Team Beachbody ¡preestreno!Español Guest

I finally decided to share my story with all of you. Some of you know part of my journey but I really haven’t shared a lot of it with many people. The reason I haven’t shared much of anything up to this point is because I have always felt Cammie’s story was the important one, it is the one that changes lives, it is the one people want to hear. I have realized, however, that maybe parts of my journey can help someone who is facing similar struggles in their own life. After all, that is why we do what we do, isn’t it? We are here to help each other through life. With that said, here is my story and what brought me to Beachbody.

I will start when Cammie and I met, because that is really where this journey started. We met in 1994 when I was going through a very bad divorce and custody battle. Cammie was also coming through a string of bad relationships and we viewed our “meeting” as a gift from God. We were both broken emotionally, when we met, and being together fixed that part of us. From the day we met, we were always together. We dated for a year and then we married in April of 1995.

We were 100% newlyweds, always doing things together from sports to traveling to eating at fancy restaurants. We both had good paying jobs, me with the railroad and Cammie as a juvenile parole officer, so we could afford to do what we wanted to do. We loved our life and we were blessed 6 months after our wedding day when we found out Cammie was going to have our first baby. Perfect life and now it was going to get better.

The due date for the baby was June, 1996. I was at work on April 29^th, 1996 when Cammie called me at 4 in the morning telling me she thought she was in labor. She went to the hospital and I rushed home. She delivered, Tanner, on April 30^th, 6 weeks early. He had a lot of problems after being born, because of his low birth weight, and the hospital in our small town couldn’t handle his needs so they flew him to Omaha. Cammie and I drove to meet him there and we spent the next 3 weeks in the hospital.

Cammie blamed herself for his early birth and dropped into a deep depression. We struggled over the next couple years but always made it through the hard times. In 1997, Cammie got pregnant with our second child. She went into early labor with this baby as well but the doctor was able to keep her stable until the due date. Connor was born in March of 1998.

Life was going good, we had a beautiful family started, our jobs were good and we had big plans and dreams for the future. 6 months after Connor was born, Cammie and I were walking through Wal-Mart when she stumbled and fell into me. We joked about her “being drunk” at 10 in the morning and didn’t think much of it. I had a weekend hiking/camping trip planned with my brother and left town as planned. I remember standing on to top of a mountain in Colorado, looking across the mountain tops for what seemed like hundreds of miles. I felt so insignificant but at the same time realized how special I was knowing that a God that could create what I was looking at also created me. I wanted to share that moment with Cammie so I got my cell phone out of my backpack and called her. The reception wasn’t good but we were able to connect, I could hear in her voice that something wasn’t right. She told me she had been to the doctor and that they had found something wrong with her. She started to tell me what they had found when I lost reception. My brother and I packed up camp and rushed as quickly as we could down the mountain.  I called Cammie when we arrived at the car and she told me the doctors thought she had multiple sclerosis. We didn’t know much else at that point. I drove home and we started the process of dealing with her disease.

The next few months we went through every test you could imagine. None of the results were good and the prognoses were worse. The doctor told us that she had a very aggressive form of MS and that she would be bedridden and in a nursing home by her 40^th birthday. I was 30 and Cammie was 28 at the time we heard this. We had two young boys and I remember thinking our life was over, all those dreams we had were gone……forever.

Over the years that followed, I watched Cammie fight her disease and most times the MS won the battles. She went into survival mode, focusing all of her attention and energy on fighting. I was left to deal with everything else. I did the best I could to work a full time job with the railroad having to leave home for 48 hours at a time. I couldn’t concentrate on my job because I was always worried about how Cammie and the boys were doing. We didn’t get much help from our families; they didn’t know how to deal with things so they just chose to ignore it. Cammie had to travel to Omaha quite a bit so we decided I should transfer to another railroad terminal. In doing so I lost all of my seniority and my pay decreased by 50%. We were living in a town where we didn’t know anyone, I did my best to keep things going but as Cammie got worse I started to spiral down as well.

I didn’t have the energy to take care of Cammie, the boys and my job so I did what was easiest in many areas of life. We ate fast food 2 or 3 times a day. I never exercised except for the occasional game of golf. After finances got bad I had to give that up.

We survived for several years just getting by day to day. Our marriage was in danger, we had the deck stacked against us but somehow we managed to pull through everything, together. We chased every “magic” pill or “miracle” cure you could think of. We grabbed onto whatever “hope” we could. In 2002 we found a Dr. in Arizona that was having success with alternative treatments for everything from migraine headaches to cancer. The treatments they were using were all natural, focusing on nutrition and removing toxins from the body. The only problem was insurance didn’t cover any of it and they were expensive but we believed we had found something that could help so we borrowed $5000 from my parents and flew to Phoenix, AZ.

What happened over the next two weeks was nothing short of a miracle. Cammie arrived at the clinic in a wheelchair and 3 days later she was up walking! By the end of the second week she was walking without a cane, her body was clean of medications and toxins and we once again had hope. We found a local chiropractor that said he could continue the treatments and we put our trust in him to keep Cammie on the road to recovery.

Cammie did well over the next few of months, life was looking up. During that time we were blessed again with the news that Cammie was expecting our 3^rd child. We didn’t know what to expect being pregnant with all of her medical problems but we trusted that everything would be alright. The pregnancy was going well until the 5^th month. Sitting at the computer one night she started to have labor pains. She went to the hospital and found out that she was leaking amniotic fluid, the baby was in danger. They rushed her to a hospital in Lincoln. The doctor there told her she was in labor and that they would do whatever they could to stop it. She spent the next month in the hospital, everyday fighting to stop the baby from coming early. In September the doctor decided it was no longer safe for the baby to stay inside so he made the decision to perform an emergency C-section 3 months before the due date. He gave the baby a 20% chance of survival.

Tai was born on September 18^th and weighed a little over 3 pounds. His weight dropped to just above 2 pounds in the first 24 hours. His heart stopped several times and had be resuscitated twice.  We watched him fight for his life for several weeks and being just like his mom, he won that fight. He had a severe brain bleed after he was born and had to have brain surgery. That left him with mild cerebral palsy.

The stress of that birth and watching her baby fight for his life was more than Cammie could take. She gave up after that. The following few years were the worst we had experienced. Cammie got to the point of not wanting to live anymore. She would lie in bed and cry, not wanting to get up. There were many days I would have to lift her out of bed and put her in her wheelchair. She didn’t eat unless I made her. She was at the point she couldn’t go on anymore and the doctor’s prediction of her being in a nursing home by 40 was going to be a reality.

I did the best I could to take care of things.  I tried to be the good dad, I was very active in the boy’s lives. I coached baseball and football and tried my best to give the boys a normal life. My parents gave up their retirement to move back and help me out, that saved me. I tried to remain strong, I put a good front and I thought I was doing well. One day it all became clear to me that I wasn’t, it was my 40^th birthday.

I was a mess. I had gained 60 pounds, I was only sleeping 3-4 hours a day, I had asthma, chronic back pain, chronic heart burn and chest pains. By my 40^th birthday in August of 2008 I weighed over 260 pounds (I stopped stepping on the scale when I reached 260) and I had been in the hospital twice for chest pains.  I remember looking in the mirror that day and hating the man that looked back at me. I looked at what I had become and saw how it was affecting my children. They were overweight and unhealthy. They were getting sick, a lot. They were becoming me. I knew I had to change, for me and for them.

I started working out by riding the stationary bike a couple times a week. I tried to clean up my diet but had no clue how to do it. I had managed to lose some weight by Christmas of that year but over the holidays I gained it back. In January of 2009 I saw an infomercial for P90X. I asked Cammie if she thought I could do it and Cammie, always being supportive of me said “you can do anything, you’re my superman”! I didn’t believe her but I ordered it anyway. It was my last attempt to do something for me.

I started my program on February 23^rd, 2009. I found a message board thread started by a former marine wanting to get a group of ex-military guys together to go through the program. I am an Air Force vet so I knew I had found my support system. I think we had something like 80 guys and a few girls start the program together. We were there everyday supporting each other. I was doing really well on my program and starting to see and feel changes just after 2 weeks. I went to work and was telling guys about it and they could see the changes as well. I was starting to feel good about me, walking a little taller, sticking my chest out saying “yeah, I’m doing P90X”!!!! Things were starting to go good for the first time in years…….then, at work, my mind wasn’t on my job the way it should have been and I violated a major rule while operating my train. I had entered a track work zone without permission. Long story short, I was suspended without pay for 60 days. I was devastated.

I remember coming home that day looking Cammie in the eyes and seeing my life crumble before me all over again. I wanted to give up. I didn’t know what were going to do then Cammie told me it was going to be alright. We had been through worse things and had always come through them together. Even though she was at her lowest point she still comforted and supported me and encouraged me to continue with the P90X. She said she had seen the change in me and didn’t want me to give up……so I continued. Everyday I showed up and even though life was a mess around me I fought, I didn’t quit!! Soon my kids were joining me in my workouts! We started to cook healthy meals together and we were changing. You know Cammie’s story, we modified for her as well and she started to change. We ordered the Shakeology and signed up to be coaches, for the discount at first but as I continued I wanted to help other people find what I had found so I started to look at the “coaching” aspect of the business.

My sponsor told me his coach was in Lincoln, Nebraska and encouraged me to attend a local meeting. The thought of that scared me beyond belief. Let me back track a bit, in the course of dealing with Cammie’s illness I had become very closed off from everyone. I didn’t talk to people. I never looked anyone in the eye. I just went through life with me, Cammie, my kids and my parents. That is why the thought of driving to a local meeting and talking to people I didn’t know scared me, I hadn’t done anything like that in years but for some reason I knew I needed to go…..so I went.

The first person I met that night was Doug Fitzgerald. He was larger than life in my eyes. I had seen videos of Doug, I knew he was a big deal in the company and I was intimidated by him. He was awesome! He spent time talking to me and introducing me to the other local coaches at the meeting. He made me feel welcome and special for being there.

Later that night I met Anne Dovel, my sponsors coach. Anne asked if I would like to talk after the meeting so we went to the only place open in the area, McDonalds!!! (not the best place to take a guy recovering from a Big Mac addiction), and we talked business. Anne spent 2 hours with me that night explaining the business. She helped me see the potential and she guided me on how to get started.

Late that night, Cammie and I sat up and talked about what Anne had told me. I was still without a paycheck and we thought that maybe this was something we could do to supplement our income. I signed Cammie up and then we started to look at building a business. I asked my sponsor how to do it and he told me to just get out there and talk to people. Again, I was freaked out thinking about having to share my story and this business with people so I found what was comfortable for me. I started to establish relationships with people online through the message boards and Facebook. Several people bought programs from me and a few even signed up to be coaches on my team.

Cammie and I continued to attend local meetings in Lincoln. Anne and Dave Dovel became friends and Doug and Tammie Fitzgerald were very supportive of us and gave us opportunities to share our story. Doug asked Cammie if she would share her story at a Super Saturday event in June, 2009. Cammie agreed and then we found out that Carl Daikeler was going to attend the event! So, Cammie’s first experience sharing her story in a room full of people was also in front of the CEO of the company as well! Pete and Sue Pena and Larry Zimberg were also there. She was nervous but with encouragement from the friends we had made she knocked it out of the park! Carl asked her if she would be willing to share her story on film in an interview and she agreed.

After that I became passionate about the business. I promoted to Diamond in 4 months, Cammie continued on her fitness journey and we started to believe good things were going to happen. I became more confident and I started to truly understand what coaching meant. It wasn’t about numbers it was about changing lives, one at a time. I took that approach with my business; I spent time with customers and coaches on our team. I encouraged and supported and I started to see their lives change as well. The more I supported and encouraged the more our business grew.

I had qualified for the Game Plan event in Dana Point that fall. It was a huge step for me to fly across the country and meet new people. I knew the top coaches in the company would be there and that intimidated me but I knew I had to be there so I went. I forced myself outside my box, I talked with people that inspired me on my journey, Dallas Carter, Mike French, Barbie Decker, Judi Finneran and Traci Morrow were just a few. I saw that they were real people, that they cared, that they were just like me. I also got to meet Tony Horton and thank him for his part in our journey. Meeting him was special, it was Tony Horton, but I found that he was just like me too. He was a real person that just cares about helping people. I knew then that this was the right place for us.

When I got home I had a new passion and direction and I attacked the business and we haven’t stopped since. We continue with the same belief that we have had from the start, millions of lives, one at a time. We have made countless friendships on this journey and we have grown beyond anything we ever thought possible. We have watched lives change.

I am proud of all the coaches on our team because every one of them have a story. I have seen several coaches overcome challenges just like mine and have gone on to become successful. They too are changing lives around them. When I wear my Diamond pin I take pride in every Diamond represented on it because I know their stories, I know what they have overcome to succeed. As new Diamonds are added to this team my heart continues to swell with pride, not for me but for them!

Cammie was my first Diamond coach, that is special because I know every detail of her journey. I married the most beautiful, incredible, loving woman in the world and I watched her life ripped away from her. I saw her dreams shattered. I saw her hopes dashed away in one brief moment. I watched her fall, I saw her lose her will to live. I lost her………but only for a moment. Now, everyday I see her conquer life! She has her dreams back and they are bigger than ever!! She has hope in her eyes!! She loves life!!!

So do I!

I was talking to dear friend yesterday and we were sharing our lives with each other. He knows my story and he knows how far we have come. He said something yesterday that brought everything into perspective for me. He said, “Dan, you can look at where we are now, how far we’ve come and it is nothing compared to where we are going. This is just the beginning!” He was right…….this is just the beginning!!!