Challenge Accepted is a reality/comedy series that takes on psychosocial issues in hemophilia, one episode at a time. In the "Branch Out" episode, our host, Justin Willman, helps Taylor, a college student with hemophilia A, get out of his comfort zone.

Taylor’s life has settled into a routine, due partly to fear of injury and partly to inertia. Justin takes Taylor deep into the woods, in the middle of a thunderstorm. With the help of survival expert Cody Lundin, Taylor learns the value of putting yourself out there and being a little uncomfortable in the process.

Taylor’s story is one example of how people with hemophilia struggle with two competing forces: the natural desire to experience new things—and the fear of taking risks that comes from living with hemophilia. The goal of this episode is to encourage people with hemophilia to step outside their comfort zone and take risks.

Hemophilia is a bleeding disorder. People mostly know it from the HIV epidemic in the 80s, where contaminated blood transfusions caused a large part of the hemophilia population (a rare disease) to be infected and/or die in that time. For all the seriousness and sadness, we wanted to use comedy to add levity to the many issues that the community faces, but doesn't often talk about.

Each episode of Challenge Accepted features a host (Justin Willman from Netflix's Magic For Humans), a guest (someone with hemophilia facing a specific challenge), and a coach (a celebrity friend that can help). For this episode, “Branch Out”, coach Cody Lundin from the Discovery Channel’s cult hit “Dual Survival” helps Taylor get out of his comfort zone and try new things. Which doesn’t sound like a big deal. But for hemophiliacs, taught to be cautious their whole life, is a really big challenge.

Script in PDF attached