For two years he lived in self-imposed isolation, only leaving the house to go to the hospital for therapy and operations. Eventually the toll on his family was so great that he decided he had to go back to high school. "During the two years I was at home I assumed people would make fun of me, but I didn't know for sure. There was comfort in that little crumb of doubt".

When he went to school his worst fears were confirmed.

Dennis spent his adolescent years in extreme loneliness. He didn't admit the pain he felt even to his family. And ironically, the strategy worked. "For so long I preteneded things were normal that I started to believe it. Gradually, it got better".

Dennis is now married with children and recently sold his successful Detroit music store to work as a motivational speaker. He spends 40 weeks of the year on the road, and is now running for the Detroit City Council.

But his main focus is working with other burn survivors.

"The first time another burn survivor told me I had helped them", he says, "was the first time in my life I had ever associated anything of value with this experience".

Dennis now considers that he was reborn in the fire that burnt him. "I am a new person", he says. "The old Dennis died. I had to let him go".