In 2010 I mysteriously got really sick. I thought my brain was shutting down or worse it was dying. An Mri was showing sever limited oxygen uptake in my frontal lobe from some unknown Bio toxic mediated illness. I also had severe reduced executive function making it hard to make decisions. My brain felt like someone was constantly turning up and down the dimmer switch to my brain and things would start to go dark. I felt pulled out of reality as the darkness would come on and I would start to loose my hearing and consciousness. After a dozen different diagnosis’s and after seeing over a dozen different doctors it was found that I came down with a life threatening case of Neuro Lyme disease with all of its co-infections and a mold infection in my brain. OMG was I scared. My therapist Bill Russo in New York spent years in a wheel chair and eventually died as did a Patient of mine both had died of Late stage Lyme disease. So I new the extent to which this disease could go.
I spent many years in and out bed and emergency rooms. This healing opportunity had many positive sides. It really brought me close to my young son Finley because we spent a lot of time in bed together, reading, playing a game called MR Finger along with his friends Pointy, Middleman and stinky picky. And of course Mrs Finger. We played hours of dinosaur card games and watched tons of Start Trek. What Dad gets this kind of quality time with their son?. When I could think straight I would spend almost all my time doing research trying to save my life. And like all Lyme disease patients I would try any treatment that promised a cure and I tried them all spending hundreds of thousands of dollars. My focus on finding a cure became my new passion, my neurosis and took up the majority of my life. Doing research day and night in the hopes of saving my life was all I thought about when not in brain pain. You see at the time I had this l amazing son Finley, Wife and step kids and a beautiful home and an amazing practice. I really wanted to be there for all of them, to provide for them in the future. I didn’t want to just lye there in bed and let doctors take control of my life my decisions and my future. So I had to become my own advocate. But my wife temporarily lost me to my disease and its challenges. But the stress from seeing me sick was to much for my wife. I know she also couldn’t see herself spending years with someone so sick. She did her best. I learned that each one of us has different braking points and this was hers. It was a common theme in the Lyme community, one which I thought would never happen to me. Like so many people living with the uncertainties of Lyme disease or other Autoimmune diseases, families are quickly broken up due to the constant stress from so many aspects of the disease, such as not knowing whats coming, the frustration with one misdiagnosis after another and the useless treatments that come with those useless diagnosis’s. And then there is the constant hope with all the promises that each mis-diagnosis brings. Its hard for your loved ones to see you incoherent at times, bed ridden, incapacitated, almost dying , constantly, Emergency rooms visits with no end in sight. All this can be overwhelming and traumatic for someone who is not strong enough or who has no real life experience with illness. For my x wife she was not brought up to deal with these type of things. I lost my wife, my family and my beautiful home which had to be sold along with all my belongings to pay medial bills and treatments that were not covered by insurance. I also lost my way of making an income. To make matters even doubly hard, I am a sensitive person and it hurt me so deeply to see how my illness was hurting so many of the people I loved around me.
Like the Song “Everything Must Change and nothing stays the same” things turned around. Now my friends and family see me healing, seeing me fighting and claiming my life back, and they see me sharing my lifes lessons with others. They see how I have picked up the pieces of my shattered past life and rebuild a new and more wonderful one with my Son Finley.
So there is light at the end of the tunnel and it ain’t a train!!! Like all true healers we must go through our own crisis so we can be more understanding and compassionate and tolerant and come from a real knowing place for others going through their own healing opportunity. A friend once said to me, “You’ve got to suffer it want to sing the blues.” The good news is that this became a healing and learning opportunity for me, not only to help myself but to help others!
By sharing what I have learned I am making sense out of years of suffering and pain, not to mention spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on useless treatments and tests. Now I can be a better healer and help others with similar mysterious Autoimmune challenges and help them navigate through the complexities of testing and treatment .
For me it has been an incredible painful journey which became a healing opportunity, one which has made me a more compassionate and wiser healer. With all the new spiritual and medical knowledge I have gathered I have turned a negative into a positive! My experience gave me a new found level of compassion for myself and of course for others. I am a better person a better father and a better healer. I now wish to share all I have learned with anyone who is willing to hear me and who needs it. I have recovered most of my life back using Methylene Blue and a host of other anti inflammatory s and I enjoy spending my time as a full time single father raising my son Finley, Bodysurfing, dancing, singing and playing my flute which all remain some of my joyous activities, and of course spreading my healing touch is my mission.