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“They were going to cut my leg off” – William Regal Almost Died A Few Years Ago

William Regal - Lord Steven Regal Article Pic 1 WrestleFeed App

On facing more issues, sitting upright for 8 days straight and feeling insane pain:

“It was a long recovery. My heart was also getting worse. This was because I stopped wrestling and because I’d slowed down. This sack around my heart locked down, basically, the scarring locked down and it started to calcify inwards.

Slowly I was having more and more things of my heart going out of rhythm and my legs swelling up. It was just building up. I was going from doctor to doctor and getting all these different things. But I just got through.

I kept going and somehow managed to keep doing my training, whatever I could. Whenever NXT did the show in London, we were on the NXT tour. I just had the surgery, but I insisted on going because it was in Blackpool and it was the first NXT show in Blackpool, and I wanted to see my dad.

The day before we left, I’m getting my haircut and something happened. I felt this pop in the back of the scar. This will all tie in later with the heart causing fluid to gather in my liver.

My liver wasn’t processing properly, which means I wasn’t processing protein properly, so the scar popped open. I started leaking spinal fluid out of a hole in the back of my neck. I’ve got pictures of that as well. But I insisted and I went on tour.

When I got there, they’re like, ‘What are you doing?’ I said ‘I’ve got to make it to Blackpool.’ It was one of the greatest nights of life but also afterwards, I didn’t go out or see any of my friends. I had to go back to the room, because the doctor there was twice a day having to pack this thing because it was just leaking spinal fluid. It got to a point where they just said it’s just too much.

We’re going to do a TakeOver in London, which I’m really excited about. But I mean, this is bad. Dr. Maroon again on the phone. I was in Nottingham with NXT.

He said ‘I’m going to tell you this. There’s two things that can happen to you.’ I’m trying to think of the name, and it slips my mind right now, but the infection can go in your spinal column and you wind up in a wheelchair.

I did the Blackpool thing and I never got to see my Dad which was bothering me for the whole time. I had to fly back to Pittsburgh. When you have an open wound, they can’t restitch it. It has to heal.

With its spinal fluid leaking, the only thing they could do for me, I had to sit upright. They put a spinal tap in the bottom of my back, and for 8 straight days, I had to sit there upright, couldn’t lie down, so I never slept for 8 days.

Every two hours, 24 hours a day, they were coming in, and they would release the spinal fluid. When they do, what your spinal fluid does is it stops any nerves touching your spinal column.

So he said, ‘You’re going to be in some kind of pretty bad pain.’ There’s nothing we can give you for it. So I sat there upright for 8 days with a drip in my arm and a spinal thing coming out and then every two hours for 8 days, opening this thing, this tap, and for 30 minutes while this fluid drained off, me screaming because it felt like either my toes were getting chopped off, my knees were getting chopped, and my head was getting chopped in half. It was real serious stuff.”

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