Swimming in the
AcidStream

Kerry Alan — Tulsa, Oklahoma

Kerry Alan is a retired rehabilitation counselor, educator, and disability advocate with over 35 years of lived experience navigating life with a spinal cord disability. His career began in television, working as a videographer shooting live sports in the late 1970s and into the 1980s. As his health declined and the physical demands of video work became impossible, he retrained in computer science — and later earned a Master of Science degree in Rehabilitation Counseling, Class of 2008, dedicating his professional career to helping individuals with disabilities access resources, build independence, and improve quality of life. He is the founder of AcidStream LLC, a disability systems and advocacy organization, and is establishing SherylsWay.org, a 501(c)(3) outreach ministry serving the homeless, named in honor of his late wife.

Kerry's medical journey has been one of perseverance. In 1990, he underwent a 12-hour surgery to resect an intramedullary ependymoma — a rare spinal cord tumor — performed by Dr. Detweiler and Dr. David Fell, to whom he credits his life. The tumor regrew, and a second resection followed in 1997. In 2021, Dr. Ryan Rahal performed cervical spinal fusion, removed bone spurs, and widened a spinal canal that had narrowed to 4 millimeters in diameter. Through it all, Kerry has continued to advocate, write, and persist.

His story begins far from Tulsa. Kerry spent his formative years in the Middle East — in Baghdad when the king was still on the throne, and in Kuwait, where he attended a two-room schoolhouse in the oil camp at Mina Abdullah. As a boy of nine, he stood at the helm of the George Champion, one of the largest tankers in the world, at the invitation of her first mate. He watched Red Adair extinguish a massive oil well blowout using a drum of nitroglycerin on a crane. He was a child raised without boundaries by people who knew none.

His father was a Missouri farm boy from McDonald County, raised on the rocky bluffs of the Ozarks, a World War II veteran who fought on Okinawa. After his platoon lieutenant was killed, his father took command — and when the Japanese soldiers were dug into the caves, he never asked his men to do what he would not do himself. He picked up the flamethrower. Kerry's father also taught him something equally important: that enemies are only enemies for a while. A German merchant marine captain who had served in World War II became one of his family's dearest friends. Mutual respect has no borders.

His mother was a Palestinian city girl — pragmatic, educated, and fluent in Arabic, English, French, and enough Italian and German to survive a war that came close. She worked as a secretary to the British Port Authority director in Haifa when Palestine was still a British protectorate. She was a working woman before that was common.

Kerry carries all of them with him — his father's courage, his mother's pragmatism, Sheryl's faith. His late wife often quoted Scripture: iron sharpens iron. She believed it. So does he.

"Swimming in the AcidStream" is written by a survivor, a fighter, and a man sharpened by adversity. It is also written by someone who relishes being the least knowledgeable person in the room — because that means there is something left to learn. Kerry is already at work on what comes next: apps and tools for people with disabilities, available at AcidStream.com — designed to be accessible and fairly priced, with no predatory subscriptions and no fine print.

Together, he writes, we will turn the flamethrower on the broken systems.

Kerry Alan lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with his garden and his memories.

"Persevere in truth and love." — Sheryl