When he was revived, he found himself caught in a neurological netherworld.
“I’d had a seizure, and I couldn’t move my legs,” he said. “I was paralyzed from the waist down for six months and end up going around on a walker or in a wheelchair.
“I started having lots of seizures — sometimes 10 a day. There were times when my whole face would go numb, and I thought I was having a stroke. Other times I got partial amnesia. Everything was going wrong and I had no idea what was happening.”
Neither did his parents: Jason Walsh, the former wrestling and lacrosse coach at Carroll, and Lisa Boehm, who once worked with the Sugarcreek fire department and as a Springboro police officer.
“He’d gone from playing freshman football that fall to all of a sudden he can’t walk in December,” Jason said. “That was hard to see because you knew he was a physically fit kid who could do everything.”
Liam ended up Dayton Children’s Hospital — later he’d be treated at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus — and eventually was diagnosed with Functional Neurological Disorder (FND), which involves an incorrect functioning of the brain when it comes to processing and sending signals.
The symptoms are real for someone with FND, even though there is nothing physically wrong.
“This wasn’t an illness my body could fight: it was me fighting my body,” Liam said. “It’s a pretty rare (thing), one they’re still learning about.”
As Jason explained it: “It’s an unhealthy response to stress and, in his mind, the stress was school related.
“Your body can go into a fight or flight mode in those kinds of situations, but instead of the normal responses, his signals got crossed and his body turned off the signals below his waist.”
Lisa believes their son’s situation was exacerbated by the underlying conditions he had dealt with his entire life.
“When you have a combination of things — ADHD, OCD and being on the autism spectrum – that comes with certain physical, psychological and emotional challenges. Add in FND and that would be enough to take some folks over the edge completely.”
It took a toll on Liam — his weight eventually went down to 100 pounds, he said — and it left his parents reeling.
“It was a scary, frustrating, exhausting, devastating , heartbreaking experience,” Lisa said.
Liam said his doctors eventually told him there was nothing physically wrong with him: “They said, ‘You need to assure yourself of that and then take control of your stress and your body.’
“That was hard for me to understand when I couldn’t walk, couldn’t even stand up.”
Finally, he said the dam broke after a dispute with his dad: “This was really hard on the whole family and then one day I had an argument with my dad. I remember sitting there on my bed crying and finally I just thought: ‘I’m NOT doing this anymore!’
“I vividly remember hoisting myself out of bed after that and though my legs were sore from not having used them in six months, I walked slowly downstairs.”
Those were the first steps on the road to return, though it was not a straight or easy path back.
There would be several more seizures, more struggles, more uncertainty.
“He had to find some kind of release,” Jason said.
Sports was a natural avenue to look to in their family. Jason had been an athlete and coach. And Lisa had been a multi-sport athlete at Fairmont High and later did everything from skydiving to mountain climbing.
Liam’s older brother, Cullin, played lacrosse at Lenoir-Rhyne University and now, so does his sister Mackenzie.
Liam said Carroll school officials were reluctant to let him participate in sports. And that’s understandable. He admitted there were times ambulances came to take him to the hospital.
Although Lisa and Jason are now divorced — she lives outside Middletown and he in Centerville — she said they still get along well, and she saluted him for finally finding the perfect release for their son:
“Ultimately you’ve got to give credit to his dad. He’s the one who thought of boxing.”
Liam said they first tried a fitness gym in Kettering, but quickly realized that wasn’t what he wanted.
Eventually they found the DMC Boxing Academy, a thriving fight club run by Daniel Meza-Cuadra in Centerville that is like no other in the Miami Valley.
“I didn’t know anything about the place, but Coach greeted us at the door, and I said, ‘I want to be a fighter. I want to push myself to my limits. I want to compete,’” Liam said.
“He said, ‘OK, go in and join the workout.’”
Liam and his parents said that day — and the ones that have followed at DMC in the years since — have changed his life.
“There were times we felt hopeless and didn’t know what would happen,” Lisa said. “As it turned out, boxing gave him hope and it’s turned out to be contagious.
“It helped us get our son back.”
‘Push through the hard times’
The evening training sessions at DMC are like a fistic version of the United Nations.
Monday evening, in a gym filled with aspiring boxers, Meza-Cuadra pointed out 15 who each were from a different nation, including places like China, India, Uzbekistan, Palestine and Ukraine.
Liam, now an 18-year-old senior at the Greene County Career Center who also works half days at a Xenia machine shop, was right in the middle of them, working hard and laughing easily.
While Lisa said he had struggled at first — he still was having seizures away from the gym when he began — she emphasized “he committed himself to the work and he built physical strength and created muscle memory in his movements.
“FND took so much away from him. He had to claw his way back. He had to find the grit in himself and push through the hard times.”
He said he now trains at DMC five to six days a week for 2 1/2 hours at a time.
He said he hasn’t had a seizure in a year and has added “60 pounds of muscle.”
In school, he said his grades have gone up — “I have a 3.7 GPA now,” — and he said he’s in line for a scholarship to Sinclair.
That’s why his parents and so many others who know of his ordeal are so proud of him. Liam said the other boxers and especially Meza-Cuadra were a big part of his recovery:
“This place got me through my illness. It’s become my second family. And along the way I’ve learned a lot about other people, cultures and religions.”
Lisa said boxing: “has embodied so many things Liam needed: It got him in shape, fueled his fire and gave him some real camaraderie. It kind of became the whole package deal for him. It became a vehicle not only for him to rebuild his life, but to thrive in life.”
Saturday fight card
To date, Liam’s lone foray into the ring was an exhibition two years ago when DMC boxers put on a charity show at the Ahiska Turkish American Community Center on East Fifth Street to raise funds for victims of the deadly earthquakes in Turkey.
He hopes to be a part of Saturday afternoon’s gala fight show at The Lift at 114 S. June Street in East Dayton.
The 20-bout amateur card — with a pair of DMC’s top boxers, middleweights Jrue King and Jose Jacinto fighting in the co-main events — starts at 3 p.m. Tickets begin at $35 and can be purchased at the door or through Eventbrite or by going to the DMC Boxing Facebook page.
The show is co-promoted by DMC Boxing and Seth and Cain Doliboa, the brothers long celebrated here for their basketball careers who now are well-known area builders. They did the transformation of the 125-year-old ice cream factory into the multi-tiered events center they named The Lift.
Although there are 20 bouts, DMC has more boxers than that vying for one of Saturday’s select spots. If Liam doesn’t make this undercard, he will be fighting soon said Meza-Cuadra, who, in the meantime, has been teaching him other aspects of the game.
He had Liam work the corner with him in one bout at a fight show in Piqua last weekend and then had him film another boxer’s efforts.
Lisa said boxing has tapped into a passion with her son and empowered him like nothing before. She said it boosted his self-esteem and sense of accomplishment and has given him some real dreams.
Although this may be the most dramatic transformation that’s happened at DMC gym, its definitely not the first said Meza-Cuadra:
“A lot of people lately have told me how thankful they are for this place. They’ve said how much it’s helped them in their personal lives deal with stress and confidence issues, things like that.
“What we’re doing basically is changing lives. Boxing can change lives.”
And Liam has taken that to heart.
“Nationwide Children’s has had him speak to other kids going through FND and to their families, too,” Jason said.
Once unable to rise out of bed, Liam is now standing taller than ever before:
“I want to be an inspiration to other kids dealing with this. I want to show them you can fight through this.”
Thanks to boxing, he’s now the one delivering a knockout punch to FND, not the other way around.
Fight Night at The Lift 2
Saturday, February 8
114 S. June Street East Dayton
Doors open 2 p.m.
First bout 3pm
20 amateur bouts with local middleweights Jrue King and Jose Jacinto each fighting a co-main event.
Tickets range from #35 to &70 individual; $600 for table of 8
Can be purchased at door, from Eventbrite or at DMC Boxing Facebook page
Food sold courtesy of Salar Restaurant….full-service bar
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