S6 EP20: Melissa's Story - Electrocuted At Home! The Day My Life Changed In An Instant!

Melissa Strong, was electrocuted at home, while working on a design project related to opening her now-acclaimed restaurant (Bird & Jim) in Estes Park, CO. She died briefly and came back, experiencing a forest and tunnel! When she came back, the damage was so severe that charred bones in her hands were visible, jutting out where fingers once were. Doctors initially told her she would likely only have four fingers left — her pinkies and index fingers. A passionate, elite climber, this was difficult news for Melissa to swallow.

The recovery was long and brutal, both mentally and physically. At one point in the hospital, her arms were surgically sewn together, and she was riding a stationary bike in that condition just trying to keep her body moving and her mind sane. Six months later, she managed to open her first restaurant, and eventually found her way back to rock climbing.

She wrote a memoir about the experience, published by Falcon, called Climbing Through: A Courageous Story of Grit, Healing, and Second Chances (March 3, 2026, paperback). Returning to climbing became a huge part of rebuilding both physically and mentally.

This is a story of immense strength and inspiration! Thank you Melissa!

Site: http://www.melissastrong.com/

Book:Climbing Through: A Courageous Story of Grit, Healing, and Second Chances 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 1:31

Welcome to another episode of Well, that fucked me up. My name is Luke Colson and today I'm joined by Melissa Strong. Hi Melissa. Hi Luke. How's it going? Good, how are you? I'm very good, thanks. Where are you calling us from today?

SPEAKER_01 1:46

Estus Park, Colorado.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

I've been to Colorado recently for the first time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Oh really? Where'd you go?

SPEAKER_00 1:53

Denver. Denver. Denver. High up there.

SPEAKER_01 1:58

Yeah, we're even higher up. We are um at around our town is at 7,500 something feet, and um where I live is like 8,000 feet.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

I can't even get my head around that. That's like over a mile up in the sky. That's cr that's like I don't I can't compute, but anyway, that's a whole different story. Um thanks for coming on the show. Um we're gonna talk about your book today. Um every week we have a guest who comes on and we talk about surviving life-changing events and experiences. Um, and that can be anything from stuff you went through as a child to emotional stuff to physical stuff to um, you know, we've had workplace dramas, we've had relationships, we've had accidents, we've had diagnosis, and we'd like to concentrate on the journey, the journey through and where we are today. So, Melissa, where would you like to begin?

SPEAKER_01 2:48

Um, well, we can begin with, I guess, um, what fucked me up. And great.

SPEAKER_00 2:53

That's my favorite place to start.

SPEAKER_01 2:56

Might as well start right at the at the at the heart of the story. Yeah. Um so as you can see, I know your listeners can't. I'm holding up my hands, and they're quite different sizes and shapes and covered in skin grafts. So uh April 2nd, 2017, I decided I was doing some electric burns. Um, it's an artist, artistic technique called the Lichtenberg technique that you um create patterns on wood with electricity.

SPEAKER_02 3:27

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

So I was trying to save a buck or two while I was opening my restaurant, Bird and Gym. Um, we were ripping everything down to the studs and building it back up because it wasn't even winterized. And this was like where my dreams were gonna land. I was finally gonna get my first restaurant and uh found the place and um under construction, and I was trying to save some money on the tables. And I took the old pine tables home from the restaurant while you know the the real construction was going on and was was experimenting with different looks and techniques on how to make them look uh hip, like they'd fit into the renovations.

SPEAKER_02 4:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

So um my husband on the internet found this technique called Lichtenberg technique, and you take a microwave transformer, so the meat of the microwave, and you connect it to two cables, and those cables um are like little mini jumper cables with little clamps on the end, and you hook those clamps up to the wood. How my husband had the machine set up is then you plug the machine in and that turns the power on, and um then it starts the electricity pumping. And uh I made a mistake, you know. This is where I fucked up. And you know, my husband thought that by plugging the machine into the wall, having that be the on-off switch basically, like she can't fuck this up, is what was in his mind when he made it for me. Um this day happened to be a nice day, and I was doing this all in the garage prior to April 2nd, 2017. And this day I said, Oh, let's let's do this outside. And what I where my near fatal mistake was was that you know, I wanted to make sure everything would fit to where I was working outside. So I moved all the materials outside, then I in the machine, and then I unraveled the extension cord and I plugged it into the machine. And a few things happened right then. Um, one I remembered the baking soda and water that you paint on the wood that I totally forgot. And also, it didn't spark. Usually, when I plug the machine into the wall, it makes a little spark.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

Had you before, had you tried it before? Had you had some practice runs?

SPEAKER_01 5:41

Yep, lots of plaque practice runs, like a tutorial from my husband after he made it.

SPEAKER_00 5:46

It sounds terrifyingly dangerous when you talk about like this is the idea we're gonna use to do our table. Like, we're gonna take some electricity and we're gonna take the motor from a microwave. And I'm thinking, what personally, as someone who's utterly uh accident prone, I'm like, I would at the first at possible time, I would electrocute myself.

SPEAKER_01 6:06

So, you know, luckily I had a few under my belt before I got there.

SPEAKER_00 6:11

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

Um, but uh, and maybe that was part of the problem too. I was a little comfortable with the machine. Um, so it didn't spark. And I think what was in my head was oh, the other end must not be plugged into the wall. You know, it must have come out of the wall, the other end of the extension cord. But then I got distracted with the baking soda and water that I forgot, dropped the cords, went inside, mixed up the solution, came outside, picked up the two clamps, and that was that. And that's when I realized how much I fucked up. And the first thing that went through my head was, this is exactly what Adam told me not to do. And then I'm like, you know, okay, how how can can I get out of this? And you know, my first thought was to scream. Yeah, and you can't you can't even scream, you can't really do anything.

SPEAKER_00 6:57

But I'm being you've made the electric circuit complete by picking up the clamps in your hand.

SPEAKER_01 7:02

Exactly. So I'm really frozen. Oh my god. And I'm being electrocuted. Oh my god. Yet my brain is a my brain's the only thing that still seems to be functioning. And I'm I'm completely aware of what's happening to me. And um in a weird way, I'm very grateful that I remember every second of what happened to me. Um, but you know, you try to shake, I'm like, okay, I'll shake my hands and maybe one will get disfall up. And then it's like, no, that's not gonna work. I, you know, I already realized I couldn't scream. I'm like, maybe I can fall over. One might get dislodged, but nope, couldn't couldn't even fall over. You know, you're that you're that frozen. And um, you know, that's when I just said, Well, shit, you know, I'm dying and this sucks. Like, I didn't want to die now. And uh everything went dark, and I literally, well, in my mind and how I feel is I literally was in the forest, and there was this just beautiful forest, and then I turned and looked, and there was a tunnel in the forest. And I was like, Oh shit, like, is this really happening? And again, the internal dialogue continued, and that's when I just said, you know, basically I want to get the fuck out of here. And uh I did, and I opened my eyes and I could see the gravel on our driveway. Yeah, and that's when I could scream. Wow, and my husband still couldn't hear me. Somehow I took five steps to the front door, screamed in the front door, and at that point was the first time I had glimpsed my hands, and so um where you don't see fingers today, you could see burnt bones exposed. You know, the skin was just melted like wax, and these charred, like gnarly looking burnt bones, you know, were just attached to me and sticking out of my hands, like the whole movie, like your whole the skin and everything had been burnt clean off your hands, off your fingers, totally, and no blood at all because it's all cauterized, it's all like melted burnt wax. And um I was a sponsored rock climber leading up to this. So rock climbing defined my life. Uh you can't make it up.

SPEAKER_00 9:10

So here's the things you need for rock climbing. Bye-bye. They're going, they they're gone now.

SPEAKER_01 9:15

Just vaporized, you know. And um how did you I mean I was sorry to interrupt, how did you not die?

SPEAKER_00 9:22

Did it come? Did you think it was they were dislodged as you fell to the floor?

SPEAKER_01 9:27

So I what I thought at that time was that enough material burnt away that it lost connection, but that's not what it was because my doctor said absolutely no, you would have just been fried completely. Uh I tripped the breaker on the house. That's how I lived.

SPEAKER_00 9:43

Oh shit, thank God for that. The breaker was like something's going on.

SPEAKER_01 9:47

This the Yeah, I surged the power and yep.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

And those things are in place not specifically for that, but kind of specifically for that. So thank frickin' god that happened. Yeah. Or else fried you to death.

SPEAKER_01 10:02

Yep, just would have been continuously electrocuted until uh who knows what, uh, until maybe my husband came out.

SPEAKER_00 10:10

Goodness.

SPEAKER_01 10:10

So I'm so so lucky. You know, I always tell people I'm one of the luckiest, unlucky people I know.

SPEAKER_02 10:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:17

Um, and uh, you know, I had a restaurant to open as well, you know. This the construction was going on. So two things, you know, that you definitely need your hands for. I bartended and managed for years, and that's hands-on business and uh rock climbing, hands-on for sure. Luckily, I wasn't a concert pianist. That's one thing I didn't have to lose.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

But um yeah, that uh been the icing on the cake. So talk talk me back to the point where you're it finally made it to your husband, and he's now seeing what's going on, and and the process beyond that point must have been all panic stations.

SPEAKER_01 10:54

Well, we definitely weren't waiting for an ambulance. You know, I just when he opened the door, I yelled hospital now and kind of collapsed in his arms. He threw me in his truck and ran around to the driver's side. And by, you know, the first thing I was gonna say to him at that point was roll the windows down because uh I smelled so I was still smoldering. Yeah, it just the the stench was just horrific.

SPEAKER_02 11:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:18

Uh and so then um, you know, he he didn't need me to tell him that once he opened the door, he just immediately rolled the windows down. And yeah, I think the second thing I said was fuck the glow plugs, because yeah, you know, usually on big, he's a cat of tree service, and on trucks like that, you have to wait for it to warm up. And yeah, uh, he was cranking it up. He wasn't waiting for those glow plugs, and we were off to the hospital. Yeah, and I looked at my hands and I thought, you know, how and we live in a small town, so it's only like a 10-minute ride to the hospital that he probably did in in less, a lot less time. But um, you know, I looked at my hands and I was like, How am I gonna get how am I gonna mentally get to the hospital? Yeah, and I just started screaming. I just I'm like, I know how. And I took a deep breath and just just started to scream. And was that pain? One of no pain. No, it was all adrenaline. Eventually, once I was in the hospital, I I I asked them if I could still be burning because the first pain I felt was in my chest. And that was where the electricity has to come out of you if it goes in you. So it came out um under my right breast, under my left breast, and on my left shoulder. So literally, it came out all around my heart. Did you have burns there?

SPEAKER_00 12:32

Like physical burns where it's come out.

SPEAKER_01 12:36

Like they they even burns big enough that they required skin graphs as well.

SPEAKER_00 12:40

Oh my god. And did you know that at the time? No, you probably thought the main event was your hands.

SPEAKER_01 12:47

No idea until again, like I laid on the hospital bed and I looked at the nurse and I said, Could I still be burning? And that because that was the first pain I felt. Yeah. And I had indicated, you know, with the back of my hand to my rib cage. And you know, they were already cutting clothes off, asking me what happened. My answer was, I think my answer was I burnt the fucking shit out of myself.

SPEAKER_02 13:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:12

Um later in a small town, you know, you hear stories, you know, like that the neighbors called the police when they heard the screaming, and you know, someone thought there was a kidnapping. Well, the nurse thought I was cooking meth, apparently. Because you know, I look like a meth cooker.

SPEAKER_02 13:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:26

And you know, my teeth and everything about me just indicates meth. Um, but yeah, so she um I think it obviously was probably around when breaking bad was popular, but um I heard that from the ER in the middle of the lap.

SPEAKER_02 13:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:43

That's it. Um, but yeah, so then uh from there I got helicoptered to a hospital down in the front range, and they specialized in burns, but it wasn't where I wound up staying because when they woke me up, they told me I was only gonna have four fingers, my pinkies in my index fingers. And you know, at that point, that's when the mental coping obviously, I mean the mental coping had to start from the get-go. Like, you know, from the ride to the hospital and the the intentional screaming just to let it out.

SPEAKER_02 14:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:15

Uh, you know, one of the things I did scream was, I'll never climb again. I have no hands. Um, and then you know, then when they tell you you're only gonna have four fingers and we can't help you, and we've shown the pictures to this other doctor who is amazing and does amazing things, but he's not optimistic. Yet we're gonna transfer you.

SPEAKER_02 14:33

Right.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

So there was a lot of um initial mental coping that had to, you know, come to the surface immediately. Of course.

SPEAKER_00 14:42

Well, there's your like, firstly, there's the trauma of the going through that event, which is obviously there's a near-death situation going on there. Then there's a realization of your injuries, then there's the actual physical recovery from your your injuries, but there's still the mental trauma of the whole thing. And then there's the future freaking out as well, which is like my life's gonna be different now and I can't do all the things. So there's like every single angle, there's something that you're having to cope with and something you're having to deal with, you know.

SPEAKER_01 15:08

And it's heavy, you know, it just it hits so fast. Life, life changes so fast, is what your your um you know podcast is really about. And sometimes it can be slow, I guess, and sometimes it can be fast. And for me, it was it was about 20 seconds that I was connected. So pretty much my life utterly changed in 20 seconds. Um and yeah, it was, you know, the future, I couldn't, I kind of couldn't even think about it. Um, and that's when actually it was the tunnel that made me come up with my first technique because the tunnel was dark. And so when I woke up in the hospital, even before they told me the four fingers, I was raised Catholic. And what stuck with me too was that I'm going to hell. Wow, this really sucks. Now I know. Like I'm slated for hell. Jesus, this is horrible. Oh my god. Um, how can and uh it's weird how how whatever, you know, your brain is just going through so much and what it attached to, and my brain attached to that for sure. Yeah, and um, my mom was helpful with that. She's like, My husband called my mom and my parents, obviously. And you know, my parents are just so happy I'm alive and okay. And I'm like, I'm going to hell, that's it. Like, I know it. My mom's like, what the hell are you talking about? And I'm like, yeah, exactly. So I told them, and she just stopped that right there. She's like, the tunnel was dark, Melissa, because you weren't supposed to go in it.

SPEAKER_00 16:30

And I'm like, oh yeah, fine.

SPEAKER_01 16:32

I will accept that. I will let that in.

SPEAKER_00 16:34

It wasn't like it wasn't like it wasn't looking inviting on purpose. You were meant to turn around. That's exactly it. Exactly. Yeah, it's good.

SPEAKER_01 16:40

So that's when I started my mental coping, though. And I'm like, you know what? I'm never gonna forget this tunnel. It will always be a part of me, but I need to put it away because I I know just thinking about this isn't gonna help. And so in my mind, I had like a an imaginary closet that I opened the door, and even as I was doing it, I'm like, how the fuck are you gonna open a doorknob? And I'm like, just don't listen to you. Just open the door, uh, put the tunnel in a box, close the door. And then I found that um tool useful because that first night in the hospital, there were a lot of things I had to put in that closet and and face. And one was um and one was forgiving myself for making this mistake. You know, accidents happen, but this accident has changed, you know, changed my life. And I can imagine that's a big thing. Yeah, and there's no no no, like you know, there's no crystal ball. And you have no idea what the outcome would be.

SPEAKER_00 17:38

There's also like nothing you can do to undo it. So you have to start to go through this the mentality of trying to get rid of shame and guilt and regret about it, because it's like it happened. There's nothing you can do about it. My my for me, I had this this awful run of alcoholism and and drug addiction, which kind of brought me to my knees a bit, and there was wasn't kind of a reason for my divorce. This is many years ago I've been sober for for a long time now, which is amazing. But for me, a huge thing, and I know yours is a very significant one-off event. For me, the guilt and the shame, or the like, why did I do that? Or if I hadn't have done that, would this be different? Or if I'd have just not made that one choice, we can we can get caught up in that to the point that it kills us. Do you know what I mean? So dealing with that from a mental standpoint is step number one, isn't it? From from from when you go through something like you went through.

SPEAKER_01 18:40

Yeah, I mean, that narrative is loud and it's it's hard to get away from. Uh it's a it's a consuming internal narrative that um is is that could lead you to a very dark place. And um for me, I had seen people who had gone through really difficult, tragic times. Um, and I saw them walk down that road and live in that. And I saw that they, you know, that was their journey. They couldn't stop that, you know. I, of course, had a friend, you know, would try to help them and say, you know, you can't focus on that. But again, it's it's the brain, and in a weird way, you are in charge. And um being the fact that I saw this and saw someone else struggle with it, it gave me strength to make that decision right then and there and say, you know what? I need to forgive myself right now. It's an accident, accidents happen all the time. Yeah, I need to again put this in the closet because I knew it wasn't a one-and-done, right? You know, you can rationalize all of this and understand it, but the brain's a powerful thing and it's gonna keep coming back. Those boxes are gonna keep opening, and the door in that closet's gonna keep rattling. Yeah, but I put it in the closet, and then I had to put rock climbing in the closet as well. Yeah, and all we really wanted issues. Yeah, yeah. I mean, dreams, hopes, years of of of training and trying, and and my relationship with my husband. That's how we met with rock climbing.

SPEAKER_02 20:17

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 20:18

Um you know, so it was it was huge, and it was all in night one, even before they woke me up and told me they had four, you know, the four-finger diagnosis. So um, you know, that that the mental journey began that night. But what I wanted more than anything in the world was just to have some hope. Yeah, because hope, you know, can be really powerful. Yeah, and um luckily I got that hope. So they did transfer me to another hospital. And that doctor who does wonders but was not optimistic, definitely had that not optimistic look when he was looking at my thumbs where you can see all the bones. And uh he said, uh, he called out to a nurse and he said, you know, get me a needle. And he explained what he was gonna do. He was gonna prick the thumb tips, what was left of my thumbs. I still you could see through them, but you could the tips were still suspended. Oh in the book, I I described them as like um erasers on a chewed-up pencil. Oh and um he pricked them and he said that if there's blood, I will help save your thumbs. And so that was obviously a big moment. And two tiny pools of hope emerged on my fingers.

SPEAKER_00 21:32

Because that's telling him that it's still connected and the blood's still throwing flowing, and the I guess as a result, the nerves are still connected for feeling.

SPEAKER_01 21:40

And that uh it just gives him a chance, and even the feeling is like that's comes second or third or fourth, honestly. Um, so this original this is my original thumb tip, and I still can't feel it to this day.

SPEAKER_02 21:53

Right.

SPEAKER_01 21:54

Um, and then this little guy, he saved um as much as he could and um wound up doing a nerve, skin, and artery transplant. So then I do have some sensation when I touch it here, I can feel it here on the back of my other hand.

SPEAKER_00 22:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:09

Because that's where the nerve came from.

SPEAKER_00 22:11

And did the same go for wonders. The the thing, the middle fingers as well, because some are still there to a degree.

SPEAKER_01 22:19

Yep, some of us to to a degree they're still there, and some I can feel too much, and some I can't feel enough of.

SPEAKER_02 22:25

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 22:25

So he saved every as he put, you know, millimeter of tissue that he could save. So, you know, some of them are nerve bundles, just all bundled up together, and and some are just um dead like the tip of my thumb.

SPEAKER_02 22:40

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 22:41

Uh, but he was amazing, and he wound up one of the things he wound up doing that was pretty innovative was he sewed my thumbs into my opposing forearms. So I was sewn in what I initially called the Igene Dream of Genie pose. By the end of three weeks, I was calling it the straight jacket pose.

SPEAKER_00 23:01

Why you know how to what why?

SPEAKER_01 23:05

Because there was no skin left on the thumbs, and there was so much skin gone from my palms as well, that he needed to create large swaths of skin uh graphs, and he needed them to accept their new home.

SPEAKER_00 23:21

That's and so by wild. So they the skin generates as it's like I'm healing because I'm attached to this part of skin, and we're gonna now create. Skin over this missing area?

SPEAKER_01 23:33

Well, it connected it to the vascularity of where it was going to be. You know, so it came from my forearms.

SPEAKER_02 23:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:39

And for three weeks, sewn like this, it it made those vascular connections. And then he was also hoping that those vascular connections might give um some hope to some of the burnt bones, you know, that he might be able to kind of um fuse them together and save what he could.

SPEAKER_00 24:00

I mean miraculous, isn't it? When you think about medicine and all the like stick sometimes, especially the US healthcare system gets, and you know, you take these medic medicines and take these pills and you know, your insurance, this, that, and the other. What the what you experience is miraculous if you think that I don't understand medicine sometimes. How do they ever work that out, right? And then I'll attach you to your forearm because that's where the skin is incredible.

SPEAKER_01 24:31

It's it's uh it's unbelievable, honestly. Like it yeah, I got I felt like I was in a horror movie. I felt like I was in some sort of sci-fi experiment, but apparently it's called um, I'm sure there's like some you know medical name for it, but like the lay person's name would be like flap surgery or a flap technique, and they've been doing it for ages, um, hundreds of years. Um but um they had never done the bilateral, so I got to be the first one. And there's a lot of ins and outs leading up to that, that um are all in the book, and I do include all of my surgery notes in the appendix of the book, just be to do honor to what he did for me. Um, and he really, I mean, I said if I was ever gonna have thumbs, it would be a miracle, and his response was it will be science. There you go.

SPEAKER_00 25:26

You went to school for this. Because the thumbs are the thing. Maybe a little there's only touch of both. The thumbs are the thing, aren't they? Because you you know, there's there with with with one finger and a thumb, you can still do a hell of a lot more than if you just had three fingers and no thumb, right? Like we're we are humans because of our opposing thumbs and gripping and opening and uh doors, and if you try and work without your thumbs for a day, you'd be surprised how you can't pick stuff up. You can't move this. It's like it's so the saving of the thumbs with science. I was gonna say miraculous, but science, you know, that's incredible. We'll talk about your book to finish up, but what I want to ask is like, and I know this is in your book, but how long, I mean, uh how long was your recovery? Like, how long was the physical, not not the mental, because I think that's probably you know ongoing, right? But the physical recovery through all of the operations, seeing the skin grafts, the once things had healed over, once the pain had subsided, um, what did that look like? And how many weeks, months, years, and and how many operations?

SPEAKER_01 26:34

Um, well, it turned out to be uh, if I'm remembering correctly, which I should remember after especially writing the book, eight surgeries. The first one was, you know, the first week of being in the hospital, and then the last one was November 2017. So the same calendar year. Um, and in between that, if you can believe it, I opened the restaurant six months after the accident. So we opened the restaurant in October, and then I did my first rock climb six months after the accident as well. So I had climbed on our climbing wall, you know, on plastic holds in our garage. Yes, um, six months after, and then I did my first outdoor climb pretty much one week shy shy of one year anniversary of the accident. That's um unbelievable.

SPEAKER_00 27:23

And and for our listeners, you know, their fingers are there, but there's some the two in the middle are kind of half the size, and the one of the thumbs is half the size. But the reconstruction is fascinating. So you built strength back up in those basically missing fingers, and you're now able to rock climb again.

SPEAKER_01 27:42

Yeah, and the journey was, I mean, it was long, it was excruciatingly painful climbing on the skin graphs and the nubs and the nerve endings. Um, and you know, obviously it was mentally challenging too. Like I had to just throw my ego out. So, in some very strange way, you know, going through all this probably made me a better person. But, you know, sometimes, you know, you would I would I rather be a slightly less great person with all my fingers? I don't, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 28:14

It's the question we have to ask ourselves, isn't it? It's like, I mean, it well, you've you've lived, you have a story, you know. When I went through all the crap I went through, I you know, I wouldn't wouldn't wish to go through it again ever. But the fact that I am here today and it the person I am today and what I've gone through has made me who I am. And I think that is another kind of way of become overcoming the mentality of it all, you know.

SPEAKER_01 28:38

Um it's huge.

SPEAKER_00 28:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:40

And I talk about addiction as well because my brother was an opiate addict, and now I'm sitting in the hospital and they're injecting my IV with fentanyl while I'm on oxy, you know, like the fentanyl was just extra. Um, so I was very aware of that and I was very appreciative of it at the time because the pain was, you know, when they cut your fingers off and sew your arms together, that's more pain than you can kind of wrap your mind around.

SPEAKER_00 29:08

I can't um even wrap my head around that.

SPEAKER_01 29:11

Yeah, that's all that's just and then um yeah, it was it was I, you know, and it oddly enough, I was so afraid of being sewn together that I never really feared the pain. You know, when he told me, okay, this surgery is what we're gonna do, this is coming up, and I think I was so afraid of being being kind of tethered that um I didn't think about the pain. And gosh, when they woke me up, obviously that was the only thing I could think of. Um is I could barely even hear the nurse because the pain was so loud.

SPEAKER_00 29:42

It's something kind of like uh Frankenstein or like a horror movie, isn't it? You know, being like shown in a human skin strait jacket, basically. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 29:52

I told my doctor, I'm like, if you weren't a surgeon and like helping people, you'd probably be some sort of psychopath serial killer.

SPEAKER_00 29:58

Yeah, but yeah, literally, yeah, like Lord of the Lord, like Silence of the Lands making things up of human skin. So tell us about the book. When did when did that come into play and how long did that take you? And then where can we find the book?

SPEAKER_01 30:15

Well, when they first showed me my hands in the hospital, they they said use them, and I'm like, yeah, how? Like, and they did, and that's what I called them in the book. They look like Frankenstein baseball mitts. Uh, but the first thing I I'm like, what do I do? How do I I don't even know how to use them, but I asked my husband to get a piece of paper and a pen from the nurse's station. So the first thing I did was write a few words down, and then I had always being a sponsored rock climber and I went to school for literature. I well always loved writing and I always blogged. Um, by the way, you can find all of this, including all of the gory pictures if you want to see it on my website. Oh, yeah, which is melissaistrong.com. And there's plenty of warnings when you're entering graphic material.

SPEAKER_02 30:59

I'm going to go.

SPEAKER_01 31:00

Um like the old blog and all of that is on there. So I was always a writer and I always wrote, you know, I think, you know, for people, but I also always wrote for myself to help myself process things. And um, so then when I got home, I started writing more, but it was very distant and cold. You know, I still didn't know the outcome. So it's kind of hard to be positive when you're going through all of this. Yes. Um, but I, you know, was as positive as I could be because I also knew that a positive mind frame was going to help with my healing.

SPEAKER_02 31:31

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 31:32

Um, in fact, in the hospital, I was riding a stationary bike with my arms sewn together. Um, so it just the ins and outs are are vast. And uh again, it's all in the book. And but um, so I came home and I was writing and it was very distant and cold and just matter of fact, and like this is the next surgery I'm gonna have. And then as I started to see, like, whoa, I can, I think I can get back into climbing. It's gonna look different, it's gonna be hard, but I think I can do this. And then the restaurant opened and kind of having that in a way, happy ending um to share with people gave me more fuel, you know, to want to share. Because then it's like, you know, you don't have to burn your hands off to be going through a hard time. Yeah. And other people, you know, life is hard, and people need these tools and these these messages, you know, because I didn't think I had what it took to go through it, and I don't want to ever go through it again, but um, we have what it takes to get through incredibly hard times, and you know, sharing that with people will help people when they are faced with hard times. So that's kind of what drove me.

SPEAKER_00 32:38

And that's um why I do this podcast, because there's people listening who are in having a really fucking terrible time, or they need to hear something, or they need to understand that if they're at the bottom of the the tunnel, or the the the very, very bottom of the barrel and they can't see a way out, there is there is a there is a way out because I was at the I was at death's door, you know, and I and now I'm you know I'm alive and feeling good for it and so happy to talk about these things because I love it. It it it I love the emotion of it, I love the inspiration of it, and your story is incredible. I've got two more questions. First question is what's the book called? And by the way, if you're listening to this podcast, all the links for Melissa and the website where you can see the gory pictures, you have been warned, and the blog and the book, and anything else you care to share with us, Melissa, those links are in the show notes. So go there now or after you've listened, and you'll find everything you need to about Melissa. What's the book called, Melissa?

SPEAKER_01 33:37

It's called Climbing Through, because it's pretty much what I did. And you know, we we climb we climbed through adversity, and um, I was just fortunate that I I lived, so I had the opportunity to climb through.

SPEAKER_00 33:50

Yeah, amazing. And guess what? My last question is hopefully it's not too too offensive. Did anyone ever finish did anyone ever finish the tables?

SPEAKER_01 33:59

They did. It was a really cool part of the story. Someone wrote me, a local artist wrote me when I was in the hospital, and he said he had uh a safe way to do it. And it's so funny because when he, you know, I read the letter out loud, a friend brought it in, and I chuckled and said, Oh, that's good because I wanted to finish them, but I knew my husband, you know, wouldn't my would never let me.

SPEAKER_00 34:22

And my husband was sitting there and he laughed and he said, Yes.

SPEAKER_01 34:26

No, he said you could I would have let you finish it. You'd never make that same mistake again. Oh my gosh. Good point. Good point.

SPEAKER_00 34:34

True, probably, yes. Like lightning never strikes twice, literally, you know.

SPEAKER_01 34:39

Well, at least if you're if you're conducting it, you try not to.

SPEAKER_00 34:43

Yeah. Oh my gosh, Melissa, thank you so much for coming on and uh sharing your like ludicrously amazing, inspirational, up, down, roller coaster of a historian. So glad you're still here. And please stay in touch. Um, and you know you're always welcome to come back on and chat to us more um anytime you want you want. It just reminds me to say thank you so much for coming on the show.

SPEAKER_01 35:05

Well, thank you. Thank you for being here and doing this because it's uh it's pretty awesome work.

SPEAKER_00 35:10

Thank you. Thanks so much, Melissa.