Our Story

Most of us have a childhood memory or two of hiding under the covers from a spooky monster under our bed.

While we can confidently look back now and laugh at our imagined fear, for many children today, those fears are all too real. Their monster is called PANDAS/PANS.

Our only child was four and a half years old when something drastically changed in his body. There was a shift from a perfectly healthy and vibrant child to something that we could not initially put our finger on.

This began our journey

At five years old, our son was diagnosed with PANDAS, an acronym for (pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorder associated with streptococcus bacteria.) Yes, a condition most commonly associated with and triggered by strep throat was attacking the basal ganglia of his brain, causing significant brain inflammation. The number of kids struggling with PANDAS is staggering and is increasing at an alarming rate. PANDAS is not rare, but it's rarely diagnosed correctly, at least initially.

His diagnosis changed everything for us. Suddenly, our son began to exhibit odd, almost bizarre symptoms literally overnight, and our little family was challenged to its core. He went from a perfectly happy and healthy child to a child battling significant motor and vocal tics, severe separation anxiety, and a host of other debilitating symptoms we struggled to understand. Months went by as we searched for answers from our doctors and healthcare providers with little to no direction. We were helpless, and our son battled this on his own for close to a year until we could finally find out what was happening to him. To say this was frightening does not even come close to describing our feelings. Finally, after being diagnosed, we thought that was it. We thought we had it, and that would be the end of what was attacking our son. Little did we know this journey had just begun. The journey would be long, the battle would be intense, and it would even try to steal our hope and our faith.

As a licensed minister and pastor for twenty-six years, I have always walked within a deep and secure faith that God is with me and is for me. I have always tried to help provide hope to the hopeless, peace to those who are in difficult times, and some joy and laughter to those who are down and hurting. Through my years of ministry, I had no idea that I would face this crisis that would shake me and challenge my hope.