“I Made You a Fighter”

LATE INTO THAT FALL MORNING in 2007, I remained in bed, my body weak with pain and fatigue, my spirit worn out too.

I was living alone in a townhouse outside Celebration, Florida, my life a shell of what it had been. Sixteen months earlier, in June 2006, I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. My marriage ended. My body failed me. Things really fell apart. I needed physical help every day. I was no longer Super-man: successful, in amazing shape, strong in every sense of the word.

I couldn’t work anymore as a television producer. The daily pain and fatigue of my MS meant I couldn’t keep up with grueling production schedules. I was trading stocks to make ends meet, but I couldn’t take care of my family the way I used to. MS had also given me a limp. I had to drag my left leg everywhere I went. It was mortifying.

I barely left the town-house. Not to go to