✅ PART 1 – The Beginning of the End That Wasn’t

How My Stroke Started — and the Moment I Knew I Wasn’t Done Yet

You hear it in me — in my voice, in the way I talk now.
It’s not just a survivor’s voice. It’s someone who knows he could die any second.
Not tomorrow. Not next year. I mean two minutes from now. That’s what this stroke taught me.

And the truth? I’m not really afraid of dying. I’m afraid of not living.
But let me tell you how it started.

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I was on a trip to Colorado with my son Jake, visiting family, trying to get my shit together. I’d been eating better. Running up in the mountains near Steamboat Springs. Pushing myself. Trying.

On the way home, we stopped in Salt Lake City. It was late — maybe 10 p.m. — and we were starving. Del Taco. That part was heaven.

But when I got back to the hotel, my eye started burning. I think it was my right eye. (It’s hard to remember now — the left side of my brain had the stroke, so it affected the right side of my body.)

At first, I thought maybe it was battery acid from the TV remote. Don’t ask me why — just one of those weird, panicked guesses you make when something’s wrong and you don’t want to admit it. I even told Jake to relax, told him not to worry, even while I was kind of screaming. I was flushing my eye with water, trying to calm it down.

Then the blurry vision started. The dizziness. The nausea.

Over the next few hours, I could barely walk. My dumbass thought I had food poisoning. I told myself I had to power through — I had to get home. A good friend’s father had passed away. John Seymour. West Point grad, Vietnam vet, football player, great man. I wasn’t going to miss his funeral. So I pushed through.

But I couldn’t stand up. I kept telling Jake I was fine. Lying to him. Lying to myself.

At one point, I got into the bathtub to try to cool off and couldn’t get out. I had to reach across my body with my left arm, dig in, and somehow hoist myself out. I don’t even know how I did it. I tore down the towel rack trying to get leverage. Crawled back to bed. Moaning all night. It was hot. I was sweating, shaking — but I still thought it was something I ate.

My son was on the phone all night with people. Trying to decide if he should call 911. I kept begging him not to.

By morning, they told me: “If you can walk to the car, we’ll take you to urgent care.” I agreed. I had no idea I was already paralyzed on one side.

I used the hotel hallway wall to drag myself along — leaning, sliding, pushing with one leg, dragging the other. We were in one of those old Ramada-style hotels with the wings and the glass doors. I tried to open one and crushed my hand in it because I couldn’t feel anything. It started gushing blood, but I didn’t even feel it.

There was a rail outside and I slid along it to the parking lot. Then I saw our car — and I just fell forward and dragged myself the rest of the way.

This wasn’t bravery. This was stupidity. But I had no idea what was really happening to me.

Jake drove.

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By the time we got to urgent care, I was almost blind from the light sensitivity. I started getting out of the car on my own — still trying to be stubborn. I reached for the car next to me and walked along it.

Jake caught up and said, “Dad, can I help you?”

And that’s when it hit me.
Shit. I need help.

He got under my arm like a battle buddy pulling a wounded soldier off the field.

And then a man pulled up and asked, “Do you need help?”
He parked, jumped out, got under my other arm, held my limp hand across his chest.
I’ll never forget him asking, “How long has he been like this?”

Jake said, “Since last night.”

And the man just said, “Oh my God.”

That’s the first moment I realized — this might be really bad