Hello, I am Allen from Gustavus, Alaska, a husband, father, and fisherman.
Two years ago, seemingly out of nowhere, my family’s life turned upside down when I started experiencing strange and painful neurological symptoms starting in my legs and spreading throughout my body and mind. After many dead ends in diagnostic testing, it was determined I had heavy metal poisoning and mold toxicity, which we dedicated over a year of treatment to with little success. I finally found the missing link as to why I could not get better: Chronic Lyme disease and multiple coinfections that had sat dormant in my body had taken over while I was fighting to get the toxic metals and mold out and heal. I believe a full recovery is possible, but as with all things in life, it comes at a price. I am raising $80,000 to cover the costs of treatment at LifeWorks Wellness Center in Clearwater Florida so I can get back to being healthy for my wife and our two daughters. If I have ever added value to your life, or this story resonates with you, please support and share. Right now we are in a position where we need help, but I pledge that when the tables turn and I’ve found the success in life that I know I can with a strong mind and body, I will pay it forward and find opportunities to help others who need it. Follow along at @AKCaptainToComeback.
My Story
Before you read this, I need to emphasize how conflicted I feel writing this story. I’m conflicted because as a man you’re not supposed to complain. You’re supposed to suck it up and deal with it. I also know that there are so many people in the world who are much worse off than I am. All that being said, I’ve realized that I have a wife and two children who need me to get better and deserve a fully functioning father, and so here I am. I’ll do my best to tell this story as clearly as possible. It has been the most challenging two years of my life by a long stretch, and I feel it is an impossible task to do the story justice, but here goes.
Before I got sick, I was a deep-sea fishing charter captain in Gustavus, Alaska. I had been blessed for a long time with a strong and capable body. Being a boat captain in Alaska had been a dream of mine as I grew up in Utah, and I was fortunate enough to be living it. I had transplanted my family (my wife, Kim, and two daughters, Grace and Emma) away from all of our extended family and connections in Utah to the town of Gustavus and was making a go at building a life for us up there. We had overcome many obstacles to make this new place our home, and in October of 2023 I felt like I was on top of the world as I had just finished my fifth season as a captain and found success in harvesting a bull moose. We were enjoying the fruits of a successful hunt and some downtime after a very busy summer when I started feeling an odd tingling sensation in my right calf. Over a period of two weeks, that tingling turned to extreme muscular fatigue and spread to both legs, up the left side of my body, all around my back, and seemed like it would quickly swallow me entirely.
Living in remote Alaska, going to see a doctor is quite the ordeal. You have to fly or boat over to Juneau, rent a vehicle or pay for taxis, and make living arrangements until the next ferry or plane. It takes multiple days and is quite expensive. I was trying to wait it out, assuming it would go away, but when it became apparent that it wouldn’t, I finally made the trek over to Juneau to see a doctor. They told me this was not a typical presentation, but it could be multiple sclerosis or some other form of neurological condition, and we were going to run a bunch of tests to see what was going on. All the lab work came back normal.
To put this into perspective, I went from carrying 100+ lb. moose quarters on my back through the swamp with ease to struggling walking around my house without needing to sit down, but there was “nothing wrong.” They told me it was likely just “stress” and it would go away; I just needed to wait it out. I knew that stress is not good for you and, admittedly, the summer of 2023 was very stressful for multiple reasons, but I knew in my heart this was not just stress. I, however, am not a doctor and, despite my gut instinct, I was at the mercy of the medical care I had access to at the time, and I went home to try to de-stress.
I continued to deteriorate quickly into crippling brain fog that left me confused and disoriented even moving from room to room, and to ever increasing levels of fatigue. I lost 30 pounds between November and January, my stomach seemed to forget how to function, and I could barely hold my head up on my shoulders. The doctor recommended SSRIs and talk therapy, as she was convinced that this was just stress, which I consented to for multiple months until the therapist I was working with finally told me what I already knew: this doesn’t seem like just stress; something is going on. So we pursued more testing. I got an MRI of my brain and spinal cord: results were normal. I got multiple CT scans: normal. I had an upper and lower endoscopy: normal. I had a spinal tap: normal. Endless vials of blood, cups of urine. Normal, normal, normal.
It’s hard to explain in words what it feels like to be as sick as I have been and have so many doctors gaslight me into thinking that I must be crazy. I knew in my heart something was wrong. I didn’t know what it was, but after enough tests came back “normal,” I began to resign myself to the fact that I either had some sort of rapidly progressing illness they hadn’t found or I had lost my mind and this was my life from now on, a broken vessel. Both of these were bad options. At some of my lowest points I grappled with the possibility of my beautiful little girls growing up without their daddy or their daddy being a shadow of what he once was. I also thought about the role my wife might have to play in taking care of me or losing me and doing life as a single mom. I wrote letters to them in case my mind got any worse, as I had regressed so much cognitively I was unable to have simple conversations or to comprehend much of anything. As time continued marching forward, it was clear that I was not getting better; in fact, I was getting worse. I couldn’t sleep. I had no energy when I was awake, I would wake up over and over again in the night, and I would even dream about the pain that I would wake up to. It was truly a living hell.
After pursuing all this testing it became clear that Traditional doctors did not know how to help me, so at the recommendation of a friend I went to a naturopathic doctor who did some testing for heavy metal toxicity, mold mycotoxins, and gut health. When the results came back, I got an email from her in big bold letters: “YOU HAVE LEAD POISONING.” When I got an appointment to go over the testing results, she asked me where I could have been exposed to so much lead, and I explained that it likely came from work in the fishing industry, as we use and handle lead frequently because of its use for fishing sinkers.
She also spoke about the mold mycotoxin levels being very high and said that they needed to be addressed as well, but we were going to focus on the high lead levels first. We did what is called chelation therapy, which helps remove accumulated toxic metals from your body. I did this treatment at home in Gustavus while I was still forcing myself to work preparing for the fishing season, and over the course of this month I got sicker and sicker and sicker. I learned the hard way that there are proper ways to do chelation, and if you don’t do it correctly, it can do more harm than good. Well, it did more harm than good, and it made me about twice as sick as I was before I started it.
Because the chelation went so poorly, we decided to try to work on the mold toxins by using various “binders” that help get the mold and other toxins out of my weakened body. We had temporarily left Alaska to be with family in northern Idaho, who had invited us down to be closer to health care while we figured this out, and I spent the summer continuing to try to recover with very limited, if any, progress. I continued to try to learn about mold and metal toxicity and what may be going on inside me, tried various detox protocols, and eventually signed up for a program called the Pompa Program after hearing some very targeted marketing to people like me, who have seen doctor after doctor, are dealing with all these mystery symptoms, but all the tests come back normal. I was assigned a health coach to guide me through some very intensive detox protocols with very restrictive diet strategies, an incredible amount of supplements, and a hope that if I could remove this toxic junk from my body I would be able to recover. To the credit of the Pompa Program, at the beginning I could barely keep a train of thought and struggled with even the most basic tasks of daily living, and by the end of five months my brain had cleared up quite a bit. I still had profound muscle pain and fatigue, but I had finally moved the needle at least a little bit, and I was grateful for the progress I had made.
But I still had so many problems I was dealing with, and something was not making sense. I still couldn’t sleep, I had widespread, relentless nerve pain, shakiness, intense unexplainable fatigue, stomach cramping bloating and pain, joint pain, sensitivity to heat and cold, hair falling out, vision changes in one of my eyes, vertigo, brain fog, headaches, and I could go on but you get the point. I did the best I could to be a dad and husband but always felt like I was letting everyone around me down.
I credit the Pompa Program for lowering the toxic load in my body to a point and helping move the needle. I also credit them for teaching me a ton about this new world I found myself in. They taught me about hidden dental infections called cavitations that can form in some after they have teeth pulled, which I discovered I had in four sites from when I had my wisdom teeth removed as a teenager. I had them surgically fixed by a biological dentist and was hopeful that removing these would help my body recover. The biological dentist who performed the surgery also had some pathology results from the tissue samples that came from my jaw, and he explained that over the years he has been doing this I had twice the level of both variety and volume of various pathogens living in those cavitations than his other previous patients, which was clearly indicative of a compromised immune system. I’ve changed my diet to essentially completely organic whole foods. I’ve tried keto to reduce inflammation, I’ve done thousands of hours of meditation practices to try to get my nervous system calmed down, I’ve done saunas to try to sweat out the toxins, which ended up making me sicker. I’ve tried cold plunges, red light therapy, IV infusions, the waiting game, hyperbaric chamber sessions, fasting, thousands and thousands of dollars of supplements, limbic system retraining called Primal Trust, SSRIs, talk therapy, massage therapy, PEMF therapy, and reflexology. Some of it has helped, some of it has made me worse, and some of it has made no change at all.
This finally leads me to where I am today. I hit the point where I realized that I have tried everything I know how to try, and I still felt like I’m missing something. I had heard about a place in Florida called LifeWorks Wellness Center, where treating patients like me is what they do. I had a fishing client who had been very sick for a long time with symptoms of unknown origin who went there, and they found Lyme disease alongside many other undiagnosed problems and were able to significantly help her in her recovery process. I had heard about this place before, but with it being located in Florida and knowing that my insurance would likely not cover many of their services, I did not pursue it until I had exhausted all other means I knew of. Up to this point I had worked with two neurologists, two MDs, a DO, a naturopathic MD, an APRN, and consulted with multiple other clinics at great expense, with so many varying opinions on what to do to get better that I typically ended up more confused than anything. I had paid for a health coach and completely dedicated my life to figuring out what had caused me to get and remain so sick so that I could get well again. I had made some limited progress, but I was at a roadblock and decided it was time to pursue outside help again.
I discussed going to Florida with my wife, and she said it was about time I went, and she arranged all the travel for me to go down there. Anxiety was high going into this appointment because this was my Hail Mary, and if they didn’t find anything, I didn’t know where to go next. They found the missing link that I knew was there and just wasn’t able to find myself. They found an active case of Borrelia infection, the bacteria that causes Lyme disease, and two coinfections of Rickettsia and Bartonella, alongside still elevated levels of mold mycotoxins and heavy metals, and a stomach parasite assumed to have traveled with me from my time in the Philippines. I finally got an answer as to what happened to me that made sense: that likely I was bitten by an infected tick or ticks sometime when I was a child growing up in Utah. During my time as a boat captain, I had chronic exposure to lead at work, which weakened my immune system over the years. I worked myself half to death with 12-16 hour days 7 days a week all summer long. Both of my children had some significant health challenges spring and summer of 2023 that added to the stress load. I was training intensely to get ready for a mountain goat hunt and finally to fully tip the scales I had a massive toxic mold exposure in a water damaged building in Juneau . Each of these factors contributed to my immune system getting so run down that the bacteria that cause Lyme disease, normally kept in check by that immune system, were able to proliferate and start to wreak havoc on my body.
On this journey, I have been forced to learn lessons that I know I will be grateful for on the other side but that were incredibly hard and remain incredibly hard to learn. I’ve had to watch the disappointment on my girls’ faces over and over when I say I can’t do this or do that because I don’t feel well. I’ve had to watch them cry because we have to move again, or Daddy has another doctor’s appointment and I can’t play with them. I’ve watched my wife step up in a season we didn’t expect. She thankfully found work she enjoys and a team that supports her as we navigate all of this. Still, at times, I see her missing the days of homeschooling, baking sourdough, foraging berries and mushrooms, teaching math at the beach, and reading with our kids under the trees. I’ve spent essentially all of our life’s savings up to this point and am about to pursue treatments that are not only expensive but require an upfront payment with no guarantee of insurance reimbursement for any of it. I found my dream job and dream life in Alaska and then, in a matter of weeks, saw it disappear from before my eyes. I’ve had relentless and unforgiving pain and fatigue as my constant companions, and have tried and failed to put on a brave face and smile so my kids wouldn’t know what was going on, but often fell short, being impatient with them and feeling like a failure. I’ve had people, including family, question whether I’m really as sick as I’m claiming to be which was deeply hurtful.
I’ve also been blessed to be supported in various ways along the way by close friends and family, and I hope someday to be in a position to do the same for others.
I am committed to a full recovery, not just to regain the life I once had, but, more importantly to me, to show my daughters that when life deals you a hard hand, to never give up and keep moving forward. That we are not in this alone, people are good and we can and need to look for opportunities to help others just as others have been willing to help us when we needed it most.
So the dollar amount is $80,000 USD. This is the estimated cost for the 8 to 12 weeks of treatment at LifeWorks Wellness Center. This breaks down roughly as follows:
1: Housing costs- $15,000.00 for three months. When you are dealing with mold toxicity, any exposure to mold mycotoxins during detox treatment will stop and even reverse treatment. I have learned this lesson over and over again the past two years. Because of that, I have to stay in a certified mold free environment, and this comes at the expense of $145 per day, roughly $15,000.00 for the 12 weeks.
2: Transportation- Car rental to get to and from daily treatment at the outpatient clinic: around $2,000.00 or more.
3: Diagnostics and specialty labs- $8,000.00
4: Treatment at LifeWorks Wellness Center-$55,000.00. The list of therapies is extensive and includes hyperbaric oxygen therapy, various ozone therapies, immune modulation, possible stem cells, various medications, supplements, nutritional and functional IVs, ultraviolet blood irradiation, EBO2 blood filtration/ozonation, and many more that may be added or taken away depending on progress. This also includes the costs of the doctors’ appointments and follow ups with clinical staff, etc.
Total: $80,000.00. Exact amounts are likely to shift, and I will keep updates transparent.
How I will give back
I have learned a lot of hard lessons over the past two years, many lessons that were both painful and expensive. I am going to start a daily captain’s log where I transparently share what is going on along the journey at LifeWorks Wellness Center and share insights and valuable lessons I learned along the way that I know would have been helpful for me if I had known about them earlier in my illness. I will also keep a public progress tracker toward the $80k goal.
I will also pay it forward. There was a movie I remember from when I was a kid called Pay It Forward about a kid who started a movement of kindness called pay it forward. I am in a position right now where I need help. But I commit to pursuing the type of financial success in life that will allow me to pay this kindness forward to as many people as I can who find themselves in a position where they just can’t handle it on their own anymore.
How you can help
Donate any amount. Every bit gets us closer.
Share this page with a note about how we know each other.
Follow updates at @AKCaptainToComeback and encourage us along the way.
From our family to yours, thank you for helping me fight for my health and for the opportunity to return to the sea and the life we love.
Allen