and I said, “The world’s baddest man, huh?,” and I laughed.

  Getting home that day was harder for me than being in the hospital. The pain meds were wearing off, and every time I moved, the pain got worse. I felt every bump in the road. But worse than any pain was thinking about the physical condition I was in. I didn’t want to look in the mirror, because I was afraid I would not recognize the man looking back at me. I knew that I would have to face facts sooner or later. So, slowly, I made my way over to the full-length mirror in our bedroom. I stared at my reflection, not believing it was really me, and mumbled, “Oh yeah, I’m the world’s baddest man. The ultimate fighting champion.”

  Rena was standing behind me, and I heard her whisper, “You are.”

  I was being sarcastic. She wasn’t.

  It was at that very minute when I turned the corner and decided that I was going to get back on the horse. No more feeling sorry for myself. It was time to take control of everything again. If I was going to retire, I was going to retire on my own terms, not because some stupid illness took me out.

  A hole in my stomach. I still can’t believe it.

  A couple of weeks later, I went to the Mayo Clinic to get a complete evaluation. It usually takes a lot longer than that to get into the world-famous Mayo, but Dana called my lawyers with some contacts, and through those connections I was moved up on the list.

  After what seemed like an endless series of tests, the Mayo doctors informed me that my best chance for a full recovery would be to have surgery. They wanted to remove about twelve inches of my colon. I wanted to know what my second-best chance was, because there is no way I was going to let them cut me up.

  The doctors said I was out of immediate danger, so we could always do the surgery later. That was good enough for me.

  I asked if I could exercise, and they told me it would be okay, as long as I didn’t overexert myself. Of course, that meant I was in the gym the next day, but I was smart. All I did was walk on the treadmill a little bit. It beat the hell out of a wheelchair, and at least I was doing something.

  You should have seen me. I looked like shit. I kept looking at an old picture of me when I wrestled in college at 260 pounds. I was lean and strong. Looking the way I looked in that picture again became my goal.

  I had to get back into shape, and that meant a complete lifestyle change. It would defeat the purpose of my recovery to bulk back up, and end up with the same holes in my stomach that almost killed me the first time. I don’t respect any of my opponents, but I have a lot of respect for diverticulitis. Me and diverticulitis went the distance, and I have no desire for a rematch.

  I changed my diet completely. More vegetables. A whole lot more fiber. Nothing processed or preserved.

  Then I started to do a little more in the gym each day. Cardio. A few light weights. A little more each day.

  I approached my illness the same way that I approach a fight. I wanted to beat it. I wanted to take my illness down to the mat the same way I took down Frank Mir at UFC 100. I was in the fight of my life, and every day was another round.

  When I returned to the Mayo Clinic for a checkup in January 2010, they gave me another CT scan. The doctors couldn’t believe what they saw. They couldn’t believe my stomach could heal without surgery the way that it did. They called it a remarkable recovery.

  I wish I could express how that news made me feel. I didn’t have to have my guts cut open. I didn’t have to wear a colostomy bag. I could play with my kids, be the man that I was, only smarter, better, healthier. I had been given a new lease on life.

  I was truly a man who had been blessed by God.

  My wonderful wife showed me, once again, that she was going to stick by me no matter what. I had two healthy children, and had just learned that a third, my son Duke, was on the way. I was going to fight again. And now I had a newfound focus: I was determined to come back from my illness better and stronger than ever. Never again would I take the physical gifts God had given me for granted.

  As much as I couldn’t wait to get back into training and return to the Octagon, I want everyone to understand one thing. Yes, I wanted to be the greatest heavyweight the sport had ever seen. Yes, I was determined to come back stronger, healthier, more dominant than before. Yes, I wanted to prove to the world I was the greatest UFC champion of all time.

  But what was most important to me was that I wanted to be a better husband to my wife and a better father for my children. It would be great to be the best UFC fighter ever, but none of that means anything without my family. They are everything to me, and they will always be my first priority. I hate what I went through, but it made me appreciate my family even more.

  And so, with my family’s support, I got ready for my comeback. If I could beat diverticulitis, there wasn’t a man alive who was going to stand in my way.

  THE LONG SHORT ROAD BACK

  UFC wanted me to fight as soon as possible, but that meant waiting until the beginning of the summer. First, they had to crown another Interim Champion. That decision was made in December, when no one knew if I was ever going to be able to fight again. Dana, Lorenzo, and Joe Silva chose Shane Carwin and The Man With The Golden Horseshoe Up His Ass, Fr
ank Mir, to fight in New Jersey at UFC 111. If the doctors had to perform the drastic surgery on me, that fight would have been to determine the new UFC Heavyweight Champion. If I could make it back, the Carwin vs. Mir fight would be for the Interim Championship, and the winner would face me for the real title mid-year.

  I don’t blame UFC for continuing to promote the Interim title fight even after I got clearance to return. You never know in the fight game. I could have gone back into training, and ended up right back in the hospital. That possibility was always looming. If they pulled the plug on the Interim title, and I got sick again, UFC would have to start all over, and that’s a long time to go without a Heavyweight Champion.

  I brought in Luke Richesson full-time as a strength and condition coach, and he turned out to be one of the most valuable members of my training staff, since his job was to rebuild me into a stronger but healthier athlete. Luke and I had been down this road before, when I was trying out for the NFL after messing up my body in that motorcycle crash. Here we were again, this time fighting back against my own body, which had attacked me from within.

  Luke put me on a program and I started to gain lean muscle mass. I was feeling much healthier than before. I would joke around a lot about never eating my veggies before, but diverticulitis changed my outlook on a lot of things, and one of the important changes was that I was now watching everything that went past my lips. I worked hard for a lot of years to build up my body, and I ended up flat on my back, delirious, all drugged up on morphine because I got diverticulitis. When you quickly go from being a 280-pound warrior without a single doubt in your mind to being sick, helpless, and dependent, it better change your outlook or you haven’t learned your lesson.

  I learned mine. Period.