On a fateful day in late-2010, I went to the gym as I always did, but something was wrong. I became violently ill and eventually lost my ability to walk, talk, and eat solid food.

Before getting sick, I was a bodybuilder who could lift more than 400 pounds. Five years later, at age 27, I was bedridden and too weak to hold a toothbrush. I conducted life through hand signals in a dark room, unable to speak or eat. My only nourishment came from bland, liquified meals. I lived every day lying motionless in bed - my body paralyzed by pain and weakness, my mind hijacked by flashes of crunched metal, broken windshields, and exploding gas tanks.

You see, I killed someone in a car accident. Then, a year and a half later, I became sick during that fateful workout. Doctors blamed my illness on depression and anxiety from the car accident. They told me to see a therapist and take antidepressants. But I was already doing those things and none of them improved my health.