What I Learned When I Almost Died by Chris Licht

I saw this book on Amazon and the title is a grabber. It is a short 160 page book but I was interested. Primarily my interest was grabbed because Licht is the executive producer of my morning favorite Morning Joe. Hearing the backstory of how he came to be producer on this show and of his relationship with Joe Scarborough and Mika, two of my favorite people in the world to watch.

In the book Licht describes a day that as he finished a show one morning, he was checking his voicemail and he felt a pop in his head and soon was suffering from an excruciating headache.

We follow him through the emergency department of George Washington hospital in D C. We see his father, a physician himself, tell him as he is being driven to the hospital to tell them that he never gets headaches and his head hurts worse than it ever has and he needs a catscan. This is a code doctors understand that they may be dealing with something life threatening.

Licht over the course of the day and then the weeks after goes through a multitude of tests. As happens in a small amount of cases he suffers no long term damage but they also never find the cause of the bleed. If it was an anuerysm they never find it and assume it repaired itself.

It is good news of course but also leaves one feeling vulnerable in the future. Licht admits freely to being a Type A personality and being an ass much of the time in his work progression. He states he cannot see himself moving to the beach and being all peace, love and happiness but admits the incident gives him pause.

I must say that though we are pleased to see him doing well the books title is a bit misleading. Licht talks about slowing down and letting go of anger over what happened, he does learn to not sweat things that in the end mean nothing compared to almost dieing but those looking for him to have a revalation of epic proportions will not find it.

Still an interesting book, a small investment in time. It is nice to see his good friends and the involvement of Joe Biden who is clearly one of the nicest men in politics you will find.

And we learned the code, if struck with an intense pain out of nowhere it might be good to know what to say to make sure you are taken seriously.