I Need Blue
I turned around to see a masked man pointing a gun at me. It was just the beginning of a series of events, including robbery and abduction, which changed my life forever. I Need Blue, hosted by Jen Lee, is a podcast series featuring lived-experiences from survivors of life events. I NEED BLUE creates space for survivors of trauma to feel they BELONG, are LOVED, UNDERSTOOD and EMPOWERED! I called 9-1-1 and they provided me with life-saving directions to help my customer who was having a medical emergency. Law enforcement rescued us and caught the robber. Our first-responders face unique traumas every day. I NEED BLUE provides space for them too!
I Need Blue
Love Beyond Limits: Chad and Allison's Journey with Osteogenesis Imperfecta
What happens when two people with the same rare genetic disorder fall in love? Chad and Allison's love story defies the challenges of Osteogenesis Imperfecta (OI), a condition that causes brittle bones.
Chad, born 20" long, overcame a grim doctor's prognosis, defying expectations with humor and determination. Growing up in Mississippi, he excelled in school and built a successful career as a government contractor.
Allison's OI journey included numerous hospital stays and challenges, but she remained independent and strong. When she met Chad through an OI support group, their connection was instant, and at their first meeting, Chad knew he had found the one he would marry.
Their relationship is built on shared experiences and mutual understanding, and together, they've created a life filled with love, laughter, and resilience. Chad's recent retirement and the upcoming release of his documentary, 96 Pounds of Dynamite, mark a new chapter in their journey.
Their story proves that true strength comes not from physical abilities but from the courage to live fully despite challenges. As Chad says, “There’s no magic way to get through life and OI... just faith, prayer, and laughter.”
Tune in to learn how two people with fragile bones built an unbreakable bond, and how their journey teaches resilience, love, and joy in unexpected places.
To watch the trailer: 96lbs of Dynamite: https://dynamite-film.com/
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https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i-need-blue/id1567450935
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Purchase my book or Audiobook: Why I Survived: How Sharing My Story Helped Me Heal from Dating Abuse, Armed Robbery, Abduction, and Other Forms of Trauma by Jennifer Lee
https://whyisurvived.com/
Everyone has a story. They just don't always have a place to share it. Welcome to I Need Blue, the podcast about to take you on an extraordinary journey where profound narratives come to life, one captivating episode at a time. I'm your host, jennifer Lee, and I founded this podcast because I know there is healing and sharing. Each story you will hear shared on this podcast is a testament to our collective strength, innate ability to transform in the incredible power of healing. Please remember you are never alone. Please visit and share my website with those seeking connection and inspiration wwwineedbluenet. Thank you, char Good, for composing and performing the introduction medley for I Need Blue. You can find information about Char on her website, wwwchargoodcom.
Speaker 1:Before starting today's episode, I must provide a trigger warning. I Need Blue features graphic themes, including, but not limited to, violence, abuse and murder, and may not be suitable for all listeners. Please take care of yourself and don't hesitate to ask for help if you need it. Now let's get started with today's story. Standing at two feet eight inches, chad is a force to reckon with, not just at the pool table, where he once dominated as a seasoned shark, but in life itself. Outspoken and outgoing, chad's energy is magnetic and when asked about his disability, he shrugs with a grin. It doesn't define me.
Speaker 1:Born with osteogenesis imperfecta OI a rare genetic disorder that causes brittle bones, chad's journey began with a grim prognosis. When his mother brought him home from the hospital, the doctor coldly advised give him a pillow, he'll live as long as he does. But Chad had other plans. He carved out a whole vibrant life, recently retiring from a successful career as a government contractor, a testament to his grit and defiance of expectations. Over two decades ago, fate dialed in when Chad met Allison after six months of long, heartfelt phone conversations. When Chad saw her, he knew I'm going to marry her. And he did.
Speaker 1:Allison, like Chad, was born with OI. Her childhood was marked with numerous hospital stays, four weeks at a time in traction. They would set her femur bone and she would lay healing. Their journeys were unique, but when asked to describe their bond, they summed it up perfectly we took different roads to the same destination. Together, chad and Allison are living proof that resilience isn't just about surviving. It's about thriving love and finding joy in every unexpected term. I'm honored to introduce two incredible people whose stories redefine resilience and love. Whose stories redefine resilience and love Chad and Allison. Thank you for being my guest today on the I Need Blue podcast.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Jen, for having us.
Speaker 1:Yes, thank you, you're very welcome. Okay, chad, let's talk a little bit about what your childhood was like going into adulthood, because I know it looked a little bit different than Allison's.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was born in a small town called Columbia, mississippi, a population of about 7,000 people. I was diagnosed, though, with OI when my mom was about seven months pregnant with me. Due to an ultrasound, my long bones were curved and it just so happens the small town doctor happened to know what OI was and he was able to diagnose me before I was born. She did have me be a C-section and I am clinically diagnosed with type 3 OI. The doctor did send me home in a pillow and said, basically he lives as long as he lives, which was kind of scary, but my mom was a strong person and really determined to let me have the best life I could have. I did have to have hernia surgery when I was six weeks old, and that's the only surgery I've had in my life, which is kind of rare for a person with OI. And they say, well, the number of people affected by OI in the US it's really unknown. They have to guesstimate it between 20,000 and 50,000 people, so it is pretty rare.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and OI can physically appear differently depending upon the individual. What were your physical characteristics then, when you were born?
Speaker 2:I was a pretty small baby. I was only 5 pounds 12 ounces. I remember my mother talking about trying to find clothes for me and diapers. I was so tiny. It was really difficult Growing up. I was extremely small. At six years old I only weighed 20 pounds. You know, my stature is still. Even now I'm a little heavier. I'm still really short, at only two foot eight.
Speaker 1:Yes, you know, you have a bit of a sense of humor, which I absolutely appreciate, and you did share a story with me regarding being so small.
Speaker 2:I was in a grocery cart, or what we call a buggy, and shopping at Gibson's, which is kind of like a general department store, and this older lady came up to me just basically said oh, what a nice baby. I was probably four or five years old, I am not a baby. And the lady almost had a heart attack right there, you know, because I was very sure about myself. She didn't expect me to talk like that. So that sort of small town life too in Mississippi you get used to it a little bit.
Speaker 1:Yes, and let's talk about mobility. What did that look like for you?
Speaker 2:Well, I did get around with a stroller till I was about six, and then Easterseals donated me a what I call puke yellow manual wheelchair, and then, when I was nine years old, I got my first power wheelchair, which allowed me to get around by myself at school. There were some issues with that, though, because a teacher and I did a fundraising to get the wheelchair, and then, when I got the wheelchair, the school tried to claim it. They said it was the school's wheelchair and not my wheelchair, but yet all the money went through me, all the checks were made out to me. I even had my own bank account with my name at nine years old, and they still tried to claim the wheelchair. We ended up having to get an advocate to help clear that up, and eventually this was in third grade. Beginning of third grade they allowed me to use my chair and take it back and forth.
Speaker 2:I rode the short bus, you know, as I jokingly called it, but actually a big bus that would hold about six wheelchairs, and that power wheelchair was a real big step for independence, and my neighbor and I would even play woofer ball out in the street.
Speaker 2:I had a lot of fun doing that. I was just like a regular kid, you know, we would yell car, everybody would have to go off to the side of the road. I had a pretty good childhood in that regard and then, about 11 years old, I started playing bumper pool because they had a program that would allow the kids to go for a half day and hang out with the teenagers. They had hired to kind of oversee us to play different games, and it was at the Waterworks building for the city and they had a foosball table and, just so happens, they had a bumper pool table and I really took to the game. I remember having to go get my dad out of the pool hall when I was much younger, so I knew I had some pool blood in me, so to speak, and I really took to the game with the angles and the geometry and the physics, because that's how my brain worked anyway.
Speaker 1:Great, you started at age 11, then playing pool what fun. Let's talk a little bit about your school years, then, and what that looked like.
Speaker 2:Starting with school when I was about four years old, I had a homebound teacher that would come out two or three days a week. After doing this for a couple of years, she encouraged my mom to enroll me in Redwood School. So at age six I did that and I was reading at a second grade level and doing math at a third grade level at age six, which was pretty good. But they insisted on putting me in a mentally handicapped class because they really didn't differentiate between physically handicapped and mentally handicapped. After being in this class for two years my mom kind of got the idea from that teacher this kid should probably be in regular school because of his education level and so I should have started in third grade. But they ended up holding me back and they started me in second grade, ended up graduating third in my class of 127 students with a 3.87 GPA. So I had some brains in there somewhere.
Speaker 1:You had a lot of brains in there. So then, now after high school, we go into college to further your education and your career. Would you like to share a little bit of that journey with us?
Speaker 2:Sure, I started college classes actually the week after I graduated high school. I took two classes that summer via the local junior college. I took speech and composition and then I went on to three and a half hours away to Mississippi State, to attend college. It was totally on my own, no parents involved or anything like that, but it was tough because the very first semester I fell out of my wheelchair and broke my left femur and that was the first time I'd ever experienced a break on my own. It was interesting.
Speaker 2:I grew up a little bit learning how to deal with that myself. It ended up taking me six years to get my degree in computer science because of all the distraction I loved to play pool and I loved to drink beer. I made some bad choices, I admit. I even tell my kids, you know, I'm not very hard on them about it because you know I did some stupid things myself. You know, in that regard I was just doing my best to try and be a normal person, like a teenager that rebels. Well, I kind of rebelled later, as I call it, and unfortunately my GPA suffered in college and it did take me six years to get the degree you know which.
Speaker 2:It took four, but I mean, there was a lot of just learning to be independent, learning to get through life without my parents, because at the time my parents had been through a divorce when I was in high school. Because at the time my parents had been through a divorce when I was in high school, and so it was me feeling my oats, so to speak. You know, talking about my career, you know, once I graduated college I went between part-time jobs, really not able to make a go of it. So I reached out to a friend from college and his stepdad actually got me a job in Reno down here in Florida, which is 13 hours away, and they liked what they heard from me. They flew me down and then, a few weeks later, I'm here working in Florida now.
Speaker 1:And recently retired.
Speaker 2:Congratulations, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1:Of course, I have a question. In your quest for normalcy, what did you find to be the biggest challenges for you?
Speaker 2:That's a great question. I think personally it was dating and having a girlfriend and having those type of relationships. I found it very difficult. I think normal women tend to pity me more than want to date me, or they don't see the positives as much as the negatives. And all my life growing up everybody always told me oh, you should find you a nice girl in a wheelchair. And I was just like no, I don't want to do that, that's no, no, that's too much responsibility, that would be doubly hard. And of course then I met my wife. That all went out the window quick.
Speaker 1:Yes, and when you speak of Allison, there is such love in your heart and in your words that you choose, and I am so excited to include Allison in our conversation today. So, allison, let's switch over to you and your childhood. Can you share what that looked like with us?
Speaker 3:Well, I started out, was born in New York, my dad was an electrical engineer, so we lived in Long Island and then my dad got transferred when I was four and a half almost five to California. California had different ideas of what to do. My breaks were mostly tibias back then and so that was just get patched up at the doctor, a cast and home, and I actually scooted out of a cast once. I was super skinny and I backed out of a cast, left it behind, didn't even look back, and my mom found the cast and was looking around for me. I had just casts with femur fractures in New York, but in California the traction was the big thing and braces the old leather braces. So I got fitted for those at five and I hated them.
Speaker 3:I had to talk to my mom's friend, who was a counselor, for every day for a week, just trying to work out my feelings about these heavy, sweaty things I was supposed to wear. One time I went in my bedroom, I closed the door, I went over to my bed, I took them off and I stood up just to prove to myself I still could. I lied about how I broke in a pool once I was doing what the other kids were doing and it was stupid. And I was trying to sit on one of those paddle boards that don't want to go under the water like the other kids were doing and of course, I broke a femur in the public pool.
Speaker 3:So that was bad. My two most memorable breaks and most disfiguring when I was five, my dad and I think he had done this in New York actually he was more comfortable using a three wheel bike because he also had OI and he put a car seat on the back of it for me. And then, when my legs got longer and he put a board for my legs to sit on, without sides on it, because who would have thought I'd need that? We were waiting for my friend, genevieve Hi, genevieve to come over for a play date. I'm excited and we're in the garage and my mom's trying to keep me occupied and I begged her please take me around the block on the back of the bike. So she did and she had to pull over to the side of the road to let a car go by, and it was just enough of a dip to the side that my right leg swung over and got caught in the spokes when she took off again and it snapped my tibia. It ended up with an S-shaped curve and it was a mess. So I later got that fixed, unfortunately, and that's a whole nother story, but that was the first memorable one. And then, a couple of years later, we were visiting my Aunt, jan, and my cousins Kim and Kelly.
Speaker 3:After the visit, my dad drove up to get us and take us back to California and we were staying the night in Colorado Springs. I had already taken off those awful braces I hated, and so I just, you know, flipped over on my stomach and scooted off the bed to go to the bathroom, scoot in and go to the bathroom, and the blankets were a little slippery and I hit the floor too hard. When my knee hit the floor I broke my femur. My dad and the motel owner or manager, whatever he was, they together found a board to put me on and this man loaned my dad his station wagon to drive me to the hospital and I got a cast and my dad rigged up the car. He took the front passenger seat out, put it in the big trunk Thank God it was a big trunk right and then he put the suitcases and that hoard in the passenger seat, connecting it to the back seat.
Speaker 3:You know, and that's how I rode back to California from Colorado Springs and that's how I got my really curved left femur, which that is my strongest point in my legs was this untouched curved femur. So some of the parents now think that if it's curved it's going to break. You have to fix it. But my lowers were pretty much ruined by corrective surgery when I was 17. So I'm one of the ones that proves that the surgeries are not great. The only other surgery I had was one time that the traction didn't set my leg. It set wrong. The doctor put me under to break it and I still remember what my dad stuck around and watched with me to keep me calm American Graffiti was on TV. So I still get that little bit of anxiety because needles that was the part that I hated the most being a kid in the hospital was the needle you know I wanted to ask.
Speaker 1:Coming from from somebody who, knock on wood, has never broken a bone with as often as you talk about you know you've had these breaks the femur, the tibia. That to me sounds like excruciating pain.
Speaker 3:It is, it's not, it's not good. Femurs, especially because I had six of them between 10 and 12. And femurs, especially because I had six of them between 10 and 12. Because, okay, so I went from the little skinny kid that was back up immediately on my feet. They would stick the little nub thing on the bottom of your cast and I'd be on it within a couple of days, walking and scooting out of it and all that. And then when we moved to California, by fourth grade I had been begging to get to go to public school. So, kindergarten, I went to public school until I broke and then ended up home with the home teacher.
Speaker 3:First grade. My parents found this handicapped school so they stuck me in there. First grade was great because there was both mentally and just physically disabled kids and I had a lot of friends and it was great. Second grade started all those kids that didn't need to be in there were matriculated into regular school and it was just me and this girl who was almost never there. And my parents saw how bored I was after two weeks and they pulled me out and they put me in a handicap school.
Speaker 3:I was there for second and third grade and my dad thought the smaller class sizes would be safer, since I was still walking. I made a deal with him, which I kind of regret. But for fourth grade I said if I use grandma's wheelchair, will you let me go to public school? And they agreed. That's when the series of femur breaks started, because I strength the braces, had weakened my muscles so I didn't have the muscle protecting the bone. My dad did all kinds of tricks after the surgery. When I was 17 he built a platform that he could hand crank up to slowly make the slant steeper. That was uncomfortable, but and then he started just whacking the end of the cast with a board to try to help stimulate blood flow to the you know, the fracture site. He was creative, but he was an engineer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was going to say that that's awesome, and he was able to use his creative mind and look at a situation and try to come up with ways to make life easier for you, you know. Speaking of parents, what do you think it was like for them to have to watch their child in so much pain? What do you think it was like for them?
Speaker 3:Well, my dad and my aunt both had about as many breaks as I did, but they were upright the whole time so they didn't use the wheelchair. And then my grandmother also had OI. She had less breaks, I think, but she had the different length legs like me, she had a back brace. I don't know if it's easier if you've had OI yourself or these poor parents that just find out about it because their kid has the mutation, like Chad's mom went through. I don't know. A lot of them feel guilt and my dad, I think, felt a lot of guilt because he believed doctors that actually said well, because you have it pretty mild and your wife doesn't have it, it'll be somewhere in between. And that's not how it works. You have a 50% chance of passing it if one parent has it and if two parents have it, it's four 25% chances, either your type, your husband's type, both or none none.
Speaker 2:Neither of my parents had a life and so, growing up, my mother it's funny because my mother smoked. She's passed away now. But when Allison and I were first dating, allison fell out of her wheelchair in East LA. It was really nobody's fault. She got a new chair. It had two smaller tires in the front and she ended up flipping forwards and landing on her right femur and breaking it. And this is in East LA, right outside the train station. It was a harrowing day. It was just a rough day Because here I am as her fiance looking at her going. There's nothing I can do to fix her. I'm helpless at this point. Anyway, at the end of that day, finally, when I was able to take a breath, I picked up the phone and I called my mother and I told my mother I now know why you smoke, because the stress of that day alone was just phenomenal. And if I could tell a really quick story, it's really a testament to Allison's Allison and her resiliency.
Speaker 2:Right after we got married, just a few weeks, our son broke his right leg. Her daughter was watching him in the hospital. Allison was like we need to ride the leg and I was more cautioned, more of the doctor. I said well, let's see what the doctor says. The doctor didn't want to ride it. Thankfully, I agree with that decision. And so later on, you know, three-year-old Josh just is still. He's dragging this body cast around, just wanting to go and do. Sure enough, literally the day after he got out of the cast we catch him. He's standing up on the leg again. You know, he is not going to slow down. It was like no, he shouldn't be running for weeks, or blah, blah, blah. And I looked at her and she looked at me.
Speaker 3:I go. You think we're going to slow this three-year-old down? Yeah right.
Speaker 1:That was exactly me. I was on it as quickly as I was allowed to. Yeah, let's move on to y'all's love story.
Speaker 2:I love that Sure January of 2002, january of 2002, we had started talking to each other at the urgency of two friends. We had sort of knew of each other in probably 95, 96 timeframe because we were both members of the same mailing list out of Australia that deals with our disability. Our two friends both said, hey, you two should kind of talk to each other, and yada, yada, yada. And so we did. We emailed each other and we probably talked on internet, instant messenger, and then we started talking on the phone. You know, back and forth. It just so happens in 2002, there was a conference on our disability in Orlando. We both kind of agreed nothing else. We'll be good friends and no pressure.
Speaker 2:Let's not, do you know anything? Serious pressure to get together or anything like that. It just so happens I had a wheelchair and her daughter was coming flying in with her, and I told her I says, oh, we'll just pick you up from the airport. So my friend Donna and I showed up at the airport and we went to see her. I do what she looked like and everything. We picked her up and I remember if she was wheeling away from me, I looked at her and I thought to myself I said that's the one I'm gonna marry. And then I told myself, chad, do not think that, do not set yourself up for failure. You know how you get, you know how you overthink things. And so I was like, okay, I got to calm down, okay, but as fate would have it, we were just all over each other that weekend. It was like there was conferences, eight or nine conferences a day, you know. For three days I think we may have went to two, maybe three. We would be sneaking off somewhere. Heck, we even went back out to my van in the parking lot to make out. You know, I mean, we were just like young teenagers here, we were in our early 30s doing this and it was crazy, you know, it was just crazy.
Speaker 2:I really fell for her, you know, I really loved her and I ended up, because of who I worked for, I was able to get cheap flights going back and forth between Orlando and LA. I was getting $175 round-trip flights almost monthly to go out to see her, and so I would go out there, and her dad was really awesome about helping me set up to get in and out of my wheelchair and set up the shower there, and I even surprised her. I showed up on Thanksgiving. She didn't even know I was coming, you know, and that was just so awesome.
Speaker 2:The previous month, in October, I proposed to her to marry her and I bought her daughter a ring as well. I gave her a birthstone ring as well. I remember it was so cold, it was drizzling rain on a baseball field on the first base side, in the dugout of all things Probably the most unromantic thing you could do, but I really wanted to marry her. We had decided to get married the next year and it just made sense in our life. Okay, let's make a go of it.
Speaker 3:We started talking and it was just like we'd known each other forever, the moment that I really realized this is the one for me, this one, this is it. I was on a date with somebody else. He had to leave for an appointment and as I'm scooting out of this little bench thing you know the tables with the benches I felt what felt like a break in my femur, my right femur, and I stopped, I froze and I said you know, you go ahead and go to your appointment, I'm just going to sit here for a minute. And I got him to leave and then I tried to get ahold of my dad.
Speaker 3:I had to wait a couple hours, so I immediately called Chad and I knew it was work day. He was at work. He stayed on the phone with me, on speaker, where all his buddies could hear, for two hours, just trying to keep me sane because I was starting to freak out. Because, you know, at first you don't feel much because the adrenaline kicks in and if you don't get things taken care of while you're still in that state, it's just a little nutty. And he stayed right there with me and I thought, oh my gosh, this is the one If you're not with somebody who understands. You can't connect on the same level.
Speaker 2:I mean it becomes more than breaking wind in front of each other. You really have, I guess, less inhibitions. You know you don't. If you've got somebody that's a fellow disabled, especially with the same disability. You know about the pain and how to overcome it, how to pray through it, how to cope with it.
Speaker 2:And we moved into my tiny home. It was a thousand square foot home and it was only two bedrooms and I made the back porch into a bedroom for my son. That totally didn't work out at all, but he ended up in bed with us. So after being married for about five months, I looked at her and I says we got to get a bigger house. This is just not working. He said go find one. So I did and I went to her dad and said we need some financial help. He was really nice about it, wanting to help us out. We're still in the same house, 20 some odd years later, and now I retired February of last year, 24, and I finally start to feel retired.
Speaker 2:Within the last couple of months they're making a movie about me and my life, called 96 Pounds of Dynamite. For anybody that might want to be interested in learning a little bit more about it. You can go to http//dynamite-filmcom. The movie is completed. We got the pleasure to see a preview of it and it's really really well done documentary Almost an hour and a half long.
Speaker 2:It started by a guy that saw me playing in a pool tournament and he saw me win the pool tournament and he couldn't believe just how good I was at the game. He was just blown away. And it turned out we had a mutual friend and the mutual friend was somebody I worked with at the time. God put things in place to make this film work out. Unfortunately, during this last year, while we were filming and everything, I lost my stepdad and then my mom a few months later, and so that's documented as well in the film. But it's really nice having that captured, that. I've got images of my mom there and being interviewed and even watching the film here recently. It was a little bit emotional for me just seeing her and hearing my stepdad. It's hard to believe they're gone sometimes, you know.
Speaker 3:But it did feel like a God thing that he got to go and see them again, Because with me not driving anymore, I couldn't drive him out there and without the help he would have had a harder time going by himself. If Lauren wouldn't have done this, Chad wouldn't have gotten to see them and wouldn't have it on record.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely Like you said. It's a God thing, it's the connecting. We meet people. We don't always know offhand why we have that connection, and then the journey just beautifully unfolds. What was the most surprising thing for you while making this documentary?
Speaker 2:It's a lot of work. I did not realize just how much energy and effort even filming for like three or four hours feels like you work a 12-hour day. I mean it just it takes a lot out of you. When we drove up to Mississippi, we drove for a day, we filmed for two days and then drove back and it took me two or three days, just energy-wise, just to bounce back. It's just a lot of work. I have an admiration now for actors and actresses how they do it. Filming weeks on end. That's hard work, that's really hard work.
Speaker 1:Can you all explain what your life is like now, your daily routine?
Speaker 2:Nowadays our routine is I get up way too early still I can't stop myself. I get up usually three or four in the morning and I have my coffee and I read my emails and read my newsletters and usually do all our finance information and go through and see what TV shows we're going to watch and things like that. And then Allie usually gets up at 7.38, if she's able to sleep that late, and then we get up and she gets up, she does her routine and we play games together and then we when, usually by nine or 10 o'clock it's usually I'm hungry, you know that type of thing Uh, and then we start watching TV together. We have friends that drive us to play pool when I play pool on Sundays, one day a week, and she'll go with me most times Uh, we go to shop. Uh, usually go to Costco on Wednesdays.
Speaker 2:We have a really good life, a really good relaxing life. Now, like I said, I'm really now, just now, feeling like I'm retired. You know I don't have the stress of the job and the paycheck or, you know, worried about the paycheck hanging over my head, so it's a lot nicer.
Speaker 1:Do y'all have a favorite memory?
Speaker 3:Oh, Key West.
Speaker 2:Oh yes, I had an accident at work in 2008, october of 2008. I collided with a forklift at work. My other wheelchair did 12 and a half miles an hour and I literally didn't see the forklift park backwards and I collided with it and I got flung about four feet through the air and landed on the left side of my skull and ended up in the icu and the hospital. And anyway, after healing up from that, from about seven weeks we had planned to go to Key West and so we went ahead and did it before I went back to work in mid-December. The way we do Key West is rather funny. We get a hotel room on Key West on Duval Street, we park the van and then basically we look at each other every two hours and go rum drink and we drink the whole weekend and just wander up and down, you know, duval Street.
Speaker 2:We went to the Butterfly Exhibit, we went to the Pirate Museum and they have an elevator in there that was built in the 1800s and I was so glad I was about half drunk riding up and down that elevator because it's the most scary thing I've ever done in my entire life, but it was really cool. It was just an old, old elevator. We people watched and we just we really enjoyed the food. They have a restaurant and they still had it called Better Than Sex and it's a dessert bar and they have red plush things and we're there in December and they've got Christmas trees up and I look under the Christmas tree and there's a cat laying there and they have cats wild cats just wandering all over Key West and I'm a cat person so it was really cool. But yeah, she and I have that great memory of vacationing there. It's just her and I very relaxed and we had a good time. You know, we do things like that.
Speaker 1:I love that. Let's take a minute before we wrap up to talk a little bit more about a why. What do you find is the biggest misconception that people have who don't have a why?
Speaker 3:People always ask do breaks really hurt, especially when they see your face and you don't freak out. We learned really young when you break hold still because it helps. When Josh broke his arm at seven he was off playing with some friends' kids. They had just said oh, if you guys want to go out for dinner, drop off Josh. She called before we left the house. She said Josh is holding his arm and saying he broke it, but he's not crying, we'll be right there. So we went and got him. He broke both bones in his arm and he was holding it in place, went to the urgent care and they put a splint on it and a week later he had surgery. That's all I can think of. What do you think?
Speaker 2:My funniest misconception is anytime I answer the phone and it's somebody that doesn't know me, or whatever. Oh, is your mommy there? Or okay, mrs McDaniel, I'm like I get misgendered, I get this age-wise, you know, or whatever. But that's just common silly things. But on the back, no, I can't think of anything really.
Speaker 3:That's why my dad hated to go through the drive-thru, because he didn't have a really loud voice and he would always get called ma'am, and so he just. You know, it was just easier to park the car, get out, go inside, order what you wanted right there.
Speaker 1:When people listen to this episode, what do you want them to take away and remember most about? Chad and Allison?
Speaker 2:Kind of what goes into our wrap up here. There's no magic way to get through life and OI and you know relationships and things like that, other than just faith and prayer. You really have to be able to have fun with it, to laugh about it, love about it. She and I have had a great relationship the whole time. I mean there's been ups and downs. We really, I think, got the best of every day we've been together.
Speaker 3:And I told him you're not allowed to die first. It's ladies first. You have to let me go first, because I just like his mom. I just don't know how well I would take that, because it's just. You know, we're going on 22 years and I just don't.
Speaker 1:You know your faith you have in God and you find strength there strength in each other, strength in family, strength in adversity I think it's amazing. Strength and family strength and adversity I think it's amazing. Thank you both for sharing your lives, your wisdom and the powerful reminder that no challenge is too great when you're true to yourself and to each other. Chad and Allison, thank you for being my guests on the I Need Blue podcast.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having us.
Speaker 3:Yep, it's been fun.
