turned 40 years old I started
experiencing a strange numbness in my
right leg and I didn’t think much of it
until about a week later I was at a
rehearsal and I stepped off the riser
onto the stage of my right leg collapsed
from under me at this point I saw two
doctors and they both thought it’s
probably just a pinched nerve nothing to
worry about
good two months later I started to lose
peripheral vision in my left eye which
was now a worrisome situation and I saw
my very first neurologist and he
examined me and said you have MS and I
didn’t want to hear this my only
knowledge of multiple sclerosis was the
Great British cellist Jacqueline Duprey
who was forced to stop playing at the
age of 26 and later died from
complications of the disease at 42 so
you could imagine a professional cellist
being told I have this debilitating
disease denial was a river in Egypt I
was not willing to accept this and then
four months later I started losing
peripheral vision in my right eye which
was really scary because my left eye had
never recovered completely and about one
week after that I came down with what I
thought was a stomach bug but it didn’t
go away it turned out to be a prolonged
period of something like motion sickness
I wound up vomiting couldn’t keep food
or water down for a week and I wound up
in the hospital for severe dehydration I
was released from the hospital four days
later and I was unable to move my hands
I could no longer
play the cello I could hardly walk I was
incontinent my entire body felt like I
was receiving electrical current I was
hearing helicopters all the time and I
saw my neuro-ophthalmologist whom I had
been seeing for the previous six months
and he gave me a basic vision test and I
was unable to see even the largest
letters on the chart and he proceeded
then with a visual field test where
you’re given a clicker and you click
every time you see a light flesh in the
periphery and I sat there completely
frozen not one click I couldn’t see a
thing
he changed through the other eye i sat
there once again no clicking he stopped
the test and he said the words I’ll
never forget I’ll write you a note for
permanent disability whoo this was just
insane I don’t know what happened at
this point but something went through me
and I told him you can take that note
because I’m going back to work in six
weeks when the orchestra season started
I said I’m going back to work in six
weeks when the orchestra season started
and he said how are you gonna do that he
didn’t believe it was possible but I did
so what do I do I have this
I’m completely taken out my central
nervous system is up in smoke I can’t do
anything there’s a story of a
tractor-trailer that gets stuck under an
overpass and structural engineers are
brought to the scene how do they raise
the overpass dig grooves into the
pavement under the wheels a six year old
boy comes along on his bicycle and says
hey mister why don’t you just let the
air out of the tires so we were all six
years old once but we lose that over
time and with education so I said to
that six-year-old boy inside me I need
your help
you’ve got to show me how to let the air
out of the tires of this disease so
together we started looking for obvious
things that were overlooked by the
experts and
the first thing I found was the water
cure I started drinking half my body
weight in ounces of water a day I
noticed my first signs of improvement I
looked at other things I looked at MS
rates around the world and noticed that
your very poorest nations have rates of
MS that are about 1/3 of your wealthy
affluent industrialized nations I looked
at Japan having been there with its
environmental and overcrowding issues
very low rates of MS
I saw the Okinawa centenarian study over
900 people that were looked at over the
age of 100 and in perfect health so I
began to believe that our wealthy lavish
lifestyle has some link with higher
rates of multiple sclerosis I also
looked at something called the placebo
effect and this is where the
six-year-old boy helped if you look at
clinical trials where you get people who
inexplicably improve in the placebo
group it’s written off as an anomaly by
the experts the six-year-old boy said
something is happening here so I started
learning the placebo effect by
meditating to 30-minute sessions a day
that the MS was going into remission and
leaving my body completely one of the
other things I used experiences all
through my life and I was once on a
backpacking trip not far from here in
shannon Doan National Park and after
three days in the woods I came out at a
visitor center and I saw a big sign with
a beautiful picture of a deer and it
said do not feed the deer when you feed
a deer human foods such as chips and
candy you reduce its lifespan by 30
percent so I’m thinking I’m gonna be as
healthy as this deer so I basically
adopted the deers diet a deer drinks
water eats vegetation probably some
insects I passed on that one but
another thing I started to do is I
looked at people who accomplished the
impossible how do they do this your most
basic example is in 1954 the first
person to run a mile in under four
minutes was Roger Bannister prior to
that people said it’s impossible human
body can never do it he does it it’s now
an achievable goal the baseball pitcher
Nolan Ryan who threw his seventh
no-hitter at the age of 44 and in that
game throwing the ball 96 miles per hour
he stayed off the aging process of the
human body for 25 years so I’ve adopted
his lifestyle
every morning I begin with yoga
stretching weight lifting you name it
cycling I live a very disciplined
lifestyle in 2013 I had the privilege of
meeting someone who accomplished the
impossible and that was Nando parado who
survived the famous plane crash in 1972
in the Andes Mountains and when the
plane crashed in the winter high up in
the mountains nanda was thrown from row
9 into the bulkhead his skull was
fractured in four places he was given up
for dead and placed in the cold with the
bodies three days later he awoke from a
coma and 72 days after the crash Nando
showed up in the foothills and got help
this man had gone 37 and a half miles
through one of the most difficult
mountain ranges in the world in the
winter he had never seen snow
he had no survival training no gloves no
boots no equipment and no food his only
source of food was the people who had
perished in the crash mountain climbing
teams that reconstructed his route said
what this man did was not possible so I
met him and I said to him I always
wanted to meet you and thank you because
you were one of my guides when I was
finished I’m not supposed to be here and
he said I’m not supposed to be here
either and when this giant gave me a hug
something went through me I felt like
for the first time that I had cured
myself of this incurable disease and I
went back to my neurologist whom I
Sene for 11 years and he did a complete
series of MRIs again on my brain and
spinal cord in 1999 my brain had over 50
active lesions in my spinal cord had one
that was three and a half centimeters in
length and I worked so hard at my
recovery and true to my word I went back
to work in six weeks when the orchestra
season started wasn’t easy but I kept
going never missed work I missed five
weeks of work that year when I was
hospitalized so I had in 2013 I had a
complete series of MRIs then when my
neurologist looked at the results he
said to me you did the impossible
because there were no more lesions and
no traces of the disease anymore
whatsoever so I was so taken out in 1999
but I worked hard and everything came
back I got the use of my legs back I got
the use of my eyesight back I now make
it to the bathroom when I need to go I I
don’t hear helicopters anymore and I
don’t feel like I’m receiving electrical
current anymore but the most important
thing I’ve gotten the use of my hands
back
[Music] [Applause]