My name’s Josh, I’m a dad, husband, cyclist, and skier. Growing up in Vermont, I’ve skied since before I could walk and have been in love with bikes for about as long.
In 2022 I was diagnosed with Transverse Myelitis, with a poor prognosis. It took about 3hrs to go from a trail run with my dog to a hospital bed, paralyzed and numb from the chest down. I was scared, angry, full of questions, and not all that hopeful. I outlined my first day with TM here.
After a lot of pain, sweat, tears, and growth I managed to get back on my feet and return to life. I still have a lot of residual challenges from TM and I’ve come to accept that you don’t necessarily “recover”, you learn and adapt and overcome like anything else.
It took a lot of patient training and slow improvement, but in 2025 I completed both the Vermont Gran Fondo and the VT50. These are two milestone rides that I had done before I had TM and I was extremely proud to return to both of them.
There isn’t a lot of good information out there for people living with TM and nearly none for endurance athletes, I hope by sharing my info it helps people out there living through their own journeys with TM.
Overtraining
Overtraining is a common issue in endurance sports, but paresthesia changes the game on overtraining for those of us facing into something like TM. Without being able to trust what my body is telling me, I needed to rethink my…
Getting back on my Feet
After I made it through the lumbar punctures, MRI’s, steroids, and all of the other normal things that people like to do… I was demanding to stand up. I know this is not a surprise to anyone who has had…
The Start of my Journey
I work in manufacturing and have for my entire adult life, which means I travel to a lot of factories and spend my days on my feet. On that normal Monday I was scheduled to go on a business trip…
