Ben Askren

Welcome back to life, dude.

Well, I've been living again for quite a while now.

June 28th was actually the day I got the transplant last year, so coming up on a year for that.

I believe I woke up on July 2nd or somewhere around there, or came to in my own mind.

So yeah, it's their process, but I'm here, I'm getting better, and life's pretty good.

Well, I just made a post yesterday because on June 6th, which was two days ago, Saturday, I got inducted to the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.

And when I went home, I went back to the hotel with my wife.

I said, did I get airlifted June 6th last year?

So last year on June 6th,

I was in Vegas and I went to the first hospital, second hospital.

And then we had some friends that came out that were, one was a doctor and one was a nurse.

And I said, he's not going to make it to this hospital.

We need to get him back to Milwaukee because they have a good, it's called CVICU, cardiovascular intensive care unit.

And they got me a flight.

They put me on a plane, took me all the way back.

And I said to my wife, well, why was that such a bad day?

Because I don't remember, I was sleeping.

And she said, to transport me, they had to fully paralyze my body.

And then when I got back to Milwaukee, they put me on ECMO.

And with ECMO, I think there's only a 40% chance you come off ECMO.