As a husband, father, pastor and military veteran, I have served my country, my church, and my friends and family over the years. I have always tried to carry other people through both light and dark times. Now, for what feels like the first time in my life, I need other people to help carry me.
For 15 years, I served in the United States Navy, including deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan that changed me profoundly. My military service taught me discipline, perseverance, and how to function under pressure. I never imagined that years later I would have to draw on those same qualities to fight a completely different kind of battle.
To understand my story, it’s important to go back to November 2025. I had a really bad nosebleed that was hard to stop, though I wasn't overly concerned because I'd had frequent nosebleeds before, usually from the dry air. My wife, Nina, urged me to go to the doctor and get it checked out, but we as men have a tendency to ignore our body when it tries to tell us something.
I thought the air was too dry, and it was surely just a quick fix. Unfortunately, that didn’t help, and the nosebleeds just kept happening. They occurred maybe once a month, but I told myself nasal symptoms can be caused by a range of reasons, from allergies to irritation to weather changes.
I had no reason to believe that it was anything serious. As the months went by, the symptoms became more persistent and harder to dismiss. One Sunday, while my family and I were at church, I got a really bad nosebleed.
The nosebleeds had gotten progressively worse, and this time, it was as if someone punched me in the nose. Nina kept telling me to go to the emergency room, but instead, I agreed to swing by the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) later that week after I got my hair cut nearby. Truthfully, I only went because Nina was so persistent that something was wrong.
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