HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — Bret Michaels is speaking out for the first time since a massive brain hemorrhage nearly ended his life.
The rocker and reality star says the subarachnoid hemorrhage he suffered on April 21 "sounded like a handgun, like it literally popped."
"It made my mind go almost blank," he reveals in the latest issue of People magazine. "My neck tensed up. I couldn't move my head at all."
The 47-year-old Michaels says he immediately feared for the worst and asked his girlfriend, Kristi Gibson, to rush him to the hospital.
"I knew I was slurring my words, and I was like 'OK, this isn't a headache. There's something really bad happening,' " he remembers
After he arrived, Michaels says an emergency room doctor asked him if he had kids and suggested they come to the hospital.
"And I said in these exact words, 'Am I dying? If I'm dying, I want to see my kids, but if I have a chance, I don't want them to see me in this condition,' " recalls Michaels, who is a father to two daughters – Raine, 9, and Jorja, 5.
Prior to suffering the brain hemorrhage, Michaels underwent an emergency appendectomy in San Antonio after falling ill just before he was about to take the stage for a concert at SeaWorld. The diabetic was recovering at home in Scottsdale, Ariz. when he felt the severe headache.
On Tuesday, the rocker's doctor told reporters that Michaels will likely make a full recovery – something that only occurs in 10 to 20 percent of all cases. The singer, who was treated at Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, is well aware of his fortunate fate.
"I'm a believer it's a combination of will and good faith," Michaels says. "Will — and good medical attention — and faith. It just wasn't my time yet. I really believe that. If I had stayed on the couch for another hour, that probably would've done me in. In a weird way, God intervened: The appendicitis forced me to come home for a couple of days."
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