A Slight Change

Since the birth of Mike on a Bike the blog's purpose was to show you local places and the history of those places whilst I rode my bicycle. Today I am going to re-purpose the blog into something besides just discovering places. I want to use this blog as a general notepad for my life. The experiences I have and the people I meet. I want to share with everyone the story of a 25-year-old 911 dispatcher who is married and has a wiener dog, and the sometimes exciting, sometimes boring life that goes along with it. I will still continue to post rides, but they will now begin with [BIKE] while my other posts will begin with [LIFE]. I will also be changing the name of the blog to Lorain County Life. I hope everyone will enjoy the continued posting and feel free to leave comments!

Sarah and Minnie

I guess I will begin by introducing my wife Sarah and our furry child Minnie.

Sarah is on the left.

Sarah and I got married on June 9, 2013 in Oberlin, Ohio after dating for over 3 years. We adopted Minnie more toward the end of last year (possibly in September?).

Minnie last year during Christmas.

Me, me, me...

I was born in Amherst, Ohio and lived in Vermilion up until about 4 years ago when I moved to Lorain. At the age of 12 I was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease and had multiple surgeries to get it under control. Around the same time I was diagnosed with Vitaligo, a disease that causes parts of skin to lose pigment. Luckily I am already a pale white boy, so that did not really matter much. At around 21 I was diagnosed with Kidney Disease, which was discovered when my kidneys failed and my urine looked like coffee (not cool). After a massive dose of steroids my kidneys recovered and when I returned to my doctor he started asking me what I think we should do as far as treatment goes. The head of the Cleveland Clinic Gastroenterology department advised me that he had never seen my condition before because the diseases are completely unrelated. He then advised me that there were only 11 confirmed cases in the world of the same nature (not reassuring). A few months later my intestines became inflamed and a section had to be removed after exhausting all other options. I am now 25 and have been in remission for 3 years.

In high school I was a very large kid. At my highest weight I was 300lb. At 6 feet tall that is one hefty dude.

This was not my heaviest weight. I was about 275 here. The sock on my arm was covering a PIC Line.

My weight constantly fluctuated up and down due to my ailments. Every time I got sick I would lose a substantial amount of weight and then gain it all back again when not sick or on steroids. I was not happy with myself. My doctors said that if I lost weight it would help with my health, but I would not be telling the whole truth if I didn't tell you I did it only half for my health. Mostly I just didn't want to be the fat guy anymore.

After 3 years I now weight around 195 and I am okay with that. My health has never been better.

Ever since I can remember I wanted to be a police officer. Well, I was never able to meet the physical requirements due to a multitude of problems. Even to this day I am still not in the shape I would need to be to meet those requirements, but I found something that fits me even better. In September of 2012 I became a 911 Dispatcher for Lorain County. I can still help people while sitting in a chair, which may be very useful in the future if and when my diseases re-rear their ugly head.

This is a brief summary of my life thus far and I hope to share bits more of it with everyone with the hope that we will all learn something about ourselves and the people around us.

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more!