About Jim
I was born in Downey California where I was also raised. I still say to this day that growing up in Downey during those young formative years was like growing up in Mayberry. I was a shy child but once you would get me to talk I was very funny and creative. I also played just about every sport this side of curling. This went on continuously from the second grade all the way until I graduated high school. Then it was off into the real world. Well sort of. This meant getting a job. For the previous year after graduating high school I simply let my hair grow and just hung out while taking classes for the heck of it at a local junior college. My mother then paid me twenty dollars to cut my hair and a friend of mine then got me a job in Huntington Beach California. While many of my friends and others I had known immediately began getting married and starting families, I couldn't wait to get on the next plane for either the Caribbean or some other tropical local. If it was tropical and there might be a chance it was inhabited by some beautiful women, I was there! I just figured I would keep on living this lifestyle until I grew out of it and settled down like everyone else. I guess I am still waiting because that day never came. I lived a life that most people, including many very wealthy people I knew only dreamed about. I traveled to tropical and distant lands, attended any sporting event I wanted to, whenever I wanted to. I went to Mardis Gras in New Orleans on back to back years and chased women until all hours of the night, constantly. I was just cruising through life with no worries.
Well, they say that every fantasy comes to an end and every dream is just a second away from becoming a nightmare. They, whoever they are, are 100% correct. On December 15th 1997 my fantasy life came to a crushing halt and my nightmare began the very next second as a neurosurgeon looked over at me from behind his desk and told me that I had a month to live due to very large tumor at the top of my brain stem! This was confirmed later that week by two other neurosurgeons. What I had been diagnosed with is called a brain stem glioma and it was situated at the left pontine angle (Pons) of my brain stem. Not good. The words "You have a brain tumor" has got to be the absolute worst thing you can ever be told. I was then told that by even attempting a surgical procedure I would most likely lapse into a coma and never come out since the area where my tumor was located was so sensitive and the tumor was so large and difficult to reach. I was also told and I quote "I can't think of a worse place in your entire body to have a tumor" and "Even if you do make it out of the surgery, you are definitely going to suffer such serious deficits that you no longer will be the same person you are sitting there." Meaning that
I would live the remainder of my life in a vegetated state. How's that for being given some
hope?
Due to the grace of God and the talented hands of Dr. Keith Black of Cedars Sinai Medical Center here in Los Angeles, I made a miraculous recovery and hence the reason for this WEBsite!
I have made myself available in person, by phone and email as a way to try to
help others who might be going through something similar to what I did and help
them as much as I can.
To get you completely up to date, I am alive, I am healthy and I am focused. Now is the most exciting time ever in my life, if you can believe that from what you have just read above. I know that everyday I wake up is indeed a gift and an added bonus that has been given to me. We all should think like that.
I also have a book coming out based on my experience. The title as I type this
is "Thirty Days To Live" although that may change. We are also in the early
stages of having it made into a movie for television which is very exciting and
we have some big names being thrown around that may be in it! Read on and enjoy and I hope this WEBsite is exactly what you are looking for!
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