A Marine's recovery

In 2023, Paul Azarovitz lost the use of his legs. This is how he walked again.

Paul is a Marine veteran and an Iron Neck customer. His doctors couldn't find a cause and told him to expect a wheelchair for life. He filmed his recovery from the first months. Scroll through three years of his videos, from the living room floor to a walk down the street with his dog.

Watch his story

Paul walking toward the camera with one cane and his dog Taz

September 2026

Three years of progress

August 2023

His legs gave out, and the VA couldn’t tell him why.

Paul collapsed in August 2023 and took an Uber to the Ann Arbor VA. A week of MRIs, blood work and a spinal tap found no cause. The hospital sent him home in a wheelchair with no treatment plan, and he set up cameras to record the months that followed.

"Sir, this is your reality now. You could be in a wheelchair the rest of your life."His first doctor at the VA

Fall 2023

He spent three months rebuilding his mindset before he trained.

He crawled up the stairs to shower once a week and slept on the couch. He kept telling himself he was going to get through it because his three kids counted on him.

"The first thing I had to do was get my mind right."Paul

November 2023

He taught himself to stand again, a few seconds at a time.

He used his walker as a dip station and timed how long he could stand with his knees locked. He started at 20 seconds. By November he passed a minute, and months later he stood through his son’s football game holding the fence.

2024

He traded the wheelchair for a walker.

A team at the Detroit VA started him on monthly treatments, and a friend who runs a gym picked him up for an hour of training each week. In December Paul rolled the wheelchair into the garage and left it there.

2025

He moved from the walker to walking sticks.

He wore walkers down to the metal on veteran suicide awareness walks and used the stair lift as a second handrail. Then he switched to walking sticks he bought on Amazon. He still falls, and he films those days too.

May 2026

He got up off the ground on his own.

For the first time since 2023, Paul pushed himself up from the pavement without a wall, a counter or a hand to hold.

August 2026

He walked to the curb and back without a cane.

He brought both garbage cans back from the end of the driveway with nothing to hold. It took him eight and a half minutes.

September 2026

He walked his dog down the street on one cane.

Taz stayed beside him the whole way. "I thought I was taking him for a walk," Paul wrote. "Turns out he was helping me take one."

October 2026

He carried a 44 pound kettlebell up the stairs.

He carried it from the garage to his bedroom with one hand on the railing. His neurologist in Detroit saw him this fall and won’t settle for less than a full recovery. Paul likes that about her.

"How am I improving every three months?"Paul, on doctors who say this might be as good as it gets

“Your mind is your most powerful weapon. If you believe it, you can do it. You just might not be able to do it right now.”
Paul Azarovitz, October 2026

Paul smiling on a running track, holding his forearm crutch

Training at home

He rebuilt his mindset first. Then he rebuilt his strength.

Paul trains his whole body at home and at the gym, and neck work with Iron Neck became part of that routine. Here are a few of his sessions. Tap the speaker to hear him.