Former NBA star Chris Bosh has recounted a horrifying medical ordeal after he suddenly collapsed while getting ready for a date with his wife.
The 11-time All Star took to Instagram Wednesday to share the story with his followers, captioning the post: “Some things change you overnight.”
“So I woke up covered in my own blood. It was crazy. It was fast. It was instant,” Bosh, 41, began the video.
“There was no warning. I didn’t have any time to prepare for it. I was getting ready to go on a date with my wife and the next thing you know, I was on the ground.”
“I won’t get into specifics,” he continued, “but you can kind of see I’m still recovering [points to face]. I’m not gonna try to hide that one in case I look different, but it was a scary thing and it came fast… I’m lucky I came back. It was just darkness, it wasn’t anything else. I went to the darkness, I came back. I have no recollection. I have no memory other than coming back here. So, don’t wait.”
In the comments section, fellow NBA stars and celebrities shared messages of support.
“Praying for you CB,” wrote Kevin Durant.
“Praying for you CB! Sending big [love emoji] and mighty [prayer emoji],” Bring It On actor Gabrielle Union added.
Jamie Foxx, who famously also suffered a mysterious health scare in 2023, shared three prayer emojis.
Bosh also wrote about the health scare on his Substack blog, The Last Chip.
In a piece titled “Return From the Darkness,” the basketball star wrote, “I blacked out. I didn’t see my life flash before my eyes. There wasn’t fear or a flood of thoughts. There was only confusion. Everything happened so fast.”
He said he was walking from his closet to the bathroom as he got ready for the evening when, as he put it, “my body just turned on me.”
“A numbing sensation shot down my left leg, that sharp, electric feeling you get when you bump your funny bone. Before I knew it, I was on the floor,” the Letters to a Young Athlete author wrote.
“I slowly came to in a pool of my own blood while my wife frantically spoke with 911. I tried to move my body the way I always had, and it didn’t respond,” he said.
“… There’s not always a warning. There’s not always a symptom or a buildup to let you know what’s coming. One moment you’re walking. The next moment, you could be gone.”
Bosh said that “before that moment,” he thought he was “in control.”
“I was still trying to shape my post-professional career and set the tone for my future,” he wrote. “I was chasing something… momentum, validation, direction, acceptance, something I couldn’t quite grasp.”
Bosh continued: “Without fully realizing it, I had started trying to keep up with what I saw online, modeling myself after those ‘markers of success,’ whether I knew it or not. I didn’t realize how disconnected I had become from myself and my surroundings in the process.
“Surviving didn’t magically fix anything. To be honest, I thought I was owed more from life after having already survived a health situation that ended my prior career. I just knew I was smarter than before. Things like this would only happen to other people. Not me. I was wrong,” he wrote.
”After coming back from the darkness, there was no euphoric clarity. No life montage flashing before my eyes. No voice in my ear telling me it’ll be ok and what to do next. Just the gratitude for still being alive, and a newfound, sobering awareness of how everything actually is.”
He said his “immediate outlook on life” is now “simpler and more honest.”
Bosh has now made the decision “to focus on the passions and people who were already pouring into my life, rather than chasing validation from the unknowns and from those who weren’t reciprocating the same energy I gave them.”
Questioning, “Why wait?” Bosh shared, “Pay attention to yourself and those around you. Think critically about where your time is going, and why. Good or bad, bring attention to it. The ordinary parts of life don’t feel meaningful until they’re taken away. And by then, it’s too late.”
“This experience motivated me to start writing again, to share my experiences and stories in the hope that we can get something out of it and grow together,” he concluded.