In May of 2017, this blog will be six years old. An unbelievable number of things have happened in that short amount of time.

When I began writing this blog, I did so on a whim. I had a few ridiculous stories about living with my muscle-wasting disease. I wondered if people might enjoy the humor that I find in my adversity. To my surprise, they did! My followers began to grow into the hundreds, thousands, and then hundreds of thousands. All along the way, I was continually astounded that people were connecting with my story in such a cool way.

The idea of choosing to find humor and positivity in the face of challenges is a concept that we are all well aware of, but one that we often forget as the struggles of life begin to pile up.

Several months after my blog began to grow in popularity, my cousin Sarah and I realized that we may have an opportunity to help people with the message of positivity portrayed in my stories. During my sophomore year of college, we decided to start a nonprofit organization called Laughing At My Nightmare, Inc.

In our five years of existence, we have grown and changed in ways I never expected. This charity is now our full-time careers. Our mission is to provide vital equipment to people living with muscular dystrophy diseases. We also travel to schools and businesses across the country to teach people how they can live happier lives!

In 2014, I gathered many of the original stories on my blog, wrote a bunch of new ones, and published all of them in a memoir called…can you guess? Yup! Laughing at My Nightmare! And in the last year, I’ve been given the incredible opportunity by my publisher to write two more books, a children’s book and another memoir.

Today, when I’m not traveling for work, writing, or planning our next fundraising event, I enjoy spending time with my family. My brother, Andrew (who you’ll read about in many of my stories), and I are constantly getting ourselves into stupid shenanigans.

My girlfriend, Hannah, attends college in Minnesota and is the best part of my daily life. She has basically no social media that I can link you to to prove her existence, so here are a few (totally not photoshopped) pictures of us being disgustingly cute together.