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.
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Life to the Max Podcast
101st Airborne Brotherhood: Finding Purpose and Peace After Paralysis
I'm out. Green thumbs are high.
Speaker 3:Welcome back to another episode of Life to the Max. I'm your host with the most, max Gross. Today I have one of my best friends here with me, the guy who's faced adversity and has persevered so much in life before his accident and after his accident.
Speaker 4:Well, hello, welcome back for official third time, but second time on camera. And to correct what you said your only best friend, so yeah, all that was good though.
Speaker 3:Well, brother, it was.
Speaker 4:Well, brother, it was a good introduction, pretty solid there's two more episodes of joke.
Speaker 3:One is just us screwing around talking about funny stories and another one is this uh, actual story, but it's only on audio only like I commend you because I don't know, like how I could grow up in a house like I grew up as a foster kid, which got adopted yeah, which got adopted by a foster family that's still fosters to this day and they're old and still foster they still foster me. Yeah, it's crazy. Are you still cool with?
Speaker 4:them. Yeah, I, uh, I am. I probably did have a little hardship when I first got injured with them. Uh, probably hence the reason I met you. But, um, I'd say, you know, everything happens for a reason the best way to put it.
Speaker 3:So how was growing up? Like well, I mean you got.
Speaker 4:You gotta think of random abandoned kids, or even you know kids that just didn't get the love by their parents. All get thrown into a house. You get bumps and bruises every now and then, but it's not. It's not like any other type of brotherhood you know, like you're, you're gonna fight and then you're gonna eat along. That's brotherhood in general. So we've had a lot of brothers, a lot, yeah, a lot.
Speaker 3:At this point, at this point, we're probably a partial gang so you grew up in foster, like how are your teenage years?
Speaker 4:so we, we kind of lived. At first she lived, uh, in a smaller house and then moved out to kind of a suburb area called Forest Hill. Just listen to the name, forest Hills, you can imagine it's a hilly area with trees. So it was good, honestly, you know, as far as staying in shape, walking up hills, riding bikes up hills, stayed in shape. So that's probably why I got the athletic end of you know, maybe football or even joining the military. I think that's probably why I got the athletic end of you know, maybe football or even joining the military. I think that's probably why?
Speaker 3:so we'll lead up to that. So you uh joined the military? What year?
Speaker 4:oh nine. Yeah, because it was a year after I graduated. It wasn't initially right away, so I graduated. Oh, eight june. That's when I went to Fort Knox.
Speaker 3:I thought you went to 08. You're not an infantry.
Speaker 4:No, I'm a fister. You know, you're a fister. Elbows deep, bro, elbows deep.
Speaker 3:Well, what was the culture shock? When you got to the military? I was already adjusted. You know why?
Speaker 4:Why, Because I went through a foster system where you're always around them Different random people at different times. Sometimes they're going to stick around longer, sometimes they're not going to be in that foster home anymore. So it was kind of like I was already programmed for the military. It's like the CIA knew what they were doing.
Speaker 3:I'm just kidding.
Speaker 4:So would you say, basic screening was like a culture shock at all. Yeah, yeah, just from the aspect of not talking back you know, yeah, you gotta shut the fuck up and do what you're told. Yeah, because sometimes you get a chip on your shoulder, especially over dumb shit, and then you're like, damn it, I just need to shut the fuck up before I make it worse.
Speaker 3:Did you ever get beat up in basic training?
Speaker 4:No, no, I got choked out actually by my drill sergeant.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I didn't get choked out, I did.
Speaker 4:But we were doing combatives and I was dominating somebody else and he just came behind me, ripped me up, so didn't see it coming. And then then I tapped, but he still didn't do it, because probably I wasn't being, did you? Uh?
Speaker 3:easy. Did you shoot a weapon before like you went?
Speaker 4:uh, not a real rifle, not before the military. Uh, my dad had like these little pellet bb guns every once in a while that doesn't count.
Speaker 3:A bb gun are you really comparing an m4 to a bb gun?
Speaker 4:no, no, no, I'm not even lying. So all I shot before I went in the military was a bb gun and played call of duty and then went into the army and was an expert fucking shooter with an m16 or m4. Had no rifleman experience before going in the military, so you could just probably say I had a good act for it when you graduated base victorian, did you like feel really good about yourself?
Speaker 4:like I accomplished something that I didn't think I was gonna make it through. Probably the first couple weeks I was definitely doubting it. Like fuck this.
Speaker 3:This is.
Speaker 4:Yeah, this is stupid. I gotta fucking, especially when you get punished for somebody else's shit. You know that pisses you off. Yeah, somebody that ends up doing shit to fucking fuck the whole platoon. That's when you really get mad.
Speaker 3:That's when you want to beat up the kid.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:They still do that shit. That's what happened to me. Blanket parties, certainly. That's what, no, you did. No, yeah, dude, I swear, yeah, I, um, I, uh. There was a drill sergeant. He was short as hell. He was trying to brim me for, for, like, people listening, brimming is like putting, like is putting his drill sergeant hat on my forehead. He couldn't reach me. I said what's the problem, drill sergeant? He stepped stool. He said everybody do push-ups besides 216, which was my roster number. I was like oh shit.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's even worse when they're all working out and you got it, laxie daisy then you know you got eyes just waiting for you to slip up, yeah, so we were doing laundry.
Speaker 3:One day, and they were all just in there and they all just gave me a good beat down and like the next morning, the drill sergeant looks at me. He's like what happened to you and I was like I fell, what am I going to do? He's like oh, my battle buddies beat me up. No, no, no.
Speaker 4:Then you get made fun of the rest of your military career.
Speaker 3:So when you went to your first duty station, of course it was the 101st Airborne Division.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's how that's how I ended up up. You know it's crazy, though most people will get to their unit and they'll have some extensive training before they deploy, like most soldiers airmen all of them do. I went straight from four knocks to fort sill for my ait fire support training and then, right after that, went to 101st. Two weeks after I got to 101st I got placed in the rocket sans.
Speaker 3:Two weeks after that deployed did you get smoked during those two weeks?
Speaker 4:oh for sure, yeah, because they gotta break this in like e4 mafia yeah, they gotta feel like they're yeah badasses, and they probably maybe have done a deployment, maybe not, yeah what was your thought process when you're like, holy crap, man, I'm going to afghanistan, like, like I mean, initially I was nervous as fuck because we're going to a country that we shouldn't even really have been in, but I get why we were there initially yeah but not for the extensive time that we were.
Speaker 4:Yeah, no, it was. It was nerve-wracking, uh, but at the same time I I'm glad I went yeah, because I didn't get to deploy.
Speaker 3:I felt like I was training for like a football game but I didn't get to see. That's what I'm saying like you.
Speaker 4:You were doing the training for it, like I did my initial training, but I didn't do any extensive training after basic and ait. Before I deployed it was just right out the chute. So first day is where you get shoved on some sort of fob in the middle of the middle east what's a fob ford?
Speaker 3:can't think of the acronym on the base you're wearing a freaking military cap and you, I know bro hey, so.
Speaker 4:So, since I've been in the military, about 15 years ago, it's forward observer base.
Speaker 3:right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:Forward. It's an observation. Yeah, you're right, okay, carry on. A little weird to get adjusted to because you seen not just the us military but multiple nato foreign countries on this huge base in the middle of the middle east. And it was different because I'd go into the bathroom to shower see girls just walking in ass naked showering right beside me. It's like with other countries other countries.
Speaker 4:Yeah, like it was like I don't know if they were russian, but they were pretty close to russian, if not some other middle eastern type countries that had their military there and they had different bases for showers, but over in most of the european and Eastern countries the guys and girls shower together in the military. In the military? I didn't know that man.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's definitely a little different, because it threw me off guard when I first seen it, because I thought I was in a female and then I looked next to me and there's another dude and I'm like what the fuck's going on? This girl's brave as fuck or something.
Speaker 3:But yeah, it was a little weird I remember you told me like, basically like that you went to like a cop, which is like yeah, what the fight.
Speaker 4:my final um destination was cop dicey um, which is right near the pact uh border of Afghanistan and Pakistan, so it was a little bit of a show.
Speaker 3:Did you guys have running water?
Speaker 4:Not exactly running water, but yeah, we had a big fucking cylinder dome above our bathroom and the gravity just anti, fed down. Not anti fed, but fed down.
Speaker 3:Back then you told me that this was like a really dangerous area.
Speaker 4:Yeah, the uh KGP KG fed down back then you told me that this was like a really dangerous area. Yeah, the uh kgp kg pass. Uh is known for fucking ied and ambush sites all throughout uh that area, so anytime anybody rode through there they were getting contact, probably almost daily yeah and like keep in mind, this is 2009. This is like this is probably right before bin laden was actually killed, like right before.
Speaker 3:I was just about to say that the hunt has been long, yeah so.
Speaker 4:But even even after he was killed, we were still there for a little while, like I mean, that was the whole point right, that was the whole point of us going there and we for being such a young kid going to the military and seeing this culture well, um, I pissed myself once from a vast amount of small arms fire, with explosions very close, yeah, but I guess I was still programmed a little bit to be able to make it through.
Speaker 3:That, I should say because I had the right people next to me you know, when you got home from the deployment and you had your patch, obviously the left arm. Yeah, you had a patch on the left arm. Did you get respect?
Speaker 4:yeah, because then you don't have to feel like the guy that didn't deploy. Yeah, because somebody might bark at you with attitude. Some people like fuck you, you didn't even deploy. Somebody could say that like and don't, don't do that shit to lieutenants and shit too. Overseas Swear to God If somebody's already had a deployment under their belt. They treat the young officers like shit. Sometimes that's funny, though, like fuck you, butterbar, you don't know shit.
Speaker 3:Dude, I didn't salute Butterbars.
Speaker 4:Hey, max. Yeah, you used to salute your officers. What did you say?
Speaker 3:Good morning, good afternoon.
Speaker 4:That's it At 101st. That's what you used to say.
Speaker 3:No, no, Actually, I would just say sir.
Speaker 4:Sir. Yeah, sir, you didn't address them another way. What way Air assault.
Speaker 3:Air assault oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, we did address air assault. Yeah air address. Yeah, so when you said it to any officer, that wasn't air assault, did they?
Speaker 4:ever get mad if they didn't have wings. Yeah, now, a couple times they would adjust me like stop fucking saying that in order to say that, sir, I'd get back, get a little sass into it after you get out of the military, what's your choice of career?
Speaker 4:Well, I started doing a little construction literally right before my accident happened. It wasn't even that long, it was probably a couple months and, yeah, my accident happened to fortunately and unfortunately lead me to you along the way. But the accident itself was pretty much quick summary Vacation with one of my buddies considering I just got back from fucking Afghanistan. I just got back from fucking Afghanistan. I by all right need to fucking explore, let off steam, not give a fuck about civilization and work at that moment, even though I was already working. But I needed to get away. So we went down to his family's property in South Carolina where we were partying for a couple days, woke up in the morning, started riding four wheelers around his property and we rode probably for like 30 minutes, not far, and then took a break, started shooting some guns Nothing crazy, just like a couple of nine millimeters, a 12 gauge shotgun. There might've been an.
Speaker 4:M4 that we shot a couple times, but nothing crazy. His uncle was gonna go get a, uh, a barrett 50 caliber sniper rifle but he had to go dig it out while we rode around with four wheelers, yeah. And then, uh, I was trying to keep up with my buddy because he knew the property I didn't, so he fucking took off on the four-wheeler. I'm trying to catch up. I'm probably going like 50, 55 miles per hour, hot on his ass and gaining on him. And then I hear a boom, because a .50 cal has a very distinct sound that not a lot of rifles
Speaker 4:do. So when I first heard it, I stopped paying attention initially to what I was doing, even though I was still doing it. I was still flooring it, but I was not looking forward per se. I was looking for where the gunshot might have came from, because that's our training distance direction, distance direction. As soon as you, as soon as you hear a gunshot and you're not located, how far away do you think it is? What direction? So that's, alertly, what I did. Then I heard again and then the second one sounded like it was way closer because you hear a
Speaker 4:snap. So then I'm freaking out, not even looking forward at all. I'm standing up on the four-wheeler, still flooring it, trying to use my peripheral vision to look straight, while looking to the side and behind me, and then didn't look forward until I felt my body go weightless like a fucking feather. That's when I looked forward and had enough time to say, oh, before the shit, and that fucking, probably 50, 60-year-old tree smacked the fuck out of me. Four-wheeler kept going down a steep hill. It was like a steep I wouldn't say it was a cliff, but a steep fault that went into a tree line. Nothing but trees. Smacked the tree. Four-wheeler kept flipping down the hill, flipped over the tree branch, hit one, hit another, about 15, 20 feet in the air, came down on my head and that is the short story uh, so a little, a little extensive actually before
Speaker 4:yeah, before before, actually before I that my buddy was at the top of the hill because he had initially tried to stop me from chasing him, but I wasn't paying attention. I was pulled over on the side of the road because it was hidden with some tall, probably two-foot field grass. It was pretty tall, but I didn't't see that was a sharp turn right into a tree line. Um, he said he seen me trying to get up on all fours and I was like trying to drag my leg up to stand up, but my head was just into my chest, basically so, and he didn't know what to do. Because what the fuck do you do when you see that? So, he said, he immediately took off running, jumping downhill because it was dirt and trees, but it was a steep grade incline decline.
Speaker 4:I should say uh, and he said he ran. He ran and jumped on me, uh, to hold me down, to prevent me from getting up, because he could tell that I was fucked up. I didn't even wake up till I heard the choppers in the background so you got airlifted oh, yeah, um, I honestly thought I was back in afghanistan when I did gain consciousness.
Speaker 4:Uh, because I just heard, and you hear, that all the time in afghanistan, all the time, choppers are like the biggest transportation to get you to the cops, which is a smaller observing point with only one, maybe two platoons. Fobs got thousands of soldiers. So if you're on a FOB, you're very well protected overseas, but when you're on a small little cop, that's when your asshole needs to be puckered almost daily. Yeah, because this is non-stop.
Speaker 3:It's chaos so you feel like you're in afghanistan when you're in the helicopter.
Speaker 4:You said you woke up just just from the initial wake up, because I heard a guy tell me don't move, don't move, you're injured right now. Don't move at all't move, you're injured right now, don't move at all. And then, like alertly, I'm just like oh my God, I got hit. I thought the Humvee got hit or something, I don't know. Initially, that's just what I was thinking. It was like because I haven't heard a fucking chopper sound since Afghanistan, which was about five months prior to the accident.
Speaker 3:That's literally what I was about to ask you. I was going to ask you like do you think?
Speaker 4:like you had post-traumatic stress disorder, then I think the gun is definitely what well gun. I think the gun was what triggered me not to pay attention. So yeah, ptsd.
Speaker 3:You got to look where. You got to keep your head on swivel.
Speaker 4:That's what they always, that's what they train you to do so that you're vigilantly very quick, reacting to whatever sound that you hear, so that you can run forward, not backward, right so you get airlifted to a hospital and, uh, they, they can't treat you right.
Speaker 4:The hospital, yeah, the first, the first hospital didn't have the technology to perform this procedure, which was a spinal fusion for a internal decapitated quad. Um, I completely severed my c6 between my c6 and c7 and uh, seven my c6 between my c6 and c7 and uh, you were decapitated. The the outcome of that, if anybody doesn't know what happens to the body when it is decapitated, is it swells from two to three, even four times its regular body weight to prevent um the blood from escaping. Now, considering mine was still attached, it just swore my face up and neck as well from all the damage to the spinal cord. So my sister, when they were trying to get somebody to identify me, swore up and down. It wasn't me. For about 10 minutes she said she had to stare into my face and then just bust it out in tears because she couldn't believe that was me. She just seen me like a few days ago before that and uh, she's like how the fuck is he that big? You know?
Speaker 3:it's crazy how life could change in like split second or literally a split second I was was about 80 and she said I looked like I weighed 400 pounds. Holy crap.
Speaker 4:Just like a big fucking Michelin man.
Speaker 3:So when they performed the procedure, where did you go?
Speaker 4:They flew me to another. I'm wanting to say it was Charleston. They did the. This is how they woke me up, because I flatlined a couple of times. They woke me up on the operation table and told me you had a spinal cord injury and explained it very blunt, very clear. You need to have a surgery right now, called a spinal fusion. If you don't do this right now, you probably won't live. That's how they described it. So I'm already fucked up, barely fucking alert to what's going on, just woke right back up. I don't even know how they woke me up. Yeah, I was like fucking do it and then back out again. Then woke up, all fucked up even more Because I swear before the procedure, the initial helicopter ride. When I was alert on the helicopter, I remember wiping my tears and I remember having like full hand function, but it is C6, c7 boundary. So who knows, maybe that was just from the extra damage that was happening from me getting up.
Speaker 3:I don't know I can kind of relate with my car accident because I remember like possibly moving my hands and like tapping my friend to call the police or to call an ambulance. So I get what you're saying. It's like this extraterrestrial world we don't know if it's real or fake.
Speaker 4:And then you fucking wake up and it's just like fuck.
Speaker 3:Why am I still here?
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's always the first initial yeah, yeah and you probably felt that oh yeah, it's always like why god, why the fuck, what the fuck did I do wrong?
Speaker 3:what was your journey? Like with therapy and like getting uh back to it was, I'd say, lifestyle, I'd say it was up and down.
Speaker 4:So, like when I first got hurt, it wasn't really a want to get back together, because as soon as I realized what limitations I had, I think it pissed me off like I don't want to do shit. Fuck this dumb ass shit. I want to do nothing. I want to sit in a fucking room, dark ass room, and listen to fucking music till my ears bleed. I think that was my initial first thought.
Speaker 3:They told me you were a dick to nurses. Yeah, me too.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it was. I mean you're young something catastrophic happens.
Speaker 3:How old were?
Speaker 4:you, I was 21.
Speaker 3:21? I was 20 when it happened.
Speaker 4:So you're just mad. So the slightest little thing that could dissatisfy you ruthless do you know which one got me the turning?
Speaker 3:when you would have to turn in the hospital with the motherfuckers, they would come in. Okay, mr gross, it's time to turn, it's time to roll you on your other side it's like fuck you bitch. I am feeling great right now. I'm finally in the middle of this movie and now you have to turn it. There's no pausing because there's no streaming fucking hospitals. And then she turns me anyways. She's like okay, well, looks like everything is good, I gotta do a job you had a ventilator as well, right?
Speaker 4:yeah, twice. Well, I'd say for the first initial, when I first got hurt, it was I didn't get off the vent initially, probably about three months, because it took so much training, basically because I fucking passed out probably half a dozen times trying to breathe on my own. Then they had to fucking open it back up, put it right back in again, do it all over again. I'm like fuck, it was just scary, it was scary.
Speaker 3:It is scary. I was explaining it the other day. It's like a paradox. Your whole life is flipped upside down and you don't know.
Speaker 4:Like Stranger things or something.
Speaker 3:You're on the other dark side of it you don't, you don't know like what to do. There's there's no like when you want to get better at something, you keep doing it. There's no like answer, which, which is one of the things I hate, I, I hate and I still that there's no like definite resolution.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, yeah, like to where you can just be up and at it again like you were younger or something how long were you in this like emo phase type? Emo phase. That's a good way to put it, because it was very dark rooms and hard drugs. Yeah, yeah, um, I'd say a solid on and off six years, about half my half my, half my injury, life for sure.
Speaker 3:Well, like, what about your journey with therapy? To like, get out of the hospital or did you stay in the hospital?
Speaker 4:Max, you know me, I stayed in the hospital cause the girls that were there until I fucking met you and you kind of like dude, you want to move out of the hospital and then, after like sitting there for four, years, so you stayed there just for the girls. Well, yeah, dude, there's nurses that are younger, caregivers that are younger, and then you're surrounded by old guys. So you got a good chance. You got a really good chance of maybe you know flinging up a little conversation but when did you like?
Speaker 3:I remember you explaining that you had to like work hard just to like eat on your own again, and so, like initially, they even move my arms yeah, uh, the best way to describe it.
Speaker 4:It literally felt, felt like somebody ripping my skin off just to move my hands and arms, because the nerve line from my damage of my spinal cord is literally right on that line. Swelling back down I shouldn't say swelling down, stop swelling and then retreating my hands and feet scabbed up with scabs. That's why I got a bunch of little slits all in my hands, all on the bottom of my feet. They had to wrap my feet in vinegar towels to try to get the scabs to go away. That was a miracle to be alive Miracle, by the way, like the initial accident. They put me on the stick unit. That was like slightly above ICU for critical condition people. You know, severe injuries and I was the only one that lived out of a room full of six people Maybe four, no, it was four. Two of them were gunshot victims, one was motorcycle and I was a four-wheeler. I was the only one that lived, uh, and they had like preachers in their praying for us and stuff.
Speaker 3:So I'm a little bit of a miracle so god is good those guys when I was pissed like I was pissed for a good three months because I couldn't eat. But I had my girlfriend at the time. I've told you this before. I had my girlfriend at the time. She was like my rock and then when she left, everything fell apart. So the one thing I wanted to focus on was therapy. So I did just a shit ton of therapy because I wanted to get out of that hospital.
Speaker 4:yeah, like that was so was was it like more motivational in a way for the therapy since she left, she was the crutch.
Speaker 3:She was a crutch for sure I think and I think, uh, if we were in different positions and I was like the man and she she, she was, she was like injured, like, and I'm 20 years old and I'm dating her, I probably would have loved to just because I'm not young, my first, my first relationship when my accident happened.
Speaker 4:I literally offered the ultimatum like fucking leave. Like I'm not going to be the same soldier you knew before, like somebody else is gonna be able to make you much happier.
Speaker 3:I tried to offer that ultimatum and but when did you start getting that mindset back that you are a soldier? You're doing a great job?
Speaker 4:I just recently, man, honestly, the past few years Just getting into, I think, a sport that is healthy and allows me to work through my thoughts.
Speaker 3:So I met you in 2016. That was seven years after your accident.
Speaker 4:Yeah. So I'd say, initially you probably motivated me to get the fuck out of the hospital. Initially, you probably motivated me to get the fuck out of the hospital Because that was where my stopping grounds were for years, because I didn't have no projection. I didn't want to do nothing, I was emo, like you said, and it was poor me. You know what was it like when we first met.
Speaker 4:What was it like Like met? What was it like? Oh my god. Oh, all right. So yeah, this is how it goes down. I, I am a seasoned veteran at the va and, uh, I've been around the block for a few years and I was kind of the go-to guy when I talked to some of the newly injured veterans. And there's a nurse that comes to me like chuck, chuck, you gotta go talk to this young soldier that just got hurt. I swear, I think you'll. You guys will hit it off, but he's really depressed, he's really sad, and I think you can go in there and cheer him up just by telling him that you're army veteran too, and I'm like yeah sure I'll go over there if I can stroll over to the other side of the hospital.
Speaker 4:It was a long track too yeah, the heinz va is a big campus. Yeah, I jive over there and, uh, I get over. I'm like like where's Max Gross? And they point at one of the rooms, right by the desk, and as soon as I even not even get all the way to the door, your windows open a little bit. I see a girl in your bed feeding you food while you were smiling. And then I get in there at the time I'm not dating you. I'm like this motherfucker ain't depressed. It's a fucking girl feeding him. I don't have no girl feeding me, fuck this guy. No, I didn't really say that part, but uh, and then when I found out you were in the fucking hundred and first two. I'm like that is so fucking ironic, you know well, I live by the spade.
Speaker 3:I'm not rakasan yeah yeah rakasan's rule.
Speaker 4:If you guys don't know, third brigade rules.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we rule the brigade does rule. And that's where we uh like had a moment, like when we first said, oh, we're 101st, like, okay, we're 101st, there's a lot of dude, there's a lot of, like you know, brigades Well, not brigades, there's a lot of battalions and stuff. And then you're like, oh, I was 3rd Brigade. I was like I was 3rd Brigade too, and then we just got into a bunch of hijinks.
Speaker 4:This man is the reason why I was able to get high the first time. Ah, they make it sound like I'm just a bad influence.
Speaker 3:Now this guy's got the stuff. Dude, I was like. I was like this is my man, okay, this motherfucker, is a daredevil and doesn't give a fuck.
Speaker 4:I mean because at the beginning of your injury you don't, you don't give no fucks Because you're like fuck, what are they going to do?
Speaker 4:But this motherfucker played that to the T and I was scared. He still does. I'm in my injury some years now and I'm like, dude, we're going to get fucking busted. Fuck them, what are they going to do? Put me in handcuffs. I'm like, no, but I'm thinking of something. Man, they're going to think of something. Put us in a fucking padded room and take our chairs from us. I don't know. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And then we like I know I always bring this up, it's such a good story Like we were just chilling in my room and, dude, like honestly, I want to say thank you for like coming to my room all the time, cause I would have been depressed. I didn't have a brother, like you know. I mean like I. I mean I had my friends that were able-bodied and I didn't have, like a person that was in a wheelchair that I like really gravitated towards, because everyone else like bitched and moaned and they were all old, because we were out of VA.
Speaker 4:God works in mysterious ways, Max.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Ironically, we were both in the fucking 101st too, which is crazy yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and then I lost. So we find this place. And this is 2016,. Okay, so you can't deliver alcohol. We find this place.
Speaker 4:To a federal facility. You get that. No, you can't deliver alcohol. We find this place To a federal facility, you get that.
Speaker 3:No, you can't deliver alcohol at all.
Speaker 4:You can't nowadays. That's what Grubhub's for. You can get booze picked up.
Speaker 3:I'm saying nowadays, yeah, nowadays, back then yeah, no, it really was. So we were like let's get Mexican food, so we go to the Mexican and then let's go down the list and like margaritas they got margaritas you can get.
Speaker 4:Don't fucking way To-go cups, extra large 40-gallon cups.
Speaker 3:So we're like you know what, you know what? Fuck it, let's give it a try, let's see if it's true. And then the food gets here. I like let me get some more.
Speaker 4:I'm fucking holding the cup over the edge of the bed. He's acting like I don't know, like he just needed a drink and he was sucking it down, and then he's like let's get another one. Yeah, I was like they might catch on if they smell booze all on your breath.
Speaker 3:We had really cool nerves when he was cool, when he really cool nerves when he was cool when she was cool.
Speaker 4:When he was cool yeah. She didn't ever try to bust our good time.
Speaker 3:One of your favorite stories is when we were in the rec room and we just got stoned.
Speaker 4:After you had that edible too.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you were with me I can't I can't remember her name. Yeah, oh yeah. When you were in there you kept hearing the baby cry. And then he's like looking around like where the fuck is there a baby? You hear fucking crying and then there's this little tiny fucking tv that's on a movie. I'm like max is from the tv and then then he was like what the fuck?
Speaker 3:one of the hard parts is is when you're young, you're stupid and I uh, let this one get away, jimmy, if you're out there listening.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, I'm just kidding, you were living, and it's crazy, though, is because when they made it sound like you needed a desperate friend and when I first met you, I was like this motherfucker is not sad, he's doing good, like I see him smiling a lot, I didn't smile at all, but I think it's because you had good company that was bumping and a good support system and you know what, like the mental fortitude to go through it, the position, obviously like I was still figuring out things, but like it is so difficult Because you go, it's like a roller coaster you have your ups and downs, your ups and downs, but then soon it's like a roller coaster you have your ups and downs, your ups and downs, but then soon it starts like stopping. You know, like maybe like the roller coaster is going to start again, but like it starts stopping. And, like you said, you found, like you've literally found peace in the last year or so, a few years, not like the.
Speaker 4:The wheelchair rugby has opened up a door that I never had there before, because I myself has been slacking in all physical fitness for almost a decade at least, and now it's making me want to stay healthy, basically Because I see older men, I see women in the sport kick fucking ass. So it pisses the younger me off like how you gonna let a fucking girl get out here and hit harder than you.
Speaker 4:So it's reawakened the fire in my soul, like your fat ass your fat ass needs to be pushing more, because if this girl is making you look like you're a little wimp, something's wrong with this team.
Speaker 3:Hey, whatever works, if spite works, whatever works.
Speaker 4:I'm just saying I'm not used to women being in a physical, very physical sport. I don't see them actually playing rugby that much. I'm sorry. How does wheelchair rugby work? If it's a contact sport.
Speaker 4:So it's these chairs that look like little chariots. Um, they're like fortified with heavy uh contact steel that you push a chair virtually really hard to possibly make the other person more crippled. Yeah, you just hit them real hard and then they get a more of a point reduction in rugby. But no, all seriousness, it is a very good exercise because you're constantly moving. It's like soccer you're just running the whole time, but with your arms, obviously, you just keep pushing. Um, it's on a basketball court. At the end there's two cones that make a goal. You got to make it through there without getting hit into the cone, basically, and you got to keep the ball on you. So you pass it around forward, backwards and then somebody can hit you to try to knock it out of your lap or, uh, just hit you in general, even if you ain't got the ball well, this is like a new love.
Speaker 4:The wheelchair, because you you've been doing wheelchair games for the past, like five, five years now five years or two-time national right no, not national national champion, not an olympian I have never played on the usa team, but I would like to have that chance one day right hopefully hopefully before the 2028 la olympics wink, wink you know that'd be cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you keep pushing me. You're like you need to do bocce ball, ramp, ramp, bocce.
Speaker 4:Bro, I'm telling you when you start playing it at first couple times, you're like all right, this is pretty fun, especially if you're kicking the shit out of somebody. It feels good. And then on top of it, if you can make the committee select you on the USA team, you can travel the fucking world and get paid for it. And if you medal you get bonuses, but they pay for all your traveling. Yeah, for bocce, but he'd have to practice quite a bit. I've seen like, because there's bocce, I'm good at bocce, but I'm not like that good. I have won two national titles. I am playing again this year in Alabama for my third. I've only competed four times in the nationals, so well, this will be my fourth. So two out of three ain't bad. Considering the first one, I got hospitalized, so I didn't, I didn't, I didn't get to even compete for that medal, so it's like I'm two for two in a way.
Speaker 3:Was it related? Was it a bocce?
Speaker 4:No, no, no, it had nothing to do with bocce, that's right. No, no, it was a dumb nurse is what it was. That's why I was hospitalized. Yeah, they went to go change my catheter and blew my urethra, jesus, because he inflated the balloon of the indwelling catheter while it wasn't all the way in my bladder and busted my urethra line.
Speaker 3:Oh my God, I almost bled out because he took it out and then blood. People don't know half of it. They don't Like, like, like, yeah, you know A lot of people with like catheters and all this. Fuck catheters, all of it.
Speaker 4:I remember like you were telling me about you have super pubic catheter and just completely ruined you for like for a solid year of torturous hell and it was performed at the heinz vaa, probably by the liola doctors. But uh, yeah, the funny part is, after the whole year of agony, instead of them suggesting at that moment like hey, do you want to do the procedure over again? No, they waited for me to take it out, saying no, I'm putting the indwelling back in because my blood pressure just never wanted to come down they were like we think we might have took the wrong approach at the surgery. But if you let us do it again, we'll get it better this time. I'm like what? You want me to take a chance again? I'm like I don't, I, I just can't, because I went through hell like that sucks what year was that?
Speaker 4:probably the year right before I met you.
Speaker 3:That was probably 2015 so you're in the hospital. You met me, I get out of the hospital. We have like Thanksgiving with our family together. We have Christmas with our family together. We watch the fucking Cubs win the World Series together on a pizza box like fucking TV.
Speaker 4:A small little 12-inch TV we're like what?
Speaker 3:No fucking way.
Speaker 4:It was lit, though for a 12-inch TV, I was cheering pretty loud, it was lit.
Speaker 3:I don't know if I had more. I think it was just you and me.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so if anybody doesn't know, I'm from Ohio, so I'm a big supporter of my home Cincinnati Reds and Buckeyes.
Speaker 4:But when I did live in Chicago for eight years, I'd never been to a professional ballpark until I went to the Cubs. And then I ended up going to another Cubs game and another Cubs game. And then I met Max and then found out he was a Cubs fan. So I was like, oh shit, this is pretty cool. I met max and then found out he was a cubs fan, so I was like, oh shit, this is pretty cool.
Speaker 4:And then the cubs kind of won me over a little bit when they, when they won the world series, considering I'd never been to a professional ballpark before then, but after a dozen games and then watching some with max when the world series, I was like the cubs are pretty good. And then the very next year they let every fucking fucking player. It was good Bye. I was like that's fucking stupid. I'm a Reds fan again.
Speaker 3:Well, I kept nagging you. I'm like, bro, I have this house, come and live with me, come and live with me. The funny part is I used.
Speaker 4:I used that nursing home to pick up women but it sucked, because I would sometimes have an old man as my roommate and I'm like, dude, ain't no girl want to come chill in this hospital bedroom with some old guy next door listening to everything I do, old guy next door listening to everything I do. And then when you suggest that I'm like that is the problem to all or that is the answer to all my problems right now, I got max telling me he's got this nice place and then when I look it up, I'm like, oh, dude, every girl's gonna want to come here now.
Speaker 3:It's like all my, all my problems are gone right now and when we got here it took a little bit to catch your bearings. Then your brother started coming and helped you. You ended up moving out and moving back to your hometown.
Speaker 4:Yeah, all over, some girl, that fucking. I shouldn't even wasted my time.
Speaker 3:She wasn't very lucky, she was not very lucky at all. Uh, she wishes to be this lucky, uh, but uh, I'm glad that did not work out for all the right reasons so something, uh, something that I kind of want to bounce off of was is uh, I'm kind of at that same way where, like I'm, I have like a schedule. I used to like sleep till like five and a half. You know, go out partying. You know this, we did this, you know like I would just do, I would live life the wrong way.
Speaker 3:And now I'm like at a point where, like I'm like, okay, I have to do this, I have to accomplish this, I have to accomplish this. And then, like, waking up early in the morning, now like it's just, uh, like I said, the roller coaster goes up and down, up and down. Right now, it's right. Right now it's like straight, it's going straight, that's not. It's not up or down, and it's been like that for like a good six months I get what you're saying.
Speaker 4:When, when I feel like there's not, I guess, a full production of me utilizing days, I could feel like that utilizing days. But when I feel good, when I when I do feel good about something that I do, then I feel like my day is up if that makes sense. So like when you're starting to about something that I do, then I feel like my day is up if that makes sense. So like when you're starting to read all that much, you don't feel good that you just fucking killed like half of a phone book or something the rise and fall.
Speaker 4:Yeah, dude that thing is huge. When you show me that on the video, I'm like that's a pretty thick ass book. Yeah, that's the book site. Or like child size, like probably 120 pages.
Speaker 3:I feel accomplished. I don't know like. I feel like, you see, you know how you see, when you're working out for rugby, like you're able to move your arms and work out, like I feel accomplished because, like, I'm like working out my brain in a way, like, and it feels like I'm doing reps. It feels like I'm on the bench press doing reps yeah, I get it and learning the knowledge and learning about my quote fucking ancestors, yeah it's funny.
Speaker 3:It's funny though the one thing that you told me that really, uh, keeps me going which I think is cool about each other is that you say I motivate you when you're upset because you're like well, max has pain in his throat, max paralyzed it's from the aspect of me shouldn't be able to bitch, considering I have more than someone else.
Speaker 4:So, yeah, uh, when when I do hit some of them, stalemate moments in my life where I'm like fuck, everything's fucked, then I have to kind of recollect and you are the motivation that's pretty much got me back into life in general, because I was emo before I met you and then I've blossomed into emo plus and then I have blossomed into emo plus.
Speaker 3:So you're like, you're not emo. Plus, bro, you're traveling the country, you're going to all these wheelchair games. You're doing all these things and I promise, I promise you, we're on a podcast, you're going to have evidence. I will go to a wheelchair game next year which is in Detroit. You said.
Speaker 4:Detroit, michigan, you should have went this year.
Speaker 3:I mean dude, I should have.
Speaker 4:Minneapolis. Minnesota is where it's going down this year.
Speaker 3:And since he is opting out of this one, he has sworn on this cameras that he will be in Detroit, I will be in detroit next year.
Speaker 4:it's like june or june, it's july, probably july maybe, sometimes beginning of august, maybe okay, but it's in detroit, so it's not as hot as new orleans, which where it was last year. That shit was fucking bacon down there every day.
Speaker 3:It was like hundreds what's your, what's your fondest memory of? Like the wheelchair games, like what? What gave you? Like made you like say like okay, this is my purpose, this is what I like to do I'd say.
Speaker 4:At first it was bouncing into other people that smoked weed while trying wheelchair sports and and I was like, all right, these people ain't such fucking douchebags and tools. I guess I'll stick around. And then I met some pretty badass and cool people along the way.
Speaker 3:Chuck, you did something that I want to do, but none of my nurses will sign up for it. You jumped out of a fucking airplane last year.
Speaker 4:Perfectly good airplane.
Speaker 3:There's no such thing as a perfectly good airplane.
Speaker 4:Yeah, dude, we didn't need to fucking jump. We were just like what else are we going to do on this nice sunny, windy it's partially windy day it wasn't too windy and we're like you know what Oscar Mike's like we'll pay for the ticket. I'm like, fuck it, I'm doing it then I ain't got no excuse. Now, my biggest fear you want to know what my biggest fear was Breaking your neck. No, no, shitting myself.
Speaker 3:Yeah, just like the airport. You want to explain that real quick.
Speaker 4:So I always tell Max like my biggest fear when I'm on any plane, let alone fucking jumping out of a perfectly good one, is shitting myself on the plane. The reason is because if you're fucking a quad, you got to get transferred in and out of your seat with some assistance, and if you were to defecate on the plane and then had to get somebody to transfer you to an aisle chair to get off the plane, you're just going to have shit dripping from the plane all the way down the tunnel, all the way out the gate and then transfer into your actual chair so that you can go clean yourself up, tracking more shit all throughout the airport. So if that was to happen, just tell the pilot it's okay to send this one down kamikaze. Nobody needs to know about this. Don't want to live through it now. Yeah. Yeah it is my joke, but I'm kind of serious I would be terrified of that too.
Speaker 3:Like fuck, like, I'm just like a looking guy everybody else.
Speaker 4:They got a fucking bathroom they can go to on the damn airplane, but not somebody that can't fucking walk to the damn bathroom.
Speaker 3:Can you imagine the guy working that day just like?
Speaker 4:fuck my wife dude God damn.
Speaker 3:There's a lot of fucking shit all over the damn plane and I have to pick him up because the liability it's going to get on my sleeves.
Speaker 4:They probably would. Honestly. They probably would just close the plane down, like we're going to have to move planes because it's going to take too long to fucking clean up You'd probably play a big dick in our business.
Speaker 3:Can you imagine the smell? Yeah, that's what I was saying they probably would like.
Speaker 4:No, we can't do it because somebody's going to get on here like dude.
Speaker 3:I'm not riding in a plane that smells like shit and go ask for their fucking refund. It seems like you're living life to the max and that's what I wanted to get you on, because you have that motto.
Speaker 4:Now I can live it. Living life to the max.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you're doing it. Like I said, you're traveling and you found a purpose, which is good.
Speaker 4:Besides smoking weed, because I know that's your favorite thing to do. I mean it's the best medicine out there. I mean I can say I take a lot of pharmaceuticals. They don't take care of most of my problems, but Mary Jane does.
Speaker 3:They want to eat this event. When it comes out, I'll smoke weed all day.
Speaker 4:I'm going to hold you to that.
Speaker 3:Hold you I can't do it right now. It hurts too much I don't blame you.
Speaker 3:That's the worst, but we have different, uh difficulties in our lives but we still have like different strengths as well. Like you're, you're like you give me strength, I give you strength. That's why we're like best friends and I wanted to get you on the podcast one on one with me. I just wanted to get people to get a background definitely your like your background growing up in a foster, foster system, like I couldn't imagine doing that. I almost had to grow up in a foster system, which I was very scared of. I did. I did foster system, which I was very scared of.
Speaker 3:I didn't, it's okay, and I was infantry and you were.
Speaker 4:That's cavalry. That's better. Cavalry sneaks around infantry or just dumb brutes right. Smarter right.
Speaker 3:It was great having you on. I'm happy that you decided to stay. I'm sorry Evie killed you.
Speaker 4:I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. That was planned, wasn't it? Oh no, let's see if this motherfucker thinks he's fatter. I seriously thought I broke the bed. I'm like holy shit, dude. I've been working out how the fuck I put the box spring upside down in the guest room and fell.
Speaker 3:She went to art school.
Speaker 4:I went to art school.
Speaker 3:She went to art school.
Speaker 4:She doesn't know how boxes work. She knows how to draw them. Well. Max, I'm sorry, chuck. You're good, Max. It's always a pleasure seeing you, bro, you're the one that helped me get out of my shell, so I can only try to help push some of that energy you gave me back on you every now and then.
Speaker 3:My house is always open to you. Hopefully one day we'll get a house together like we talk about. I'm pretty sure we'll do that one day. Tennessee, yes, tennessee, tennessee, yes, tennessee, yes, tennessee. I don't know about.
Speaker 4:Nashville, because Nashville is so expatriate.
Speaker 3:It used to be nice.
Speaker 4:Even though Nashville is nice. But I wouldn't want to live right by Nashville.
Speaker 3:Like Smoky Mountains Backside of a mountain.
Speaker 4:I don't know if I want to be all the way at the top, just somewhere near or close to a mountain.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, because you don't want your wheelchair to roll off.
Speaker 4:Yeah, because you got to make sure you got good brakes. Do you have anything to say to the people. Live every day like it's your last and live life to the max.
Speaker 3:It's beautiful. Well, for anybody that is listening, we are going to be at the Abilities Expo on June 20th to the 22nd of 2025, if you're listening to this, like three years later, it's 2025. It's a good point 're gonna be at the expo and have a booth and everything. You guys can share your story as well, and if you enjoyed this content, please like and subscribe. Go check out our instagram and fucking live life to the max, like this guy said.
Speaker 4:Subscribe and action oh're gonna do that soon. And action, and cut, oh and cut. Yeah, I do it with one of those words.