Life to the Max Podcast
Welcome to 'Life to the Max Podcast,' where resilience meets inspiration!
Join us on a transformative journey through the life stories of remarkable individuals, including Quadriplegic Army Veteran Maximilian Gross. In this empowering podcast, we dive into tales of triumph, courage, and the human spirit's unwavering ability to overcome obstacles.
Our show is a celebration of diverse narratives, from awe-inspiring achievements to the darkest of traumas. 'Life to the Max' is a testament to the power of living authentically, no matter the circumstances. We believe that everyone has a unique story worth sharing, and we invite individuals from all walks of life to join us.
Discover the profound meaning of living 'Life to the Max'—a concept that resonates differently with each storyteller. It's a journey of perspective, resilience, and finding joy amidst life's challenges. Tune in to be inspired, motivated, and reminded that there's strength in every story.
Ready to redefine what it means to live life to the fullest? Share your story with us and become a part of this uplifting community. Because, at 'Life to the Max,' every story matters.
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Life to the Max Podcast
Navy Commander Michelle Blair: Resilience in God's Plan | Treating Wounded Soldiers and Beating Cancer
Michelle's journey from the cotton fields of West Texas to Navy Commander reveals a life defined by resilience through seemingly insurmountable challenges.
Raised by a cotton farmer in a small Texas town where children chased rattlesnakes for fun, Michelle's childhood foundation of toughness would serve her well. When her parents divorced during her teenage years, both seemingly trying to relive their own adolescence, she navigated the tumult of small-town gossip and dangerous rebellious behavior without stable adult guidance.
Facing financial reality after high school, Michelle pragmatically chose nursing because "it was going to be a way to pay my bills." Without family support for college, she joined the Navy's Bachelor Degree Completion Program, trading education for service commitment. This decision led her to Guam, where she met her husband Chris and faced an unexpected revelation – Chris had fathered a child during his military discharge process. Rather than continuing her planned career path, Michelle requested reassignment to be near his son, beginning a journey of blended family that transformed her priorities.
Through financial ruin that once had them living in their restaurant, deployment to Germany treating wounded warriors, and two battles with breast cancer, Michelle's faith remained her cornerstone. "I've had that anger of 'why me?'... and I kind of came to 'why not me?'" she reflects. Her story powerfully demonstrates that resilience isn't about avoiding suffering but finding meaning within it.
Have you faced unexpected challenges that seemed to derail your plans? Michelle's journey shows how our greatest difficulties often reveal our higher purpose and unexpected blessings. Subscribe to hear more stories of resilience and Living Life to the Max despite circumstances.
I, we're just trying to get by. Just a couple of puns all trying to get by. Just a couple of teens all trying to survive. Live to the max, because you don't live it twice.
Speaker 2:Cup of green thumbs all heights hello, oh no you're not so happy welcome back to another episode of life to the max. I'm your host with the most Max Gross and today I have Michelle with me, which is a good friend of mine stepmom, stepmom and she has an amazing story and I'm like super excited to, like you know, get to know her throughout this like podcast. I hope you guys enjoy the episode, michelle. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having me. This is fun. I've never done anything like this, so it's a little intimidating, but it's fun. It's more like Gen Z type thing. Absolutely, I'm kind of older, that's okay. I'm a grandma, I'm okay being old, let's just get. I'm a grandma, I'm okay being old.
Speaker 2:So let's get straight into it, if you're okay with that.
Speaker 3:Where are you from? So I am from West Texas. So you know Texas is a massive state.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 3:I grew up all the way west kind of the bottom of the panhandle. I grew up all the way west kind of the bottom of the panhandle. It's pretty much cotton fields and tumbleweeds and no trees, kind of a desert area. My dad was a cotton farmer.
Speaker 2:Cotton farmer. So what was the city? Seminole, Seminole.
Speaker 3:Texas Seminole. Seminole, Little tiny country town. Nothing there but farmers.
Speaker 2:Were you helping your father in the field I did yeah.
Speaker 3:So since I'm old enough, some of the certain technology with cotton farming wasn't there yet. So my dad would drive the tractor and what they called stripping the cotton, and my brother and I would stand outside these trailers. So my dad would drive the tractor and what they called stripping the cotton and my brother and I would stand outside these trailers that were on wheels, that he would dump the cotton into the trailers and then you'd drag it to the gin to be processed, right Well, and my brother and I would stand there until the basket got pretty full and then we'd climb up in it and we'd tromped it. It's called tromping cotton. So we would jump up and down and smooth and pack the cotton in there best we could so he could put a lot of cotton in there, and my brother would always try to kill me.
Speaker 3:He would roll me back in the basket and my, because we'd see, we'd know that my dad was about to dump more cotton in the basket and I'd be like okay, okay, we got to climb out, he's, he's coming, it's getting full, and so my brother would climb up the ladder first and wait, and then he'd kind of push me back in the cotton and all that, hundreds of whatever pounds of cotton would just dump on top of me. I wasn't going to die, but I was seven, right, and I thought my dad would have been. You know, dad had a cigarette hanging out of his mouth driving tractor. We were to stay out of the way, right, and I just knew that one day I would just suffocate in that cotton and my brother was kind of mean to me. You know that's what brothers do.
Speaker 2:but I survived. I have to say this those southern farm people, those small towns, they're rowdy, they are very rowdy.
Speaker 3:We were tough as nails. Our parents didn't really parent us and you know, we were out there chasing rattlesnakes down with a hoe and cutting their head off first and then cutting the rattle off, and we had a shoebox full of rattlers, because there was tons of rattlesnakes everywhere. But we weren't afraid of them, we were looking for them because we wanted to get their rattlers.
Speaker 2:So yeah, we were rough and tumble kids.
Speaker 3:Why do you want the rattle? Because they're just cool. I mean, if you've ever seen one, you get a really really big rattlesnake they're really large, and then the littler ones, and it was just a collection.
Speaker 1:I don't know I'm sure people are like, oh my gosh, why did you kill?
Speaker 3:all those rattlesnakes. But yeah, that's just. It was something you did out on the farm when there was nothing else, we had no neighbors to play with, so it was the rattlesnakes.
Speaker 2:So you talk about your brother trying to suffocate you in cotton. Yep, yep, so you were seven years old at that time, usually. So how was your adolescence like growing up in a small town?
Speaker 3:So you know small town, everybody knows everybody's business well when I was 13, my parents divorced and um, of course the whole town knew it and um, I I say that my my parents when I turned 13 because they got married really young. My mom was 20 when she had me and they kind of lost their mind. I think they felt like they had missed out because they got married so young. So they both just wanted to relive their adolescence. So they split when I was 13. Mom started dating guys much younger than her she was a beautiful woman and my dad, my brother, when I turned 16, so there was a lot of turmoil in those developmental teenage years, with both of my parents kind of losing their mind and the whole town knowing they both started partying and acting like fools when I was 16 and my brother was 18, my mom and my dad married a 20-year-old. So you can imagine I'm 16, 16, my stepmom's 20. We hated each other, needless to say, but yeah so adolescence was rough.
Speaker 3:Um, and that same west texas town when you're kind of a rebel and looking for something to do because now the rattlesnakes aren't entertaining you uh we would climb. You know what a pump jack is I don't? So a pump jack is. You've probably seen them like on tv and stuff. I don't know if they have them around here, but it's a big metal. It looks like a metal horse that does this. It's going up and down and it's pumping oil or gas from under the big metal thing looks like, you know, like a metal horse, right?
Speaker 2:yes, so.
Speaker 3:Yes, so we would. At parties you'd have to. Everybody would get a keg. I don't know how we bought kegs at 16, but we could drive across to the New Mexico across the border and buy a keg at 16.
Speaker 2:Nobody had a night. These country kids, these country kids right.
Speaker 3:And they were just going. As long as we had the money, they didn't care. And we would park out by these pump jacks because there's no trees, so everybody would meet out pump jack number one, or pump jack number two, and everybody would have a party.
Speaker 3:A kegger, a kegger, right, yeah. And then we would climb up the pump jacks and scoot down to the head of them and ride them like they were a Six Flags carnival ride or something. And you know, of course you're drunk and you think you're just invincible and it's fun, even though my graduating class, three years prior to that kids had done that and got killed, because it just kind of grinds you up.
Speaker 2:That's what I thought. Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:It's stupid. There's nothing to hang on to. It's just a big piece of metal that you just kind of, and so we knew kids had died of it. But it wasn't going to happen to us because we were smarter, right? I don't.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's kind of like the shower generation there's in like New York they do something called subway surfing. Oh, yes, I've, seen that You've seen that yes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so the same thing as city kids would do that, these are us country kids, we, you know we're going to find some way to entertain ourselves. So yeah, so that was my adolescence.
Speaker 2:It was a bit of a mess Rightfully so, though I mean so. When I took my psychology class, I took the Erickson's Lifespan. When I took my psychology class, I learned about Erickson's lifespan, development theory. And then, in adolescence age, you go through role confusion versus identity, and it seems like you were going through role confusion.
Speaker 3:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And a lot of people do. I did the same thing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and when you don't have some mature adults in your life to kind of speak into your life or help guide you, which we had, none, you know it was. It's a free for all.
Speaker 2:Yeah, same for me. My parents were uninvolved and like. I can understand that so, but I get what you're saying. I really do a lot in common, just different. Like scenery, you have the fields. I have the towns, yeah so what was it like when you like heard that your step mom was like 20 years and you were 16 in high school? Did anybody come at you for that?
Speaker 3:Well, there was some obviously in school, some nasty things said.
Speaker 3:I know that they had said oh, didn't your mom used to babysit her when your mom was younger? Cruel remarks like oh yeah, your mom used to bounce her on the bed, now your dad is. I got all sorts of cruel things and as a teenager I'm trying to make sense and trying to grow up, but my parents have lost their minds and so it was tough. My mom ended up remarrying gosh, I guess right before my junior year of high school, and I didn't like him, but at the moment he was good for a mom and I was just a mess. I was just such a rebel and I'd kind of made a. I was just a mess I was. I was just such a rebel and just such a mess.
Speaker 3:So when she remarried before my junior year, they moved to east Texas almost Louisiana, and so and I was living with my dad and my 20 year old stepmom at the time and we were not liking each other, so I moved in with my. I moved to east Texas with my mom and her new husband. Okay and yeah, at least I was able to finish high school and graduate without killing myself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when did you join the?
Speaker 3:military. So you know, I think, when I graduated high school, for my parents' poor examples because they just struggled paycheck to paycheck of what to do. And then my mom no, she wasn't divorced yet again. But so I didn't know anything about college and I had nobody to explain it to me. But I knew the only way I was going to be able to feed myself is if I went to college, because that was my generation. Right, get a college degree of some sort. I don't think it's necessarily true now, but at the time, just get college and you won't. Generation right, get a college degree of some sort. I don't think it's necessarily true now, but at the time, just get college and you won't starve, right.
Speaker 3:So my focus and of course you think about this before the internet, I would look at the newspapers because I'm always working. I've worked since I was 15. So I'm looking at the paper and going where are they hiring? And it was always nurses. It was always the want. Ads for employment constantly was nurses. And I said I'm going to go to college and be a nurse and that kind of was my driving force is hunger, because I needed a way to support myself. So that's how I got into college, which, again, I had no idea. I didn't know how to sign up for classes. I didn't know what the credits meant, so I was—.
Speaker 2:Me too.
Speaker 3:It was tough. It was tough getting into it, but I got—so I went to college, changed my major a couple times and then finally I'm like nursing is the way. Not that I have—I think some people have great stories of saying you know, it was a calling I knew all along I was supposed to be a nurse. That's not for me. It was just it was going to be a way to pay my bills.
Speaker 2:So for me it's kind of the same thing. Like I told you, like my parents weren't really involved. They put food on the table, so like I had that, you know, and they bought me things.
Speaker 2:But it wasn't like, because my parents got divorced when I was seven, so there was a few issues here and there and people always talking. I would hear different stories as a child. And then it would grow up and I would hear the same stories and I went through that same phase real confusion versus identity and I didn't know my identity. And then I was just like you know what? I'm going to join the military, I'm going to do it. And when I first got there I was like what the hell did?
Speaker 3:I just do, it does everybody.
Speaker 2:Can you elaborate more on the nursing job like a cna?
Speaker 3:job, so have I worked. I was in houston at the time in of nursing school and they had if you were already in a nursing program you got hired on like a cna, but it was, as they call it, student nurse assistant and so it was a CNA job. So I was, and you think about this was 89 and 90 those years I worked. So I was looking at the hospital. They were wanting student nurses and the seventh floor of this little hospital in Houston was the AIDS floor. So this is 89, 90, the peak of the AIDS epidemic and all this and everybody was still terrified.
Speaker 3:Everybody was so, still weren't sure, like, oh, can you get it? Just by somebody coughing on you that has AIDS, you know they? Just there was still a lot of fear there and I said, oh, you'll pay me an extra dollar an hour to work on the AIDS floor. Of course I'm trying to feed myself and pay for college. Sign me up. So I worked on the AIDS unit and it paid $9.20 an hour, which was good money back then as a student nurse. So I worked on the age unit, went to school full time and then once I started into heavier clinicals in nursing school, it was so demanding I felt like my grades were starting to drop. So I went to a recruiter's office. I said, well, if I join the military maybe they'll help me. And I went to Air Force recruiter and they're like well, we'll pay you a sign on bonus once you graduate nursing school. But I was like no, I need money to pay bills now.
Speaker 3:I can't wait. I'm not going to get through nursing school if I have to keep working like this. And so the Navy had a program and it was called the BDCP program, which stood for a bachelor degree completion program, and so if you were in nursing school, they would pay you. You got, you were, I guess, enlisted as an E3. So I got E3 pay, I had full health coverage and all that. And then when I graduated nursing school, I was going to owe them four years.
Speaker 1:So it was a great program, it's like a trade-off?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was like. You know, there was a height of nursing shortage at that time. So when I graduated, all my friends from nursing school were like oh, you're an idiot, you know. They said they're getting these huge sign-on bonuses and getting to choose where they want to work. I was stuck going to wherever the Navy told me to go and I was getting paid a lot less than them.
Speaker 2:Well, let's explain it, let's go a little further than that. What year?
Speaker 3:was this. I graduated nursing school in 91.
Speaker 2:That's like close to the Gulf War. I think that is the Gulf War, yeah, because it was 90.
Speaker 3:And so I was considered, quote, quote, active duty at 90, but I I was in nursing school okay, and when you graduated, what was like?
Speaker 2:it wasn't a culture shock.
Speaker 3:When you joined the navy. It was, you know, I have none of. Well, I'd had a couple uncles but didn't really know them, had done a little bit of service but we weren't like a big. Everybody in the family was in the military. My dad was like mad at me, my mom was, everybody was angry like why are you doing this? And I'm thinking you weren't offering to help me pay for college. You know, I really didn't have a choice. So again, it was all driven by. I'm not going to take out loans, I'm not going to ask for money, I'm going to do this myself.
Speaker 3:So my first assignment was in Oakland, california. Back then there was a big Navy hospital, oak Knoll, and that was a culture shock. I'd lived in Texas my whole life and here I was, 22, going off to California. They assigned me to a med-surg unit. They assigned me to a med-surg unit, you know, 22, I was an officer, so I was an ensign, like 01. And I've got these corpsmen. The enlisted were like the medics in the Army, your corpsmen, and you know some of them older than me, and they're, yes, ma'am, and saluting me. And I'm thinking, how did I get here? What am I doing? Oh, you were getting saluted. Get here, what? What am I doing? Oh, you were getting saluted. Yeah, because I was an officer. An officer, okay, yep, I was an officer, I was no one funny story.
Speaker 3:So if you graduate, if you're like a nurse, a doctor, dentist, attorney, those high demand, that's hard to get them into the military. You go to ois, which is officer indoctrination school, and it's six weeks and they teach you how to, you know, be an officer. And so we get there and they're like okay, this is your uniform, we have all these classes to go through and this is how you salute. And it's just, it's hilarious. So I'm walking across the grinder there where we'd have to march, and an OCS student Now OCS, those are going to be your line officers, so they're going through. They're not officers yet, they're officers in training.
Speaker 3:Well, one passed me and he saluted me. I'd never been saluted in my life. So I waved at him and I hear him laughing as he's walking past me. He's like a new ensign that has no idea what they're doing. And after he passed, I'm like, oh my gosh, that was my first salute and I missed it. You know I waved at him. I'm an idiot, so it was kind of funny, but um yeah. So I've went to California, was working as a nurse. You know, just got my ass handed to me learning what to be as an officer and as a brand new nurse. It was quite the adventure.
Speaker 2:What was the physical training like, and when you got out of the nursing school part, did you have to go through a certain type of boot camp or like OCS, the OCS?
Speaker 3:It was OCS. So I graduated from nursing school on a Friday. That Monday I was in Newport, rhode Island, going through OIS and you know we had physical therapy, we had some PT to do. Of course you went through boot camp. So I didn't have to go through boot camp so they didn't yell at us and they didn't scream at us. So I didn't have to go through boot camp so they didn't yell at us and they didn't scream at us. We did have to exercise but they couldn't scream and yell because we were all professionals and we wouldn't have taken it. You know we're like, no, I'll go somewhere else and make twice as much money. So it was a little different. Yeah, my, my husband, when you talk to Chris, he'll laugh because he went, went to boot camp. He was an enlisted. Oh, you know, yeah, he was, he was a medic. So of he laughs about oh, you're club med, ois, you're going through the navy. So it wasn't club med, but you know we did, it was fun and what was world island like?
Speaker 3:it was so cool it's. You know that's the only time I've ever been there. I've always wanted to go back. Um, it's beautiful, and I went in the summer, so you know, the season was a perfect time to be there. I skipped out on my military law classes and would go sailing and I'd have somebody sign me in. This is before computers, right? I'm like sign me in for that class I'm going down and doing so. I embraced being a Navy officer 100 percent by learning how to sail.
Speaker 2:It seems like that's I, I, uh.
Speaker 1:I was gonna like do green to gold.
Speaker 2:That's called like switching from enlisted officer. I was going to do that when I got to the like special forces that was my plan, like, but I wanted to pass special forces and then I wanted to like become a Green Beret and all those things, but unfortunately you don't got it.
Speaker 3:You had different plans, yeah.
Speaker 2:So when you got to Oakland were you assigned to a certain ship.
Speaker 3:No. So as a nurse in the Navy, it's pretty hard to get on a ship because because there's just few and far between you think of a carrier. So a navy carrier has probably 5 000 people working on the ship.
Speaker 3:That's a little town yeah, a little small town, right. And those carriers, there's one nurse and it's an administrative role and then the idc's independent duty corpsman, your chiefs, you know your higher ranking enlisted. They're doing most of all the medical work and you're just administratively kind of being over stuff. So I knew my chances of getting a carrier were probably. You know, most nurses in the Navy can go through the whole time and never step foot on a ship because you're in hospitals, you're in clinics and other things. So after Oakland then I had married my college sweetheart and I was young and stupid and I just married him because he was model material and he had lots of muscles, but he was a real jerk Junkie wars.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he was all that and it was just pure lust, right. The marriage was so. We were married two years and then he found a girl when we moved to California. That was prettier than me, so he dumped me like a rock, but in California. So I was like, oh, I'm going to be one of those Navy people I'm going to leave a so um. So I left and went uh, next assignment was Guam.
Speaker 3:And, um, so after my divorce, I feel like a failure and just an idiot and you know all these self-talk that you do to yourself. And, um, I, I called the detailer. They help you find your next assignment. And I said where's the furthest place in the world you can send me? And she said, well, and at this time I'm an ICU nurse. And she said, well, with your experience, she goes. I could send you to Diego Garcia, and that's a little island in the middle of the Indian Ocean. We've got a Navy hospital there and it just has two flight nurses. And she goes you with your ICU, you could become a flight nurse and we could send you there. And I said sign me up. And she said, well, it's on a rotation, so the next rotation is not for another six months, but I'll put you in in six months to rotate there.
Speaker 3:And I'm like, no, I just got a divorce, I'm mad at the world, I need to get out of California. So she goes. Well, I could send you to Guam and I go. What's Guam? I'd never heard of it. So, again, I'm in this country. You know, girl, this farmer's daughter, I don't. I just got out of Texas, I'm in California, I know nothing. And so she sent me and I think I was gone in about six weeks. I was off to Guam and I worked ICU there in Guam and that's where I met my current husband.
Speaker 2:You know I was going to get to that? Yeah, Because Nick, your stepson, told me that you guys got married in Guam.
Speaker 3:Well, we met in Guam. Oh, you met in Guam. We met in Guam, we worked together. I'm going to have to correct that young man. So, no, we met in Guam and started going out and again, I was at not a real good spot in my life.
Speaker 3:I was kind of mad and I'm a Christian. I grew up knowing who God was at a very young age and I know how I'm supposed to live and often I just go to the opposite of what I'm supposed to do and I am the biggest sinner. You'd meet right and especially through my adolescence and young adulthood, I chose the wrong path. Often, through my adolescence and young adulthood, I chose the wrong path often and even knowing, knowing that I was deeply loved by God and he was watching me, I often went the wrong direction and I think he laughs at me sometimes. He knows how incredibly stubborn I am. And so Chris and I met with me in a and not in a good state of, and then we find out that and we were kind of I don't know. I was like are we going to stay together? I'll probably never get married again. All men are jerks. I'm just going to have fun and party and I don't care, right that was kind of my attitude and that's how we met.
Speaker 3:Well, then we find out that he's going to be a daddy and this whole thing, because it's a long story. But he was in the military and then he in the Navy. He went to Great Lakes to process out and in his processing out guess what? There was a baby created that we didn't know about. And so when this all came out I think I've told Nick this several times I 100% believe that there's never a child born by mistake or accident ever, and I've told Nick this when he was little I said you know, it takes two adults to consent to sex, but then it takes a powerful God that breathes your spirit. If God chooses not to breathe a spirit, because I'm more than this flesh and blood. I am who I really am. Who I truly am is my spirit, and that was breathed by God. And I said Nick, god wanted you here, and Nick's our little angel, because the reality of him coming into our life changed mine and Chris's mindset.
Speaker 3:Nick's not your stepson, he is my stepson. Oh, he is your stepson, he is. And so when we found out that Chris was a daddy, life got real serious. All of a sudden, life was serious because a human was coming into this world that was Chris's son. And what were we going to do about it?
Speaker 3:I know there's nothing that you would tell me different, that God didn't plan that, because I think I was probably headed to self-destruction and partying, and partying and I was just being an idiot, and the gravity and the heaviness and the bigness of a human life, that I knew that God permitted, that there was no mistake, that God, I knew that God permitted that there was no mistake. So we, chris and I at that time, we said, okay, what are we going to do? You know, there's this little boy and that's your son. What are we going to do? And so we prayed about it. Life got serious. We got, we found a church, we had friends praying for us. What are we supposed to do?
Speaker 3:And I had orders that I was supposed to be leaving Guam and now Chris is out of the military at this time. And then I was supposed to go to Tennessee More kind of an administrative type job there and we said we can't because this little boy is going to be in Illinois and we would just be financial parents, we would just send money, but we wouldn't be able to be involved in his life. So I called the detailer and said if you can get me in Great Lakes, I'll stay in the military, but if you can't get me to Great Lakes, I'm resigning my commission and getting out of the Navy. That's how serious. We were just going to move to where Nick was, and so she canceled my Tennessee orders and gave me Great Lakes orders. And we moved to Great Lakes and began having Nick every weekend and became as much involved as we could in his life and that was the best thing we could have ever done.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, that's a beautiful story. Honestly, I didn't expect that. I mean a little't expect that yeah. I mean a little tearjerker right there.
Speaker 3:Well, and you know, I tell Nick all the time I'm like, man, god put you in my life and the first Nick was 11 months old when the first time I got to hold him. And I've never. You know, they say love at first sight. You know I never had that with any guy I ever met, but it was love at first sight. I mean, like when I held him, like he was my son just as much as his mom's To me. I'm like I gave birth to him.
Speaker 3:I'm like how could you ever in your life love anybody more than? And then God blessed us with children, you know, and you think, oh, okay, I love this child so much, there's no way I could love another. And then God increases your capacity and you're like, okay, I can love two at a time. And then, and then God gives you another and like your capacity, it doesn't make sense, I mean, and from our mind, but like God is, he just increases your capacity for love and for forgiveness and and so, yeah, and me and Nick's mom have a great relationship and, um, it wasn't always that way. There was difficult years, uh, a lot of emotions involved and stuff like that but, always, always, it's always, it's always rough, but it's all worth it, right?
Speaker 2:There's this crazy thing we have a roller coaster called life. We do. You've got your ups and downs, your swirls and all that stuff.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Usually it ends and then you stay, and then it just goes again. It does it does. How long were you in the military? 20 years. So there's two things I want to talk about that I kind of think it's really badass like you have a scuba license. I do advanced diver yeah yeah, that's what oh man that I look up to very much he has. He was in the military as well. He went to scuba school in Key West.
Speaker 3:So much fun. It's funny because growing up in West Texas, where there's no lakes or rivers or anything, I was always a little timid around water. We'd go water skiing when I was a teenager and I could water ski, I could swim, but I was a little timid around the water where my brother and sister were both like fish. They would just jump to it. So when I got scuba certified, my family was like you're what, you're going underwater and you're what? And I'm like I will scuba dive over swim any day. I said, because you got my eyes, aren't you know? I've got the mask on, so there's no water in my eyes. There's no water in my nose. I've got a little breather. I'm breathing my air. No water's getting out of my mouth. I've got fins so I can, like you know superhuman, go through the water. I'm like I'll scuba dive all day, but I don't really care to swim.
Speaker 2:Now were you close to your family this whole time.
Speaker 3:You know I would keep in touch with them, yeah. And you know, my mom remarried and then divorced, and then my dad had several different girlfriends and then he ended up marrying my mom just recently died.
Speaker 3:She died in February February 30th in February, I'm still grieving. Grief is a bizarre, bizarre thing. And I was reading a book by CS Lewis on his grief when his wife died and he said you know, when somebody that you love dies, so they're're not here on earth in your brain, it takes a while to catch up with that, especially I'm 57 years old. So for 57 years I've had my mom and we were not always close in miles, but I could pick up the phone, I could text her and then her absence like so you still love the person that died, right, you don't quit loving them. But that love doesn't know where to go. There's nowhere for it to land.
Speaker 3:And I never understood that, because my mom grieved her mom and dad and her brother and I'd always say are we not enough? I mean, what about us, the grandkids, the great, are we not enough to fill that void? And it's not that you're not enough, it's just that love is for that person and so it kind of floats around it. It's un that you're not enough, it's just that love is for that person and so it kind of floats around it. It's unguided love for my mom and it just kind of lands on everything and it just I don't know where to put it because it's for her, so that that grief is very real and it's um walking through that and I think, with my faith of knowing I will see her again in heaven, because we are spirits, we're not flesh and blood. Only that's a comfort, but it doesn't take away. I mean, I still cry every day a little bit.
Speaker 3:It's not as long, and then the whole grieving process, and then I'm mad. It's still right at the surface and and I think it'll, it'll be with me forever.
Speaker 2:You know just, I can have joy and happiness and good times, but that, that grief man, it's, it's a lot so like first of all, I'm very sorry for you and last year my stepdad passed away and it was strange to me Because he was like an alcoholic, but he was like a super nice guy. He would get his shirt off with his back, you know, and like it was hard for me, like I never like it was hard for me. It's like like I didn't I never like cried or anything. Like I'm very hard with like grief and stuff. Like a lot of my friends passed away with overdoses and stuff and like when my stepdad passed away, like my mom was just like crying on the phone FaceTiming me, and I'm just stoic and I don't know how to react.
Speaker 2:So what I did was, when I hung up the phone with my mom, I played his favorite song. Oh, I love that.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I was like maybe this can get me closer and it did. I love that, yeah.
Speaker 3:and I was like maybe this can get me closer and it did.
Speaker 2:I love it. What I would do is I would think of all the happy times I had with him. You know, like I, I'm not a funeral person. Yeah, I don't really like going to funerals because I like thinking of like the happy times I had with that person.
Speaker 2:So I mean it was hard, so like it still is a little bit. I told my buddy because we used to party in his garage and he was awesome. He was just an awesome dude, super nice to my family. He treated us like his kids Love that. And he nice to my family like treat, treat us like his kids, yeah, um, and he, he died in the most cruel way oh, no I know it's a bone cancer.
Speaker 2:He didn't even know. Oh, he went to the doctor and they're like yeah, you're covered, you're gonna die in 48 hours. Wow, yeah, yeah, wow. And it's like it's still difficult to this day, but I try to think of the happy times.
Speaker 3:I had with him.
Speaker 2:You know like he like came to my court when I got my blue cord for infantry. You know my graduation yeah, you know he was always there for me.
Speaker 2:so I um, it's uh and I I had, I hadn't seen him in like three years, so that was another thing yeah, that like like it just like hit me, like like a ton of bricks, but I, I um, like you said he was, was a spirit. I still feel his spirit Absolutely and I have a blanket that he gave me. Well, I think I stole it from him, I can't remember.
Speaker 3:Did you really give it or did you just acquire it?
Speaker 2:It's a Mexican wool blanket because he was Mexican.
Speaker 1:He was from Texas as well, okay, okay, oh, wow, so he was from Texas as well, okay okay, he's a Longhorns fan.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow, yeah, so he was from Texas as well, I love that. And he had this like amazing blanket and I have pictures of it like when I was in the military. I love that. I have pictures of it like when I was, like you know, growing up, and I have it in my room right now.
Speaker 3:See, and I think you've got it, that is exactly with grief, like it's. I think I've had to learn that. Talk about her, of the funny things she did or said, and like these rings are hers that. I'm wearing and like, I just wear them and look at them and touch them and I'm like and just remember all the, the good stuff and that their spirit's still with us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's weird that tangible object. Can you like bring it closer?
Speaker 3:It does.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. Well, so you end up, so let's like circle back. Okay, so you see, so you end up moving to Grayslake because they gave you Grayslake correct. And you served your 20 years. Nick told me that you were in a very high position in the military.
Speaker 3:Is that correct? I retired as a commander, which is a commander. I was an O5 when I retired, so for the Army that's lieutenant colonel.
Speaker 2:yeah that's colonel smith to me. That's the guy I was talking about. Yeah, yeah, he was my old battalion commander, so how many people did you have?
Speaker 3:under you. Um gosh, it depends on, like, where I was, that I, when I was on the ship, so ended up did. I did get on a hospital ship. It was just a three, three month Pacific tour of when we were in Germany, so so circle back, so 10 years yeah.
Speaker 3:So 10 years active duty and then started having babies and so I got off active duty and rolled to be in a reservist. Got off active duty and rolled to be in a reservist and while I was in the reserves we were living in East Texas and I would do my drill weekends in Shreveport, louisiana. There's so much I mean, chris and I need to write a book. So we were both working in the ER as nurses civilian but then I was in charge of the reserve unit in Louisiana, so one weekend a month I'd do that. And then we owned restaurants and we were raising babies and homeschooling the kids and we would yeah, it was, we were idiots, but we were. We were just super crazy busy and so I got called to active duty. I was running between restaurants. I had gone to one to pick up a case of pepperoni to bring it back to the other.
Speaker 3:I get a call from BUMED and he goes how would you like to go to a one-year all-paid vacation to Germany?
Speaker 3:And I said no, thank you, I am really busy with restaurants and I work at the ER and I'm in my unit. And he said well, we, you, I'm really busy with restaurants and I work at the ER and I'm in my unit and he said, well, we're looking for ER nurses and I've got 12 nurses on my list and I need six. And I said, well, I'm a commander and I'm expensive, so find you a cheap Lieutenant nurse, and you know you send them. And he said, well, if I can't find anybody that that meets the spot, I'm going to call you back and you're going to have to go. I said, well, I'm sure you can find a cheaper person, cheaper nurse than me. And he called back three days later and said pack your bags, you're going to Germany in six weeks. And so at the time and this is maybe Chris can tell you this part we were living in the restaurant, because there's so much to unpack it's hard to say.
Speaker 2:When you lived in a restaurant.
Speaker 3:We had to live in the restaurant because there's so much. We had two small pizza restaurants and we were doing all the crazy living in the house and ER pizza restaurants reserve the crazy living in the house and er pizza restaurants reserve. And then I had to go to pensacola to work at the navy hospital for a three-month little special job there and while I was gone and left chris unattended and I've learned you don't leave him unattended because he gets into stuff. And when I get back after the three months, of course he had all the kids and was doing that he goes I found a restaurant in indiana and it's a bargain and we're moving to indiana. We're going to run this new restaurant. It's fine dining, it's got a martini lounge, it's really cool. And I was like oh my gosh. And so we put the sisters in charge of the larger pizza restaurant. We sold the small pizza restaurant to friends and we it was amazing, it was the best, we only used quality ingredients.
Speaker 3:It's a pro, it's a pro.
Speaker 2:I'm not saying he's a pro, that's definitely a pro.
Speaker 3:Free pizza? We did. We ate lots of pizza. We had lots of good food. We were never lacking in the food area, and so that's one thing you're worried about. No, and we and I, they was totally taken care of. So my husband has the entrepreneur type I'm not as big of a risk taker as he is, but I kind of jump on some of his risk and it's been fun. But so we put everything in place, put friends to rent our house from us quote, you know, friends of a friends of a friend thought we'd take, they'd take care of the house. We moved to indiana. We changed everything over. Well, this was not pizza, this was steak and lobster, fine dining, and we hired a new chef. We changed the menu. We got live bands in. In about nine months we were totally broke and it ate us alive. So we closed. What year is this? It was 2009.
Speaker 1:Okay, 2009.
Speaker 3:Seven something like that.
Speaker 2:That's when the crash happened. The stock market crash. Okay, so no, no, no, it was before that, no, no, it was 2005. That's when the crash happened. The stock market crash. Okay, so no, no, no, it was before that, no no, it was 2005.
Speaker 3:That's right, 2005. I'm getting, yeah, 2005. And so we lost lots of money, all our savings. You know we could always do these things because we both had good W-2, you know, working as nurses, being in the military. We had money to risk and we always lived below our means. We didn't drive fancy cars or anything, didn't have a fancy house, so we invested it in restaurants and different things. This restaurant smacked us, you know, taught us a big lesson, so we closed the door. Everybody in the world was suing us from the lease. People were leasing the building from to everybody in the world. Everybody was after us and we had no money.
Speaker 3:So we moved back to Texas and the house we rented to the friends of the friend of friend had destroyed the house beyond living in. And so our one restaurant we had left, which was the big pizza place we had a room attached to it was called the Tuscany room and you could rent it out for parties and stuff. So I got there, chris was dealing with legal problems and us being broke again, and I went back to Texas and told the manager of that place. I said I'm renting a storage shed. We're moving all the tables and chairs out call, cancel all the parties for the next year. I said we're going to live, live in the Tuscany room because our house is destroyed beyond living in and we're broke and we got to start over. So we moved into the Tuscany room and the kids their memory, they think it was so much fun because there was no, it was just one big empty room and so all our beds were lined up and we'd all sit up and go good night, good night, good night, and we'd all lay down. It was just like it was the funniest. They think, oh, that was so much fun. And then we could just go into the restaurant and we would just go to get whatever we wanted. You know, the cook would make us whatever and I'm like, oh my gosh, if you only knew what a nightmare.
Speaker 3:So this is the living condition we're in when I You're going to Germany. You got six weeks, so I packed up my bags, chris and the kids took me to the airport and, with the problems we went through in Indiana and that restaurant and the financial strain and the lawsuits and everything that was going on, it was very stressful on our marriage, if you can imagine, and I felt like. I felt like God was trying to crush me. I was like I didn't know. I thought like, is God mad at me? Did I do something wrong? I was like, because all of this, we're living in a restaurant and then you're going to say you've got to leave your children and your husband, you're going to be gone for a year to Germany. I mean like it to me. And so when, when I got on that plane and that was you could walk somebody all the way to board the plane, right, and Chris and the kids were there and I remember walking down there, I'm like I don't think I'll come back, I'll finish up this. They can raise the kids. I'm done, I'm done, I'm, I'm done. I mean that's kind of I just didn't know how I could manage. You know, there was just too much to think about. And looking back now I go okay, god rescued me. He pulled me out because he knew I was at a breaking point, and so I got to Germany and I worked.
Speaker 3:It was called the DWIMIC is what we called it Deployed Wounded Warrior Management Center. Deployed Wounded Warrior Management Center. And so all the Army nurses this is an Army hospital and it's a launch tool and all the Army nurses were deployed to Iraq, afghanistan, and so they sent. They didn't have extra Army nurses deployed to Iraq, afghanistan, and so they didn't have extra Army nurses. So they sent a group of us Navy nurses that had the ER skill and we were kind of like in these trailers outside the ER and we ran this 24-hour service of bringing all the wounded guys from the Horn of Africa, bagram, wherever they were at overseas, and we'd process them here. We loaded up these buses we made into two-tier ambulances so they'd bring the wounded into Anderson.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry the Air Force Base. I'm sorry, so these are the people that were hurt more. They would go to Germany, I remember it like that I remember that vaguely. They were saying if you get hurt, you're going to Germany, You're going to Germany.
Speaker 3:So we were there processing that you could get blown up and lose all four limbs, and they could save you I mean you would live, but then they would wrap them up of they could save you.
Speaker 3:I mean you would live, but then they would wrap them up, send them to bagram, do a couple of surgeries, get them stable enough to send them to us in germany. And so of it was a um, it was like a controlled mass casualty daily of bringing wounded warriors, some mental, some, you know small things, but still couldn't be there that needed to come out of that was probably the hardest and we would.
Speaker 3:So you would either meet the bus and kind of eyeball as people were coming in, making sure they were going yes, he needs to go to the ic or no, this person, you know. We need to switch things up, so you kind of triage and real quick to see make sure everybody was going to the right place. Um, yeah, it was. It was a challenging job but I can imagine very rewarding, I can imagine.
Speaker 2:Uh, if you like, save a soldier too, like that's like the best feeling.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, I mean, and that was a hard going, you know, you see a Marine that has had his legs blown off and saying, hey, can they fit me with prosthesis so I can go back? I hate leaving my guys and you're like what I mean? That was the spirit, that was their mentality.
Speaker 3:It is, you guys are. Just it's a different as a female and as a nurse, I'm not. That's not me as a female and as a nurse, that's not me. But I want to take care of those that are doing that, because it's amazing. It's amazing. I can't wrap my mind around it. So it was my privilege to care for all the wounded guys and gals.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you get back from Germany. Nick told me recently that you had breast cancer twice. Yeah, and when did this occur?
Speaker 3:first. So that was in 2018, was the first time and I had worked a shift as a nurse and I was retired. I'd worked a shift as a nurse and I had I was retired out of the Navy because I retired from the Navy in 2013. So now I'm working civilian and I had put my pajamas on and I my hair was long at the time and I kind of brushed my hair off my shoulder and I'm like there's a little what's that. So I found the lump. Now I had changed jobs and had missed my mammogram, but I was pretty good at I'm take. I try to take care of myself, right.
Speaker 3:But, I'd missed one, just the busyness of life. And uh got in right away and sure enough, yeah, it was cancer. It had moved to my lymph node, um, so it removed all the lymph nodes and they did, so it did surgery. I just went ahead as a nurse. I was like, okay, if this is going to, I don't want this to kill me. You know, you're all of a sudden faced with mortality and I'd had a friend die of breast cancer. So I know it is lethal but it's treatable if you get it early. Mine wasn't early, but it wasn't super late, um, and so what surgery? Uh, to be something like that yeah and I'm not an oncology nurse.
Speaker 3:So I was like just a regular civilian. I would say yes, I'm a nurse, but I know nothing about cancer. You know, and I've never worked that area. I've worked with young guys that get blown up and stuff. I don't you know.
Speaker 3:So that was a learning curve for me. But I said let's be aggressive. You know the bilateral mastectomy, let's cut everything off, let's not have any. So again I'm thinking, I'm taking care of this. So cancer so it came back in 23, which I would was like what you know. I did everything they told me to do, I did the surgery, I did radiation. That's why I have this chronic cough, kind of messed up one of my lungs did you do radiation?
Speaker 3:Like what you know, I did everything they told me to do. I did the surgery, I did radiation. That's why I have this chronic cough. It kind of messed up one of my lungs. Did you do radiation? The first time I did I did, and so that was kind of another, like okay, now is it going to kill me. You know, like now is this the time. So, facing that, you know, you start start going. What do I need to do different? And and you know, and I also think health care has changed after covid, like nobody trusts the health care system anymore because we, we didn't manage it well, we as a system, as health care, workers it was mismanaged.
Speaker 3:But we didn't know. You know, we, we had no idea. We, we did not know, nobody knew it. How could have anybody known? But so going through cancer at pre-covid and post-covid was a little bit different. So this time I went, I had to do surgery and chemo and of course I have to show you 23 in 23.
Speaker 3:I'll show you pictures of me later of when I was bald. So this is since May of 23,. My hair that's grown back. So it's grown back pretty fast, thank you, and it came back a totally different color. I was always kind of a dirty blonde and now I'm like what's this? It's like salt and pepper.
Speaker 2:I don't know Very chic. Very chic right and I'm like, okay, I'll take salt and pepper. That's amazing that you had the strength to go through that. I mean, like I don't know how serious cancer is at times. But then, like I find out, when I was like holy crap, like this is like a serious thing and breast cancer is no joke. And for you to beat it twice, I have one question I was going to ask you. Have you ever been mad at God?
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, oh yeah. He's big enough he can handle my anger.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I've been mad at God before and I've told him, and you know you said oh, you're so strong, you beat this twice. Well, I am a wimp and a weakling. I know only by God's help that I've gone through this. But yeah, I've had that anger of like why, why did I get it the first time, why am I getting it a second time? And I kind of this last time came to why not me? I mean, like, am I better than somebody else? I'm not. Why not? I have done nothing in my life, that you know. And I used to have that conversation because my mom smoked her whole life, you know she started smoking when she was 13, and she never had a cough in her life.
Speaker 3:I had this chronic cough from radiation. I'm like, why is that so unfair? You've got great lungs and you're still smoking, mom, and I have this wimpy lung because I had cancer and you know it's easy to get into those. But then I've kind of reversed it and said you know, I've had other Christians say to me, you know, oh well, god knew that you were strong enough that you could do it.
Speaker 3:And I said I kind of flipped things on the head. I said I think he knows what a stubborn person I am and he knows how weak I am. So I don't think he made me because he's a loving God, but I think he allows things and I think he allowed it because he knows me and if that kept me in humility and in submission to the kingdom and I live in a kingdom and he's the king and I choose to honor him I don't always do it, it I'm always missing the mark, right. But you go back and say he is a loving god, why does he allow things? Like I'm saying you're the toughest guy I've probably ever met in my life. Just watching your podcast and stuff I'm like how do you keep your spirit up? How do you?
Speaker 2:I mean, I asked the question because I've been mad. I got a lot, sure, a lot, a lot of things that came to me like deception from the closest people you think there are in my life. Like, even from the beginning, like I used to, I feel like I was dating a girl that I thought was the one and then I got car accident. Car accident and she's gone two months later when I was in the hospital, you know, so like, and that just tests you. It tests you, yes, and then you just keep getting tests and tests and tests, and then like, and then you kind of like find like this, like middle ground, and then you start progressing. So for me it was like, okay, I'm going to use my voice, because a lot of people say I'm an inspiration. I don't like to hear that. I like to hear that.
Speaker 2:I motivate people. That's my biggest thing I like to hear. And they say I'm an inspiration and I sit here and I'm like I didn't an inspiration and I sit here and I'm like I didn't go to war, I didn't do this, I didn't do that. Do you know what I mean? Like, I'm just sitting in a chair. What makes me such an inspiration? Do you know what I mean? Like, and then uh, but I always hear it and I uh, I guess I've accepted it. So, but I, I do know that I do know how to motivate people because I was a team leader in the military. Yeah, and.
Speaker 2:I was only in the military for a year and a half Like active and then like a lot of it. Like if I didn't go to the military and this happened to me A lot of it Like if I didn't go to the military and this happened to me I don't know if I would have been able to like have the intestinal fortitude to get through this. And one thing I wanted to say about you, Michelle, is that this podcast, like this whole podcast, from when it started, with your parents splitting up, you wanted to eat like and like you're like, I just need to eat, so let me do this. You had trouble with like finding college and stuff because, like I mean you, you didn't have like anybody to help you do it. You know you didn't, I didn't know I had to go to a guidance counselor, you know, right, right. So you want this podcast. The topic, topic, the. The theme of the this podcast is resilience really resilient resilience.
Speaker 2:you are a very resilient person like, and you're still living life to the max with your family. I'm blessed to know Nick. I've known him for probably 15 years.
Speaker 3:I don't know if he told you yeah, I know that you guys go way back and I'm like he is again man. God's always had a plan on his life and I've always known that and my life would not look the same if Nick wasn't part of it.
Speaker 2:I know that, yeah, and like another thing about, like the theme of this podcast is like God, has a plan Absolutely. And like one thing I always say to people is you have to suffer to succeed.
Speaker 3:And you know what? The one thing in the Bible it tells us we will do Suffer. I mean it's over and over. I've got in my notes, like going through cancer, these both times and I can share them with you. I have all of these scripture and it's all about suffering. But you can suffer good, but it is very much part of the fallen world that we live in.
Speaker 2:We know on earth we will suffer yeah, definitely will suffer, and you mentioned before the podcast I went to go see jordan peterson. He's all about not embracing suffering but knowing that you're going to suffer in life. Yep, yep, yep, yep, uh, but uh, it's been amazing having you on the podcast.
Speaker 3:Thank you. Thanks for having me, yeah.
Speaker 2:I, uh, I learned a lot more than I thought. I didn't know you were a rowdy, uh, teenager. Yep, I need to get my shit together. I'm in the military and then you meet, your go off, and then you stay together because of the union for family.
Speaker 1:That's why you stay together.
Speaker 2:It's kind of like they beat cancer twice. You're doing all these. It's kind of like they beat cancer twice, you know, and you're doing all these amazing things helping out probably some of my friends that were in the military, that went to Germany, you know.
Speaker 2:So I like kudos to you and everything you've done in your life and I'm happy we were able to have this conversation. I'm so glad I finally got to meet you. For everybody who likes this content, please subscribe, like and comment. Please comment, we love to see it. I answer every single one and I'm paralyzed from the neck down, breathing through a machine, but that doesn't stop me from following my dreams and doing what I love to do. I don't got any excuse, neck down, breathing through a machine, but that doesn't stop me from following my dreams and doing what I love to do. I don't got any excuse, and neither should breeze. Damn, can't lie Today was a good day.
Speaker 1:Fell fly, new cool kicks and a kick-ass ride. And I kick it with my dogs. We just trying to get by. Just a couple of puns all trying to get by. Just a couple of teens all trying to survive.