I am Haunted: Living Life Through the Dead (18 page)

We all mustered up the courage to get out and check on the animal only to find our worst fears confirmed. It was still alive, but with half of its head missing. Chunks of its back were also torn away, and it was trying to get up but couldn’t. We all felt like shit; I was not only sick to my stomach, but also dejected. We knew we had to either save it or put it out of its misery, but we didn’t have cell phone reception or a gun. Hunters do their best to get a clean kill so the animal doesn’t suffer, and I wanted to show this beast the same respect, but we couldn’t find any sort of rock or tool to do the job. We sat there for twenty minutes, a group of adults with the mental capacity of kids watching
Old Yeller.
We had no choice but to leave. People may think that’s cruel, but how many motorists actually stop and go back to check on the animal they hit? At least we did that, even if we couldn’t help it.

I had gone to Cimarron feeling like I was going to die, but determined to push through it no matter what the cost. I never imagined that the cost would be the life of an incredible and innocent animal.

SHOW BUSINESS.

The most painful investigation ever.

We’re all born with features we don’t like: toes that curl under, droopy jowls, unibrows, whatever. Nobody’s perfect, unless you’re Paris Hilton. Wait—she has gigantic clown feet. (I don’t hate her, but she treated a friend of mine like shit when he tried to help her, so…I’ll leave it there.)

I’ve had the hardest time breathing since I can remember. My septum is deviated, which Wikipedia says is “an abnormal condition in which the top of the cartilaginous ridge leans to the left or the right, causing obstruction of the affected nasal passage. The condition can result in poor drainage of the sinuses. Patients can also complain of difficulty breathing, headaches, bloody noses, or sleeping disorders such as snoring or sleep apnea.”

Yep, that’s me. The condition has made many facets of life difficult, so I’ve always wanted to correct it. I don’t get into the “changing yourself through surgery is wrong” argument that some people like to throw around. It’s your body. If you’re unhappy with it and you can afford to change it, then it’s up to you, not the people who disapprove for their own moral reasons. Of course I also believe that we have to live with the consequences of our actions, so if you pay some cheap, uncertified doctor to give you a boob job and end up with tennis balls under your armpits, then you can’t complain when someone stares at you in a bikini with curiosity rather than admiration.

I wanted to get my nose worked on for a long time, but always out of necessity. I don’t think it ever looked bad, but it wasn’t efficient. I never breathed well and always wanted to. So I bit the bullet. Now that it’s done, I’m much more comfortable, but the pain of surgery was way more than I expected. If you’re a hater and want to hear a story of me in severe pain, then this chapter is for you.

There were plenty of things about the surgery that scared me. First, I have a fear of anesthesia. I’m kind of a control freak, and being put under is a total relinquishing of control that makes me nervous. Putting your life in the hands of others isn’t easy. Does that mean I have trust issues? Probably.

Second, the pain. Let’s not beat around the bush here. Even the toughest man in the world feels the searing agony of being sliced and diced, and having your nose cut open and rearranged doesn’t exactly tickle. I was assured that there would be severe discomfort for several weeks afterward, but from everything I’d read, it was worth it. Breathing is rather crucial to life, after all, so I weighed the risks and decided to go for it. I knew it would test me, and I was confident that I would pass.

I called a local plastic surgeon named Lane Smith. I didn’t think I’d be able to find one in Vegas, but he looked professional and…dare I say it…trustworthy? When I went in for a consultation, the office was full of
Ghost Adventures
fans. That was cool, but I digress. I’m usually a proactive person, but some things you just go for and don’t think about. When I see something and am sure it’s what I want or need, I get it. I don’t wait. After meeting with Dr. Smith for an hour, I felt good enough about the procedure that I plodded forward and went all in.

We set a date for two weeks later, and the doctor prescribed some medications for me to take before I came in. That’s when shit got serious. If I ever had a chance to chicken out, that was it, so I had him charge me for the surgery beforehand. I figured that if I paid for it then and there, my cold feet would be kept warm.

The night before the surgery, I couldn’t sleep. I took a Valium and lay in bed staring at the ceiling, thinking through all the things that could go wrong. Like flying, I could envision all the disasters but none of the safe landings. The next morning, as my mother drove me to the clinic, I freaked out and texted Billy and Aaron a thousand jokes to make myself feel better. I was scared, I admit it. The drive to the clinic was worse than the drive to a lockdown.

I had to put on that stupid hospital gown and sit in a room by myself, alone with my thoughts. So many times in my life, spirits have come to me when I didn’t want them to, but in my hour of extreme loneliness, they were nowhere to be found. Ironic.

Finally it was time. I walked down the hall dragging an IV bag on wheels, my gown flapping open in the back. Anyone who’s ever wanted to see my bare ass missed their opportunity that day. The anesthesiologist told me to lie down and put on some music. It was good, and I was calm. I remember I was…

Boom! I woke up. Had I fallen asleep for a second? I wasn’t sure. “Where am I? When are we doing the surgery?” I asked.

“We already did it,” the nurse responded.

I think I asked her the same question three times, but she kept saying, “You were under for three hours. It’s over.” I literally lost my mind. I couldn’t get a grip on anything, and for a guy who holds on so tightly to life, this was maddening. Panic ensued. My blood pressure skyrocketed. Then I heard my mom’s voice and began to realize that I had to calm down.

I vaguely remembered the doctor telling me about this possibility in our pre-operation meeting. He warned me about those rare patients who come out of anesthesia and go apeshit trying to get control of themselves. I guess that rare guy is me, and fortunately they don’t take it personally, because I said things I don’t want to repeat. I’ll be sending those nurses flowers forever as an apology.

I got into the car with my mother and we left to go home, but we had to make a few stops on the way. Disgusting stuff was oozing from my nose. If you saw any of it on the side of the road, you’d swear that a zombie had been killed, skinned, and gutted there.

For the next three days I did absolutely nothing. For the first time in years, I had no work, no stress, no nothing. Looking back, I’m glad for it, but it was also more boring than watching C-SPAN. Facial surgery isn’t like surgery on another part of the body. Because it’s on your face, it’s impossible to put out of your mind. All you can do is be in pain and think about the pain and try to breathe through the pain and wish there wasn’t any more pain and hope the pain will be worth it someday. I had no one to blame but myself, though: I had pain medications but didn’t take them. Like I said before, I hate feeling out of control, and painkillers and psychotropic drugs are designed to do just that: take the control away from you. No thanks. All I had were some antibiotics and my own thoughts.

On the fourth day, the spirits finally visited. I could feel them in the room with me, and all I could think was,
Where have you been?
I wasn’t really in the mood to be around them, so I shut them out. Nothing personal, but I think there comes a point in everyone’s life when social interaction is a nuisance. Even ethereal beings can be intruders sometimes.

The worst pain was getting the stitches removed. The nurses used pliers to pluck these fishing lines from my nose, and for fuck’s sake it hurt. I actually screamed, and I contemplated taking pain drugs for the first time. This was no small surgery. I have a big schnoz. It was like chopping down a redwood tree and piecing it back together with pliers.

The day after the bandages were removed, I did exactly what the doctor told me not to do: I went back to work. I’ve always done things my way, and on this one I decided that taking a risk was worthwhile. After all, a lot of people depend on me to tough out the hard times and get the job done. I did listen to the doctor a little bit, though. He told me not to fly for several weeks after the surgery, so we picked a location within driving distance of Vegas and headed to Pioche, Nevada, to investigate the Overland Hotel. But right away things went wrong.

I was still in pain. Lots of it. And my desire not to take strong pain meds wasn’t helping. The last thing I want to do is look drunk on film, so all I took was Tylenol. The simple act of walking and feeling the cold air hitting my nose hurt—that’s how sensitive it was. I’m a tough guy, but filming this episode was going to be a challenge with a swollen face and a nose that would bleed without warning. I feared it would start dripping just as we caught a piece of evidence, and people would try to link an EVP or apparition to my bleeding nose and freak out. I didn’t want my nose to get any attention and was trying hard to conceal what I was going through, but if it suddenly started to bleed while we were on camera capturing paranormal evidence, then I would have to address it. My solution was to buy a cowboy hat and wear it really low, but I couldn’t hide my voice. I sounded like Lurch from
The Addams Family.

The first day in Pioche it was hard to concentrate. My nose felt worse than it should have, and I started to wonder if I should go back to Vegas and see the doctor. I had never had major surgery before and had never gone under anesthesia, so I think my entire body was trying to recover, not just my nose. The doctor’s order to stay home and take it easy echoed in my head, and a few of the events that followed made me wonder why I hadn’t heeded his warning.

We were filming an interview in a cemetery with a man named Jim Kelley who was an expert on the history of the area. Before the interview I noticed that he had a gun in his holster, so I got the idea that he should shoot me in the back as I walked away. The gun was full of blanks, so I thought it would be good for dramatic effect, but as we were doing the interview I was hurting. Every time my foot hit the ground, it would vibrate up through my body and shoot pain into my nose. I wished that someone had invented pillow shoes for this very situation. I had second thoughts about Jim shooting me, but finally decided “the hell with it.” The show must go on, right?

As I turned to leave, Jim did as promised and popped off a couple of blanks into my back. It was loud—way louder than I expected. And I felt the sparks from the gun hit my back. I stumbled forward and found myself in total agony. Just taking a few unexpected steps caused me immense pain, and my nose instantly started bleeding. Every second felt like a year until I was finally stable and standing still again, but then I got a little worried. Did the sudden jerking motion jack up the surgery, and would I have to return to Vegas to see the doctor immediately? It felt like it. We ended up using this shot in a brief reenactment that you see for only a second, because it just didn’t go off very well.

I toughed it out, but the rest of the shoot was hell. That moment caused a ripple effect over the next few days. I spent a lot of that shoot in my hotel room. I had strep throat when we filmed at the Riddle House, and my throat looked like it had a golf ball in it, but this pain was far worse. When you have pain in the center of your face that shoots down your nerves, it will drive you crazy, and several times I had to force myself to keep working.

When we arrived for the lockdown, I was trying to move very softly. Again, pillow shoes. Wish I had some. The funny thing was, I thought it was going to be a calm shoot, but it ended up being one of the most insanely active lockdowns ever—maybe even in the top three in the history of
Ghost Adventures.
Upstairs the spirits were extremely active, and we were all on edge, but it was an ordinary phenomenon that would have the biggest impact on me.

Have you ever seen those plug-in air fresheners that spray out a mist every seven minutes and make a loud hissing noise? Well, in the middle of the night during an active paranormal investigation, they’re very unwelcome. I was walking down the hall when one suddenly hissed and I felt the spray hit my face. I yelled and jumped, and again that motion killed my nose. The surgeon’s words echoed in my head: “Don’t make any sudden movements for two weeks after the cast is off, or you will jeopardize everything. You may even cause a blood clot.” The air freshener caused the second big jolt I’d had in Pioche, and it hurt so badly that we had to take a break from filming so I could sit down to let the pain subside.

Later that night, we were getting great evidence from the spirit box when I felt something shoot through me. It was an amazing force, and I fell backward and hit the ground. You know what happened next: pain. Intense, shooting pain, like I’d been shot in the face with a flamethrower. This didn’t last for three minutes; it lasted for three days. As soon as I got back to Vegas, I went to the doctor to get checked out. Thankfully, everything was fine, and a few weeks later I was back to feeling like myself.