This made me really happy so I thought I’d share.

A few days ago, Hayden & I saw a black & white cat run by our back patio doorway. I didn’t think much of it as it’s not uncommon to see outdoor cats wander the neighborhood. I just thought this was one I hadn’t seen before.

A day or so later, I was looking out of the kitchen window onto the porch and noticed that same cat sleeping on one of our cushioned porch chairs. I was curious about where it came from but mostly worried because it seemed to have spent the night there and the temperature was dropping daily and getting really cold at night.

When I looked and saw him there the next morning as well, I knew I had to do something. I called our location pet adoption center and looked on a community website and was lucky enough to find a posting for a lost cat and the picture looked almost exactly like the one I was seeing on our porch.

I emailed the people who had posted the listing and got a phone call the next day. The problem was that I had tried to take the cat some food and when it saw me it ran away and hadn’t come back since. When I talked to the owner, I let them know our area and they might try looking around the neighborhood. When they came out later that day, they didn’t have any luck but decided to place some lost & found flyers in our neighbors mailboxes.

Sure enough, the next day the owners got a call from a different neighbor who had seen the cat. They drove out here immediately and found him about to attempt to cross the road but were lucky enough to get him to come to them instead.

I received a letter yesterday from the owners thanking me because of my tip, they were able to know his general location and where to look so that they could reunite Leo the cat with their disabled daughter who had him since he was a kitten. Leo had grown up in Georgia and been flown out after the family moved but was staying with relatives and had become confused so he ran away.

I called the family once I received the letter and found out that the lost & found poster I had seen was their more recent attempt having been posted on October 17th but in fact, Leo had been missing and alone for 7 weeks.

I couldn’t be happier to have helped reunite a family with their pet that I’m sure had already accepted his loss. Whether it was avoiding the night cold, coyotes, dogs, cars, or simply distance, Leo made it home.

This is the story of the last 10 months. The most painful time of my life. I’ve kept this mostly private until now because until last Friday, I haven’t known the cause. Now that we know what’s happening with me, I share it with you.

Ten months ago on December 28th, 2010, I was sitting on the back steps of our house when out of nowhere, my chest became excruciatingly painful. My heart rate increased drastically and the room started spinning. I was sure that at age 26, I was having a heart attack. My Wife & I called my parents and a local doctor who had me rush to a nearby urgent care facility for testing. After a quick EKG, they decided my heart was fine. The doctor said it might be severe indigestion (boy would I feel stupid) and he gave me an anesthetic to numb my insides to see if the pain went away. It helped a little but still hurt and he decided that was probably what it was. He said I wasn’t in any danger and sent me home.

After a few days, my family & I decided I must have strained something in my chest and possibly had something called Costochondritis which is an issue with the cartilage connecting your ribs and sternum. We decided I should rest and see if it helped. Nope. The pain kept coming. after a few weeks, we reconsidered the idea that maybe it was internal and that I had a bad ulcer causing acid reflux and after speaking with another doctor friend of the family over the phone, we decided I should take an acid reflux medication and simultaneously help the pain with doses of Maalox when it became worse. I did this for about 2 weeks and because I didn’t want to eat much at the time, I lost 20 pounds and went down to 143 lbs at a height of 6’2″. (Only now have I been able to get back to 158 lbs)

We’re now about 3 months into the pain and there hasn’t been any hope or relief and my wife & I are concerned that this will just be the new normal. We’re avoiding seeing too many doctors at this time because our new health insurance hadn’t yet kicked in.

Finally, the health insurance kicks in and we go to another doctor to really dig in and figure things out. We thought for sure we’d find an answer. He did blood tests and while we waited for results said I needed an Ultrasound and X-rays to see what was going on inside. Of course the tests came back showing nothing. When I told him my shoulder was hurting as well, he thought for sure it was my Gallbladder and had me undergo something called a HIDA scan. Basically a radioactive isotope is injected into your bloodstream and monitored on a screen. Again, came back normal even though the test was absolutely horrible.

Now at 4 months, I’m still in terrible pain and it seems to be getting worse. All I can really do is get out of bed, walk to the couch, lay down, and either work from my laptop or watch movies. (I probably watched over 100 movies) I not only feel physically bad, I feel terrible that I can’t help out more around the house and that I’m holding my wife back from being able to do the things she wants us to do. Oh yeah, I’m still building my business along the way and let’s just say the growth pattern that had been huge has slowed to a crawl because I can barely move.

When my blood tests came back, the only thing that wasn’t normal was my Vitamin D level. My doctor had said that Vitamin D deficiency can cause pain in some people and when it came back at level 17 (normal is 50) we almost threw a party because we knew what was wrong! Then he said it would take about 3 months to improve. I almost cried. Then I pulled myself together and went to pick up prescription level Vitamin D supplements. As the months went on, I seemed to be getting better but when the time ran out and I was still hurting, we were back to square one.

After being so debilitated and stuck on the couch for months, I decided I needed to visit a chiropractor to help loosen up my back. He claimed that everything was just coming from my back and that he was positive he could get me back to normal. This is now June. It would be another 5 months before I had a real answer. The only reason I kept going to him was that I was noticing things change and move around and the pain was becoming less and less. I was sure we were onto something and that it was just a matter of time before I was normal again. I’ve always had back problems and was happy to keep getting it popped.

During this time I had gone back to my other doctor and mentioned the progress and was upset to hear that he still was sure it was my Gallbladder. We had moved on from that months ago. I had also banned myself from researching anything online because I had probably diagnosed myself with 20 different things from a Hiatal hernia to anything else I could find that matched. Some days the pain was down to my toes and others it was just in my upper middle back.

The only test I hadn’t done at this point was an MRI and I mentioned that I thought it would help to both my doctor and my chiropractor. Both of them said it would be really expensive and not show anything so we didn’t bother. Eventually I was so sure we’d see something on an MRI that I booked a ticket to fly back to Alabama where my parents had access to one and my Dad being a Neurologist would be able to find an answer. Little did we know that my Mom had successfully diagnosed my issue months before but because of other symptoms that may not have been related, we didn’t settle on it.

A few days after I booked the ticket, my arms went almost completely numb and I lost most of my strength to them. My Mom said it was something in my neck and for my chiropractor to schedule a quick Xray which we did and he said he couldn’t find anything. I never got to see them but when I told him about my arms, he said we needed to focus on my back to fix it. Even I know that issues in your arms stem from the nerves in your neck and for the first time. I had to tilt my head in confusion as I realized: “This guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

The flight back to Alabama was extremely uncomfortable for me and my family & I were all sure we were about to find something wrong with my neck. After 2 hours in the MRI, we did. A severe protrusion and herniation in the disk between C5 and C6 in my neck had been to blame the entire time and it was clear from the MRI that my muscles were in heavy spasm and were pulling my neck badly out of alignment and fairly locked that was after 10 months.

Within 24 hours, I was on medication to ease the spasm and adding heat to my neck. Extremely noticeable change had occurred in my pain and I no longer felt pain in my chest but instead it was moving around as things relaxed. After 10 months of searching, I had an answer. I had avoided posting anything online without knowing and only told a few of my students when the pain interfered with a training session.

I still have pain as it’s become a chronic issue now and I face a road to recovery for a while instead of an easy fix but I’m well on my way after only a few days and I wanted to thank everyone who has been supportive since this started. Most of all, my wife Hayden who has taken care of me and been there for me and had to put up with me. Thank you sweetheart. I don’t know what I’d do without you.