I didn’t set out to become a caregiver advocate.

I set out to be a husband and a father.

In 2007 — shortly after our youngest son was born — my wife Trudie was diagnosed with young-onset Parkinson’s disease at age 33.

What followed wasn’t temporary. It became the structure of our life: dyskinesia, falls, cognitive changes, sleep disruption, medication complications, hospice coordination, and the slow loss of normalcy inside our home.

I’ve raised two boys while managing an advanced disease.

I’ve sat through doctor appointments and insurance denials.

I’ve raised money so we can hire attorneys to secure Medicaid eligibility.

I’ve coordinated in-home care.

I’ve lived through bankruptcy and foreclosure under the financial weight of long-term illness.

We chased hope. We spent money on treatments, supplements, and “miracle” promises that felt urgent and credible at the time. We pursued deep brain stimulation surgery. Some decisions helped. Some didn’t. Fear and desperation don’t always produce clear thinking. Hope is powerful — but hope alone is not a course of action.

I’ve balanced full-time federal work with constant vigilance at home.

Caregiving reshaped me. It exposed anger. It strained intimacy. It forced me to confront burnout, resentment, guilt, and grief.

Instead of hiding from that, I chose to do the work.

Over the years I’ve committed to individual therapy, veteran group programs, licensed mental health counseling, and coaching. I’ve read extensively on trauma, marriage under stress, and caregiver fatigue — not because I wanted content, but because I needed to survive it.

Professionally, I’m an Air Force Pararescue veteran and nationally registered paramedic. I now work in the human spaceflight industry supporting medical readiness for astronaut rescue and recovery missions.

But none of that compares to the long, slow mission of caregiving inside your own home.

I created HeldLight because I was tired of the sanitized version of caregiving — the pressure to be endlessly grateful, the silence around resentment, the expectation that love cancels out exhaustion.

It doesn’t.

HeldLight exists to tell the truth — without shame, without pretense, and without pretending this is easy.

If you’re looking for a polished expert who has “figured it out,” that’s not me.