Our nation has impossible problems, but I’ve learned to solve those.
Disability Roulette
In 2013, toward the very end of my doctoral work at Clemson, I became paralyzed and began to struggle with words.
The symptoms abated, then returned again—along with blindness & deafness, fainting, memory loss, and more. Symptoms were totally unpredictable between one moment and the next. Often, I stayed awake through the night because breathing required conscious effort.
There was no obvious pattern, and no one could tell me what was wrong. With no diagnosis, I began calling it “disability roulette.”
After several years and dozens of specialists, doctors began to recommend that I find acceptance.
I realized they were giving up on me.
So, I returned the favor.
I began to teach myself cutting-edge neuroimmunology. It was painfully slow due to the difficulty of reading even one sentence.
Two years later, I found the first drug which allowed me to walk again.
Recovery
Each improvement helped me find the next a little faster.
I ultimately lost a decade during which I’d hoped to pursue a career and a family—but it was better than the alternative.
In 2022, I was finally able to have my genes fully sequenced and began to dig through all the code.
Last year, on the day after Christmas, I discovered the exact genetic code which has been causing the problem… which has never been found in any other human being. When it switched on, it restructured my entire brain – cutting connections and rebuilding them had caused all the various issues.
With a precise cause, I have been able to stabilize my condition, and am now working toward a true cure. But I know there must have been a reason I was put through a decade of Hell on earth and then brought out of it just now.
Steel
After my first paralysis, I had a bracelet made for my worst days. It was bigger than the hospital tags, so I’d remember the important thing.
As the years wore on, I increasingly wondered, “Why is this necessary? For what purpose am I being forged?”
When I was finally able to look up from my own battle, I was shocked to discover that I could hardly recognize my own country anymore. I began to hear an increasingly-insistent Call to go fix my nation, and I understand now that it is my responsibility to begin setting our country right.
Is it an impossible task?
It’s a necessary task.
Whatever we’re doing is not working. Change is necessary.
Necessity leaves no room to consider possibility.
Why vote for me?
I registered for this race in Jan. 2023, when I was Called, even though I had not yet recovered. I had no idea how I could campaign, let alone win against a well-liked incumbent, but I believe the only answer when God asks is “yes.”
Fast-forward a year and I had been healed, Jeff announced retirement… and that’s when everyone else signed up.
If they wanted to serve YOU, where were they before then?
My opponents are great people, but there is clearly an element of self-interest which is the ultimate factor in their decisions. I do not believe you can expect that to magically change because they’ve been sent to Washington.
They have already shown you who they are, and how they will make decisions which involve your future – based on their self-interest.
I have already shown you who I am, and how I will make decisions which involve your future.
If it’s necessary, that’s what we’ll do.