An Oregon man is speaking out about a disease that nearly took his life.
According to the New York Daily News, Paul Gaylord contracted the bubonic plague, which caused him to lose all his fingers and toes, from his infected cat.
The Daily Mail reported that the retired welder contracted all three deadly forms of the bubonic plague when he developed painful symptoms and the glands under his arms swelled up as big as lemons.
“I had collapsed lungs, my heart stopped and my hands and feet turned black,” Gaylord wrote in an essay for The Guardian. “Technically, I shouldn’t be here.”
The 61-year-old was also in a coma for 27 days, during which time doctors talked about taking him off of life-support, because they did not expect him to survive.
Today, Gaylord has recovered and makes knives as a hobby.
The disease is the same bubonic plague pandemic that killed millions in Europe and Asia during the 14th century. Some of the first symptoms include vomiting, giddiness, headaches and shivering. Later symptoms included pains in the joints, breaking blood vessels, internal bleeding, and skin turning black as a result of dried blood from internal bleeding, which gives the plague its nickname “Black Death.”