My story, which now intertwines directly with my son’s, began in 1992 in a small town in North Carolina.

Due to a tremendously rough home life, I became a depressed kid who had all but quit school entirely by the fourth grade. I still remember sleeping through nearly every class, sleeping on the bus rides home, and then staying up until 2 a.m. playing video games as a way to escape reality. Eventually, my teachers stopped calling home about my missing homework and lack of attention. They had given up on me, and honestly, so had I.

Then, in 11th grade, I joined my high school wrestling team.

At first, I accepted the fact that I would probably only compete on junior varsity. But growing up, I had watched my older brother wrestle varsity, and something inside me refused to let that dream go. I started eating better, paying attention in school, spending more time outside, and doing everything I could to become competitive on the mats. By my senior year, I earned a varsity spot and won far more matches than I lost.

Still, I felt lost.

Highschool was over, and everyone around me seemed excited for college and the future. They were touring campuses, making plans with roommates, and talking about careers they wanted to pursue. Meanwhile, school still felt like a struggle for me, and I had very little motivation to continue academics. Instead, I felt pulled toward the Army. I wanted to become something larger than who I currently was — someone strong, fearless, and indestructible.

So, in 2013, shortly after my 20th birthday, I left for Fort Benning to become an airborne infantryman. Eventually, I found myself stationed in Vicenza, Italy with the 173rd Airborne Brigade. Before leaving, I married my then-girlfriend because I was worried that if we separated while I lived across the world, I would lose her forever, and she was all I had. She came with me, and by the time we left Italy, she was 38 weeks pregnant with our son, Elias.

Eli inherited Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, type 1A.

At first, the ego inside of me did not want to believe it. But after watching him struggle to walk, constantly trip and fall, and fall behind physically compared to other children, we had him formally diagnosed through genetic testing at UNC Chapel Hill in 2018.

As painful as it was to accept, there was a burning passion inside me to do something about it. By the end of that same year, I enrolled in college with the goal of one day applying to a PhD program in biology research.

The years that followed were slow and difficult. While balancing Army life, fatherhood, and school, I often felt like I still was not learning enough about the things that truly mattered to me — gene therapy, molecular biology, and how diseases like CMT might one day be cured. Still, I kept my head down and pushed forward.

In 2022, I graduated with a Bachelor of Science, became an Army officer, and later applied to the military’s health sciences university for a PhD program in molecular biology. I thought this was finally the beginning of the path I was meant to take. But after receiving a phone call informing me that the Army was no longer accepting applicants outside of a specific career field, everything came crashing down.

I felt trapped.

I had locked myself into the Army, and I was fighting a battle that no longer felt like mine.

My fight needed to be for Eli.

Then, sometime in the fall of 2024, I was sitting in our backyard watching Eli play soccer with neighborhood kids. He tripped and fell, over and over again — sometimes simply because he kicked the ball too hard or ran too fast. And every time he fell, it hurt me just as much as it did him.

Eventually, he walked over to me for a drink of water, looked up at me, and asked:

“Dad, why do I keep falling?”

A lump instantly formed in my throat, and I wanted nothing more than to take the CMT right out of his body and take it on for myself if needed. All I could manage to say was:

“I don’t know, buddy. Are you okay?”

Four months later, I took the biggest leap of faith of my life.

I initiated early separation from the Army, leaving behind a stable career, steady officer paycheck, and guaranteed retirement pension. Around that same time, I contacted a professor working directly on CMT1A research, and she offered me a position in her lab.

For the first time in years, I felt like my life was finally moving in the direction it was supposed to.

Still, the year that followed was one of the hardest of my life. In many ways, it completely broke me. But during that period, not only did I begin truly start becoming a scientist, but I also rebuilt myself mentally, physically, and spiritually. I began to feel deeply called to create something huge — a way to help bridge the gaps I kept seeing between patients, physicians, researchers, and the broader public surrounding CMT.

That idea eventually became Versus CMT.

Today, I continue working in research while building Versus CMT as both a nonprofit organization and media platform dedicated to accelerating awareness, conversation, scientific progress, and ultimately cures for inherited neuropathies.

Because like any disciplined soldier facing an enemy, we fight with every asset available — and we do not stop until the mission is complete