Days of Our Lives alum Greg Vaughan is recovering after coming down with a case of severe altitude sickness on a family trip to the Colorado Rockies.
The actor, who starred as Eric Brady on the beloved soap opera, shared his story with fans on Thursday through multiple Instagram posts accompanied by selfies from his hospital bed while using an oxygen tank.
Vaughan says he started to feel “somewhat tired” after his first day of vacation and then began “experiencing shortness of breath climbing a few flights of stairs, wheezy, some congestion after some cold snowy conditions, and a headache developing.”
“I had hydrated all day, so into the night I drank a bottle of Pedialyte and NyQuil’d myself out to be ready to tackle BRECK w/the boys the next morning!” wrote the actor who has also recurred on Queen Sugar.
“Unfortunately, it was a night of tossing, turning, no sleep, coughing, dry heaving & my head felt like it was in a walnut cracker! Disappointedly, morning arrived & I had to tell my boys, plus our friends who just arrived, I was staying home to rest & be my best for our final days to come!”
Vaughan noted, however, that his symptoms “only got worse as the day went on” and he had to sit out yet another day with his kids.
“Two full days gone, enough was enough, I finally surrendered & went to urgent care and to my shock I learned that I was experiencing severe altitude sickness! My Blood Oxygen was at 54% & my lungs were full of fluids,” he added, noting that the normal blood oxygen range is “95-100%.”
According to the Cleveland Clinic, altitude sickness occurs when your body doesn’t have “time to adjust to lower oxygen availability higher up in the atmosphere.” While it is “usually preventable and treatable,” the clinic notes that a severe case “can rapidly turn into a life-threatening concern.”
After “a couple bags of IV & oxygen tank strapped to my face,” Vaughan said in a follow-up Instagram post, he was told that he needed to “immediately get off the mountain,” but refused because he didn’t want to ruin his family’s trip.
Instead, he “opted to go home with an oxygen tank, a good laugh for everyone, and I know will follow, but my boys looked after their old man & fortunately they had friends on this trip.”
“In all seriousness, no matter your age, and all the times I’ve [ski emoji] & [snowboard emoji] in my lifetime, Colorado Rockies is no joke!” Vaughan concluded. “As they say, ‘take a breathe and smell the roses!’ That is truly something we need to remember & appreciate!”
