Benefit for Ben Goldstein

Ben has been working in the restaurant industry for 20 years and had the pleasure of opening the Dinosaur Bar-B-Que in Troy back in 2010. When he joined Dinosaur, he started as a kitchen manager. Ben eventually moved up front to be the bar manager and eventually the service director, which was a position he held up until last July when he had to enter the hospital because he could no longer walk.

After months of searching for an answer, it was found at Johns Hopkins Hospital down in Baltimore. They diagnosed Ben with a Spinal Dural Fistula. Fistula means an abnormal connection between two structures that are normally not connected. In his case, the fistula joined an artery and a vein just below my brain stem at the top of my spinal cord when it wasn’t supposed to exist at all. Its location happens to approximately 5-10 people out of a million.

This fistula caused Ben's spinal cord to swell, which cut off signals to his legs, which created his inability to walk. Because it took a while to get this figured out and corrected, he is playing a waiting game of healing, and possibly regaining my ability to walk again. This was diagnosed and repaired back in February. Since then Ben has spent seven months at an inpatient rehabilitation hospital that he just finished this month.

Neurologists don’t know why they form. They can just show up spontaneously. It typically happens to people over 50, but it happened to him at the age of 40. Ben single without kids, but his blessed to be staying with a supportive family, as returning to his home in Watervliet is impossible.

Please help us support and raise money to make Ben's family home handicap accessible and to help with any medical needs. Thank you for your support!