There’s medicine, and there’s drugs. Some go hand in hand, and some are as unique as fingerprints. 

Drugs alleviate pain, eradicate infection, stabilize the system, and subdue the symptoms of what life throws. It can be a pill, an IV, an ointment, or a shot in the arm. It is the journey of redacting and reducing.

But medicine… medicine heals. It can be an antidote as well as a placebo. Medicine is more than drugs, but drugs are still medicine. Keep this in mind as I search for the words to express the healing experience I encountered during my time at Cookeville Regional Medical Center.

I’m a 36-year-old songwriter and professional musician with Type 1 Diabetes. For years, my diabetes was unmanaged and frankly out of control as I dedicated my life to performing and writing music all over the country. I’ve driven millions of miles, and over the past 20 years, I’ve spilled my heart and guts for anyone looking for a song. It was during 2020 that I began my health journey to become stable and healthy as a diabetic. It has been a long and hard journey learning to balance being a responsible entertainer.

It was in the winter of 2024 when I developed my first Diabetic foot ulcer. After two months of touring, moving, and recording, I had overworked myself and had lost my big toe before Christmas. I took it in stride and recovered, but by the summer of 2025, I had found myself overworking again and lost a second toe on the same foot. It was devastating emotionally after all the intentional actions I took to become a stable and healthy diabetic.

It’s now October 2025, and after working on a short film nonstop for weeks, I noticed the early signs of a new ulcer forming. I immediately felt my soul fall through my spine and hit the bottom of my shoes like a guillotine. Tears of shame and screams of embarrassment rang through my ears as I rushed to the ER on a Sunday night.

I just kept shaking my head in disappointment as I felt waves of internal lashings and blame shadow my mind. A penance for my obsessive work ethic. A result of my lack of self-compassion for my own disease. I felt like I just kept failing.

I found myself admitted to Cookeville Regional Hospital. Being slammed with antibiotics and scheduled for emergency surgeries to see if the ulcer was more developed than met the eye. The incredible surgeons and staff were not only able to find, clean, and rid the infection, but went the extra mile and performed a series of preventative procedures to help minimize the domino effect of ulcers developing later.

So here I am.  My mind and spirit are unable to escape the looping thoughts of shame and sadness. Not so much pity for myself, but more so for those who love me. My wife, my family, my friends. A vulnerable state in every region of my existence. I did not display these feelings outwardly, and put on a face to the staff who came and went as they helped me recover post op. Smiles and small talk. Fears of never walking right again, of not being able to run across a stage as an entertainer, or drive all night to another lonely city.

I believe these times of depression, mixed with physical vulnerability, can create the perfect environment for addiction to drugs. To escape and remove oneself from facing what can feel to great a task to overcome. This state of mind strips the medicine from a drug and can develop into a curse.

But before I was able to dive too deep into my own fears and fumbles, I met Josh. Josh is a nurse on the fifth floor, and although he administered the drugs, it was he as a person who became my medicine. He looked me in the eye, spoke from the heart, and acted with utmost professionalism whilst staying personal and kind. It was more than humane; it was human.

As the antibiotics healed my infection, as the pain meds suppressed my stress and trauma, as the blood thinners helped bring circulation to my poor foot, I started to heal as a man because of the genuine service that Josh just seems to live and breathe by.

I was one of the first dozen patients in Alabama to contract the Coronavirus in early March 2020. This is before the fatigue of the healthcare industry during the pandemic; this was when it was an unknown boogie man that filled the air with fear and adrenaline. I was quarantined for weeks and only touched through hazmat suits filled with anxious eyes and superstitious hesitation. I wasn’t treated as a patient, but more as a specimen. No soft words of encouragement, darting away from my eyes as if I could stare COVID-19 right through their layers of protection and latex. It was a traumatic experience for me as a human being. I wasn’t so scared of the virus as I was of the lack of connection. An absence of hope.

So I have a sensitivity to the hospital experience that leans less on infection and disease than on the dissonance between patients and staff. Which is why I’m so compelled to reach out to the powers that be and take the time to state that I am so grateful for every single staff member, physician, and surgeon I encountered at CRMC. Every single person was kind and took their time to do more than their job, but to heal. True medicine.

That’s why I was so aware of Josh and his abundance of genuine caring. It wasn’t so much training as it felt like instinct. The 5th floor is a busy floor, but I never felt anything but patience and love from Josh. Within a day of recovery, I felt hope and started to shake off the despair I had come prepared with.

Combined with the drugs, I started healing from the people. They have been the best medicine. Especially Josh. He encompasses the very reason why this award was created. He is a good influence in the healthcare system, and I want more professionals in the field to know of him and his kindness