FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- When members of the New England Patriots gathered at owner Robert Kraft's home to receive their Super Bowl rings in the summer of 2004, offensive lineman Matt Light couldn't make it. It wasn't by choice.

Light was fighting to stay alive, in the middle of a 30-day hospital stay.

"It was one of the darkest periods in my life," he recalled Monday.

Had things unfolded according to plan, Light would have had 13 inches of his intestine removed, the ends could heal together, there would have been no complications and he would have been back on the field for the start of 2004 training camp.

But that's not the way it happened.

Instead, there were post-surgery complications. Light didn't eat for a month. His weight dropped from 315 pounds to 260, as his under-the-radar battle with Crohn's disease -- a bowel disease that causes inflammation of the lining of the digestive system -- was attacking him with force.

Forget about facing potent pass-rushers such as Dwight Freeney, Jason Taylor, Aaron Schobel and John Abraham. Light just wanted to make sure he'd get out alive.

Light told this story publicly, and detailed his decade-long struggle with Crohn's, for the first time Monday in a private moment after his retirement news conference.

Monday had to be one of the happiest days of Light's life, the Patriots giving him a terrific send-off that included heartfelt remarks from Kraft and Bill Belichick. To understand why that was the case, and a large reason why he'd come to the decision to retire, one has to go back to the summer of 2004.

"I basically got to the point, over the 3-4 years of being diagnosed with Crohn's, that I couldn't handle the pain anymore," Light said. "The pain became so difficult that in the offseason it just paralyzed me. I'd hit the ground. You can't wake up. You can't sit down. You can't do anything without this becoming a problem."

Realizing that he couldn't go on like that much longer, Light saw a specialist and tapped the expert advice of one of the Patriots' team doctors, David Berger at Massachusetts General Hospital.

"I was lucky that I had his counsel and he was there to walk me through the process," Light said, referring to Berger as his lifeline.

"It came down to the fact that, 'Look, you have to have 13 inches of your intestine removed and it has to happen now and you could be on a bag the rest of your life. If there was anything else we could do, we'd do it, but you're getting blocked and there is nothing we can do for you other than this surgery.' When you have 13 inches of your intestine removed, that's not a very simple process.

"That happened in June, and I made it to training camp in the third week [of August], but not without having literally a near-death experience where I had another blockage post-surgery that I wasn't aware of -- all these complications.

Family and health were two key factors in Matt Light's decision to retire. Light has been dealing with Crohn's disease since 2001. AP Photo/Steven Senne

"It's not to tell the story as 'woe is me' -- I could care less about that -- but when you go through something like that and it's that wild of a time I always wanted to finish the game of football and go out on my terms and the way I wanted to do it."

Light, 33, has done just that. Learning to manage Crohn's over time, he ended up playing some of his best football in 2011, with Belichick saying Light made just two mental errors all season (compared to 19 as a rookie in 2001). Light would have been a bargain for the team at a $3.4 million base salary in 2012, but this wasn't about collecting another paycheck.

Light's retirement was a health decision. Light said Crohn's isn't the primary reason he's walking away, but it is a factor. While he was playing, he didn't want to take medication, in part because it could have deteriorated his bone mass and would have added to the already difficult challenge of maintaining his weight. In recent weeks since finalizing his retirement, he has started taking medication and the initial results have been promising.

Light, who grew up in Greenville, Ohio, is one of just a few NFL players who have publicly detailed their struggles with Crohn's, joining Miami Dolphins quarterback David Garrard. Light first discovered it during his rookie season.

"I knew I had some issues in 2001, due to some bleeding and where I was finding that," he said. "People that have it know, whether it's using the restroom or all the other things that come along with it, the pain that comes along with it and how it affects people, it's just a very ugly disease.

"So I had some signs in college [at Purdue] that nobody ever picked up on, me included. When I came to New England, all the pressure and everything else, I think that kind of led to some of the symptoms and things ramping up. I found out it was definitely Crohn's and it was definitely an issue."