I am a professional coaching psychologist, who has battled a chronic medical condition for several years.

My illness journey started late 2010. Up until this period I had enjoyed a successful sales career. I had been married to Amy for eight years. Our daughter Ariel was four and our son Logan was only a few weeks old. Life had its challenges, but for the most part everything seemed to be going well.

However, things began to deteriorate. Just a week after we brought Logan home from the hospital, I suffered from each aches, which intensified over the following weeks. My doctor prescribed several rounds of anti-biotics for me on anti-biotics, but nothing seemed to work.

A month later, while on a business trip NYC, that I started to experience other the symptoms. I began feeling dizzy and feverish, eventually rushing back to my hotel room to lie down.

Six weeks on,  I was having trouble breathing, coughing up blood, experiencing severe joint pains and covered head to toe in rashes. Even with frequent visits to an ENT and additional rounds of anti-biotics, nothing seemed to work

It was at this point that we realised something very scary was happening, so Amy rushed me to the ER.  I was barely able to walk by this time. I was quickly, hooked up to IV and Oxygen. It was the head hospital doctor who visited me with the news which I had been dreading. Without a diagnosis and treatment, I would only had a few days left to live. Hearing this knocked me sideways. I felt completely overwhelmed. I was in my 30s, I worked out every day and I was in the best shape of my life. I never got sick. Things like this didn’t happen to people like me. What was going to happen to my wife and kids? I couldn’t imagine them living without me. I felt paralysed.

Fortunately, after lung and kidney biopsies, the diagnosis came in the next day. I had GPA, a very rare auto immune condition, which is a type of vasculitis.. My blood vessels had swollen, cutting off blood flow to my vital organs. I was on the verge of kidney and lung failure.

I could be saved, but only with an extended period in ICU, months of chemotherapy and years of steroids. I would also need to take at least 18 months off from work and I may never fully recover my health;

There was not guarantee that medication would work and even if it did,  my condition could always have flare up.

During the time I spent in the ICU, I witnessed my body at its most frail and least dignified. I awoke several times a night with extreme night sweats. I went through about 3-4-night before the sun came up.  I couldn’t walk by myself anymore. I needed to be fed, bathed and help going to the toilet. I had to regularly urinate in a bed pan. I lost about 40lbs and my muscles had withered away.

After eleven days, the medical team agreed that my condition had stabilised enough for me to go home. But my illness journey was far from over. I left the hospital in a wheelchair and had to be carried inside my home.

Lights and sounds were still very painful to me. My breathing was had to be constantly aided by an oxygen tank I split my time between lying in bed or on the couch. The only time I sat upright was to take the thirteen medications I needed to take each day.

It wasn’t just my physical state which was compromised. My emotional frame of mind was especially fragile. I saw myself in the mirror, but was unable to recognise the gaunt looking person staring back. Without the ability to work, socialise, go to the gym or enjoy my hobbies I no longer felt like myself anymore. I felt lost and overcome with despair.

We also still had two young kids to raise. Amy herself had suffered from her narcolepsy for years, meaning that there were significant portions of day she would need to sleep. How would we cope? How would we survive with mounting medical bills, no work and very little family support?

Survive we did though. I’m not sure when the turning point was, but within the first few days of my time back at home I began to accept my situation and cultivate a fighting spirit.  This was my second chance at life after thinking I might not make it home from the hospital. I couldn’t go to the gym. But I could try floor exercises for a minute. I was physically weaker on the outside, but I could expand my mind and knowledge on the inside. I was not able to work a full-time job at that point, but I could find other causes and purposes. Why had this happened to me? Maybe to take this experience and helps others going through something similar.

During the years that followed, I spent my time researching ways how people with chronic illnesses could manage their lives both physically and emotionally. Initially I took time to study health and fitness, becoming certified as personal fitness trainer. I went onto to specialise in helping others with chronic illness. In 2016 I went back to school and obtained two master’s degrees, one in Organizational Psychology and another in Applied Positive Psychology and Coaching Psychology.

My area of focus on both master’s courses was on how people can rebuild their lives, identities and careers after long term illness. I also conducted extensive research about how optimism and meaning, are linked to emotional and physical improvements.

I am guided by the core belief that even if we lose what we once had physically, we can still grow intellectually, mentally and emotionally. A challenging life is not necessarily a catastrophic one. We may not live as fully as once did, but our lives can still have value, meaning and purpose. We might just have to be more creative in how we find it.