Check Yourself - With Guest Matt Sellers

Have you ever wondered about the courage it takes for a firefighter to step into danger every day? Now, imagine that same bravery but in a fight against a rare form of cancer. That's the story of Matt Sellers, a firefighter from Concord, North Carolina, who shares his personal battle with T Cell Lymphoma. From the initial symptoms to the joyous moment of returning to work, Matt's journey is one of resilience, perseverance, and the power of a supportive community.

Matt's story isn’t just about his personal recovery – it's a tale of the profound impact of the support he received from his wife, his friends, and the fire family during his struggle. These were the lifelines that kept him going during his hospital stay and the challenging process of recovery. Discover how Matt's experience emphasizes the power of positivity and the importance of seeking out the support of clinicians and family when life throws a curveball.

But, part of our journey with Matt isn’t just about his past – it’s also about the future. We uncover the importance of cancer prevention, the need for tracking exposures, and the significance of maintaining clean equipment. Moreover, we learn about the potential link between job-related issues and cancer diagnoses. As we wrap up our conversation, we express our gratitude to you, our listeners. You are the reason we bring these inspiring stories to light. So, don’t forget to subscribe, write reviews, and leave comments. Get ready to be empowered by Matt's story.

Matt Sellers is a Captain with Concord Fire Department, Board Member of the North Carolina Firefighter Cancer Alliance, and all around good guy!  Matt is a T-Cell Lymphoma Survivor and is peer support leader for the NCFCA. 

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

This is All Clear. the Firefighter Health and Wellness Podcast, episode 6. Check yourself with guest Matt Sellers. I'm Travis co-host, eric, and we have a guest today. We have Matt Sellers, from the Concord Fire Department and also board member of the North Carolina Firefighter Cancer Alliance, and we are in a fire station, so you're probably going to hear stuff in the background. So, to share that, we don't pre-record. So, eric, how are you doing today? I don't mean to ignore you.

Speaker 2: 0:31

We're doing good man.

Speaker 1: 0:32

Yeah, excellent. How about you, Matt? How are you doing today? I'm doing great. Thanks for having me Excellent. Well, it's good to have you here. Matt is a friend of the podcast and a friend of all of us personally. So what we were hoping to do today is, matt, if you're willing, maybe you could tell us a little bit about your story and relationship you have to, what we're doing with our peer support, the cancer alliance, and how we've worked with Eric and all that good stuff, and kind of where you're at right now. Sure, i'd love to.

Speaker 3: 1:09

So, yeah, it's kind of a long story and I'll try to narrate it down as much as I can not to bore you too much. In 2011, i was diagnosed with a very rare type of T cell lymphoma, and there's two types of lymphoma There's B cell and T cell, and T cell is more obscure than B cell. B cell is the more common lymphoma And, of course, i was lucky enough to get the rare kind and the kind that I had, the lymphoma that I had kind of for 1% of all the lymphomas in the world. So I should have bought a lottery ticket, i guess, at that point, but anyhow, it started in late February, early March of 2011, where I would notice I was getting lightheaded, jumping up in the middle of night, going to calls and stuff like that, and, just like any stubborn firefighter, just kind of put it off, get you know, i brush it off, i got up too fast, you know, got lightheaded in the middle of the night Not going to the doctor till you're dying.

Speaker 1: 2:27

Yeah, pretty much Okay.

Speaker 3: 2:29

It's pretty fun, which is seems to be a common thing that we need to change. It's one of the things that we do need to change. To continue on, i was not being able to eat. You know, we eat just a little bit and feel extremely full and just hurt in my gut and my belly area Did was working out. One morning I did, like one jump in Jack and noticed, you know, the pain in my abdomen was excruciating. I knew then that I'm going to have to go to see the doctor, so made appointment with a regular doctor, went to go see them. They drew blood and called me and said well, you're anemic, and was kind of threw me for a loop. I really didn't understand it at that point, kind of what that meant. He said we're going to set you up an appointment with a hematologist, oncologist. Well, we can't get you in for about three months. Was this your regular doctor that you were seeing? Correct, this is my regular family physician.

Speaker 1: 3:39

Okay, so we haven't even got the specialist or anything like that yet? No, not at all.

Speaker 3: 3:44

So he said they were going to set me up with an oncologist, a hematologist, and so it would take about three months to get me into one. And my wife, which is the bulldog of the family, said no, that's not going to work, we're going to find one on her own. So she did And within a week she had an appointment with my oncologist They're just still my oncologist today at the firm in practice, i guess and had an appointment and when it saw them they drew blood, saw the same things. So we want to do a CT scan. Did it real quick CT scan, jump out, see the doctor. He comes in and says listen, i think you have cancer. Showstopper, right? Yeah, i mean, that was like right to the gut. And he's like I don't know what kind. I have no clue. We're just going to start trying to do tests and try to figure it out. But in my opinion, you know that you have some type of cancer. And so I was like okay, so that means it could not be. Yeah also, but let's do what we got to do.

Speaker 3: 5:15

So we started this was in March started doing. They took biopsies. They said that they didn't have any mass, so everything just looked cloudy in my abdomen. So they started taking tissue samples from my abdomen several different places, ended up taking a lymph node out of my groin, several different other biopsies and can't find it, can't find it, can't find it. And by this time I'm getting sicker and sicker and sicker, at this point where I can't do anything. I'm having, i'm out of work now And this has come up into April, right around Easter, and I was in the hospital still trying to figure it out, but I was really sick.

Speaker 1: 6:15

So we're talking about a rapid decline in about what two, three months Correct. Wow. Now, how long had you been in the fire service up to this time? And, Eric, if you've got any questions, jump in too, because I'm probably missing the meat and potatoes of this. But how long had you been in the fire service when you noticed this significant decline.

Speaker 3: 6:33

The fire service total. I started when I was, yeah, as a junior firefighter, when I was 16 years old, like in 1989. So you knew what was normal for your body. Yes, yes, and I had been with the city fire department for about five years when this happened. And so, anyhow, I get back to where I was and the doctors are still trying to figure this out and I'm laying in the hospital and they can't, they have no clue. And the doctor comes in and is like we don't know what to do, which one sends you down to Winston Salem, to the Baptist hospital, and they put me in the ambulance, drove me that from Huntersville to Wake Forest, winston, to Baptist hospital.

Speaker 3: 7:42

They had, at this point I had a team on college. It's a team of hematologists, a team, just every kind of team, you can think of it in there all Trying to figure out what's going on. They're doing more biopsies, more tests every day, as down there for two weeks in the hospital, and I'm like, coming up on Easter and it's like can I at least try? you know, i'd love to go home for Easter. You know we're not doing anything at this point, so this will let you, we'll let you go home for Easter but you got to come back right after that. We'll do one more Biopsy because they're fighting back, for we think is cancer, we think it's autoimmune disease. You know, they don't know, they're Bickering back and forth about what it is.

Speaker 3: 8:33

So went back for the final box in May and They took some of the small bowel Messentary and some of the flowers was full of this fluid, lymphatic fluid. So they took some of the fluid out and some of that small bowel Messentary and I thank God for the Pathologist that was working that day because he looked at it as like I I really don't know, but I think this is kind of what looks like and For testing and investigating it came out to be this T cell lymphoma. So They called me. It's like, hey, this was on like a Thursday or Friday, monday. You're going in the hospital, we're gonna start chemo. We really don't know how to treat it, but we're just gonna throw everything we can at it. And, by the way, you're going to stay in the hospital for a week and then Get chemo for a week and come home. You be home for two weeks and you get to come back And I was like.

Speaker 1: 9:42

So when you received this diagnosis of T cell lymphoma, you knew you had cancer. Up to that point right. Was it any form of relief that you kind of knew where it was going, or was it more stressful?

Speaker 3: 9:56

Uh, a little bit of both Travis, i mean, because now we knew what we had and we knew what we had to do to try to fight it and I Was able to focus everything on the fighting that and not just trying to figure out What you know, what was going on and how we want to deal with it. So I Knew that we were going to do what we had to do with chemo and whatever direction they wanted to go To beat it, because they told me I had about a 70% chance of Not making it. Wow, it was 70, 30, 30 percent chance that I couldn't. I could beat it. A 30% chance to beat it and 70 percent, 60%, not to. I Made up my mind that We were going to beat it whatever we had to do so now, at this time?

Speaker 1: 11:00

I know you've mentioned this to me before you had a, you had a new kid Yeah, pretty much at that same time too. How did that stack up on you?

Speaker 3: 11:08

That sucked. To be honest, my son was two, two and a half years old when I was diagnosed and I Lost a lot with him in that whole whole time being sick To where He knew. Visiting me at the hospital was how he basically got to spend time with me a lot, and we'd drive by the hospital Oh look, there's daddy's hospital. You know that's how he. You know what he thought of me. As you know, that's what he thought of was me being in the hospital. How old was he at the time?

Speaker 1: 11:53

He was two and a half. Yeah, okay, sorry for interrupting, but I think that's a critical. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: 12:00

So like starting the chemo, so I would go in the hospital on Monday, stay till Sunday, get chemo for 24 hours a day. They let me out on Sunday or the following Monday, be home for two weeks, come back in for a week Again, all for two weeks. So I was in the hospital Every third week for seven days, for eight months And out of work and I guess oh, uh. So I was. I was fortunate enough to. I went on short term disability uh, and I had saved my sick and vacation time uh over the years and not wasted a lot of it Uh, so I was able to make up that uh, cause short term disability doesn't pay your full been a year your full pay. So I was able to make up that time with sick and vacation uh, which was good Uh, and so we're trying to work to get better Uh, my intention is to come back to work uh.

Speaker 3: 13:15

And coming down to the end of the stretch of doing the chemo, um, and they had planned that we were going to have to do a bone marrow transplant at the end of all this Um, so they couldn't find a match uh for bone marrow. So they said, well, we'll just use your own Uh, and that's what they call an autoglis transplant, so where they harvest your own white cells from your body, freeze them and then give them back to you, uh, so when I went into the hospital for that, i was on uh of leave of absence at that point from the city, so I was not getting paid. I was having to pay out of pocket for my insurance. You know, back to the city, um, and when I was going in for the transplant, i was going to be in the hospital for a minimum of 30 days.

Speaker 1: 14:16

So, in addition to worrying about your health and stressing about that, worrying about your family, now you had financial issues, financial issues.

Speaker 3: 14:26

My wife, uh, and so I'm was back and forth at uh, wake Forest, um, at Baptist hospital, on and off the whole time. My wife would have to try to come and stay with me some, uh, she would stay in the state employees credit union house, which is a house there, uh, right there on campus. She could stay at free of charge and still come see me. But my son was still at home So we were having to have care for him. Uh, she's trying to split time between you know, home, wake Forest. you know taking care of me, because at this point I wonder what are there with me? you know, all the time.

Speaker 1: 15:54

Uh, how about the fire family? How are they doing with it?

Speaker 3: 15:58

So that was a great support group that I had, um, throughout the whole, the whole time when I was uh going through chemo and all that I we never wanted for a meal. you know, cut, cut my grass, you know, do whatever needed to be done around the house. Uh, and there was somebody you always wanted to come by and talk to you, which was fantastic. When I was in uh at Baptist we'd I'd have people, you know come in from the fire department and visit uh a good bit, and talking to them now, years later, is like, dude, we came in to see you that day and we didn't think you were going to be be there the next day. Uh, excuse me, and you still work with a lot of these people?

Speaker 1: 16:48

I sure do, sure I do, and you're I assume you're well, i know you're close to them. Oh yeah, i'm close. Yeah, all right, sorry for interrupting the story, but this is all stuff that I've kind of seen happen myself, working in the same department as you, and sure it's pretty awesome, but so you're off the job, financially, uh, on the ropes, got your family you worried about. So what's the news?

Speaker 3: 17:10

Um, so the news now is so we've got to do the this transplant, your own third day lose of absence. Um, we know you're going to be in the hospital for at least 30 days. So you, and the day you come home from a hospital you're not going to get to come right back to work. So I had to get an extension, uh, for another 30 days. Uh, and at this point the doctor's like dude, you're done working, you're. There's no way you can go back to work.

Speaker 1: 17:43

So jar pads wouldn't have been in the cards for you. No, no, not at all, um.

Speaker 3: 17:49

But the chief said you know, all right, great, let's. You know, as long as you can come back and if you're here for just four hours a day, you know we can. You don't have to. You know, just kind of be here. You know light duty, um, we can count you back as an employee. So that's what we started. You know, gradually doing that, uh. And finally, um, they said, okay, well, it's time to look at you know trying to retire, uh. So I went through that whole process. And how old were you at the time? Oh, 30, 38, 39.

Speaker 1: 18:38

That's kind of young for retirement, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: 18:43

And it's a medical disability retirement which is uh, not uh very lucrative. Uh, there's not a lot of money in that Uh, and then they tell you that you can only work, and I think I was able to make, I think, $20,000 a year if I worked anywhere. Wow, Uh, so ended up retiring January 1st 2013. Uh, by this time I would come. Yeah, i was on the mend. You know really well Uh, still having some issues, having to get blood or platelets every so often Uh, but the, the communications director, came and talked to me. He said Hey, yeah, i know you just retired. Uh, would you be interested in working part time for communications, cause I was a police officer, which is another story. We won't hold that again.

Speaker 3: 19:47

That's a whole other story for 11 years before transferring to the fire department. So she knew I had background in both and right Asked if I would work part time and help out. And I was like, sure, yeah, so I'll work something for you here and there what I can, so I'll work there. About a month after I retired, so I went back to work for the city part time And then in 2016, i'd been there for almost four years working for communications part time My doctor called me and said hey, matt, you know you've been doing great for the last, you know, three years.

Speaker 3: 20:42

I think I could yeah, i know you're a taste, i know you're retired man, but if you want to go back to work, i think I would release you to go back to work. Were those words you wanted to hear. That is exactly what I wanted to hear. How happy were you? I was excited, i mean ecstatic. I was actually working in communications and I jumped up out of my chair right then and was my eye then right up to the deputy chief's office and said hey, my doctor just called me and said I can come back to work. What do I do?

Speaker 1: 21:21

And he's like I don't know. Never had to do that.

Speaker 3: 21:25

I've never had anybody retire and come back to work And I don't know. But let me figure out what we've got to do. Okay, i'm in. So I got my clearance letter from the doctor, i talked to the state because I figured this is going to be an ordeal to try to work it through the state. State's never easy, exactly, except for if you want to come back to work off a disability. I didn't know that. Then they are like oh yeah, you want to come back to work, no problem. So like when you're trying to get disability, you have to go through the board of doctors that they have and they have to agree that, yes, you can't work. Well, i had no problem getting through when I went on disability and I had no problem coming back to work either. So they were like sure, you know, your doctor says you're good, you're clear, all right, have at it. So I said talk to the deputy chief. They had to figure it out and it was awesome that I was still an employee of the city. So they just opened the position internally So I could apply internally for a position, and they were getting ready to start a new rookie school in January. So I had to kind of keep another wraps until December-ish, where I could announce that you know, hey, i'm coming back. So I came back to work January 1st of 2017.

Speaker 3: 23:09

So I was retired for a total of four years, come back January 1st of 17 and had to go back through EMT class Oh, i'm sorry. Yeah, with the rookie class. So I came in Back as a firefighter, came in, worked out with him, did everything they did. Did you smoke the rookies? No, i'm old guy, man, so I'm over 40 years old now. So, or at that time, and saw what I did, i came in, worked out, did everything with him with him, went through four weeks of EMT, passed my EMT, and that was the only portion of the rookie school that I had to redo. It was only because I had to get that certification back.

Speaker 1: 24:04

So, now that you're back at Concord, you're back, you're in, you're rocking, you're rolling Where you at now.

Speaker 3: 24:14

Today I sit here as the captain of the Venus 7 on C-Shift.

Speaker 1: 24:18

Wow, that's a long way from answering calls from the 911 center on a medical discharge. Yes sir, yes sir. But so you know, i've talked to Melanie Jordan, for who works with us, right, and she mentioned that you have your birthday. Then you have your new birthday.

Speaker 3: 24:39

That's correct and I celebrate both of them. And what is your new birthday? Why don't you explain?

Speaker 1: 24:43

what that?

Speaker 3: 24:43

is Okay. So when you have a bone marrow transplant, they consider that your new birthday, because your whole immune system is shut down, and when they give you the transplant, that is the beginning of your new life. Rebooting your system, rebooting the system, so they give that to you as your new birthday.

Speaker 1: 25:06

Right.

Speaker 3: 25:07

And I mean this yeah, yeah, on paper. Yeah, on paper, but yes, And I do celebrate both birthdays and I expect presents on both birthdays.

Speaker 1: 25:17

We know that we just go out all the time on that.

Speaker 3: 25:19

Yeah, and so my new birthday is February the eighth. That was the date. February 8th of 2012, was my bone marrow day. And when I came back out of rookie school or EMT rookie school, whatever you wanna call it my first day back on shift was my five year anniversary of my bone marrow transplant, which was February the 12th of 2017. And there you go, full circle, that's right.

Speaker 1: 25:55

So since then, what I know we'll talk about peer support in another episode. We'll definitely gonna have you back for that. But what have you been doing since then in relation to not just your health, but I know that in Concord in particular, we've had several cases of folks that have passed away from cancer, particularly after retirement and things like that. What have you been doing personally to kinda help out with that? And I know you've worked with Eric quite a bit on some projects and stuff like that but what have you been doing in particular to give back to the fire service and how they helped you?

Speaker 3: 26:35

We've become a part of the cancer lines is one thing. Also, being on the board, being over peer support and teaching and trying to teach people how to clean your turnout gear, how to clean yourself, how to get your checkups, how to do make sure you get this stuff done, not being the old salty dog like we used to see those years ago, walking out with soot all over you. You're the bad man to come out The best ever was, but it's not wrong to be clean, Yep.

Speaker 1: 27:21

So when you're doing all that, i know that you have been very instrumental in our peer support program, the first iteration of it, and now we have our new stuff that we're doing. But how many people would you say that you've talked to or helped? just kind of a thumbnail sketch How many people have you had a chance to share your story with, help them through their own journeys with this?

Speaker 3: 27:44

There have gosh right off hand. I couldn't tell you like an exact number maybe, but in the last five years probably 15 or 20 individuals that I've talked to and helped to do things with her for. But now I've spread my story all over. Like I teach classes all over the state And the classes the cancer and the fire service class And I know it's kind of not the class that everybody wants to go to, but I mean it is a good class to sit in the list and learn some things. Yep, sure it is.

Speaker 3: 28:34

About cancer prevention And I know that we're not going to prevent every type of cancer or every exposure But if we can help that one person out there that keeps their gear that much cleaner than they were before, we're helping prevent them from maybe being diagnosed at some point in their life.

Speaker 2: 29:01

So do you share that story now with the incoming Rookie schools?

Speaker 3: 29:47

I do. I teach every Rookie school that comes through. Now I teach the cancer and fire service class too.

Speaker 2: 29:55

That's awesome.

Speaker 3: 29:56

It's kind of. I also teach communications and some other things, but I try to do it with my. I'll do a communications class and then do the second half of the day of the cancer and the fire service class.

Speaker 2: 30:10

And with your diagnosis and they put you out of work and everything else. Was there any way to link your experience with being a job related issue?

Speaker 3: 30:24

Yeah, Eric, No, not really. I had some exposures, you know, throughout the years some pretty nasty fires. We had a dump fire out here that we were at for ever ever trying to put out, and there was a lot of nasty stuff in it and a lot of stuff that we didn't know even what was in there, probably.

Speaker 1: 30:52

So we'll never find out.

Speaker 2: 30:54

And the only reason why I brought that up. That kind of diagnosis is kind of hard to pinpoint just one thing or when it actually started to manifest itself. And I think that can link into a current project that we're all trying to work on with the tracking of exposures.

Speaker 3: 31:18

Yeah, so with that one, unfortunately that's kind of hard, but now you know what we know. if I wouldn't track any exposure that I did have, would that have been part of it, who knows? But it would at least been documented. you know that it did happen And I was there on this day and this day and this day, and what kind of exposure.

Speaker 1: 31:53

I had. So it sounds to me and if I'm wrong, let me know that you know. You said you knew what you could do as far as on the fire grounds. You knew what you could do physically. Then one day you couldn't do it. So check yourself basically, oh yeah.

Speaker 3: 32:13

And of course we've come a long way to in the fire service or at least here in the yearly physicals that we do. And it's another great thing that the Cancer Alliance is doing with the Appalachian, the Blue Ridge Project. I mean, i'm sorry the Blue Ridge Project.

Speaker 1: 32:30

You're right on.

Speaker 3: 32:33

And giving scholarships for that or grants to help out, to help out paying for people to get physicals, because we did not do that good of a physical at that point. You know it was kind of your regular go through okay, you're good, you're breathing, you can. You can What you're hearing, can you stretch, exactly So. But nowadays you know those physicals are getting a lot better And I think we're doing better as a whole. Right, we're doing the extra blood work. You know not only heart disease that they're worried about, they're also worried about cancer now.

Speaker 1: 33:12

So it's become such a prevalent in our profession, and even the mental health. I mean that's a huge thing, yes, and if your head isn't clear, recovery isn't easy.

Speaker 3: 33:28

Oh, yeah, so, and I'll tell you, yeah So I had, you know, i talked with a lot of people. You know, when I was going through the whole process and it wasn't just, you know, friends, family, i. You know I talked to clinicians. You know, because when you get told you got a, you know 30% chance of beating this, you don't know where you're going Right. So that weighs so heavy on you and so heavy on your mind on top of everything else. Financial, what's my, you know my son's two and a half years old, what's going to happen with him. You know my wife running back and forth. I'm having to pay for my insurance. You know, out of pocket, that kind of that sort of stuff, and that's I mean, it just builds and builds and builds and you've got to have that outlook. Or, you know, having those people to talk to, whether it be me, whether it be a licensed clinician or whatever. You've got to get it out, yeah, Yeah.

Speaker 2: 34:46

I'll keep reading the mindset you know, looking at everything You said very early on in your story. as soon as you got that diagnosis, you'd already made it up in your mind we're gonna beat this no matter what the odds are.

Speaker 2: 35:03

We're gonna beat it, no matter what, where some people just might, oh geez, this sucks and kind of roll over, let it run its course. And I think the mindset is very, very important to anything, any type of life struggle that we might encounter. You gotta have that power of positivity that we're gonna face it head on. We're gonna get through it. We're gonna make it to the other side of this. You mentioned your fire family being a huge support for you during all this. What other support did you and your family have outside of the fire department?

Speaker 3: 35:53

I didn't, was not aware of any peer support or anything You know for cancer survivors or anything like that cause cancer was kind of taboo still in the fire service at that point. So I've really had no other outlet other than I had my church. That was there and they were very supportive of me as well in my own family, which was great that they were there and could help. And it's like my mother-in-law at the time she basically moved. She's from West Virginia. She basically moved down and lived in our house to take care of my son with my parents as well.

Speaker 1: 36:42

And you know the other thing, matt, that you've mentioned it, and unless you work for Concord, you're probably not aware of it. You mentioned the deputy chief you went to. You mentioned the chief that worked with you. They sit with us on the board now, don't they? They sure do. So yeah, it's coming full circle And you know we're blessed to have you at Concord. It's an honor to have you.

Speaker 1: 37:05

And I'm not just saying that, but you and Eric are doing some very cool stuff And in another episode we're gonna talk about the importance of peer support. So I just think it's important that everybody hear your story. It's one of many and we're not just telling a story. To tell a story, right right. But you know, like he said, check yourself. I mean, that's what it comes down to. But we appreciate you for your time today. Oh man, yeah, but did you know that we have a we'll see how should we say a tradition here on our show that we're quickly developing. And what is that? Watch this. Hey, eric, did you hear about the cheese factory fire over in France the other day?

Speaker 2: 37:46

No, i did not Travis.

Speaker 1: 37:48

Well, they said, debris was everywhere.

Speaker 2: 37:51

Oh, yeah, yeah, see Ha ha, ha, ha.

Speaker 1: 37:54

Come on now.

Speaker 2: 37:56

Thank you.

Speaker 1: 37:56

We need some more people to subscribe, cause once we get to a thousand, then I'll stop telling the dad jokes.

Speaker 3: 38:01

Oh, okay, please subscribe. Long way to go Yeah please, please, subscribe.

Speaker 1: 38:06

But honestly, we appreciate you taking time. Eric, thank you for listening in. I know Matt and I did most of the talking, but I think next go around, next time we have Matt on, you'll have a lot more to say and kind of show what we've been working on together.

Speaker 2: 38:22

I'm just happy to be here.

Speaker 1: 38:24

Hey, we're happy to have you here, Matt. it's a privilege to have you here and hopefully you'll be back many more times. Thank you very much. I'll be glad to. Hey, no worries. So you have been listening to all clear. You have been listening to all clear presented by the North Carolina Firefighter Cancer Alliance and the first responder peer support network. Please write us on your podcasting app of choice. This show is written and produced by Travis McGahill and Eric Stevenson and recorded on Riverside FM. See you soon.