Tony’s Wish A Fight To End CTE

Hi. My name is Tony Medina. I am a 41 year old father of three who was newly diagnosed with what is believed to be CTE. The reason I say it is “believed to be” is because this disease is so new that most living patients that are displaying the cognitive symptoms and memory loss such as me that are living are usually way older than me and are diagnosed with dementia. Other patients that display the mood changes, the confusion, the constant fogginess, and the tingling throughout the body and commit suicide or die of some other means are later diagnosed with CTE in an autopsy. I have evidence of brain injury on my brain scans with significant cognitive issues that are progressing month to month. Essentially CTE turns into Dementia and the outcomes are the same. I am here because I am on a mission to educate as many kids, coaches, parents, and organizations about CTE, and brain injuries as I possibly can. This is a real problem that is effecting YOUR CHILDREN! Don’t believe me? Look at me. I was the picture of what I thought was a typical life. Listen up, it may sound familiar. I grew up playing baseball since I was 4 years old. I played HS Football. I played both ways and all special teams positions but 1 so I was on the field for every play of the game unless we were kicking off. I went on to play 2 years of college baseball. I did some boxing as young boy and some martial arts. Had som falls off of bikes and ran into a pole here and there. No hospitalizations just boys being boys kind of things. Then I became a policeman. I was a SWAT team member. I went to the fire academy. I was a policeman and fireman for the City of Sunnyvale. I was injured on duty and forced to retire due to non head related injury. Nowhere in that story did I play in the NFL, NHL, or any other pro sports league guys. This is happening to our kids at a rapid rate and at young ages. We need to be better educated about the significance of head trauma in young athletes and I am asking you to please help fund me do this. I do not know how much time I will have a sound mind to carry out this mission. The rate of progression is something that is being measured by my doctors and we use that as a scale as to how fast the brain will deteriorate. All I know is that I want to move fast. My new motto is I’m living my days in dog years. Every week is a month for me. So if we can please share this and please donate to help me get this going and help me start spreading this message about CTE I would greatly appreciate it. The money is going to be used on: The formation of a 501c3 non profit Tony’s Wish Website creation Tony’s wish.org Publications & Research documents Education speeches and talks