For the second time in less than 10 years, venerable radio show host and former state Sen. Larry Young has come back from the brink of death and is optimistic he will return to the airwaves in the very near future.
“On January 30th … I had gone to the hospital to get treated for gout and in the hand that they found the gout in they treated it, but the medicine they gave me that allowed me to come home that very same day conflicted…with other pills,” said Young, the host of the “Larry Young Morning Show,” on WOLB. He says he’s been taking 14 pills a day for various ailments.
“One of the pills I should have been more careful with…a blood thinner and one of the pills they gave me for gout was a blood thinner well, the two of them combined were not good. So, they made my blood so thin that it (blood flow) wasn’t going at the pace that your body normally takes your blood through and it took me out of here,” recalled Young who suffered a brain bleed due to his reaction to the blood thinners. He thanks his godson and nephew for forcing him to go to the emergency room. “They saved my life,” Young said.
“When I got to Maryland General Hospital the doctors said six more hours I would have been dead. And the operation, I was supposed to come out of it not being able to speak, to walk or to have memory, but I came out on February the 8th…I had the ability to walk, to talk and still have memory,” he proclaimed from his home in Mt. Vernon.
“It’s been a doozy man I tell you it’s been a doozy.”
Young is eternally grateful to the staff at Maryland General Hospital and specifically the surgeon that operated on his brain.
“I have one of the best neurosurgeons in the world and his name is Dr. Larry Shannon a young brother…he did what he had to do and God met him there and I didn’t lose any of the three things that was possible to be lost. When he (Shannon) visited with me yesterday he turned to me and said, `yes, you are indeed a miracle from Maryland General,’” Young said.
In 2005, Young suffered a heart attack and his doctors at the time gave him a one percent chance to live. The former politician still known affectionately as “Senator” Young overcame those overwhelming odds to make a full recovery. Now, he’s faced with yet another tough medical battle, but seems determined to do the work that he loves.
“All of us have things we want to finish, things we want to do and one of the things I have on my agenda that I want to do is to call together a vote fest, which I’ve been working on with Cathy Pugh…down at the Fifth Regiment Armory. That’s going to be our way of stimulating and exciting the public again to vote,” Young said.
“Then the next thing I want to work on, in 1992 I did a revival crusade at Oriole Park and five years later in 1997 I turned around and did another one. So, my prayer this time was for God to give me the ability to come back a third time in 2012 and do another revival crusade,” Young continued.
“I don’t know, God might have some other things planned, but of the things I have on my agenda…those are the two things I’d like to spend my remaining time on.”
