Inc. magazine - July/Aug 2018

Despite some early missteps, Jake Burton’s snowboarding company became a household name. But a mysterious disease almost took him o; the slopes for good.

—AS TOLD TO LIZ WELCH

When I started Burton Snowboards, it was a get-rich-quick scheme. I thought, “If I can make

50 snowboards a day, I can make

$100,000 a year.” I hired two relatives and a friend—classic mistakes. I sold only 300 boards that first year. I had to lay everybody o; and go back to square one. Eventually, I was like, “Fuck it. I don’t care about the money. I just want to have been right about my vision.” When I started living just for the sport, everything fell into place.

I got hit by a skier once, which broke my leg. Then I hit a tree and broke my leg again. In February 2015, I got my knee replaced.

I had the surgery, and then took a run three weeks later. I needed to prove to myself I could do it.

A few days later, I started seeing
double. The next day, I felt flulike
symptoms and went to the hospi-
tal for an MRI. The neurologist
thought it might be a stroke. After
more tests with a di;erent set of
doctors, they said, “If it’s what we
think it is, tomorrow you won’t be
able to swallow, the next day you
won’t be able to open your eyes,
and the next day you won’t be
able to breathe.”

I didn’t believe it. But they had me try to blow these stupid little Ping-Pong balls up a tube, and I couldn’t move the Ping-Pong ball.

The diagnosis was Miller Fisher, the gnarliest form of Guillain-Barré. The myelin sheath around your nerves gets damaged. No one knows what caused it—a flu shot, the surgery, a bad oyster.

At first, it was, “OK, I’m sick. I’ll be missing this meeting or whatever.” But I spiraled down quickly.

On the third day, they jammed tubes down my throat. People would visit and walk out crying.

Part of the disease is confusion.

I couldn’t open my eyes, but I also couldn’t sleep. When I did sleep, the nightmares were horrific.

Breathing was the worst: I could never get enough air. All my life, I had had the lungs of a swimmer.

Now I was putting all my energy into getting the next breath.

I literally talked to my middle kid about suicide. I was just so over it. One day, my doctor asked, “Are you suicidal?” Remember that German plane, where one guy went to take a piss and the other guy locked the door and drove the