The Power of Reaching Out: What Sustains Us When We're Barely Holding On

Intro for podcast

Support for Joe's Cure

Here is the link for Sunday's 4 pm Pacific time Zoom meeting

Transcript

Battling Through My Worst Episode

Finding Strength in Hard Times

The Impact of Personal Connection

Walking with Love and Kindness

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Hello, and welcome back to the Healthy Living Podcast. I'm your host, Joe Grumbine, and this is another special subscriber edition. And I want to always thank my subscribers. And frankly, whether you listen to these or not, you're supporting the show, you're supporting my work, you're supporting the community that we're building. And I'm just very, very grateful for that. This is sort of my newest incarnation of the subscriber episodes, and I'm I'm veering away from you know just focusing on the specific cancer journey. But um little snapshots, little things that have come to mind, little bits of knowledge, wisdom, um, experience, whatever it is that I can share that I think is unique and that I think is really, you know, more of a just among friends sort of thing. So um I'm trying to try to keep these pretty short, 10 minutes or so, and we'll just have these little moments. And uh that's what I think is my best offering right now. And obviously, as we're all always changing, it's all subject to change. So now this has been a last rough couple of weeks, and I think the last episode I outlined some of that. I'm just finally coming out of this probably worst uh episode I've had. I my weight went all the way down to 144.2, which is only four pounds above my brutalist lowest weight I got in this whole journey. So I'm aggressively starting to try to eat more, and um it's just rough. Like, imagine, okay, so here's the experience, right? You're like in your worst seasick you've ever been. You don't want to take the nausea medication because it makes you constipated. Your gut is completely rocked. So everything you eat, if you can hold it down, it's gurgling and bubbling, and you're you're burping and farting and just always in turmoil. Um my mouth was raw, and even I I mitigated it decently this time, but one little spot kind of got really bad. And it only takes one spot in your mouth to get bad to be miserable and difficult to eat. Um, as you know, I've got a crown that keeps popping off because you know the tooth underneath has degraded some, and so you know, that's down to like every day and a half. I gotta re-glue it down. And I don't have any money for the dentist, so that's a whole nother story. We'll maybe touch on some of that in future episodes. I don't want to sit here and have this be a uh poor me session. I just want to share tidbits that maybe can help you guys. Um no energy, you know. I frankly I could see that um I could just let myself go. I could just not eat and uh probably waste away. And right at the end of this journey where I think I'm just about to beat it, I could completely fall apart and let it go. And it's it's been kind of a crazy experience. Um I find myself rising up and coming to the table when I need to. So I've been doing these interviews, um, podcast interviews. I I believe that this is a worthy venture and it's documenting things and it's building a community, and and a lot of good things are happening from it. So I'm gonna continue putting energy to that. I'm continuing to try to keep my Willow Creek Springs business alive. So when business comes, I'm trying to address and deal with that. And um uh gardens of hope, I'm trying to manage best as I can. You know, priorities are shifted. I I'm just giving what I can to what I can. Um, but the energy low has just been the roughest thing in the world. Um through this, I found a few things that have been really powerful, and I want to share them with you. One is I don't know what it is, there's a connection somehow between me and some of the people, and certain people have reached out to me, you know, one-on-one, just on the side, going, hey, I'm just checking in on you. How are you doing? I I I felt was been thinking about you. I thought I thought about, I've been feeling something. And uh maybe they felt my light dimming or just me pushing hard, you know. The the thing of it is like the energy I have to spend sometimes just to say, okay, get the fuck up out of bed, you know, just take that step, get up, put your clothes on, um, go get something to eat, get something to drink. I don't care if you're going on a puke, just eat it anyways. And and and causing yourself to make that move. It's like just this huge amount of energy sometimes. And and you know, these are things that are normally effortless, you know. Anybody knows me, I'm high energy, moving all the time, go, go, go. I'm I blow people away with my energy, and you know, I'm dragging myself up off the floor. I feel like a cartoon drawing sometimes. And um for some reason I've had certain people reach out to me, and it's just a handful of people. Um, you know, most people are disconnected in most ways, but it's been amazing. Um in a few cases, some people have, you know, reached out and talked to me. You know, sometimes it's just a text message or an email, and and I just know that those little personal moments have helped kindle and keep lit and fueled my inner fire um profoundly. And so I I want you to think about that as you know, it's so easy to ghost people like my own biological family for the most part. It's got their heads so far up their asses, like I don't worry about them ever listening to this stuff. And if they did, so what? I'd say everything to their faces. I just don't have energy for them, really. Because I hear the feedback and that well, Joseph didn't do this, and he uh we reached out to him and he didn't respond. And you know, it's always pointing fingers and judgment, and you know, you're supposed to be this way, or why aren't you doing this? And never the, you know, I care about you, I just want to see how you're doing. Is there anything I can do to help you? Um, I care, that's all. That's really it, you know, and I love you. Maybe one of those. And um, you know, we always go, well, I would do that, I did that, I did that. But you know, stop and think. It's our actions that really do the talking. And I just want to remind everybody that uh those little things, a little smile to the stranger, to the friend. Um not snapping back when somebody says something that you don't doesn't sit right with you or whatever. Um, you know, you don't have any idea what the next person's going through and why they acted the way they did. And yet we're so quick to judge and we're so quick to act, and we're so quick to be offended and bothered and all the things that we do. So I just want to remind everybody that's listening that those kind bits of kindness, those bits of love, those things that you know all the major religions teach that, you know, God whispers in our ear, just love. Um, and it shows itself. You know, you know when you're being loving, folks, you know it. There's no question, am I being loving or am I being an ass or anything else? So I don't know. Let's walk with love and um let's make a difference out there. All right. Well, thank you for your support. Again, I'm gonna try to keep these things brief and uh we'll keep them regular. And hopefully something I say will resonate, and uh, you want to share the love. All right, have a great day, and we'll talk to you soon.