On Sunday evening, September 30, my wife rushed me to the emergency room with severe stomach and chest pains. After two days of tests to rule out everything from a heart attack to a blockage in my intestines to a blood clot in my lungs, it was determined that I had a blocked gall bladder that was also inflamed. I went into surgery Wednesday at noon, a surgery that was intended to last three hours. At 10pm that evening, I finally woke up to learn that I had a reaction to the anesthesia that had caused the doctors to fear that I had a stroke during surgery.
We all remember reading about Denard Span’s problems with taking an MRI a few months ago. Well, I also am claustrophobic and even though I was 100% out, my body fought being placed into the MRI tube resulting in their being unable to complete the test.
I am now home recovering and want to thank the doctors and staff of Park Nicollet and Methodist Hospital who were competent beyond my expectations and so very professional.
I am faced with several more weeks of recovery. After that I will be making some changes in my life. One of those changes will be that I will no longer be doing these Saturday Minor League Reports. To Seth Stohs, who has been doing this longer than anyone, thanks for your friendship. To Jesse and TwinkieTown, thanks for a forum that enabled me to talk every week about the couple hundred young men who were living their dreams in the Twins organization. To those of you who joined me every Saturday morning for the past six years, thank you!
As I walk off into the sunset, I will leave you with one bold prediction. Everything went as bad as it could last year for Joe Benson. I have a feeling, gut instinct if you will, that everything will go as good in 2013 as was bad last year. Look for Benson to have a special year and permanently join the Twins early during the 2013 season.