C. Craig Stoddard

Here I am two years, four surgeries, and countless hospital stays later a survivor giving the finger to all the doctors who gave me little hope of survival. My life is filled with examples of how weak and also powerful the mind can be.

As a teenager I wandered, alone and unwanted hoping to find a reason for being. I overcame homelessness, drug and alcohol abuse as a teen to lead a nice life. Until I started having medical problems which eventually led me to lose everything, even my wife leaving me. It was then that the tides of depression violently crashed down, pulling me to the depths of my own mind I drowned in a sea of sorrow. Thirty-four was the number that stays with me still, for it was the number of times I silently cried out while fighting those trying to rescue another unwanted life. It wasn't until I fell into the darkness within that I finally found myself for the first time.