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Amazing Greats: Crazy great Jesus stories.
Gratitude in all circumstances- Care Tuk's continuing story.
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Care Tuk has been through more physical challenges than anyone we've known. But that has not robbed her of her sense of humor, her positive attitude and her special relationship with God. This is our second opportunity to chat with Care on Episode 22. You'll hear about her continuing health challenges that would have brought most of us down. Along with a health update, "Amazing Greats" host Klem Daniels jumps in with a meaty conversation about near death experiences, the power of her marriage with her care-giving husband, and her unique relationship with her best friend.....God.
Care shares her amazing ability to keep a positive attitude: finding and focusing on one good thing even on her worst days. As she says....You can be IN pain or you can BE a pain.
This episode can't help but touch you and make you feel grateful for every single day of good health.
Her website and blog
http;//www.caretuk.com
Her books
Care has authored her second book, which was just released in October 2021. Read her continuing story in
Care's first book introduces you to this amazing woman and her struggles. It will you amaze you, how upbeat and hopeful she is after all of the things she has been though. Truly an inspiration.
"Loose Screws and skinned Knees"
Available now on her website
"Amazing Greats" is a library of interviews with highly successful people who have amazing career and life stories and who share how God has impacted their journey. Hosted by broadcaster Ric Hansen & produced by Klem Daniels. Available on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, Google and our YouTube Channel.
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Hi there, Rick Hansen here. Thanks for checking out the latest episode of the Amazing Greats Podcast. Now, in this episode, our producer extraordinaire Club Daniels again rocks the microphone in a second in a follow-up episode with KareTuck. We originally interviewed back in February of 2021. I get you up to speed here a little bit. After multiple battles with cancer, a near-death car crash at the hands of a truck driver, then a brain bleed that left her to learn to walk and talk again. But the unexpected death of a child, Cartuck knows a little something about survival. A lot has developed since the last conversation in February, including the release of her new book. It's called Don't Wimp Out. Here is Clem Daniels and CareTuck.
SPEAKER_01Thanks, Rick. I'm Clem Daniels, and today we uh have a special guest who uh is back for round two uh because there are some new things going on in her life, and we'll tell you all about it today. Her name is CareTuck. Now, chances are you've never met anyone like CareTuck for so many reasons. Uh, she's extremely unique, but her uniqueness lies not only in her charm, her smarts, her stubbornness, her faith. Uh, care is unique by really no fault of her own. The side effect of an experimental fertility drug her mother took back in the 1950s. Cara's been suffering with cancers, 14 in all, four of those cancers she has right now. We'll talk about that as well. She's had over 120 surgeries to repair and replace several body parts. And uh she had a facial rebuild after a horrific car accident that almost killed her. She's the author right now, recently, of her second book, Don't Wimp Out Finding Faith, Courage, and Victory in Life's Daily Battles. She's the toughest lady I know from Wasilla, Alaska. I introduce Care Talk. Hi, Care.
SPEAKER_02Hi, Clem. How are you? Great. We call ourselves the Chosen Frozen up here, but it's going to be 70 degrees and awesome. We don't often get nice 70 plus days.
SPEAKER_01I don't get it up here. And this is and this is May, right? And this is May. The end of May, and I'm in Seattle and we're 50 some degrees today. So go figure. I don't know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, go figure. My husband found a block of ice still, though, yesterday when he was tilling um the garden. So, anyways.
SPEAKER_01So today is a um, I understand it's a special day for you.
SPEAKER_02It's a really, it's really a special day. Um, because of the DES, and the DES is the drug to prevent miscarriages, that they it was, as you said, an experimental drug. But one of the side effects they didn't know that would happen would be that the females, um, the female offspring would be infertile um over 80% of the time, um, and sometimes higher. And I happened to be in in that category. And so um while we we had really wanted to have kids and tried to have kids, we didn't know that my mom had taken DES. And then um we decided, well, adoption. Adoption back in the 70s was really expensive. And we we were getting rejections right and left. Bill would be staying home. That a house husband or a uh a guy staying at home and raising the kids was was not acceptable. Um, we didn't argue right. We didn't, you know, it was this, that, or the other thing. But on May 25th, 1979, a baby bundle, Jamie Marie, came into our life. An unselfish young teen mom um knew that she couldn't give her a life at that time that she would want to give a child, and we got Jamie on loan for 40 years.
SPEAKER_01And so Jamie's birthday is today. How correct? Uh as we're introducing Jamie to this interview, um uh to the people that are watching. Uh, how old would Jamie be today?
SPEAKER_02Jamie today would be 42.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, Jamie's no longer with us.
SPEAKER_02You want to yeah, um actually a year almost it would have been a year and a month after her 40th birthday. Um, she was pregnant, 23 months pregnant, pregnant with her third grandchild, and she always had trouble with heartburn in her second trimester. And um she was out on the couch, huddled under a blanket, and she had heartburn. And she was got on the computer and was googling heartburn. And um, yes, she did have a heart defect that we didn't know, which you most most often women don't know until their 30s. That's what and and heart disease is one of the main killers um of women, but um the ME, the medical examiner, explained to us her heart just stopped. And so we get this call from her husband, her um from her husband saying Jamie is no longer with us, and yet in every sense of the way Jamie is still here. I can see her sliding on the northern lights, I can see the delight in her kids' faces, I can um see it in her husband, everything. Everything. So unexpected, hard, but okay.
SPEAKER_01That's terrific that um you're you're able to feel that way when other people might take it a different way. We're gonna talk about that today. We're gonna talk about the emotions of suffering, uh, emotions of death. Um, your experiences with death, why don't we start with that? I mean, you have been clinically dead what, twice in your life?
SPEAKER_02Um twice documented, but three times unofficially. Um it's a very surreal. If if anybody has watched the movie Um with the Little Boy, I can't think of the name of the movie right now, but of the little boy, it is exactly that. The first time I had a blood clot in one of my port uh chemo port lines, and my husband was um, we were in the ER and they were doing a CPR, and my I could hear my husband yelling. It was like I was, I dream of Jeannie, and I'm sitting there cross-legged looking down and um wanted to just blink. Um, but I heard him yelling, don't you dare leave me here without these to read as teenagers alone. I'm not doing this thing alone. Um, and so I I chuckle over that. And then the music overhead was can't live if living is without you. And I kind of and I kind of looked up. I looked up.
SPEAKER_01Did you actually play that in the hospital?
SPEAKER_02That has to be the music that is on right now. Oh, that's you know, and so that's been that's that's been really, really funny. And the other one was um was another one when I was um real close. Um and I got to the gates and and a friend was my occupational therapist, who happens to also be a friend, was right next to me. And he said, You know, I've never heard anybody argue with God. You were just ticked off at him. And I said, Yeah, because he wouldn't let me in. I said, I don't want to go back, I don't want to go back. And then I and then he I obviously it kind of got, yeah, you're going back. So so the gates, I mean, literally gates, it's not so much gates as an opening, and it's and it's like it's no other colors or sounds, or um if anybody has happened to watch um The Shack, and there's a scene in there when with all the wildflowers and his five-year-old daughter comes running, it's his assurance that she's doing okay. Um, it's it's like that. It's not um, it's not it is indescribable.
SPEAKER_01You're listening to my interview with Kara Tuck, an amazing survivor, and she continues to do so today. Let's get back to the interview. How old were you? Awesome. How well how old were you in real life at the time?
SPEAKER_02Um at that time, I must have been 45.
SPEAKER_01How old? How how old was your body in heaven?
SPEAKER_02I don't I don't know that it really was a body. It was more of a an ethro, it was a spirit moment, it was a soul, it was a heart, it's a heart issue. It's it's so much a heart issue. I mean, I don't mean the one with the aorta and everything else, but it's it's the feeling and it's being there, and you know that you're loved, that the body doesn't matter, you know. Um I happen to know Johnny Erickson Tata, and we laugh. She she says, Yeah, the day she goes to heaven, she knows where her wheelchair is going. And I said, Yeah, the day I get to heaven, I'm just gonna ask God to make sure that um wherever my room is, that I have non-skid gold floors, because uh I've had enough of being um titanium rods and screws and cages and everything else.
SPEAKER_01So we'll get into that too. Um the the reason I I asked about uh the body was because uh I have read or heard several people say that you are uh the best looking that you ever were in your life, so you're at your peak, probably in your 20s.
SPEAKER_02Um hey, I think I look pretty good for an old geezer, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Right, right. But I mean that that Ivan, so it's yeah, it it's an experience that is very similar across the board.
SPEAKER_02Uh, but there are some uh subtle differences in each uh each person's uh and I think that that personifies each person's own relationship, own uh faith, no matter what it is, um what they walk through, what they what they believe.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, I'll be and um yeah. So anyway, you were pulled back, uh it wouldn't let you in. St. Peter wouldn't let you in, and uh and then what happened? How did you know you were going back?
SPEAKER_02Well, it was it was kind of a slow process because it's almost, I don't know if you've ever fainted or blacked out, and you kind of have these at first the curtains just kind of come in and close, close, close, close, and then you're out. Um this was almost a similar feeling. I felt myself just kind of getting further and further away from the colors that seriously are a lot like the northern lights or wildflowers or whatever those those colors to me. Um, I didn't hear any harps or that type of thing for me. Um, but I just felt myself being pulled back further and further. Um and there I was back in my hospital bed with my OT sitting next to me.
SPEAKER_01Wow. Yeah um it freaks people out when you you've been clinically dead for whatever period of time, and then you tell them stories of things that happened.
SPEAKER_02Oh, I just tell them, you know, it's people the one question I get a lot now is and it goes back to the day that Jamie passed away. And she passed away at early in the morning, and on our drive into um her house, Bill said, There are two questions that you don't ask. I really don't even go there with me. It's why and why now, because that's above our pay grade. When God wants us to know why, when he wants to know why now, he'll let us know in our timing. And and I think that that's that's really true. Um, but also it's I think God doesn't want me up there mucking stuff up. Um there's got to be a reason that you're not there already, which it's well, I'm hoping part of it is that I can still encourage people, and um even being set aside as I am, that we can still show people that we have fun. Um, you can even though you might not be able to do what you want to do, there are many, many things that you can do. And and that's that's my my part. Is it a struggle sometimes? Oh sure. Oh yeah, oh sure. Um I I recently just as recently as a month ago, um, got into something and the doctors weren't sure what it was. Well, we do know what it is, but um they don't have a real name for it yet, other than um it's it's affecting um part of my stomach, pancreas, all that kind of stuff. And he said to me last week, we all 15 of us across the country weren't sure we were going to be able to pull you through.
SPEAKER_01I'm talking with Ker Tuck on amazing grates.
SPEAKER_02I said, Well, that's probably because you're not the great physicians. I I have the great physician as the head guy. You know, you guys already appointed me as COO, but um, you know, it is hard when you there's nothing more that you would love to do than to get get out of Dodge. You know, no more worries, no more, no more anything else.
SPEAKER_01You you you were just talking about something that um this audience doesn't know about. Um it was about two weeks ago that you're referring to.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yes.
SPEAKER_01Why don't you explain what you were going?
SPEAKER_02Um one of the one of the cancers that that we've been um battling with, um, and they're calling whatever this is, um, a neoplasm, but it's in my um BioDuck. And it's true to care tech style. Um, it's twice the size of anything that any of the doctors have ever seen. They've only found one research paper that had um someone whose duct was dilated to um 10, and mine's at a 20 as of two weeks ago. Wow. Um, it means I get to, you know, change my diet to full liquids and softs and that kind of stuff. But it's a good thing I like smooth peanut butter and toast. And um, Bill makes awesome, awesome soup bases, so that's not a problem there.
SPEAKER_01Wow. You're so um, you know, I I we didn't talk much about Bill last time around, but Bill has really been just a saint um as a husband. I mean, he has set the bar so darn high that none of us can ever reach that. Bill's a big burly guy who wears who wears uh shorts in the middle of winter in Alaska. Uh he just comes off early as a big tough guy, but he's really a teddy bear.
SPEAKER_02Well, and he only wears t-shirts with sleeves on them once it gets about five above. And he might wear a coat at 10 below, maybe. Maybe. Um but I would say the hero in anybody's story going through things, and and especially mine, is the care caregiver, caretaker, or in my case, taker of care. Um, and he has done, you know, he walked into our marriage knowing we thought it would only be one vow, we weren't counting on as many. But he had he is so gifted and he is so wise, and he is the only one other than God that can probably keep me in line.
SPEAKER_01You know, you take these vows when you get married, and uh, I understand he missed something in your wedding vows. What did he forget to say?
SPEAKER_02He forgot uh in sickness and in health. And uh I kind of wonder, you know, yes, you know, we had lawyers coming after us, you know, saying, why don't you sue? Why don't you sue? You could get great money. And we thought, you know, you can't put a price on life. But, you know, I I teased him the other day saying, Hey, you know, you you left out this. I wonder what life would have been like. And he goes, Well, you've done a lot in your life, lady, but you know, you haven't done very well at the till death do us part part. So I said, Okay.
SPEAKER_01Wow.
SPEAKER_02Point well taken.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, what a great guy he is. And uh you're you're very lucky.
SPEAKER_02We have, but the the probably Clem, that I can say why we've been together, because most marriages, there's a high percentage. Um I've heard as high as 90% of marriages won't last if somebody is ill, chronic illness, um, those those type of things. But when people say, What makes you guys stick together? And I said, Bill will tell you, one, because he made a promise, and two, he doesn't break promises, and three, especially to God. Um, but we started our relationship as as best friends, and we encourage anybody who wants to enter into any relationship that you gotta be friends because when you're best friend, you're not gonna just walk away forever. Um, you may be ticked for a while, but you always come back and you always share those special things with them. And so we're best friends.
SPEAKER_01One thing I read in your in your new book uh is is uh when you were going for adoption, one of the questions you mentioned this uh earlier briefly, um they asked about how do you handle an argument? Oh and you couldn't answer you couldn't answer the question.
SPEAKER_02We could not, and and at that point we've been married a couple years, and even really to this day, we don't really argue. Um, I did give him a uh salt box thing that hangs a salt box that hangs plaque that hangs in our living room. It says, I'm not arguing, I'm just explaining why I'm right. Um, and so yeah, it isn't arguing. We we always talked it out, and we we kind of had a signal of time out, okay. This is getting where we don't want it to go. So we'd time ourselves out, just like we did with our kids, and then we'd come back and we'd talk it out, and then we'd end up um well, making up is never hard to do, but with hugs and kisses and um and praying and and just you know trying to understand. You turn it over to God to uh kind of work it out for you, or help us to understand how we're supposed to work it out, right? In a lot of ways, Bill and I are polar opposites. Um, you know, he's he can there isn't I haven't found anything that he really can't do. I mean, he was out this morning already rototilled and disced and leveled the the half acre garden that we're gonna um put in. But you know, it it's like an it's like an Italian dressing. Okay, you know when you you have a bottle and you and and they separate the oil separates from the other. Well, we eat that's Bill and me. We both have our own flavors, but one of us the oil's there and the water-based stuff is the other place. Shake us up and we make a darn good salad dressing. And that's how how I describe us.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, it's a very important part of life, but certainly what you've been going through for Since you were what fourteen you had your first uh well, yeah, yeah, 13.
SPEAKER_02Actually, yeah, 13 right around there.
SPEAKER_01She's found her life turned upside down, her bank account depleted, and her body put back together with screws, plates, and 25-pound test surgical fishing line. But through it all, she continues to survive and amaze us all. I'm talking with KerTuck on Amazing Grates. Knee surgery was your first surgery?
SPEAKER_02My knee surgery was was the first one.
SPEAKER_01Let's go through your body parts. You ready?
SPEAKER_02Uh, we're ready.
SPEAKER_01Okay. All right. Where do you want to start? Let's start with the feet and work our way up.
SPEAKER_02Okay. From the feet, um, I've got fused toes because the neuropathy from the chemo was so bad that I was not getting blood to um part of my foot. So they had to fuse toes so they wouldn't have to amputate them. Um both knees are total knees, but the one is a prototype that was used in a study, and it has a long um a long rod going from my knee down to just above my ankle, and then there's a spacer bar.
SPEAKER_01Titanium, right?
SPEAKER_02Excuse me?
SPEAKER_01Titanium.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, titanium rod. And then there's a plastic piece in there, and which is called a spacer, um, that they put in to it, it mimics what cartilage or meniscus would be. Um, and then I have from the knee up to um oh about three, four inches of my thigh, um, a femoral rod of titanium or femoral piece that they fashioned for me. And um then the car accident, I had my face rebuilt. I've had my shoulders rebuilt 10 times. Um after um chemo, I ended up, my bones are more brittle. And when I fell, um, I hit the palm of my hand and it shattered my humerus, so I got more screwed up and got a plate and 10 more screws. And then they eventually had to take those out. But one of the great things about having so much titanium is you can't hurt titanium. Um you can sure bruise around it, but you uh you won't you can't break it. So so that's a plus. I'm fused surgically in four places in my back, but the rest is all but one disc has self-fused. Again, they're they're thinking that's due to the DES. And then um the brain got injured, not only in the car accident, because the the bones got shoved up um and things got scrambled, you know, jaw broken, everything, those kind of things. But um in 2001, during 9-11, I had just gotten into rehab the day before. I had a three-compartment subdural bleed that we still to this day have no idea where it came from. I didn't fall, didn't have, you know, it wasn't anything. I just I had a funny headache, and the doctor said, humor me, let me take uh an x-ray. Then he says, Ah, I want to do a CT. And then it was, no, you're not going home, you're not driving, you're not doing anything. Um, and I did go home three months later. Um after um they they took everything out, and I had to learn how to walk, talk, speak all over again. Um and then um as my charmed life goes, just after Jamie's death, I you with cancer you have yearly workups, and you know, it'll be CTs or MRIs or PET scans or whatever. Well, I had taken mine and it showed that the hardware in the arm with the plates and screw were starting to fail, and two of the screws were coming through the bone and starting to damage the muscle. So they need to get that out. So they got that out. But what was even funnier was I could hear right before I was being wheeled towards surgery, is um a couple doctors were talking and they said, You're doing care tack? Are you crazy or are you just stupid? You know, and um and so they were kind of they said, I sure hope you have a plan B. Well, he did need a plan B, and the plan B um ended up being a blessing in disguise because after the day after recuperating, I'd lost a lot of blood. They did some blood work, found I was way low, gave me some blood, and then I had a reaction. And they think it's because with chemo, with me, my temperature, my core temperature has dropped, um, and the blood wasn't warmed up. It's a technique that they can do and they usually do, but they didn't. And so here I was, I was having this reaction, they're wheeling me down to ER and um doing CTs and MR and heart stuff and everything else, and lo and behold, they find a brain tumor. I mean, who goes in for shoulder surgery and comes out with a brain tumor? Care tax. So um, so we deal with that, and then um because of that, after they they did more CTs, they came back and did um a PET scan, only to find that I had a tumor in my sixth and fourth rib. And there's nothing they can do. The fourth one is is infitesimal um right now, and the the one on the sixth rib, they can't do anything about because it sits right, it's it's attached to the lining of my lung, but it sits right next to where the main artery of the heart is. So they can't they can't touch it. So, and so we said, there we go. Um and then you just live your everyday stuff that you go through just normally.
SPEAKER_01This is today. How long ago was that? Did you get the diagnosis on the brain tumor and the and the bile duct cancer and the and the and they and the eye yeah, well, you've got they haven't mentioned that yet either.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I forgot to mention that. They they think there may be a two, it looks like a tumor is forming behind the left eye, which if it is, would be from the car accident, because it was where part of the injury from the car accident was um where I got direct impact from. Um, but the bile duct has just been within the last six months or so that we've really been able to narrow that down. Um six months to a year, it it started showing up on there.
SPEAKER_01The bile duct uh cancer is the most serious of them all. I I understand uh of the four that you currently have. Um, what is the prognosis? What's the prognosis there?
SPEAKER_02Oh, it's the same as yours. Terminal.
SPEAKER_01Same we're all terminal. Oh, we're all terminal. I understand what you're saying.
SPEAKER_02Some sooner than um with it's the bio with the biodact. The um doctor told me last week that um he said there's almost no point in doing more scans or that. Yes, we can keep on top of blood work, but um when the we will know if God doesn't come first or I don't get hit by a moose, um this is what would probably take me out. And that will be that the duct will close totally off. And they have no explanation of why it hasn't already, because at the level it is already, I should be looking like a minion, um, a yellow minion. Um and he said, once you have once you start turning yellow, you have typically four weeks to four months. But he said, but there's nothing typical about you, so we we don't know.
SPEAKER_01Well, I mean, you we we we haven't even mentioned the H1N1 that you contracted how long ago on a flight down to Seattle or something for some shit.
SPEAKER_02Right. That was this 10, 11 years ago. Um, I think H1N1. Um, I was I was down, and I had taken a flight over to Spokane for the weekend, and that was the weekend they put Washington State University under quarantine because of H1N1. And I came back and I had an orthopedic appointment, and um all of a sudden I started showing signs of the H1N1. And um it was it was tough, it was tough, tough partially too, because I couldn't go home um until I was, you know, kind of clear 10 days. Um, but if that hadn't happened, the first book wouldn't have happened because um while I was the people who graciously let me stay with them had a son who was um who worked with um Luis Palau, and he was my editor and um kind of consultant, whatever you call them on books, head guru. So yeah, it's pretty cool.
SPEAKER_01So uh oh, and you stay, did you stay in Spokane to recover? Is that what you did?
SPEAKER_02No, I um no, because the person I was seeing, I just went over to Spokane for the weekend, and I so they figure I got it on one of the flights back since there's so many flights with um students, yeah. Yeah, with students that I probably got it then. Um, but I I stayed with other friends.
SPEAKER_01Um so you're a survivor of of N1H1. You know, the only thing that could you you just had to stay away from completely was COVID, and you didn't.
SPEAKER_02Uh no.
SPEAKER_01You and Bill contracted COVID, and you have all of these things going on in your body and your and your life, and you would think that your immune system was just totally destroyed.
SPEAKER_02Well, it is, it is. In fact, you know, I can't, it's why right now I'm still on um liquids, um, and and will be, but um I lost it. Sorry, that's part of being having having several brain brain surgeries. Sometimes you lose it. My husband calls it all the timers. I call it some of the timers, most of the timers. Um, but but um you were talking about covet and how how oh the the covet we f and we figure um the day that I was exposed to it was the day that Alaska had their um one of their first cases, and it came it came from a pilot who had flown um from the um from China, actually. Um and he was happened to be at the hospital um at the same time I was. We didn't know anything. I mean, think about it, a year ago, March, nobody knew anything. So nobody was quarantining or anything else. So he was in an area where we were. So um, and for us, blessedly, it is. It was just like a bad flu. Um I wouldn't wish it on anybody, but but I wouldn't wish a bad cold on anybody either. Um, yes, we have to take precautions. Um, we have to be vigilant and be aware, but my take is one day at a time.
SPEAKER_01Well, God is is he keeps putting a spotlight on you and he holds you in the highest of highest regard for a representative on this planet for the people. Uh I just, you know, we just don't know people like you that have gone through what you have, but had this wonderful faith experience that just continues to keep you alive. What are your thoughts on that?
SPEAKER_02Well, I there are a couple things. One is yes, I do have faith. And it's uh it's my faith, it's a relationship, it isn't a um, you know, I I happen to be a Christian. Um just like if you go to if you go to McDonald's, you aren't a hamburger, just because you go to church doesn't mean you're a Christian, but I I happen to have uh a friendship um with God and um tight with him. And that that and staying staying close with him, even when you know, there are times that you can't read, you can't concentrate, um, those types of things. And that's why he says, you hide your, you know, hide my word in your heart. And that has sustained me because there will be little verses that kind of keep going around and around, and and you'd be surprised at the ones that really you remember and why you remember them. And in the dark nights in a rehab center, or on a middle of the night when you can't sleep, or um, you know, when you're out recycling, you know, everything after a chemo, you know. Um, and and life is fragile, so you handle it with prayer.
SPEAKER_01You're listening to my interview with Kara Tuck, an amazing survivor, and she continues to do so today. Let's get back to the interview. I was gonna ask, you know, uh, if you could say anything to the rest of us, is what advice would you give um based on your life experiences and and and possibly too take into consideration where you where you're going here much sooner than we all want that to happen.
SPEAKER_02Well, one would be I I learned this a long time ago from one of my clients, and that is uh you can either be in pain or you can be a pain. So your attitude has a lot to do with it, but also don't make it more than it more than it is, but don't make it less than it is either.
SPEAKER_01Um a lot of times there's pain, uh, and there's lots of pain with you, but there's also the the wear and tear on the on the mind, on the body, and the you know that goes along with that. Um that is is difficult. And the combination sometimes, I mean you throw depression in there along with other oh yeah, and all of that. That's a lot to encounter.
SPEAKER_02I I keep a sign um on my desk, it says, give yourself permission to leave something undone today. And I also have um Larry, Larry Boy from Vegetails, who has a um button on it that says no whining. And um, that's kind of where don't wimp out, you know. Um we don't get to choose the number of days, the number of hairs or lack thereof on our head that God counts, you know, but we um we trust one day at a time and make right choices and don't worry about tomorrow. You take take today, today's a gift, unwrapping it, uh unwrapping it, uh open it up after you've unwrapped it and see the gift of today. Um every day could you can find something, find one if if if you are in the deepest on my deepest and deepest and darkest days, I would force myself to find one good thing that it happened. You know, focus on the good, focus on your toute, your attitude. You know, because and and it's also hard because I'm not looking at me. Bill looks at me all the time, you know. Other people see me, but I don't see me necessarily in the same way they see me. So um I want to be the best that I know how to be, which is to be a keister kicker, to use humor, to um, and on days when I can't do it, I take the phone off the hook and put the cell phone on mute, and it's okay.
SPEAKER_01Your book, Don't Wimp Out, Finding Faith, Courage, and Victory in Life's Daily Battles, um, it is a title that certainly uh suits you and and fits you well. Um, and you have a lot to say. The I guess the one thing that I don't quite understand is where do you find the energy and the time, you know, to write not only your your first book, but your the second book.
SPEAKER_02How did the the first book I I wrote, that was my way of dealing with chemo, because you'd be sitting hours on end in in a chair being hooked up to an IV, and I would um I would write there. I've always been a journaler, and so some of the stories came you know from there. On this second book, um, it's been actually done, uh written for about three years, and people keep saying, So when's it coming out? So when's it coming out? And I'm saying, I would, you know, glitches keep falling in the way. Throw in a 7.1 earthquake, throw in COVID, you know, um, throw in whatever.
SPEAKER_01And since the time of her interview, her new book, Don't Wimp Out, is now available. And you can find it on her website at caretuck.com. That's caretuck.com. In the meantime, your first book, Loose Screws and uh and skinned knees, loose screws and skinned knees.
SPEAKER_02And you know, it's because I really do. I have I have a loose screw right there. You can see yes, yeah. Yeah, but I asked them why won't you take it out? And they said, Well, that's old school. And I'm going, old school. They I said, fine, I'll just sterilize it and go out to my husband's shop and take his, you know, reciprocating drill and just yeah, pull her out. Yeah, it's just no, I don't think you know.
SPEAKER_01Well, care, it's been a pleasure. Uh thanks. You know, what they have the name care too is is almost ironic. It's just it it could it's me. It couldn't be a better name for a person like you, thank you, who has uh given so much care and deserves so much care, and it's in the care of God Almighty, and you are an example of his what? I just so much, I can't even find an adjective for it.
SPEAKER_02It is grace, but you know what, Claude? It's because it's because of people like you who are Jesus with skin on that help fuel me to be the me I can be.
SPEAKER_01Well, thank you. And it's a pleasure to talk to you again, and uh, we wish you nothing but the best. And thanks. Please be around here for a while, will you?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. I wanna I wanna see I want to see some uh more warm weather.
RicYeah, all right. Thanks, care.
SPEAKER_02See you in the funny pages.
RicThanks, Clem and Care. What an amazing story. Well, if you missed the first conversation with Care Tuck, check out episode four from February on the Amazing Greats Podcast. Thanks so much for taking some time to hear this amazing story and to hear how God continues his work in all of it. If you were moved by something that you heard today or something that struck you as being something important for someone you know to hear, please go ahead and share it with a friend. Thank you for watching and listening to the Amazing Greats Podcast and making it a part of your day. Until next time, God bless.
