“Put that one over there.” That’s what the nurse said when I arrived. Like a box of cereal being stocked on the grocery store shelf. It was May 3, 2021.

I had passed out at home and was face down in my own vomit when an EMT (thank you so much for taking care of me) sat me up. My blood pressure was 70 over 30. When I came back to consciousness and heard them, my first thought was that I had such a peaceful dream. (If heaven exists, I think I might’ve seen it.) Then I thought, how do they know that my name is not pronounced “Sharon?” Why are they saying “Sha-rone?”

I was then carried down the stairs of my house on an ambulance gurney, as my children looked on from my six- year-old’s bedroom window.

I arrived in a way you never want to arrive at the hospital. It was during the pandemic. I was alone. No visitors. No shoes. Just me and my phone and my ID.

It’s taken me over 3 years to share this story. That day started a health journey I would never wish on anyone. After receiving a bag of IV fluid and some tests, the hospital released me that evening at exactly midnight. I walked to the car (thank you to my husband, Greg Maged, for picking me up) in my hospital socks.

After weeks of investigation, I was told I might have Lyme disease. I was told my symptoms might be from mycoplasma pneumonia.

Fast forward past all of that:

About a year ago I fully recovered. But I am not the same. I don’t recognize my old self. Every day I feel lucky to be alive and so grateful for my body and my health.

I stopped drinking alcohol that day, May 3, 2021. I don’t plan to go back. Not “just a glass.” Nothing. No thank you.

I put more healthy foods into my body than “junk.”

I walk outside for an hour a day when I can.

Most traditional doctors dismissed me during my two-year medical mystery. If I didn’t have my husband and twin sister, who are absolutely brilliant, I don’t know where I would be today.

Not everybody has a twin sister who is open-minded and happens to have 5 diplomas from Harvard Medical School.

This is my “why.”