I was born and raised in Colorado. I was especially close with my grandmother and spent much of my childhood listening to stories she told about her life and journeys. She had emigrated with her husband and children from East Germany to West Germany then to the United States. Maybe because of that I was always interested in foreign countries and languages. In my youth I played high-level soccer and traveled all over the U.S., Europe, and China. After college, I joined the Army to attend the Defense Language Institute, where I studied Russian. When I came home from the Army I was surprised with the changes in my grandmother. She had developed Alzheimer's. Over the next several years I took care of her and saw firsthand how dementia was treated. This motivated me to enter medical school to become a geriatrician. I was accepted into medical school one week exactly before my grandmother died. Thanks to her, I found my true calling in life.