"Hercules: The Legendary Journeys" star Kevin Sorbo was at the peak of his career when his health suddenly went haywire—some parts of his body were constantly in pain, others were numb while his vision got blurred.
"My shoulder was just killing me. I was getting these pains; it was driving me nuts. There was numbness in here. These three fingers were getting colder and colder by the week," he shared during an interview with Charisma News.
Sorbo consulted his doctor, who thought that his shoulder just suffered from a pinched nerve. When the pain failed to go away, he went to a chiropractor. But things only got worse after his consultation.
"I feel two very loud pops in the back of my head. I feel it. I feel like fingers jabbing in there. I feel this and my vision is all over the place," he recalled. "Oh, it was unbelievable. The buzzing, the vibration, the humming that was going on. I just looked up at the sky and I said, 'I'm going to die today.'"
Sorbo did not die that day, but his condition only got worse as the days passed by. His eyesight continued to deteriorate, his balance was gone, and he was having difficulty talking. He then went back to the hospital and was admitted into the ICU. The doctors later discovered that he had an aneurysm in his left arm.
"The lump was an aneurysm, my left side clavicle had opened up and now thousands of clots were in my arm and they thought they might have to amputate," he said.
It was then that Sorbo broke down and cried. He talked to God and asked for strength to accept the challenges that lay in store for him. He said he asked God: "Help me to find the acceptance in this. If this is the best I'm going to be, then help me fight through this every day. Because it was tough."
The timing of his declining health came at a bad time, because he was four months shy from getting married to his co-star and then girlfriend Sam Jenkins. They planned on having three kids together but he was beginning to question whether or not he can still have kids.
"I was scared. I was scared for my future, my career, my life. Am I going to be able to have kids? I was scared for a lot of different reasons. And we're 4 months from saying for better or for worse and she gets worse before she gets to say those lines," he said.
But his wife bravely answered: "I wasn't scared. I did not think that this was going to change our lives. I had for some reason, a great deal of faith."
Sorbo started to learn how to walk again, and as the days passed by, his speech and vision improved. Everybody decided it would be best if he continued filming. "As he healed, the healing brought him more faith," his wife said.
"Hercules" wrapped up after six seasons, but Sorbo was not yet done working. He might have lost 10 percent of his vision in both eyes, but his vigour to work remained strong.
"I've done 40 movies since then as well. So I'm shooting one now and I've got another one after this, so knock on wood, thank God I'm still working," he said.
Looking back on all that he had gone through, Sorbo believes that he had a great deal to learn when it comes to faith in God. "Faith is not tangible, you can't touch it. It's something that's a belief, something that's inside of you. And I needed hope and faith to keep pushing myself past every single day of what I was going through and what I felt. My true strength comes from God and certainly from my family right after that. They're the most important things in my life," he said.
