Chris Leben thankfully appears to be on the road to recovering from his gruelling battle with Covid-19 after being hospitalized recently and he’s now given a full account of what he’s revealed was actually his second bout with the disease.
“I’m just going to lay it out there, so no politics,” Leben said in an Instagram video. “Please don’t put me on blast. I know everybody has their own opinions about COVID and vaccines and everything else. I’m going to tell you what happened to me and you can make your own decisions.
“I was not vaccinated. This was the second time I had COVID. I had it back in July, and I was relatively fine. Got tired. Down for a week,” Leben explain. “Ultimately I thought, you know what, it’s no big deal if I get COVID because I already had it once.
“This next time I got it, it was much, much milder even. I did feel a little low, so I got tested. January 22nd, I tested positive to COVID. Went home and took all the sh*t you’re supposed to take. I won’t get into what all that is, but everybody knows the f*cking kitchen-sink deal. Right? It beat it quick. It beat the COVID quick.”
However, in a story somewhat similar to that of fellow UFC legend Diego Sanchez, Leben was then rushed into hospital just days later with breathing difficulties.
“Long story short, I went to the emergency room. They immediately brought me back. They had to shock the sh*t out of me to get my heart back to normal,” Leben continued.
“I had a pre-existing condition. Ultimately I had a heart problem. If you remember, years ago, seven years ago, whatever. I went through some lifestyle changes and sobriety and diet and everything else. I was able to bring that back up.”
“Long story short, there was an infection in my lungs. Not only was the heart f*cked up, but the lungs f*cked up. I had pneumonia and some sort of infection inside of my lungs as well. This is relatively common with COVID from what I understand. Fluid builds up around the heart and lungs, and the lungs, they just gave out.
“Sh*t got real bad.”
Leben was put on a respirator for several days, but as he’s done so many times in his MMA career he managed to fight back and has lived to tell the tale.
It’s come at a cost though – Leben says he has “100% scarring of my lungs,” and while he’s now been let out of hospital he is still hooked up to an oxygen tank, with no indication of how long that might continue to be the case.
Nevertheless, Leben says he doesn’t mind as he now has a now outlook on life and is just grateful to be alive after his near-death experience.
Watch more of Leben’s thoughts on what happened in the full Instagram video below.
