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The workplace shows little sympathy for the weak but my co-workers soon learned that not only was I not as weak as they believed but that their underestimation of my recovery had left them at a disadvantage.

In 2003 I hairline fractured a hip while jogging and was placed on one of the "Cox 5 Inhibitors" that made the news after their recall in 2005. Within a few months I developed blood clots in my legs broke loose, collapsing one lung and another in the arterial side of my colon. I was hospitalized for a total of seven months and underwent two major surgeries. I deteriorated from 6'5" 215 lbs to just over 100lbs. I received the last rites of the Catholic Church twice.

I am sure this was much to the delight of my office enemies and a blow to my allies who now were without my support. Many of each faction visited me while in the hospital to assess my condition and reported back to the office. I was completely written off.

Moving 500 miles away I began my rehabilitation by relearning to eat (most of my colon was taken), walk (my muscles had atrophied) and use my arms (they were so emaciated that I could not use the 1lb weights that my physical therapist brought to begin strength training.

Giving up was not an option to me. I vowed to myself to make it back to work and not has a shell of what I had been but better than I had left.

My therapist got me out of the bed and walking. I began by walking from the bedroom of my hotel suite to the living room and back using a walker. Once having mastered the inside rooms I ventured out into the hall, shuffling my feet one unsteady step at a time with the therapist following me and my walker with with a wheel chair.

While in my bed after I had regained some strength from eating (I had been fed by a direct line to my heart while hospitalized) I began to work with the weights, doing as many curl repetitions with the 1 pounders as I could in a minute, resting and then going ahead. I progressed to two pounds, five pounds and eight pounds.

My walks were now made using a cane and were of 20 minute duration. In six weeks I was walking without aid and without a therapist following me.

During my rehabilitation I never made a visit to the office. I wanted them to imagine me as I was on their exploratory visit to the hospital.

On the scheduled day of my return to the office I arose, dressed in my jogging shorts and shirt and went for a quick three mile jog. Returning home I went to the garage and did a free weight routine with 50lb bar bells in each hand. After a shower and light breakfast I drove to the corporate building and took the elevator to the ninth floor where my office was located.

When those doors slid open there was a banner across the top of the nearest clerical desk which read "Welcome Back!" Flowers and balloons adorned the office lobby. There was even a table with a "Welcome Back" cake in the center. Clearly this was a homecoming for someone who needed to be supported, to be made to feel good, to be pitied and it could not be more obvious than I was not the person.

The only thing that I regret is that I did not have a photographer with me to document the dropped jaws and bugged out eyes when it hit them that not only was I back but I was ready to deal with any challenge the office could throw at me because I had exploded back from the brink of death.

In my opinion the entire office had to ease back to work the next day and when they arrived, I was already there, managing the duties that senior management paid me to address.

Learn more about this author, Derek R. Snow.
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