Ep-136 Turns Out, Your Brain Runs Better When The Battery Isn’t Toast

A slipper, a sudden freeze, and a screen that reads “DBS unit failed.” That’s how our morning began—and how years of carefully managed Parkinson’s symptoms vanished in seconds. What follows is an unvarnished look at life when a single device holds up half your world, and what it takes to stand it back up when that device goes dark during the holidays.

We walk through the cascade: dystonia locking all four limbs, a voice reshaped by stimulation, and the way DBS can both give back a life and complicate it. Travis shares how he balanced programming across device manufacturers and a movement disorder team, then layered in a subcutaneous levodopa pump to reclaim smoother movement without sacrificing communication. The tradeoffs are real, but so is the agency—adjust, test, iterate, and prioritize the parts of life that matter most.

Then we get tactical. With surgeons on vacation and insurance ticking over, we mobilized a network: neurology, neurosurgery, device reps, and a primary care fast-pass to complete pre-op in 24 hours. We pulled caregiving into a 40-hour schedule, leaned on friends for the gaps, and kept day jobs and a home rebuild moving after the Eaton Fire. The playbook is simple and hard: be known by your providers, deliver what they need quickly, and never hesitate to ask for help.

Finally, we zoom out to resilience planning. What happens when the internet drops and your phone depends on Wi-Fi? When you rely on a charger you can’t reach? When supply chains squeeze medication access? We share practical steps to eliminate single points of failure—phone trees, battery backups, accessible home design, and written plans—so a flare-up becomes a solvable problem, not a crisis.

If this story resonates, subscribe, share it with someone navigating Parkinson’s or DBS, and leave a review with one contingency you plan to add this week. Your ideas might be the lifeline someone else needs tomorrow.

• Co-hosts: Judy Yaras & Travis Robinson
• www.INDYpodcast.net
  
  
  

Transcript

Welcome And Today’s Tough Topic

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to I'm Not Dead Yet with Judy and Travis, a podcast about living an extraordinary life with extraordinary circumstances.

SPEAKER_02 0:16

Welcome to the I'm Not Dead Yet podcast. I'm your co-host, Travis Robinson. I was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease at age 35 in 2014.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

And I'm your other co-host, Judy Yaris. My husband Sandy had Parkinson's disease for 18 years, and I was his care partner.

The Moment Everything Froze

SPEAKER_02 0:40

Today's episode will be talking about what happens when your DBS battery fails.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

Great idea.

SPEAKER_02 0:50

Yes, it's it's a situation I have personal experience with. So we'll be relating a little of that personal experience and some of the lessons learned, both in reflection and also in situ lessons learned.

SPEAKER_01 1:12

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:12

So hi.

SPEAKER_01 1:13

Hi Travis. Hi, how are you? It's so good to hear you and see you.

SPEAKER_02 1:18

Yes, it's so good to hear and be seen.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Yes. So I just want to point out for those of you that have been listening for the last four years at least, um, you might notice a change in Travis's voice. And we're gonna talk a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_02 1:37

Yeah, a little bit about how we came to achieve that change and the uh unfortunate uh circumstances that led to it.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

Right.

Life Without Stimulation Revealed

SPEAKER_02 1:48

Um but I suppose we should start at the beginning, and when we come to the end, stop. And so there I was. I just finished going and visiting family for the holidays. It was late December, just past Christmas. Uh my brother had been down for four days over the holiday, just sent him back up north. And um I was attempting to put a slipper on in the morning of December 29th, 2025, and I got stuck. And Parkinson's patients listening to this will relate when I say that it felt like being frozen, except it affected my whole body. And it was so severe that my girlfriend said, You've been trying to put that slipper on for about 45 minutes. Are you okay? And I said, No, I don't think I am. We looked at the immediate suspect in our minds, which was the Violet pump that I'd been working with recently, as listeners may know, to uh, you know, tune and adjust my Parkinson's treatment with the Vialove pump. And we quickly uh confirmed that it was running and still uh dosing out its medication, and I had a very sneaky bad suspicion that there was only one other thing that could be dehabilitating if lost. And I asked Sarah to give me the patient remote for my deep brain stimulator, which when we powered it on, it connected, and the very first thing it said is DBS unit failed, seek doctor's assistance immediately. And so that was an uncomfortable situation to be in because for anyone who has a deep brain stimulator, it's an electronic device that requires electricity to run. And so a complete and total battery failure of this device meant I had no more stimulation at all. It was 100% shut off. And that let me experience what Parkinson's progression had been like over the last nine years since I had first had this device implanted. The disease progresses, irregardless of the treatment, which is why treatment we do today may not be effective tomorrow, because tomorrow the disease might have progressed a smidge. It may stay the same for a great number of years, and it may progress in new and interesting symptoms, but it will progress. That's one thing we all have to look forward to. Yes. And so I realized, unbeknownst to me, that my disease had continued progressing quite severely, and I had reached a level of disability that left me chairbound, uh dystonic cramping in all four limbs, very dskinetic, not too bad on the tremor, which was predominant years earlier, but I was left in a shaking, cramped, claw-handed state that left me unable to feed, clothe, or go to the bathroom without assistance. Let me tell you, Judy, that was something that neither Sarah nor I was prepared for.

SPEAKER_01 6:15

Of course not, Travis. There'd be no reason for you to. I mean, regardless, after your DBS, you had more dramatic uh symptom reduction. And probably the biggest symptom that really occurred from that was the change in your voice, the the slowness of the cadence.

SPEAKER_02 6:39

And the difficulty in in general movement of my muscle, musculature, and really even bone structure. Right. To be able to form the words.

SPEAKER_01 6:54

Yes. Yes. It was very pronounced. And I'm sure that people that have listened to us for a long time remember what your voice was like before. And now, and and also there was a big boost again when you started the violet pump. We had a we had a few weeks of it was we, I called it sort of the honeymoon period. I think we talked about it. Where I remember the first time you called me and I went, whoa, who is this? There was that that moment of shock because it didn't sound like you, but it was very exciting. And I could see that with time it was reverting back a little bit. It never quite went back to what it was before.

SPEAKER_02 7:42

All the way.

Voice Changes, Pumps, And Tradeoffs

SPEAKER_01 7:43

All the way. But you really, you know, had could see the difference and feel the difference. But this is a whole other experience. Because when we hear people talk about freezing in Parkinson's, sometimes it happens when they're crossing the street and all of a sudden they get stuck, or maybe they're trying to get to a table across a restaurant, maybe they're in a movie theater, whatever the situation, usually there is something that could be stressful about it that makes them just freeze. And there's a few tools that we've talked about over the years for freezing, and and that people describe that as if their feet are in cement, right? That's usually the the way people describe it. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:37

It's commonly described as a my feet are stuck to the floor, or you know, somebody shot nails through my shoes, and I can't move my shoes anywhere.

SPEAKER_01 8:50

Right. Or magnets. There's magnets under my feet pulling me down. Right. You know, I mean, I I've heard lots of different descriptions of this freezing. But what you experienced was very different. Because prior, let's can we go back for a second and explain before you did your DBS surgery nine years ago, what were your symptoms like? So that people have a reference point for this.

SPEAKER_02 9:16

A reference point for this. Um, nine years ago would have been 2016, late 2016, I was eating four carbonoba, levodoba, cinnamon style tabs every three hours. Okay. And that was causing a violent spasm of nausea, racking my whole digestive system. I could not keep any significant amount of food down.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 9:53

For months. And it was um that alone was dehabilitating my tremor. If I didn't take that much medication, my tremor was really off the hook. The whole right side of my body was flopping around like a landed fish. And those were probably, you know, gate, gate instability. Well, when you're when your right side of your body is flopping around, it's of course gonna send you off balance. Of course. So that's gonna be a uh, you know, impact. And and then to try and say, like, well, yeah, postural instability. Well, yeah, it's because I'm being racked by violent spasms of nausea, projectile vomiting, any water I drank into the grass.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

Right, right, yeah.

Why DBS Helped And What It Cost

SPEAKER_02 10:51

You know, so um yeah, I was in a world of shit, which is why I proceeded to choose to elect getting the D-Brain stimulator, and it worked, it worked very well. Yes, reducing all of the symptoms, but it did impact my voice, and it was clear to me that the stimulation was the cause because I could turn the damn thing off, and my voice was restored to normal. Right. And so I went through the process of working with the um manufacturer of the device, the DBS team to get it programmed, getting second and third opinions, researching far and wide. And ultimately it was decided to switch deep brain stimulation device providers for a number of reasons. And I switched providers and I also switched programming teams. And when I when I did both of those, I I worked very diligently with a motor movement disorder specialist who worked with me for the better part of two years to craft a DBS stimulation profile that mitigated almost all the physical symptoms and minimized the impact of my voice. It was still there and it was still present, and I knew it was still present, but we'd tweaked it and adjusted it and shifted it and tweaked it and adjusted it and shifted it, and done this dance for quite a long time, you know, to get it just to a reasonable point. And that was right about the time I started Fiolove, which is a third, totally different uptake system of the carbonopa-levadopa. And it um, because of its subcutaneous delivery, it comes in differently, it's entirely different than oral medication of the same style. Yes, and so I began focusing on that, and unfortunately, did not pay as close of attention as I could have to my DBS unit. But the end of the day, when the one failed, I was sure as hell glad to have the other as at least an option already on board to change.

SPEAKER_01 13:50

Right, right. Thank goodness that you had it. I mean, that's all I kept thinking. You were so debilitated by this DBS battery failure that, and you had had it for a long time. So it's like, I want people to understand this doesn't happen all the time. I I don't want to scare people with this with about the DBS batteries, but you do have some control over seeing what's going on. And it wasn't like you had to go back in and do all new leads and things like that. You're still using your same leads, which is really great. Right. So it's really like a swap, a battery swap, is what you had to have.

SPEAKER_02 14:33

Yes. And the only challenge to that is on top of maintaining all the first of the year, like insurance changes, Medicare law changes, things that went in place, you know, that I had no control over but affected me. Sarah and I also had to navigate getting a full-time care provider for me so that she could go to work. We had to arrange family and friends on a rotating schedule to provide assistance outside the 40 hours a week that we got the caregiver to give.

SPEAKER_01 15:17

Right.

SPEAKER_02 15:18

And then we additionally had to navigate calling all the different medical facilities that I was already on the register with to get added to the DBS schedule to have this procedure done at a time when most of the surgeons were out on vacation.

SPEAKER_01 15:40

Yes, the holidays.

SPEAKER_02 15:42

Right in the middle of Christmas and New Year's. And, you know, it's all well and good. It doesn't seem unreasonable for a doctor to take a week off at the end of the year unless you're the one waiting for that doctor to get back. And every minute that you're waiting is extracted out of discomfort.

SPEAKER_01 16:04

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 16:06

So that that put a particular sort of spin on this, right?

SPEAKER_01 16:12

And a strain. And and I just want to give a little backstory because there may be people that are not familiar with your story or who you are. But last year, Travis and Sarah lost their home in the Eaton Fire. So for the last year, they have been living in temporary apartments that may not be totally ideal, and also dealing with insurance and building a new house, which all these things that just add more and more stress, which is not great for a person that has Parkinson's to have that kind of stress.

SPEAKER_02 16:56

In the first place. And right, you know, I was dealing with it. Sarah, my partner, was dealing with it, you know, and it was it was a real, it was a real pain.

SPEAKER_01 17:12

Yes. So so you've had a really crazy year, and now here you are being told there's no one around. You've called these medical facilities.

SPEAKER_02 17:24

Right. And they tell me we don't even know when we'll get you on the schedule. The doctor's on vacation. Right. So all I could do was hang out and wait, and you know, try and be patient and you know, suffer through it. Which, you know, I don't want to be melodramatic, Judy. I've suffered as much in my Parkinson's as most folks have in theirs. But it was a long week. Yes. And again, we we were not prepared for me to be this disabled. Had we known that I would be wheelchair bound, we would have picked a rental unit that had better wheelchair access.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

Exactly. Something with ADA capabilities, something.

Battery Failure Amid Holiday Chaos

SPEAKER_02 18:22

Right, something. Right. Which, you know, fortunately, as you mentioned, we're rebuilding our home that was destroyed by the Eaton fire. And we are taking some of these lessons that we so recently learned and incorporating them. We already had plans for an ADA accessible shower. Now we're making sure it's a full roll-up shower.

SPEAKER_01 18:47

Good.

SPEAKER_02 18:48

So that there's no bumps or dramatic level changes or lip or anything. So that should, in the event of my needing a future wheelchair, I can roll right up to the shower stall.

SPEAKER_01 19:04

Right.

SPEAKER_02 19:05

In the shower stall.

SPEAKER_01 19:07

Yes. And you know, Travis, I want to say one thing about you, and I want to commend you for this. And I know the people that you inspire, which is I think anyone that has ever met you or has come in contact with you? We all feel that no matter what shit happens, you always have this amazing attitude of feeling positive that it's gonna be okay and I can do this. And my big question for you was there any time when this failure occurred? Did you ever feel like I'm not gonna get through this? I'm just curious. I sort of know the answer, but I just want to see if maybe it might be different.

SPEAKER_02 19:58

No, Judy, I just don't think um I'll be lucky enough to get out of this life that easily.

SPEAKER_01 20:05

Okay, that's what I was thinking. I mean, I know you pretty well. We've been good friends for a very, very long time. And I just I always love the resilience and tenacity and the way you are able to take a situation and take lemons and turn them into lemonade. And I love that about you. I and I think that's why people look up to you and you're so inspiring because you take it for what it is. And part of that is that you've learned to live in the moment rather than project the future, which explains why you were so shocked when all of a sudden you saw these new, this new Parkinson's that you have not seen for the last nine years, right?

SPEAKER_02 20:57

Right.

SPEAKER_01 20:58

Because you weren't thinking, oh, about all this time. You weren't thinking of what it's going to be. You've just been in it and with it and living your life to the fullest.

SPEAKER_02 21:08

Right. And it was it was only when we had this glimmer, which, you know, really emphasizes a sort of there, but for the grace of God go I, you know, had I not had DBS, I would have been presumably progressing to this state of full-blown incapacitation over the last nine years. And it wouldn't have been a surprise to Sarah or I. We would have been used to it. But that said, I wouldn't have had the last nine years to do all the things that I've managed to do in the last nine years. Yes. So that was that was a sort of moment of gratitude for me that I'm grateful that my life was good enough that it could be fucked up this badly by this. Loss of a support structure. Because had the DBS not worked and not worked as well as it had, I wouldn't have felt the loss of it as severely as I did.

SPEAKER_01 22:15

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 22:16

So that's that's sort of an internal process that I had to go through, and that I talked a lot with my partner Sarah over, is you know, we would we would be more prepared for this had it not been as good as it was. But the fact that it was as good as it was got us to rely on it being as good as it was.

Scrambling For Surgery Access

SPEAKER_01 22:41

Yes, yes. You know, and yeah, you've pretty much done what you want to do in your life. You've climbed mountains, you've done all kinds of building and construction things, you are doing your art, your photography, uh, your hiking, all the things that are so important to you in your life, you've done them and you've done them well. And and that's amazing to most people. But I think this just was sort of a wake-up call to say, hey, you know, here's where you are, buddy.

SPEAKER_02 23:20

Right. It could be much worse. And yet, in fact, it is if you know, certain key key elements in my Parkinson support structure fail.

SPEAKER_01 23:33

Right, right. So what did you do? You called your doctor, obviously.

SPEAKER_02 23:39

You called your normal MDS, called the normal MDS, called uh neurosurgery at one institution that I'd been to before called neurosurgeon that works with my neurologist. We reached out with them. We we tried a uh a dual path process where we were reaching out to multiple doctors at multiple institutions. But unfortunately, as I've explained to um a few folks, it's not like just going to the ER. It's not like just going to a doctor's office and saying, hey, you're a surgeon, can you put a new battery in me? You know, it's it's a neurosurgical device, it's a neurosurgical process that requires a neurosurgeon to perform it, even though it in itself does not specifically involve the brain or the spine or any neurons. Right. The fact is it's connected to those parts, and so they don't want, you know, any Joe Blow with a hatchet or a scalpel to start chopping you open and putting the battery in. Right, right. And fortunately, I've maintained good relationships with the device manufacturer that I carry, uh-huh, the neurosurgeon whose team I worked with, and I was able to say, hi guys, it's Travis. Remember me from a couple years ago when we did the battery replacement last time? Well, I need another one, and I need it step. Right. You know, what are what are our options? How can we get this accomplished? And I had a very good team of brethren from my Masonic Lodge that were able to handle some logistics and got me in to see a primary doctor who I don't normally keep on hand. I visited so many specialists that what what good are primaries? And I I went into the primary internist because he had to sign off on my blood work, EKG, chest x-ray, and urine sniffing, right, to make sure that I was healthy enough to go into a surgery.

SPEAKER_01 26:11

Right.

SPEAKER_02 26:12

And I got in to see him on 24-hour notice.

SPEAKER_01 26:16

Which is fantastic that you were able to do that kind of that amazing pre-op appointment, which could take also a certain amount of time. I mean, I think we all know if you have any kind of medical condition, you just don't pick up your phone and call a doctor anymore. That's why they've developed all these urgent care centers, because it's almost impossible to get in to see a doctor without a two-month wait or a three-month wait, or in some cases with an MDS, it could be six or eight months. Although I do want to do a shout out to most of our major medical institutions in the LA area now, that they have really beefed up their programs. And I am hearing that people are getting in within two months and three months, which is a year and a half or two years ago, that was not the case. And now you can actually get in to see a movement disorder specialist in a much more effective and timely manner. So I think that's great.

SPEAKER_02 27:20

Yes, and that speaks to not only the rise in Parkinson's diagnoses over the last five years or so, but it also speaks to the major institutions, like you said, in a major urban environment that you know we both live in. And my heart is really out there to folks who don't have or choose not to have the luxury of living near a major urban environment that has such institutions available to them.

SPEAKER_01 27:56

Yes, it's much different and very difficult. And you're relying on a regular neurologist and sometimes just a primary care physician to manage your medications, which is not ideal.

SPEAKER_02 28:09

It's not ideal. And you know, it's it's just a struggle that I think affects enough people in the world that it's worth mentioning.

Community, Advocacy, And Asking For Help

SPEAKER_01 28:21

Yes, absolutely, Travis. I I agree. So you had people working for you. You certainly had a team of nurses and schedulers and doctors all kind of in your court that were trying to figure out how they could get you in.

SPEAKER_02 28:42

Right. And I even went back uh a couple of times to my MDS, who, you know, the second time I came in when I was pushed in in a wheelchair by my partner, and I wasn't able to, you know, stand up and shake his hand as I've done heretofore the entire time I've known him. Right. I think that really made an impact. He said that he would send some emails to people and see what you know he could dig up. So I I had a lot, I had a whole team of folks, you know, not just rooting for me and sharing for me, but seeing what connections they had to the institution and you know how they could maybe help. But I think at the end of it, Judy, it was just I let the people who were there to support me at that institution do their job.

SPEAKER_01 29:45

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 29:46

And I and I gave them every tool that they asked of me to do that job effectively. You know, they said they said, we need you to get a pre-screening. We don't have uh appointments for pre-screening options until May. I said, don't worry about it. I'll get it from another, I'll find somewhere else to get pre-screening.

SPEAKER_01 30:11

Right, right.

SPEAKER_02 30:13

And I did the next day, got it to them the next day. Right. And they were able to take that pre-screen clearance and move me much up the chain of of possible appointments to earlier. Yes. I was only down for about three weeks.

SPEAKER_01 30:35

Right. Three weeks of hell, by the way.

SPEAKER_02 30:38

Yes. Yes, three weeks of hell, but still only three weeks.

SPEAKER_01 30:42

Only three weeks, not three months or two months.

SPEAKER_02 30:45

Right. So I'm really grateful for that.

SPEAKER_01 30:48

Of course, of course. And a big shout out for this, for the this team of professionals, healthcare professionals, that really worked hard to get you what you needed. And this is why we're always saying, Travis, and we have said this for five years, it takes a village when you have Parkinson's, it takes a team of doctors and nurses and speech pathologists and physical therapists and urologists and podiatrists and dentists and all these other specialties that you may not think you're gonna need. You need that team, and you need to be close to them so that they know you.

SPEAKER_02 31:35

Yes, absolutely. And I think that's what really made the difference is I wasn't, you know, some guy calling in, you know, I heard about you on the internet. Right. And I'm I'm really in trouble here. But I called them up and I said, hi, it's Travis. You know, we know each other.

SPEAKER_01 31:55

Right. Well, you're well known within the community. And so this is something about establishing yourself within your local community and making sure that people know you and that you are part of something so that you can, if you were to need a favor, you can call in a favor and not be afraid to ask. This is the other thing, Travis, that I just want to point out. A lot of times when we get stuck um physically or emotionally, people don't want to ask for support or ask for help. And you have been incredible about reaching out and saying, This is what I need. So I'm really applauding you today for asking for what you needed, and you got it. You ended up getting what you needed much sooner than you were anticipating. Because when I first talked to you, you were saying, yeah, they think they can get me in like February 4th, and I'm going home.

SPEAKER_02 32:58

For consult.

SPEAKER_01 32:59

For consult, right, exactly. Just for the consult. So um the fact that you were able to get the swap and have it done in a timely manner so that the impact was not as great as it could have been.

SPEAKER_02 33:15

Right. Because the whole time that I was down, Sarah was effectively down. Um, trying to take care of me. And we've got a house to rebuild, we've got projects in the works.

SPEAKER_01 33:31

Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 33:33

Things that aren't going to wait.

Caregiving, Work, And Staying Afloat

SPEAKER_01 33:35

Right. And I think this is really important for people. If you are, especially when you are a young onset person, you may have your own career. Your partner may have, may be the only breadwinner in the household. So it's critical for them to work. And how do you deal with this? You know, for Sarah, I feel like I know Sarah pretty well that she is also extremely resilient and knows how to pivot to make it work, whatever that may be. And that's what you did. I mean, you just you put it together, you put your heads together, and you worked as a team. And I know how, as a care partner, I know how difficult it is and how stressful it is. And as a care partner that worked, I mean, I worked the whole time Sandy was with his Parkinsons. I didn't actually stop working till March of 2020 when the pandemic hit. That was the first time I was actually home 24 hours with him. I had been working all that time. So I think, you know, when you are a care partner and you have a full-time job and you have other responsibilities, and something like this happens, you have to be able to figure out how you're going to handle the situation. And I have to say that I did have a good support system at work that allowed me when those moments came up to be able to do the things I needed to do. And I'm sure Sarah has that in place as well.

SPEAKER_02 35:13

She does. She does. So that's really important. And then, even, you know, we're coming into, I'm now two days post-operative at the time of this recording. My voice may or may not shift back in the ensuing episodes. We're going to be working to keep it a little closer to the way it is right now, or maybe even a little better. But, you know, that's the new challenge model that we're going to be working with.

unknown 35:49

Right.

SPEAKER_02 35:50

Adjusting the DBS and the vial love pump system to provide a high functioning and communicative Travis going forward.

SPEAKER_01 36:02

Right. And I think for people that are fairly newly diagnosed, you know, that that sometimes complain about, oh, I have to take three pills a day. It's really important to understand that you don't know. You might be on three pills a day for years, weeks, months, who knows, days. So I think just keep the open mind and know that you can do it. You can get through this. That's the important thing. But you you need a team. Whether you have a partner or not, you don't have to be living with someone to have a support system. You can, right? I mean, we always talk about this, and I just want to put this out there to those of you of our listeners that may be on their own. You don't have to have a live-in person to be your support system, to have a strong, steady support system. There are many ways of doing it.

SPEAKER_02 36:58

Right. But you do need to think about, you know, if I am by myself, as I spend a large portion of my time, right? You know, if I am by myself and situation A fails, you know, what am I going to do? Who am I going to contact? How am I going to contact them? And if I depend on something like being able to use a cell phone to call because I don't have a landline anymore.

SPEAKER_01 37:30

Yes.

Two Days Post-Op And Next Steps

SPEAKER_02 37:31

And, you know, I'm living in a place where maybe cell phone service isn't the best. And so I rely on my Wi-Fi signal to provide me cell phone access and my internet goes down. You know, how how vulnerable am I to a single point of failure in my care network, in my infrastructural support? These are things that the fire didn't teach me so much as reminded me in glaring relief that, you know, shit happens. And if we aren't prepared for it, if we choose to say, oh, it'll never happen to me, or oh, I will not fall, you know, to one of these natural disasters or forces of nature, then you have to look at uh supply chain issues. Yes. You know, trade agreements from all the global partners that we have in the world. They can drop out and leave you without your medication.

SPEAKER_01 38:41

Yes. That we this is another episode we will talk about down the road. So I think we are gonna have a discussion about that and maybe bring in another guest to talk a little bit about that as well. Yeah. So, Travis, I just want to say I am truly grateful, as you are grateful that you were able to get this done right away. And I'm so happy that you feel good and that your voices sound wonderful to me. And that, you know, all the all the hard work that it took to make it happen, that it actually happened. And I'm I'm so thrilled that you were able to get this done. And I just want to say I'm very thankful to the doctors, to the surgeons, to the schedulers, to the nurses, to the whole team, and to the battery folks as well. I mean, you know, our pharmaceutical companies that came through with you so well.

SPEAKER_02 39:49

So the medical device manufacturers that have their own logistics challenges and supply chain issues and whatnot.

SPEAKER_01 40:00

Yes. I mean, there's so many, so many components to this. It it really has taken a large group of people to make this happen and to be so successful. But I am truly grateful for it and I'm glad to see you're back on track.

SPEAKER_02 40:16

As my Judy. Good. And that's a wrap.

SPEAKER_01 40:21

Bing.