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Three months after Bone Thugs-N-Harmony‘s Krayzie Bone suffered a near-death health scare, he is opening up about what the moment was like.
In his first public interview with Spin, he details his experience being diagnosed with pulmonary sarcoidosis — a rare chronic disease caused by inflammation — and how he almost lost his life because of it.
He had developed a serious cough he thought wouldn’t last too long, but it persisted. While up one night playing Xbox, he upchucked what he thought was phlegm, but it was, in fact, blood.
Thanks to the advice of his wife, Krayzie checked himself into the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center emergency room.
“They gave me little bags that I was coughing the blood up in. By the time they came to take me to a room, I had used three of those bags,” he recalled.
What he imagined would be a few hourslong hospital visit turned into a 10-day stay.
“An artery in my lung had ruptured and that is what was causing the bleeding,” he explained. “When I went under, they shut the hole up. But after a day, they said the bleeding wouldn’t stop.”
Krayzie, born Anthony Henderson, said his doctor started to panic.
“That’s when they told my wife they might want to get the family down here,” because “they didn’t know if I was going to make it out of there,” he said.
Day four, a breakthrough came: The doctor reported to Krayzie’s wife that the bleeding had stopped.
“I stayed six more days in incubation. When I woke up, they told me everything that happened,” he said.
Krayzie, who lost 25 pounds at the time, noted he had no idea how severe his situation was. He’s now, and might forever be, on medication to help his condition as well as the holes in his lungs, caused by an infectious disease called mycetoma.
As for the biggest takeaway from his scare, Krayzie said, “I don’t take anything for granted. Cherish all the loved ones you have.”
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