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A Contagious Smile Podcast
A Contagious Smile is a powerful platform dedicated to uplifting and empowering special needs families and survivors of domestic violence. Through heartfelt stories, we shine a light on the journeys of extraordinary individuals who have overcome unimaginable challenges. Their triumphs serve as a testament to resilience and strength, inspiring others to rediscover their own inner light. Each episode features candid interviews with survivors, advocates, and experts who provide valuable resources and insights to support those on their own paths to healing and empowerment. Join us as we celebrate the power of resilience, the beauty of shared stories, and the unstoppable spirit of those who turn adversity into hope. Let us guide you in rekindling your spirit, because every smile tells a story of courage and transformation.
A Contagious Smile Podcast
She's Lost Everything But Her Smile, And She's Using It To Help Others TRIGGER WARNING
"You're not your diagnosis, you're not your condition." These powerful words come from Victoria, founder of A Contagious Smile and survivor of extreme domestic violence that has left her with titanium throughout her body, one arm amputated, and now facing complete deafness.
Victoria's story isn't just about survival—it's about transformation. After enduring over 100 surgeries resulting from brutal abuse during her pregnancy 19 years ago, she channeled her trauma into creating a platform that advocates for special needs families and domestic violence survivors. Despite ongoing medical interventions that would break most people's spirit, Victoria refuses to succumb to bitterness or self-pity. Instead, she asks the profound question: "How much more do I have to give?" not as a complaint, but as a testament to her resilience.
The newly launched Contagious Smile Academy represents the culmination of Victoria's mission—providing affordable and often free resources to those navigating similar challenges. With specialized tracks for special needs children (the "Stucco Squad"), parents seeking advocacy tools, abuse survivors, veterans, and even social media training, the academy embodies Victoria's belief that "healing shouldn't come with a price tag." Every $5 donation provides a scholarship for someone who desperately needs these resources.
What makes Victoria's message so compelling is her authenticity. She doesn't sugarcoat the physical and emotional toll of her journey, yet she maintains her sense of humor, asking her surgeon to install "USB ports" so she could charge her many prosthetic devices. Her greatest fear isn't losing more physical abilities—it's losing her family. This perspective shift challenges us all to consider: what truly matters in life when everything else is stripped away?
Join us for our upcoming webinar featuring remarkable speakers who've overcome incredible adversity, or visit acontagioussmile.mn.co to explore the academy and support our mission. Because as Victoria reminds us, we're not promised tomorrow, but we can choose how we spend today—and transforming pain into purpose is the most contagious smile of all.
howdy y'all. This is michael from a contagious smile, unstoppable. I'm here with victoria and this, this short segment may be, may be short, may be long, I don't know, but it's um, I'm gonna let my wife vent. Okay, she has every god-given right to vent, uh, because of the hell that she's been through, the hell that people have put her through. So, if y'all know anything about my wife, she started this business a contagious smile, advocating for special needs families and domestic violence survivors approximately 19 years ago, when she suffered under an abuser for approximately eight months thereabouts and very abusive, very aggressive, did so so much damage to my wife that 20 years later, she is still getting treatment, surgeries from the trauma that she suffered. Uh, y'all, get on amazon and research. Look up my wife's name, victoria cure, and go grab her book who kicked first? It will tell you an in-depth story of what she went through and how she survived and why. Okay, um, it really, it really puts a lot of pieces into place. Uh, if you're not familiar, if you haven't been following along with a contagious smile, um, on facebook or any of the social medias or just our podcast.
Speaker 1:So, needless to say, my wife went through hell during her pregnancy with our daughter, our beautiful daughter, and she, if you ever ask why, why did she stay? Why did she put up with this shit love? Okay, it was. It was her love for our daughter, okay. So I'm gonna let her vent. Okay, I'm she.
Speaker 1:She got some bad news. Um, here today. We've had worse news before, but you before. But it just keeps adding up, it keeps piling up and you got to wonder when does it stop, when does it end? Our daughter said it one time how much more do I have to give Our daughter? Our 18-year-old daughter said this while she was going through major surgery. For the five weeks we were in the hospital, how much more do I have to give? They took most of her lower intestines, they took her gallbladder, they took half her stomach. They did a hysterectomy. She has a scar from growing up to the middle of her chest and she was on on the ventilator, the life support and dialysis. So many tubes and pumps. And you know you have two poles holding so many pumps. You know that that's, it's much.
Speaker 1:So she, she stated you know how much more can I give? And you know my wife's got to be screaming this, she's got to be. How much more do I have to give? Why is it me? Okay, now you can, you know, quote the Bible and say all the time that you know God doesn't give you more than he knows you cannot handle. And you can reference joe, but you know, this is, this is home for me, folks. This is not something I read about on the news, it's not something I hear on the radio. This is home. This is my wife, my daughter, my family, my wife's just sitting here staring at me. So go ahead.
Speaker 1:I'm trying not to let the pollen get to me, y'all, but this is hard. She's already lost an arm. You know she has titanium jaw because of this son of a bitch Jaws. She had her shoulder replaced her hip and then we had to amputate her left arm because of all this, you know. And she was a master of sign language. I don't know what you call it, but whatever, she had a master's in sign language and now she's almost 100 deaf in both her ears. She's 100 deaf in one ear and 80 to 95 in the other ear, and it's just. You know, how much more does she have to give? Y'all? I don't know what we're gonna do if she goes completely deaf and I can't sign. I'm just a dumb redneck and my wife's gonna try to sign one-handed and then our daughter can sign, but I don't know y'all she. I'm gonna let her vent, I think, because I'm done.
Speaker 2:You're not done. You're not done.
Speaker 1:Here's the lovely Victoria.
Speaker 2:It's not so lovely. It's not so lovely. You know, my biggest fear is not what else can they take from me now, it is the loss of you and my daughter, because I wanted to give up, I wanted to die back then. But then I feel these little kicks that remind me that I'm not alone. And I felt so selfish because I just didn't want to do it anymore and I used to emulate this feeling where I would run my hand on my face like you do, and I could never get that feeling to come back the way that it came when you would do it Like it was. I couldn't authenticate it and I kept saying if I do this and I give up, I'll never see you again. And that was a huge fear. And I made a deal with the devil. I what I did. I said if you don't hurt her, I won't fight you back.
Speaker 2:Because one of the very first things you learn in any martial art training is to de-escalate a situation. And when someone is straddling over you in the middle of the night, punching you in the face, calling you every nasty name in the book because they're thirsty and they're waking you up to go, have you go, get them something you know you can't de-escalate right then and there. So it's hard when your own biological DNA pending family say why would you stay? Why didn't you leave? I would never let this happen to me. How could you let this happen? That's a hard one to swallow as well, and the one thing I refused to allow is to allow all of the negativity and all of the, the, the breaking that it's caused to literally turn me into one of them, and I can't tell you that it's not hard, because it would be so much easier just to throw my hands up and say I don't care anymore. But then they win and I will not give them that much power. I won't do it.
Speaker 2:When I look at you and I look at our daughter, I can't fathom doing that, because everything I've wanted since I was a little girl is is in our home now. I knew the day I met you that you were my soulmate. I have never wavered away from that. I knew I wanted to be a mom even when you and I first dated 25 it, and to literally be told it was not this year, last year, on an OR table, that my surgeon came in and said what's your new year's resolution? And I said to stay off an OR table and he gently put his hand on my shoulder and said why don't you make a new year's resolution you can obtain?
Speaker 2:That was really hard because and to clarify my husband can contest to this is that when I go in for surgery, I don't do verset, I don't do anything for anxiety prior to being taken back, and I go into the OR and I personally thank every single person in the room for being there and ask them to take care of me so that I can get back to my family. And my husband will tell you I came home from my amputation the same day. Yes, they kept me longer in post-op, but I came home the same day when both my jaws were replaced. It was a. I came home the same day when both my jaws were replaced. It was a. It was from morning to late night surgery and I came home the same day. And any of my surgeries which is well over a hundred I've never taken a single pain medication.
Speaker 2:And my husband's asked me you know, please, I can't stand seeing you sit here in this much pain. And I told him no because I have a child who depends on me and needs me in my medical training at the blink of an eye. And I refused. Not only that, but after a hundred plus surgeries I would be in a very different place if I was always taking pain medication and I need to be ready at any moment to help her. And I can't do that if I'm under the influence, so my husband constantly would be. You know I'm right here. I mean right or wrong. I would never yes.
Speaker 2:I would never take anything and I would sit up all night with just so much pain. You know, like when I was stabbed over a dozen times, and the mockery of it is, we had someone the other day say, oh, I stabbed my finger cutting a bagel and I had to get three or four stitches. And I was like, oh, I had 400 stitches when I was stabbed and I did it without anything because I didn't want to affect the baby, I didn't want it to affect Faith. And this was the same person who told me you shouldn't have stayed, you deserved it, we knew about it, but we didn't it. But we didn't offer you refuge. We didn't offer you refuge, we didn't offer to pull you out.
Speaker 2:Well, lately and I want to apologize to all of our listeners and I haven't really been vocal about it lately or really said anything to anyone my speech is becoming affected and I had a long talk with a very special surgeon today that works with head trauma. He does surgeries that a lot of surgeons won't touch because of the traumatic injury to the skull and the brain and I asked him. I said I specifically know I said one specific name last night and multiple people said that's not what I said and I know what I said. I'm pretty sure I know what I said and everybody's like no, that's, that's not what you said and I'm messing up. I have a wonderful person who was just on the other day and I messed up his last name. I heard it different so I repeated it different and I had to apologize and I opened up and explained why I Kurt Wagner I just did it again it's Kurt Warner was and is an amazing human being who has overcome so very much. And he wrote me back and said I'm so sorry, but my last name is Warner. And you said Wagner and I said oh my God, I'm so sorry and he is doing the webinar this Sunday. But I explained why.
Speaker 2:And when I was on the phone with my surgeon today, um, I told him what I was doing and he said that that is a hundred percent expected and normal that you might hear blue and you might. Somebody might say blue and you hear clue. Um, I read lips. I, I do that. I always tell people because I don't want to make them uncomfortable. It's like why is she staring at my mouth? I cannot wear my hearing aids right now because it throws off my equilibrium because of the impact of the other side. But for the surgeon who really did go above and beyond today to say to me the you know, we just looked at all these. I have to have special imaging because my whole body is metal. And you say God doesn't give you more than you can handle. Well, that's probably why I've had two spinal surgeries and I have titanium in my spine now. Ha ha ha. Right, I have to make light of everything. I think I would be very upset if I didn't but you should be upset.
Speaker 2:I am upset, but I'm not going to go into a depression. I tell women all the time that I talk with you are not depressed. Here's the difference. You lose someone you love, right, you're very sad over the loss of a loved one. That doesn't mean you're going through depression. It's a situational situation. You know thing. It's like if when I lost my golden retriever that I had growing up, I was devastated, I was sad, I was angry. It doesn't mean I was depressed. It means I was going through a time which of genuine sadness and despair because I lost someone who meant the world to me. Right, that doesn't mean that I'm depressed and nowadays everybody's like oh, you have a mental health issue, oh, here's pills, you know, and that's not it. You have a bad day, somebody cuts you off. You have the right to be angry. That doesn't mean that you have anger issues and doesn't mean you need to go to anger management, right, it's situational and that's the difference.
Speaker 2:So he explained to me that he can't fathom how hard the impact had to constantly be for me to have ruptured my eardrums so badly that we've even done surgery to replace the eardrums and those have failed, that the inside is shattered so badly that we are in the process of scheduling what's called a state stitch down and they take out the eardrum and all of the stuff inside. It's kind of like looking at a piece of art on a wall. You look at it you're like, oh okay, it's there but it really has no function. And so my ear will be basically a piece of art on a very scarred face that has no function. And just like when I got amputated or I was told I was getting my arm amputated the very first thought I had was fear that my husband would leave me arm amputated the very first thought I had was fear that my husband would leave me.
Speaker 2:Never, that was. My huge fear was you were gonna leave me. Why would you want somebody who is this disabled person and I don't believe in the word disabled, I don't believe in the word disability because there's nothing we can't do. We just do it different. Right, I can tie my shoes, I can open a pill bottle, I can open a bottle. I just do it differently. We all do it differently. And but that's not my fear.
Speaker 2:My fear was not losing my arm, it was losing my family. And it's hard, it's tough, and if I gave up and quit now, I would be no different than I was 19 years ago. And I've done no healing, really in a way because I want to be there for others so that they're not going to go through what I went through by myself, you know. And then I went to the grocery store and I wanted to walk around because I thought, okay, if I'm walking around the store and I have faith with me will be good. And I saw the cutest little girl and she had down syndrome and she's so beautiful and I was like, okay, I get it, I see my sign. And I looked at her and I was like she was with her mom. Her mom was on the phone, not paying or paying attention to her. She had to be like three and I was like you are gorgeous and I love your dress. And she tried to tell me thank you, and I was like that dress is beautiful, but I think you make it beautiful. And her mom just lit up and I was like you are so adorable and it was just. It's what I do. I don't even think about it. I always do this right and I always, just one time a day, say something nice to somebody Because it doesn't cost you a thing but it makes their day. You don't know what they're going through. You don't know if that little girl just came back from a pediatric, neurologist or whatever the case may be, or maybe on the way. You don't know. I mean, nobody knew that. You know I had this appointment, but to see that little girl smile was just so life's changing for that moment.
Speaker 2:And you know, you go through and you realize, like people in my life and I've heard this so often they they walk in, they say, oh, okay, well, what can she do for me? And then they tail it out, and it has happened so more many times that I even want to admit and it sucks, and you know what I'd rather you do it to me a hundred times over and then do it to my girl or my husband um, because I have the thicker skin, I can take it, but to. To do it to my girl or my husband um, because I have the thicker skin, I can take it. But to to do it to my family is unforgivable, and it I mean it even happened yesterday again by someone that I thought of as a friend and it was what can you do for me? And then to hell with you.
Speaker 2:And the thing is is that and I'm not patting myself on the on the back, and I know my husband will will agree when I say that but it's like I found out that if I'm driving my vehicle and my daughter's sitting beside me, I can't hear her talk to me. I can't hear her if the air conditioner's on. I can't hear her. If the music is is on. I can't hear her if the music is on. And I already went two and a half years without hearing her because she had a tracheostomy when she was little to save her life and I want every word, I want every sentence, I want every sound.
Speaker 2:And to be driving and not be able to even hear her when she's talking to me, then people are so shallow that they are mad that they want you to give and give and give. And then to hell with you when you realize that it's not a two-way street, that they're not true friends and they don't need you anymore. But the minute they do, they're going to come back. They won't apologize for reentering, they're just going to say they need something and then they'll do it again and again. And what really gets me is, while all this is going on, I mean you won't hear me say I can't. My husband will tell you.
Speaker 2:I've never laid in the bed all day and just said you know, I'm not doing it anymore, I quit, I'm just going to give up, not whatever. But I come home from surgery and I go right back to work. I'll stay up till 12 or 1 o'clock in the morning and I'm working. And then I get text messages 1, 2 o'clock in the morning and I'm answering them. And then I'm posting at 4 in the morning, five in the morning, six in the morning, and I never tell anybody. Hey, I need a day, right, I don't have a day off in the week, I don't. I work seven days a week. I don't ask anybody for a day off. I've been to court to help families when I'm one day post-op and I have a temporary device, like tape, to my back which I'm allergic to the the tape. And I'm literally in court testifying for the safety and security of kids. But nobody ever hears me complain, because I'm here for a reason and I know what my purpose is.
Speaker 2:The reason that we're talking about this is because on sunday we're doing a webinar and the webinar has some of the most amazing human beings talking about their stories and what they have done. And these are amazing people. And we're doing this because we have launched a Contagious Smile Academy and you can go to A Contagious Smile, so A-C-O-N-T-A-G-I-O-U-S-S-M-I-L-E, dot M, as in Mary and as in Nancy, dot com, dot C-O. So A Contagious Smile, dot M-N, dot C-O. And you can go and explore and look. We have well over 100 different classes. They're very low cost if not free. They're very low cost if not free, and these are classes that I've had evaluated that are worth anywhere from $99 to $599. And they cover any and everyone, whether you're a special needs kiddo. And we have our stucco squad that talk all about how amazing and beautiful you are and even if, like you can't go outside, we have a course about making the best for the inside and having an amazing summer inside. Um courses about self-esteem, self-worth, bullying, you name it, it's there. Then we have stuff for mamas and daddies of special needs kids and how they can, you know, have help.
Speaker 2:I am an advocate. I'm also an ie advocate. I've written a book that I've turned into a course about the IEP armor and it gives details that nobody else knows about going in there and your rights and what they don't want you to know. And also we have the Limitless Recovery Tribe, which is for anyone going through any type of recovery. My husband and I are both in recovery from abuse. People don't think that's recovery, but it absolutely is. There's things in there. There's things in there for people who have CRPS. There's things in there for people who have STEM routers and things like that.
Speaker 2:I believe laughter is the best medicine and when you go to the doctor that's why it's called practice you know you're practicing medicine, but laughter is the best, and so I have courses in there called my Butt is on Bluetooth and there's courses in there that are just downright freaking, stupid funny, that are going to make you laugh and make you forget everything else. Like the surgeon, I asked him to put in a USB port so that I could just charge on my body parts, and I told him, you know, as I get older, I'm literally just going to need a WD-40 wash because and I did ask him, I said so when I say my birthday, should I say I'm really only like 10, because all my body parts are new, right, and it's just you. You have to put a smile on your face about it. But the webinar, you know the tickets are free. You can come in there and and get some advice you would never get anywhere else. They we do have it, for you can either get free tickets or tickets for five dollars, and that five dollars goes to provide a scholarship for anybody. We even have the veteran circle for active and retired veterans and these classes are amazing.
Speaker 2:We have the safe haven Phoenix center for anybody recovering in abuse, and then we have our social media, which is how we went from zero to millions of followers from years of training and courses and classes and I'm our marketing team. We don't have anybody else. We do this in our tiny office. My husband and I've never taken a paycheck. We've been doing this all on our own. But these scholarships are there to help provide. So if somebody reaches out to me and says I can't pay, that's all they have to say and I'm going to make sure they get the classes they need. But it costs a lot for us to keep afloat the platforms and running all of it and adding in new material, and I tried to add a course a week, but it seems as if I'm doing that a day Because I just enjoy knowing that I'm putting a smile on someone else's face, which is how a contagious smile started, because myself and Faith are cranial facial kiddos now and every smile is different and I'll tell stories, and so it's tough.
Speaker 2:It's really tough. You can go to Eventbrite and you can also also look on our website and you can look on social media and you can join us. And if you can't join us, then go to a contagious smilecom and in the right corner it says buy me a coffee. I'm going to change that here soon to provide a scholarship, but right now it's buy me a coffee and when you click on it, it's called Transformative and it shows you how you're helping.
Speaker 2:I mean, look at the statistics y'all. It's one in four women. So if you are a woman yourself, you have a daughter, you have a sister and you have a mom, one in four are going to go through some type of abuse in their life, and nobody should have to endure this alone no one. And when they feel they have no one, we're going to make sure they don't feel that. And then you don't know tomorrow. I mean, I had no idea. One day I had my arm and the next day I didn't. And I had my hearing and the next day I didn't. And it's literally like you don't know what's coming. And it's $5, and not even a Happy Meal is affordable at $5 anymore. Everything is so much more money than that and we have set it up where literally $5 will cover a course for someone who desperately needs it.
Speaker 2:And that's what we're trying to do. We're not trying to get rich on this and get a mansion or anything like that. We're very subtle. We're just country folk in a little country home with our family and dogs and doing this out of our office, and we just want to pay it forward and help others and that's what we try to do, and it's as raw as it gets. We are as raw as it gets and I want people to see that they're not alone. I mean literally. I sat there today and thought about it. If you take a calendar that has 365 days in it and you average out, I've had a surgery literally on average every three days. If you think about it that way, when I look at memories on Facebook that come up, I've almost to the point stopped, because it always says please pray for my husband and child while I'm going back into the OR again. And it's almost daily that I see that for one year or another year or another year, and it's constant and I'm honored and thrilled that it's me because I don't want my husband or daughter to go through it. But we shouldn't have to go through it at all, especially when these pieces of shit are walking around without a scratch or mark on them.
Speaker 2:I have never sought, you know, revenge on him. It's not mine to give. I mean, I am human, I'd like to hear about it. I'm not, I'll own what I do. I'm not trying to say I, I don't, I don't know any woman that wouldn't. I'd like to hear it, but I will not be a party of it. I won't be. Um, you know I've testified in court that I would never seek him out or go to his place of residency or his place of employment, and I won't. I won't because he doesn't hold that power over me and I'll never let him have it well, I would like a little john wick revenge well, I don't want any more time of my life without you in it yeah, but y'all, I wanted us to come on and do this.
Speaker 1:I figured it'd be kind of quick, but I have diarrhea in the mouth. I know, you see, that this, this, this woman, this warrior, she's been in the trenches y'all. She's a strong survivor. She knows what she's talking about because she's been there.
Speaker 1:Okay, I don't know, maybe you're there now, maybe you just got out of it, I don't know your situation, but she has every right to be furious, to be fuming, mad, to go into depression, to start popping pills, to drink her life away, but she doesn't. She doesn't. She has a greater purpose. She has a big, big fat heart, and that's not a fat joke, but she's got a big heart. She loves me, our daughter, our dog, and she loves dogs it's plural. She loves helping others. So if anyone, if anyone out there, ever thought that she was a fraud or a fake or a phony man, you're wrong, wrong. This is the real deal and we're not throwing a pity party for her, but dang it y'all. She has. She has a right to, to vent. Okay, I'm sure y'all, y'all have done the same thing. You know you. You went into the closet and screamed your head off, and you know why me, why me well, I, I just want to say I didn't necessarily want to vent per se.
Speaker 2:It's the fact that I want people who are unfortunately and I wish that they weren't going through anything to realize they're not alone. I mean, they're not alone, you know, and I'm so sorry for every single thing that you're going through. One hit, one punch, one kicks, one too many. It's not acceptable. It's not a contest as to oh, I can't talk to her. She's been hit hundreds of times. Right, that's, it's not the same, I don't care, it's one, it's one too many.
Speaker 2:Nobody should put their hands on you in an unwarranted manner. Or to the, the special needs parent that sits there and wants answers and gets five minutes with the doctor, and I know, and my husband knows, that other 23 hours and 55 minutes is nothing less than hell. It absolutely is absolute sheer hell. And the doctor goes to their golf game and goes to their five-star restaurants and goes home to their family, and good for them, but they don't know what it's like. They don't, you know. And to a lot of them that's a patient, a case, and they'll say you know, tell us this case, tell us what the you know. And it's not. That's my daughter, that's my, you know that's your son no-transcript. Or to a parent of a special needs child who is people don't understand. I mean you have parking that's like 14 $15 a time and then you have, you know, co-pays at doctors and then you have medications and there's so many medications that a lot of kids have to go on. And you know if you have a feeding tube, there's feeding supplies and how we do it and you have to have your temperature of your home a certain way. And then if you have a tracheostomy or you have kids with grandma seizures and you have to implement all the safety protocols and all of the other factors and you have to have an emergency bag everywhere you go and and you know, you always live on that high alert, ready to go adrenaline, because you feel like if you bring yourself down and something happens you'll blame yourself. Then you don't have that extra money to get the help that you deserve. Not, you need you and healing shouldn't come with a price tag. It just shouldn't. It's not fair.
Speaker 2:The people who make the money are out there, you know, driving their expensive cars. I mean, we're just simple folk down here. If people knew economically where I used to be and where I used to come from. I'm not that person. Even then I wasn't that person. I was like the black sheep in every possible scenario. But we're asking people just even for a cup of coffee, a $5 donation because, if God forbid, you came to me and said, hey, I need help, you're going to get it. It's no questions asked. I'm not going to humiliate you and say show me proof or anything like that.
Speaker 2:The courses are there to help and to provide. And then we have resource library in there. It's free to join. Come in there and look. I don't think I've met a single person that there's not something in there for right. I mean, if you're someone who wants to learn how to podcast or you want to learn how to grow your following, there's courses in there for that. Now, they're not as cheap as $4.99, but you go online anywhere and they are hundreds of dollars a piece and we don't have a single course anywhere near that cost.
Speaker 2:And the thing is is that we've done it ourselves. I mean, we can show our numbers. You know, we are globally ranked. We have gotten three global awards, three global awards just this month. And it's because we're real, we're authentic, we are what you see and some people can't manage that and that is not on us and you know it would be so much easier just to be cold and shallow and put up a wall and to hell with everyone else. But then to me it makes me no different than them and I can't be that person and I don't want my daughter to see that person and she damn sure doesn't deserve that person.
Speaker 1:Right. I want to thank you for sharing, being very open with the listeners thank you for your pollen there was a little pollen in the room.
Speaker 2:Well, how is it for you as a spouse, because I think a lot of people would want to know um you're not skirting that you know typical male? No, you are not a typical male. Dig a hole. You already have one built you know and run an iv. You know this is recorded. Okay.
Speaker 1:How do you feel going through and seeing time after time that's what I'm talking about like don't do anything incriminating, I'm not the fact that you're losing more now because of the past and what happened to you and what was allowed to happen, um, it, you know it. It makes me love you more because I'm going to be here with you through the whole thing. Whether they have the surgery, whether they they whatever, take down your ear and you're 100% deaf in there, and then the other ear you can barely hear out of, in there, and then the other ear you can barely hear out of and you have one arm and you, you, you can halfway sign and I can't sign it all. And then you know excuse me, the the problem with the speech I'm still going to be here. We have an amazing daughter.
Speaker 2:She's going to help me, so well, they are saying I need cochlear implants and of course my insurance doesn't cover it yeah, they're like 300 grand just for the the surgery and the device. Yeah, and the warranty lasts only five years on the on the device and it's another prosthetic device implanted, like I don't have enough and yeah, I just had to charge her up literally last night. Yeah, my back has to be charged.
Speaker 1:Excuse me, I have this, this disc that I place on her on her skin. Uh well, she wears her pajamas, so I place on the outside of her pajamas and and it charges her stem router.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but then you have to hook up the hearing aids and then you have to hook up like this.
Speaker 1:It's crazy, you know, my wife's becoming an iPhone or something now.
Speaker 2:I think I've surpassed that. I do. I mean it's crazy, it is.
Speaker 1:Anyway, y'all keep following, keep listening, keep sharing and um please support you know the webinar.
Speaker 2:It's it literally and you know what? There's so many things out there. Right now we have a camp stucco squad, which is my service dog, stucco, and my beautiful sweet baby, uh, golden retriever. He's red, he is just amazing. And there's all these amazing fun courses and all of the courses have bonus things behind them where you could see fun things that most people don't think about doing, because we've been through it.
Speaker 2:Between my daughter and I I think we've had every specialist, literally, and it's kind of a running joke that if you take a picture of the human body, of the skeleton, there's not an area of it that I have not had surgery on and you go through it and you look at that and it's just like we get it and if we can bring just one smile, one laughter, one moment where they are no longer consumed with their diagnosis, because you're not your diagnosis, you are not your condition, and for a moment, if you're like right now, I felt like everything was just on top of me again and you go in there to one of the classes and you pull up my butt is on Bluetooth, you know, and it talks about how you know I should be getting free HBO with this or something of that nature, and it just makes you laugh for a second. That second, you forget that you're not a diagnosis, that you're not a condition, because you're not either one. And you are so much stronger than you think and that's the one thing that we really don't give ourself enough credit for is our strength, and especially mamas of these kiddos. These kiddos are my inspiration. When I see their strength and the just tenacity of them, it just makes me want to look at people who are so judgmental about things. And now, everywhere you go, people like what is wrong with people? You just want to look at people and say what is wrong with you. You know, and we won't say where.
Speaker 2:But last night we had dinner at a restaurant and the guy made a comment about my disability. And I was just dumbfounded that somebody would just so free and clearly make a comment about I don't see me as a disabled, I just do things different. And for him to have looked at me and make a comment of my disability was just absolutely uncalled for. And I said well, you know, that kind of warrants is a bad review. And he was like, oh, it's not the first time I've had one, I'll just lie about it like I do on the others. And you know I thought about he had to be the owner's kid or something he has to be.
Speaker 1:But I mean.
Speaker 2:I mean just, it just dumbfounds me how some people you know, like I grew up with, like the grandparents mentality, where it was, I'll hold a door open and wait and make everybody mad along the way, but I'm going to hold that door open for that person who's older, coming through. And it's yes, sir, yes, ma'am, and you don't have to say that. You don't have to say it, yes, I do. You know, I tell people all the time. You know my grandparents would get me from up there if I showed disrespect down here. And that's the truth.
Speaker 2:And what the hell has happened? People don't even care anymore. They sit at a table. You go to a restaurant, look around. Nobody's talking to each other. Everybody's eye deep down in their phone.
Speaker 2:You know, if you wanted to have a conversation with whomever is on the other end of that phone, invite them to freaking dinner, right? You're sitting there at dinner. You've gone out. You're spending your hard-earned money with the people that are supposed to be your frontline and you're not even speaking to them, right? You don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. You're not promised tomorrow, but you know what, in five years, is that person that you were chatting with? Are they even going to be around. Are you going to remember it? Here's the thing Ask yourself if whatever is consuming you in a negative way, is it going to be around in a month, in six months, in a year? Is it going to be worth the consumption of your everything at this point in time? Because it really isn't. It's not worth it. Please participate in the webinar, check it out, support it, share it, so that we can keep doing what we're doing.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna let my husband take us out because he he's just giving me this look and don't forget y'all go find out um about victoria and the hell that she went through getting her first book off amazon who kicked first by victoria cure. I want to thank y'all for having patience and listening to me and you know, listening to my wife she's very real. You know she's very raw and she's got the biggest heart. But I wanted to let her come on here and do this so you can send us comments, questions, but thank y'all for listening to A Contagious Smile Signing off.
