Neuro Fitness Foundation Speech

I will be sharing my story at the Neuro Finness Foundation Golf Tournament, Monday, April 25th. Please come if you can, but if you can't here's what I will be sharing.

-Daniel

I’ve been coming to the NFF a little over a year. I would not be alive today if it were not for my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Let me tell you a little about my accident, and what the NFF has meant to me. At 5:15 a.m. on January 17, 2008, as a result from a drug overdose from taking Xanax, Ambien, and Methodone, my mom found me unconscious in my bed, covered in vomit, barely breathing. I was totally unresponsive and barely alive.

The paramedics who answered the 911 call had to work on me for 45 minutes to bring me back to life. I was rushed to Harris Methodist HEB Hospital. My doctors didn’t think I would live through the first shift. But I did. They didn’t think I would live through the first day, or the first weekend, or the first week. But I did. I was on a ventilator; I had aspiration pneumonia, brain injury, liver and kidney failure. I had six or seven dialysis treatments before my kidneys started working again. I started waking up after several days, but my doctors thought I was just having involuntary responses.

During the next several weeks I underwent many procedures to keep me alive. I had a chest tube, a stomach peg, then a gastrointestinal tube, a tracheotomy, permanent catheter for dialysis, PICC line, an arterial line, a central line and an intravenous filter for blood clots. Several of these procedures had complications that led to further procedures. I lost 70 pounds and received 17 units of blood in 2 months.

Eventually all my organs began to function and I was able to stop dialysis and begin getting off of the ventilator. However, I was receiving a certain medication that was causing Neuroleptic Malignant Syndrome that was slowly killing me. It is very rare and has symptoms that mimic those of a brain-stem injury. If you combine that with my anoxic brain injury and stroke, it took a while for my doctors to realize that some medications were killing me, and the offending medications were discontinued immediately.

Eventually my body stabilized enough to be transferred to a rehab hospital. For the next few months, the staff worked with me to get me breathing on my own, eating solid food, drinking liquids, and started physical therapy. I could barely sit in a chair and could no longer stand or walk, and I couldn’t use my hands.

I had many months of therapy, and many interventions such as surgeries on both of my hands and feet, physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, and Botox. You name it, I had it.

I believe all of those therapies served a purpose in my recovery, but I think it was the NFF that helped bridge the gap between that phase of my recovery and moving toward more independence. Since coming to the NFF I not only have gotten much stronger, but I’ve been able to quit using my walker. I did my first 5K walk this past October and started back to school in the Spring. The progress that I have achieved this past year has been made possible, in part, due to the help I have received from the many great people at the NFF. I look forward to coming to the gym every week. I have met many nice people and have made some friends. I continue to get stronger and I am still making progress.

I know I still have a long way to go, but I am looking forward to the challenge and the new opportunities that lie ahead. I thank God for my second chance. I know that He has given me this chance for a reason. I have a purpose in life! It will be a privilege to help someone else, even if it’s just one person, to not make the same mistakes I have made.