My Story

On September 19, 2000, I was diagnosed with acute promyelocytic leukemia. I was senior assistant instructor at Jeff Bolt's school at that time, teaching and working out 2 to 3 times each week and in fairly good physical condition. Actually it is thanks to a young student with whom I had worked closely since he'd begun training at our school at the age of 13 that my condition was discovered. While practicing free fighting one day he managed to get me with a finger jab to my armpit, (a technique I taught him, ahem). That strike resulted in a swelling in my armpit which eventually led to my diagnosis. Thanks to mine and my wife's families, our 4 kids were well taken care of allowing my wife, Robyn, to stay by my side for the entire four months I was in the hospital. The good news is that I'm still here, if there IS any bad news it's that I lost a lot of my physical abilities. It was over a year after my diagnosis before I could go back to class for anything other than to visit. When I did go back for real, my brain new what to do, but my body just couldn't do it yet, so I spent several years trying to get back to where I was. In some respects I'm still working on it, in other ways I've actually surpassed where I was. The bottom line is that even though the young man whom I was teaching then can whip my butt now, it's all good. I'm just thankful and blessed to still be doing one of the things I love most, martial arts.