Entry 205-3
The Miraculous Recovery of Strike King Pro Mark Menendez
Day 3: Menendez’s Fight with Spinal Meningitis
Editor’s Note: Mark Menendez of Paducah, Kentucky, has made approximately $3/4 million as a tournament fisherman for the past decade. Although one of the newer Strike King pros, Menendez’s certainly not new to tournament bass fishing and has fished the Bassmasters Classic several times.
Question: Tell us about Mark Menendez before his near-death experience with spinal meningitis.
Menendez: I put myself under a tremendous amount of pressure. When I was on the water, I’d be telling myself, “Hustle, hustle, hustle. You’ve got to catch at least 20 pounds of bass today. You’ve got to earn points to get into the Classic. You’ve got to hurry up after the tournament’s over to get to the promotion you’re doing next.” I was very pressure-packed, and I would chew myself out regularly. Too, my career had a lot of highs and lows. I might win a tournament, and then you might not see my name in the top 50 standings for three or four months.
My key words at that time were, “You’ve got to do this. You’ve got to do that.” I was a lousy fishing partner back then. I’d jump in the boat with my partner, and within 5 to 10 minutes, I’d get my foot on the trolling motor. I had to have my way. I might have been a real pill to deal with back in those days, but I don’t really remember very well about that time. I always thought I knew the best way to catch fish and wasn’t objective enough to look at my partner’s opinion and realize that he might be making better decisions than I was.
Question: When did you contract spinal meningitis?
Menendez: In 2005, while fishing at the Guntersville Bassmaster tournament.
Question: Mark, tell us more about your fight with spinal meningitis.
Menendez: In 2005, I was in Albany, New York, doing a seminar for Bassmaster University. After the seminar ended, I had lunch with David Fritts and George Cochran and ate a fantastic Reuben sandwich, one of my favorites. About halfway through the sandwich, I got somewhat nauseated. But then I felt somewhat better and got on a plane to Charlotte, North Carolina. From Charlotte, I headed on a plane for Huntsville, Alabama, to fish the Guntersville Bassmaster tournament.
Once the plane got to the altitude where it would fly, I had the worse pain in my head I’d ever felt. The pain felt like someone was driving a spike from the base of my spine right out my eyes. When I slumped over in my seat, a stewardess came up and asked, “Are you alright?” I told her I had a really, really bad headache. The plane landed, and I saw Jimmy Houston at the airport and asked if he had anything for a headache. Jimmy gave me two extra-strength Excedrin, but they didn’t even touch the pain I was having. My wife met me at the airport in Huntsville with my boat and truck, and I started driving the 80 miles to Guntersville with the rain pouring down. When I arrived in Guntersville, I finally got to sleep about 2:00 a.m.
I got up the next morning, fished hard all day long and had one of the greatest days of fishing I’d ever had. I had four bass, each of which weighed between 6- to 8-pounds. I had one spotted bass that weighed about 3 pounds. I caught all those bass on Strike King’s Diamond Shad. I also learned that I could catch 2-1/2-pound bass on every cast with a Strike King Series 3 crankbait. I called my wife at the end of this practice day and asked her to go ahead and put my trailer in the water. I told her I’d be at the landing in about 3 minutes. However, when I sat down in the boat to drive to the ramp, I lost my vision. I only could see for about 4 inches. I’d marked the launch site as a waypoint on my GPS earlier. So, I programmed my GPS to take me to launch site. I had my face right against the screen of the GPS, and I navigated totally by the GPS. Four inches was all I could see. I took 20 minutes to get across the lake because I only ran the boat at idle speed.
After I arrived at the boat ramp, my sight returned. Since my wife was having a hard time putting the trailer in the water, I got out of my boat and tried to do it. I was having an even-harder time than she was. I missed getting the trailer under the boat four different times. When I finally got the boat on the trailer, I decided to gas up. 
I almost felt back to normal. I’d had a headache all day and felt somewhat nauseated before that time.
When I climbed into bed that night, I went to sleep. But at 3:00 am, I woke up my wife Donna and told her she had to take me to the hospital. After a large battery of tests, the ER doctor told me I had a severe migraine headache. I explained to the doctor that I’d never had a headache before, nor had I ever felt so bad. He offered me a shot of Demerol, but I declined because I had to fish the next day. I knew I was on a pattern that could win this tournament for me and my family. But, since that upcoming day was a practice day, I decided to sleep until 12:00 noon and then go out and practice. I’d had such a great day on the previous day I thought I had the pattern established.
Donna tried to wake me up two or three times that day, but I still had a terrific headache and didn’t want to get up. At 6:00 p.m., I ate something, but the food quickly resurfaced. Donna called my dermatologist at home, a friend of ours, and explained just how sick I was. She described my symptoms. He advised her to administer a couple of quick tests while he was on the phone. He asked Donna to bend my head so that my chin would touch my chest. I started screaming it hurt so badly when she did this. Then he had her lift my leg up to about a 45-degree angle. I couldn’t even raise my leg to a 30-degree angle. My doctor said, “Donna, take Mark right now back to the ER. Tell them he has spinal meningitis. You scream that Mark has spinal meningitis as you go through the doors.”
We quickly arrived at the hospital, but I still had to wait 3 hours to see the doctor, the very-same one I’d seen the previous night. 
The doctor said after giving me another battery of tests, “So, your dermatologist thinks you’ve got spinal meningitis? You want to do a spinal tap, right?” And, I answered, “Tap away.” I had to sign a liability release to get the doctor to conduct the test. After the doctor pulled fluid off my spinal column, he told me not to move for 15 minutes. He announced that he didn’t think I had meningitis because the fluid was gin-clear. “If you had meningitis, the fluid would be cloudy.” He took the sample to the lab, however, the lab found the meningitis. The doctor said, “Ok, you’ve got meningitis, and you’re going to be here at the hospital for awhile.”
Well, I thought he was talking about a couple of hours, but I didn’t wake up for three days. I had all kinds of IVs in me to take heavy, heavy antibiotics into my veins. I stayed in that hospital for 16 days. When I talked to the neurologist who was on my case, she said that if I hadn’t been treated when I was, I only would have lived 4 to 6 more hours.
