In this episode, Barry Shore takes us through his incredible journey of healing from a rare disease known as Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) that suddenly left him completely paralyzed over a decade ago. After the rapid onset of the paralysis that resulted from GBS, Barry spent months in the hospital as doctors first had to stop the disease in its tracks and then had to assist him in beginning the long recovery process.

One of the striking and key pieces to Barry’s story of recovery are the many amazing people that have been there for him along the way. There are the doctors and the other medical practitioners who administered great care to him, fought for him to get the best equipment possible and even created new gadgets to improve his stay in the hospital when all he could do was blink an eye. There are his friends and other members of the community who pushed him to begin aquatic therapy to regain movement, which served to kickstart his passion for swimming and the water (he now spends many hours a week in the pool and has swam over 5,000 miles). There is his aide, who I had the privilege of meeting that day and he has been with Barry for 12 hours a day, 6 days a week for almost a decade. And most importantly, Barry has had his family and wife, who have been his greatest allies in this process, doing everything from bringing him home-cooked meals for every single meal during his months in the hospital to turning him over in bed throughout the night during the early days of his recovery.

But this story is also very much about Barry himself and his approach to life. I quickly realized when speaking with Barry that his own mindset has been an essential tool in his entire healing process. As he says, he is an “oozer.” He oozes optimism, happiness and JOY! He is also extremely grateful for the gifts that life has given him and he seems to constantly be expressing that. I have no doubt that this optimism and outlook on life were key components in enabling Barry to so triumph on his incredible journey of recovery.

It was a real pleasure to meet Barry and I found this to be an inspiring story not just of healing, but also of living each day to the fullest and building a mindset that allows you to do just that.