Mike Shoreman was a regular guy running a paddle-boarding business in Ontario until Ramsay Hunt syndrome struck him down and forced him to re-evaluate his life. Since then he has become a staunch advocate for the disability and mental health communities, showing how overcoming adversity is in all of us.

TRANSCRIPT

Evan:

so welcome back to DDA encouraging abilities podcast. I am your host. DDA communications manager Evan Kelly, today, we're not just talking about cognitive disabilities, but mental health as well adaptability, resilience and overcoming adversity. Joining me to talk about all that, is Mike shoreman.

Now here at DDA, I've been following mike on social media for some time. He is a mental health and disability advocate. Now, Mike is and was a typically developed, developed person and a coach, a paddle boarding coach with paddle Canada, until he was struck down with what's called Ramsay hunt syndrome back in 2018 now, the condition led to severe physical impairments, including loss of mobility, hearing and vision, chronic vertigo, facial nerve collapse, all of this culminating into a mental health crisis. Suffice to say, it was very life changing for Mike.

Perseverance is key. And by 2022, Mike became the first person with disabilities to paddle across all of Canada's five great lakes. So Mike, it's so great to have you here today.

Mike:

Great to Great to be here with Evan. Thanks for having me.

Evan:

No problem now, son, I don't want to give everything away, so I start this with a lot of my podcasts. So tell me a little bit more about Mike schorman.

Mike:

Oh, well, I am a keynote speaker, consultant and advocate. I work with organizations, academic institutions, government agencies, schools to help empower their people. And you know, help, help empower people and improve mental health, education and disability education. I work a lot with human connection. We learned a lot of things out there on the Great Lakes. It wasn't just me who went across them. It was a whole group, a whole team that I built to help support me, so we had to learn how to connect with each other to do these five marathons. But yeah, no, I'm I am just a regular guy who went out and did a big thing, and that was made possible by the support of a lot of incredible humans.

Evan:

Now, Ramsay hunt syndrome, that that's not something that comes up very much. I didn't even know it existed until I started to follow you. Had never heard of this condition. So what is it and how does it affect people?

Mike:

Right? So it's a neurological disorder, condition. It is activated. So what it is is essentially, if you've had chicken pox, chicken pox, once you've had it, it stays in your system, and it remains dormant. So many of us had chicken pox when we were kids. I did I had, I had a very mild case, me too, when I was Yep, and, and then it just stays in your system, and, and it can be awakened later in life as shingles. And, you know, both my grandparents had shingles. Shingles is usually you get shingles in your in your later stages of life.

Evan:

Well, ironically, ironically, I had shingles a number of years ago, probably about 20 years ago, when I was fairly young, and the doctor figured it was stress related, but it did happen to me.

Mike:

Right, connection, right? So the Herpes Zoster virus, which is chicken pox, it can be reactivated as shingles when brought on by stress and and so what Ramsey hunt syndrome is is it is shingles, but very specified to when it attacks your eye or your ear. So in my case, it attacked my ear. I ran myself into the ground and wasn't taking care of myself. As I was an entrepreneur and I was running my paddle boarding business, and and ultimately, I worked myself into the ground and wasn't looking after myself well enough. And then, and then, it affected many different things, because it affected my vestibular system as it affected my ear. So Ramsay hunt syndrome can be mild to severe. In my case, it was very severe. The mayor of Toronto, the current mayor of Toronto, Olivia Chow she she had Ramsey hunt syndrome, I think back in 2000 Then eight she and she had to publicly announce it, because, because facial facial paralysis is part of it. And as being in politics, she had to make an announcement that this is not a stroke. This is what this is. And then a couple years ago, Justin Bieber announced that he had it and he canceled his entire world tour.

Evan:

Wow, wow, and so. So for you, what were some of the long term effects?

Mike:

So, what is a chronic condition? So even now, you know six, what are we were five, seven years later, even now, there are days where where my energy is low, or the barometric pressure changes, and I can feel it, or I get tired, and you can tell when my walking or my or my talking or with my speech, But no, I essentially lost my mobility, and I had to work with a vestibular rehab therapist to reprogram my brain ways to walk in a straight line. They said that I would never get back on the water, that I would never paddle board again.

I had to go for, you know, audiology tests and vision tests and and MRIs to rule out brain damage. So, no, it was a, it was a very big adjustment to to a new normal.

Evan:

Yeah, and then, so, you know, you're, you're a paddle boarding business, you're obviously outdoorsy, active kind of guy. Again, back to what I said earlier. Was typically developed. How, how difficult was this, to accept that life just suddenly changed?

Mike:

No, you know, when you acquired, you know, so many Canadians, so many people acquire disabilities later in life. I am just one of them, but it seems like there were so many all at once, and it was incredibly overwhelming. And you know when you lose your when you go from standing on a paddle board teaching people for 1012, hours a day and working for 17 hours a day, to not being able to walk and not being able to drink out of a cup, you know now you have to use a straw suddenly. And you know, when you have a shower because of the vertigo, you have to sit down in the bathtub rather than standing up. You know, all of a sudden, I lost my business. I lost the ability to earn an income. I lost my social life, which is hugely important with connecting with others when we're struggling. I couldn't I couldn't go out. I couldn't see people. So my world went from being very big to very, very small and and ultimately, you know, loss of independence, loss of social life, loss of identity in the world that I had created. And so I just didn't recognize, like, like, like many people who go through through that later in life. I just didn't recognize who I was anymore.

Evan:

Well, when you say later in life, though, that you weren't, I mean, how old were you when this happened? Oh, well, 35 Yeah, it's not very late.

Mike:

No, no, no, yeah, no, I Yeah, no, I was still, I guess still.

Evan:

Yeah, that was same for me when I, when I mentioned that I have shingles, I was probably around even like 28 I was that right? That young when that happened. So I guess we're poster children now for the fact that that can happen, not just later in life. Yeah. So, yeah. So was there a turning point when you realize that mental health needed to be the focus for you?

Mike:

It's dealing with physical stuff is one thing, but there's that whole mental health side of it, absolutely so a big focus on my recovery was placed on physical rehabilitation, but not so much with the mental Health and I was, I ultimately, what it came down to was that I felt like I, you know, I was, I was being looked after. And after months and months and months of this, I felt like I was a burden on other people, and I didn't see, you know, when we, when we go through a. Shift in, in our physicality and in, in, in how we operate and how we, you know, do day to day life. You know, it's it's a, it's a, it's complex. And I wasn't coping I didn't have the coping strategies in place at the time, and so ultimately, I ended up going for a stay in a mental health treatment facility, and it was there that I was set up with counselors and therapists, and I don't advocate for it with everyone. But in my case, it did work. I did go on medication and and it did, it did work well for me and and on the other side of receiving treatment, and, you know, coming out of there with, you know, coping strategies and tools that I could implement. That was when I decided I didn't want other people to ever feel as alone or as hopeless as I felt, and

Evan:

so suffice to say, your adverse, your advocacy that you do right now in life is a direct result of what happened to you. Absolutely yes, yes. And so this, so this inspired you to become a mental health advocate. And so, awareness and support, I guess, is your main goal is that is, I guess is that kind of your full time job? Now? Is that what you do?

Mike:

Yeah, so full time I work, I work with corporate I work with businesses and corporations. I do a lot and and schools, government agencies, nonprofits. I do a lot of conferences and and I work most. Most of it is stress management and burnout production, because that's what happened with me. So you know a lot of organizations who, who have, you know it's competitive out there. So a lot of people who, who have employees in industries who are ambitious and highly competitive. They look at my story and they see, they see the these. They see the face of of what, what can happen, you know. And, and then, and yeah. So I get to work with a lot of incredible, incredible people, and that is, that is my full time, my full time job.

Evan:

Now, when you look back and then you look