Our guest this week on the podcast is Brett Cassella. I had the pleasure of meeting Brett 7 years back at my first powerlifting meet. I was amazed at how strong of a bench presser he was. It wasn’t until meeting up with him and hearing his story did I realize how difficult of a road it was for him dealing with a hidden disease all while still trying to compete as a powerlifter. He was diagnosed with Ulcer Colitis. It took over a year of being misdiagnosed and dealing with different levels of sickness all the the way to almost dying. In the process, he lost over 100 pounds from being sick at one point to being able fight his way back to being able to bench press over 500 pounds post diagnosis. He is now back to living a normal life while closely monitoring this very unpredictable disease.