Origins of This Journey

Near Mute? No More!: A journey from significant illness to 100% recovery.

First off, thank you for reading the start of this journey! Let me first tell you my story of how I am where I am today.

People who know me as the guy who is energetic and passionate about many avenues of life and whose favorite two things to do involve an excess of oral communication: announcing sports and singing/performing music. But early on in life, it appeared that the ability to talk and the ability to be cognitively aware of things that other people experience was threatened.

When I was between 18 months to two years of age, my family started noticing some signs that I wasn’t developing right. I wasn’t talking, Irritable of many noises and my parents decided to take me in to see certain specialists. The majority consensus for multiple specialists was that I was diagnosed with a form of autism, and there was a chance that it could have progressed to something more severe.

Thank God my parents decided that the answer could not be. They kept searching for another doctor until a family friend referred us to Dr. Michael Goldberg. Goldberg’s philosophy is that many diagnoses in the autistic spectrum do not match Leo Kanner’s initial discovery of what autism truly is. Goldberg believes that many cases of autism are actually severe illnesses, called Neuro-Immune Dysfunction Syndrome, where the synapses in the brain become “turned off” and with intensive medication, and therapeutic treatment, these synapses can be trained and turned on, causing an increase in quality of life.

There was much improvement in my cognitive life and behavior, and about 10 years later I was considered fully healed, and I have no signs of any part of this illness lingering with me today. I am thankful to this day that I was able to recover in such a manner.

For the years following the recovery. I felt ashamed to share my story publicly. I was afraid people would me still view me as “sick” and would then associate me with significant differences from other people or believe that my story was a hoax. For the last 10 years, I went through this battle and I felt the best way to overcome this is to go public about my childhood illness.

I believe that a main purpose of the rest of my life here on earth is to share more about my story and provide hope to those who seek it. This is why I am starting this experience entitled Minds of Meaning which will consist of this blog and public speaking opportunities.

The goal is this experience is threefold:

A). To bring awareness to neuro-immune illnesses and to bring a perspective of someone who went through these trials.

B). To discuss and relate to other struggles of the mind that society goes through on a daily basis, including anxiety, depression, etc.

C). Occasionally relate to how faith can help the mind overcome obstacles.

Thank you for reading this initial post and I hope that you continue to read. Please share this information I truly look forward to continuing this journey for the month and years to come.