JUN

2019

Even with the rapidly increasing symptoms over the past week I still never thought I would be driving myself to the emergency room. But at some point sitting at my desk I felt this overwhelming, as clear as day, voice from God tell me to get up get in the car and go. Not even sticking around to find my boss, I sent her a quick email and just got up and left. No joke I was swerving walking down the long haul out of the office. I honestly barely made into the car. My experience in the Emergency Room was an emotionally charged time for me as the alarming anxiousness in the back of my mind became a shocking reality.

Coming home from my stay at Tri-City Medical Center was tough. I couldn’t wait to get out of that hospital bed and back to the comfort of my own home and family. But once home, the reality of my condition really showed its ugly head. Everything was harder and took a toll on my hammered nerves and lack of strength. Even the slightest bit of activity had to be matched with an amazing amount of rest to recover. Then by week four the symptoms came back with a vengeance. In somewhat of denial I pushed through for days but was met with several falls until I finally just couldn’t get back up on my own anymore. The night before heading to UCSD I was having trouble breathing and swallowing. I had asthma pretty bad as a kid so not being able to breath is probably my worst nightmare. Late that night I sent a desperate text to my ER doctor because he had given me his cell number. He called right back and our decision was clear that we needed to head to the ER. While at UCSD I did a seven day treatment called IVIG that I will explain in detail in the full story.

The relapse that followed, just weeks later from my stay at Tri-City will forever be hard to put into words. To some degree, I had lost control of every portion of my body during my stay at UCSD. Not fit to go home, I was sent back to Try-City to stay at there Rehabilitation Center. I spent several weeks there learning to do everything all over again. No longer could I walk, bathe or even get out of bed without support. It was a defeating blow. I can honestly say the over-whelming support of family, friends and those I didn’t even know kept me pushing forward. The small wins each day were sometimes hard to measure and were often met with my lack of patience.

I’ve now worked with several physical therapists throughout this last year, but working with Katie at PRN Carlsbad was God sent. I was so broken and defeated when I arrived. But her overwhelming optimism and dedicated support brought me back to life again. The little wins each time bolstered my confidence that, with work, things could get better. Toward the end of August my friend Kasey helped me pickup a 10 foot soft top longboard with hopes that I could get back in the water to paddle again someday. That summer was just the best. Almost daily my wife would drag me and our little Emmy down to the beach… and we would just play. Eventually, in September I began paddling and by the end of the month I stood up on my first wave again. Life had just been breathed back into my soul again.

As fall began to come I was doing great. The summer had been full of so many little wins both physically and emotionally. Many of the symptoms had began to fade. The constant tingling and throbbing I had grown so used to in my hands and feet slowly dissipated. I never thought it would feel so strange to feel so normal. Most days I didn’t even use my cane anymore. My nuerologist had confidently indicated that all signs showed it was time to move forward and more on. But like coming home from the hospital the first time, the reality of my condition was still very real and not pretty. Going back to work was not easy. I wasn’t used to walking so much but man did it feel good to be back at work trying to be normal again.

Four weeks back at work and it all came crashing down. Being back at work and in a new position was going well, but it was taking a toll on my body. Like before, in the back of my mind I knew something was wrong and I had been pushing forward too hard. Often I was having to medicate at night to fall asleep because my legs were just on fire. The above photo was taken when my sister and family were visiting for Thanksgiving. What my sister didn’t know, and really I didn’t either, was I was going in and out of consciousness. Moments later on our walk up the beach I fainted and fell to the ground. I have never fully gotten back up to where I physically was since before the fall at the beach that day. In late November my diagnoses was changed to Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy (CIDP). Several more fainting episodes brought on an in depth round of testing that resulted in, and never fully understood, dysfunction in my autonomic nervous system.

After getting out of the hospital in December everything was different. Moving on was no longer the full-answer, but my wife and I were determined to go on the offense against this mess. We decided that the common treatments and medicine, though helpful, were not the solution. After a recommendation we decided to meet with Dr. Stephanie Hendershot, a Naturopathic Doctor who had success in treating auto-immune diseases through nutrition and homeopathic medicines. With so much outside of my control the last year of my life I was determined to take back what I could control. Now months later, I am looking forward to sharing the path we have taken to healing the root cause of the disease through a regimen of nutrition, diet and exercise in conjunction with common treatments.