Going Under: Anesthesia Answered with Dr. Brian Schmutzler
Going Under: Anesthesia Answered is a podcast with renowned physician and anesthesiologist Dr. Brian Schmutzler. Together with Award-Winning Co-Host and television journalist, Vahid Sadrzadeh, the podcast aims to answer not only your most pressing anesthesia questions but to provide the most up-to-date medical data available.
This weekly medical podcast will release a new episode every Thursday at 5 am. Thanks in advance for being a listener.
Don't forget to send your questions to Dr. Brian Schmutzler on social media and his website at www.drbrianschmutzler.com.
Going Under: Anesthesia Answered with Dr. Brian Schmutzler
Fields of Hope: Farming, Faith, And A Life-Saving Transplant
In this episode of Going Under: Anesthesia Answered, Dr. Brian Schmutzler and Vahid Sadrzadeh welcome David Schrock, A lifelong farmer who has battled heart failure, a daring transplant, and a second chance at life: All fueled by faith and grit.
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This is going under Anesthesia Answered with Dr. Brian Schmutzler. I'm Vahid Sadarzadi. We're brought to you by the Butterfly Network. As always.
SPEAKER_02:As always. Alright, I'm going to let you in on something that's completely changed the way I practice. I've been using butterfly probes for years. It's a portable ultrasound that plugs right into my compatible smartphone or tablet, so I can start scanning it in the bedside in seconds. If you've used older versions or even if you're new to the handheld ultrasound game, let me tell you why this new IQ3 is a game changer and really impressive. First off, having an ultrasound that literally fits in my pocket means that I can move more quickly, whether it's vascular access, procedural guidance, or just getting real-time insights from my patients. And the tech inside this tiny device is pretty incredible. Biplane imaging lets me see short and long access simultaneously. Huge for procedural guidance and honestly a great tool for learners. The new needle out of plane preset even shifts the scan plane digitally, so I can see the needle tip sooner, which makes a real difference when precision matters. And the image quality, honestly, the IQ3 holds up against some of the high-end cart systems I've used. That's impressive for something this portable. If you're looking for a device that supports your practice, I can't recommend the Butterfly IQ three enough. And right now they're running a special offer. You can get it$750 off the latest IQ3. Check it out at ButterflyNetwork.com.
SPEAKER_00:We have a very special guest today. Mr. Dave Schrock is joining us here. And uh I know you know him through church influence. And uh he also has a remarkable story. Many of them, in fact. I'm learning more and more even today. I'm learning more and more of them.
SPEAKER_02:So Dave, thanks for being on the on the podcast.
SPEAKER_01:Well, thanks for having me. It's an honor.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely, absolutely. So I I I have to have to start out with just share with us how we know each other. Yeah. And then maybe a little bit about your faith and how you got, you know, kind of where you are there, and then we'll then we'll talk deeper on on more things. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So met Brian at Influence, um, a church here in Granger, Indiana. Um, just who's this handsome guy with this beautiful young lady? And um then I met your uh co-partner and uh Bronson. Yep, and uh found out you guys were in cahoots with each other. Um so got to talking and chatting and pretty soon figured out who each other are, and uh so that's how we met.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's a good word, cahoots. We are in the house. They are often in cahoots with each other. No, but it's a true term. So tell us a little bit about let's talk a little bit about heart health first. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, we can talk a little bit about um, yeah, we talk a little bit about heart health. Um, and and Dave, you'll um obviously share with this later. Um, you know, it's uh even though it is breast cancer awareness month, we're always talking about heart health. So um obviously heart disease um and and heart failure are a couple of the most common things that that cause um both morbidity and mortality in the United States. Um and so uh before we get into that, I want to talk about the the farming end of things. But yeah, so we're gonna talk a little bit. Dave's got a really cool story about um his his heart, his physical heart as well as his spiritual heart, but his physical heart and and what he went through with that. Um but but Dave also runs multiple thousands of acres of farms. Um and so tell us a little bit about that, how you got into that, um, and then tell me tell us a little bit. I know we were talking off air, but tell us a little bit about all the things that are going on in farming that's different than when you started you know decades ago.
SPEAKER_01:So if uh I get long-winded, just have to make the look. So but I was raised on a farm, uh livestock and grain farm in Elkhart County, Indiana, and I'm the oldest of four boys, and I'm really the only one that turned out to be a farmer. I always enjoyed the farm, even the dirty tasks and the things that people didn't want to do. I always enjoyed them because I loved animal husbandry and I loved growing crops. So I ended up being the farmer in the family. Um, but I started farming on my own. Uh actually in 1973, my dad said, You want to grow some corn on your own. So I rented a little bit of land from a family friend and for my first corn crop in that spring of 73.
SPEAKER_02:So how many acres was that?
SPEAKER_01:Uh 80. 80 acres. That's a little, that's a little farm. That's a little farm. So compared to compared to, yeah. Well, back then, you know, uh in the 70s, if you could rent an 80, that was pretty good, you know, that was that was worth farming, you know. So but um fast forward to the late 70s, early 80s, the farm crisis, I had realized I was, you know, we'd just gotten married in 1978, and I realized this was not gonna be a way to make a living. Um interest rates had risen to 20 percent, and we were borrowing all the money that we used. Right. And uh so I decided to get into construction work and uh started an excavating company on my own in 1986, but my love was always on the farm. So that's what I really wanted to do. And uh so that entire time my wife and I had invested in some land, so we had farmland and I watched every spring and I would go out there and you know help and you know, always share cropping. You know, I've I was a landlord and had someone else farming it. So I've I've had a corn crop every year since 1973. So um, but then you know, at you know, age 40, um, would have been 1996. By that time I had a large construction company and they had a big surprise party for me. And at my 40th uh birthday party, I announced that I was starting back up farming, and everyone laughed because I myself thought it was gonna be a hobby farm. I was gonna farm 500 acres, maybe 700 acres, and that quickly grew, you know. Fast forward to oh, about 10 years ago, we would have reached our max about 11,000 acres. So I really grew that. I just I just love farming. I just love to watch crops grow and I still love animals, but with my compromised immune system from a heart transplant that we're gonna talk about a little bit later, uh, livestock is not really a good thing for me to be around.
SPEAKER_02:So yeah, yeah. And you were saying, you know, it's a lot different now than and a lot of things I didn't even know, but a lot different now than it was in 1973. Um, all the analytics and stuff. So can you share a little bit about like how how was that transition from you know the 70s, the 80s, the 90s, and then now all the stuff that you can you can get.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so so you know, if you look at at commodity prices, you know, we're commodity prices are extra low right now, but corn should be twelve, fourteen dollars a bushel if you did inflation, you know, if you follow the GDP or whatever. And you know, we're sub-4 corn. So what's happened is we've had to become more efficient. We've just had to really shave every corner, we've had to use bigger equipment, less labor. And so this is all data driven. So in the late 90s, we started seeing what's a yield monitor, you know, we did this thing in the combine that would estimate, you know, what we were producing at any given acre. It's all geo-reference and everything. So um it's just progressed. It's gotten more and more of a science. We are uh uh analyzing soil tests on one acre grids, but we're farming these farms on 60 foot squares. Um yeah, it's crazy. So, you know, we can populate different populations, we can um this is all done. We write prescriptions on the computer, put them on a thumb drive, they go into the you know, yeah, and and it's all it's all cloud-based too. So, you know, you you to put the thumb drive in there just to make sure that because you can lose cloud, you know, for any reason.
SPEAKER_02:Not with Starlink, though, right? Oh yeah. So so you were saying that you the amount of data you generate from from the the fellow in Kentucky is is like is like more than Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So, you know, the guy that wrote our software is called YMS that we use. Uh he shared with us that he'd wrote the software for Caterpillar Parts Network. And um Caterpillar Nation uh worldwide actually has less data points than most of our farms. Each individual farm. So it's crazy to think. And I mean, it'd be interesting to have, you know, a computer set up sometime and show people on a video, but it's we we're collecting weather data, we're collecting elevation, we're collecting everything grain moisture. It's just it's just it's insane the amount of data that we're bringing into this little computer box, sending it to the cloud, and it's in our so I can pick up my phone and I can see where our machines are working right now, right this minute. I can see everything those machines are doing. I can I know more about those machines than the operator that's running. He has access to that stuff, but he's busy operating. So I can actually look at the transmission all temperatures. I can look at differential, I can look at main gearboxes on that combine and see what the temperature is.
SPEAKER_00:Dave, you you're blowing my mind here. And here's why, because you think over the years farming is such an architect, not in this is not a bad term, but it it's such an archaic kind of ground up thing, right? Like I I I lived in southern Minnesota for years. Uh-huh. Southern Minnesota is known for farming. Yes. Southern Minnesota is farmland, but technology really wasn't part of it. So how did you, I think that's a big question I have for you is how did you learn the the technology and and and how many years did it take for you? Because obviously your father maybe didn't use the technology that you use. Yeah. So where did that come into all of this?
SPEAKER_01:It's kind of like how'd you learn to use your cell phone, I guess. Yeah, you know, just play with it, right? Yeah, and then you know, you get a new cell phone and it doesn't act like the old one did, you know, and you get mad, you're like, I wish I had the old one back, and then you go, oh, this does so much more. It's been the same thing. So, you know, early, like I said, we were early adapters. So in the 90s, when these monitors started coming out, you know, you just grow with it. You know, it's all of a sudden you're like, well, now you need 1.2, now you need 1.4, now you need, you know, we're up at you know, 20.9, whatever. You know, so it's been a progression. So I think the mind-blowing part is for people like you or someone that would be new to, you know, would get into a uh one of our machines or would sit down but at the computer with me and say, like, what are you doing? It would blow your mind. Yeah. But I grew with it. Yeah, yeah. And then most growers that are progressive have done the same thing. Yeah. So it's interesting because I find myself, I'll be 69 in two weeks. Nice. And I think my computer literacy has actually come from growing up with those farm apps that we used. We need our parents to do that.
SPEAKER_00:Well, my I mean, my my parents are uh my my father especially is from a family that did pistachio farming for a lot of years.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, cool.
SPEAKER_00:And so obviously the you know, the the landscape's a little different, the weather's a little different, you know, what you need to grow the crop is a little different. Yes. But they didn't really have that kind of technology, you know, growing up. And so it's interesting to hear like how that technology is helping. We actually were just talking about pesticides the other day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, because my father now has um he he's been living with Parkinson's for the last 10 years. Uh-huh. And there's a there's a part of my family that believes that some of his Parkinson's maybe due to some of the pesticides that he's been around for the last I would not, I would have no argument with that.
SPEAKER_01:I could see that being a possibility.
SPEAKER_00:You know, for his entire life. And now they're saying, well, you should get screened because you know, part of the genetic breakdown is passes down from generation to generation. But it's interesting to hear the technology side of it and that um, you know, what why is the reason they're saying, I mean, I know you've you've had a heart transplant. Yes. Yeah. Is that the the main reason they're saying that you shouldn't be around?
SPEAKER_01:So they they compromise your immune system with the medications to to you know protect against organ rejection is your immune system that wants to get rid of that thing that's not common to your body. The DNA is different. Yeah. So they try to match best they can, you know, and but there's that difference, and there will always be that rejection factor. So the only way to deal with that is to compromise the immune system. So interesting.
SPEAKER_02:So tell us that, you know, we we should just get into it. We're trying to dancing around.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it was one other thing I would real quick say. Yeah, yeah. Something I don't know how I feel about, but I would bring it up about farming. Yeah. So AI. Yeah. Uh huh. Buzzword for everyone, right? Yeah. We are using AI. Really? Currently already. Farming is actually one place people didn't realize it was actually being kind of beta tested or whatever. Really? Yeah. How so? It's it's yield predictability, um, weather predictability to look into, you know, like if this happened on the 13th of May, what happens on the 4th of July? You know, if that happened on the 4th of July, back to coupled with May 13th, what's going to happen on August 1st? So Is it pretty good? Or is it well, it's in the infancy, but there's some tendencies that are really strong and showing up. So interesting. So I just thought I throw that in there before we leave the subject.
SPEAKER_00:AI has been affecting medicine now for you know a decade. Right. And so to think about farming and technology, I think you blew my mind today. You know, I mean, we're really talking about next level stuff. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Um and it's such an integral part of our maybe we do a panel at some point and bring people from different industries in and talk about AI. I love it. I mean, AI is just changing everything.
SPEAKER_00:How do you how do you think it has changed, maybe, Dave, for the positive, how do you think it's changed your business?
SPEAKER_01:Well, I don't know that we can quantify it yet. Um but it does make sense because what what m what m made me think about that was when you said about your father and the pesticides. Um if we can predict what's coming or not coming, we can use less chemistries and only use them when we suspect something is coming. Interesting. And if you can get ahead of it, it's kind of like a vaccination. Yeah. If you can get ahead of it, you use a lot less harmful things than if you're trying to treat something. Yeah, that's interesting. So that's where that's what made me think about it. And where it's a food safety thing, it's a farmer safety thing, it should be better. So that's where I think we're going to see the biggest advantages. Interesting. Interesting.
SPEAKER_00:Well, share your heart story. I I'm really interested in hearing.
SPEAKER_02:And I just I just know little bits and pieces. So I'm I'm hearing a lot of this for the first time too, but I know it's an incredible story about how you know you obviously you've said you had a heart transplant, but kind of walk us through um what sure kind of got you to that point, when you had it, how you had it, and who did it, because I may know them. And then you have it in Indianapolis, Indianapolis.
SPEAKER_01:Well, that was uh at Fort Wing Lutheran, but they're my current doctors are all retired, but they are now at IU. Yeah. But they had all moved to I because Fort Wing closed down. But yeah. So at about age 35, um, I just felt a little tiredness, but I had a hundred employees and um we were moving excavation work and paving and everything all across northern Indiana, lower Michigan. A lot going on. And so I went to a friend of mine, Dr. Paul Howard, who's not retired cardiologist right here in South Bend, and went and had an appointment with him, and he did a bunch of tests and everything, and he said, There's something a little bit wrong with your heart. He goes, I wouldn't worry too much about it. He said, It's coming across as a murmur right now. He said, I would just do an annual checkup and let's just kind of keep an eye on it. Well, after about five years of me giving him his hundred bucks every year, I was like, nothing's changed, nothing's wrong. I'm like, I stopped going, right? Age 40, I start back up farming, things are fine, right? I once I knew that it was just a slight, it was nothing major, it kind of emotionally, I was just kind of overcame it, you know. But so fast forward a little bit, 2005. Uh I would have been 49 years old. Um went to, I think that's right. You can do the math, born in 56. 2005. Um, I was getting really weak. Uh I could just tell something was really wrong. So I went locally, Dr. Call Carney. I don't know if Dr. Call Carney or not. Went there. He was the doctor I ended up with. I went through three or four cardiologists, different, you know, that's not us. It's this I gotta go to this guy, go to that guy, whatever. I end up with Dr. Call Carney and um ended up with a pacemaker, a dual pacemaker and a defibrillator in me um because my heart muscle was weak and they had diagnosed me with my uh with cardiomyopathy, which just heart disease. And but they thought it came from a virus. So at some time I was either sick or had an abscess tooth or something. Yep. What was your ejection fraction? Do you remember at its lowest? So when they found that I had a problem, I was in the twenties. Okay. Yeah. My lowest, I was down to 10. 10, wow. And when and that was so four years from 2005 to 2009, I was treated with, you know, drugs and the uh the AI C Dr.
SPEAKER_02:So just for the audience, um, the heart is supposed to contract at somewhere between 60 and 70 percent. So each beat, the heart squeezes out sixty to seventy percent of the blood that's in there. Um, you know, you're considered in heart failure if you're under 50 percent, under 35% is severe heart failure, and they put an AI C D in. So 10% is very, very low.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So, yeah, like I said, you know, when they put when they really found what it was, I was in the 20s, I think whatever, in the low 20s. And that is, you know, one doctor will say 20, another say 27, as they look at it, and so anyway. But um March of 2009, we went on a family vacation in Florida and with the Disney and all the attractions, went on the river and canoeed and did all kinds of stuff. But every night I would just come back to the hotel and I'd tell my wife, man, I'm just so weak, I'm so tired, I can't hardly do this. And she's like, Well, just you know, just hang in there, you know. At the end of March, you have an appointment with Dr. Call Carney, and you know, he'll adjust your meds, adjust your device, whatever, and you'll be okay. I went in there the end of March of 2009, and kind of the ritual was the regimen, whatever. Um, that you come in, you do some testing, and that already done blood work and everything. And they do a couple, you know, EKGs, whatever, you know, and then you can go see the doctor, right? So she puts me on the EKG machine and she's like, hmm, let's do that again. So we did three of them. Wow. And she's like, okay. She said, Um, just a minute, I'll be right back. So well, there's usually other tests they do because they're gonna interrogate your device, right? The ICD. So anyway, so she comes back and she goes, I'm actually gonna go see Dr. Call Carney now. And I really was kind of oblivious, I guess. I thought, well, he probably has a procedure or something he needs to get to, so he wants to see me, get me out of the way, and then they can finish the testing, whatever. I walked in there and he didn't look at me, he looked at my wife, and he said, How's he doing? And she said, Well, he sleeps a lot. He says he's really tired. And he looked at me and he goes, What do you say, man? And I said, Yeah, she's right, you know, and he goes, Like, well, there won't be any more tests today. And I said, Oh, what's wrong? And he said, nothing else we can do for you. He said, You have taken a real plunge in your heart numbers. And that's when I was around ten on my EF. So I'm getting choked up a little bit. Absolutely. Um He said, um to my wife, he said, uh, you know, you need to make final plans. You know. She said, What do you final plans for what? He's not gonna be here long.
SPEAKER_03:Wow.
SPEAKER_01:And she said, What, like a couple of years? And he goes, No. A year? No. He said, We have months. And she goes, like ten months? He goes, Maybe three. He said, I give him three months. So that's the book I wrote, Three Months to Live. Yeah. So anyway, um he said, We were kind of leaving and just, you know, kind of in shock. And he goes, There's just one more thing. He goes, I don't think that you'll live long enough to do this. But he goes, Have you ever considered a heart transplant? Well, no, I hadn't considered anything because I didn't know it was that sick, you know. And uh he said, Yeah, I'm gonna give you some stuff to read, and you think about it. Think about it. Yeah, it's always worth a chance, you know. So went home, we started reading up on heart transplant, like no, I ain't doing that. Because it's really it's it's it's a struggle. It's intense, yeah. It's a lot to go through. So we um kind of decided that, you know, maybe we just wait and see what happens and rely on our faith and pray a little harder, pray a little more, whatever, you know. And the more I read and realized, you know, I had three teenage children, um, my daughter was engaged, she was going to get married, and I thought, well, I really need to try and stay alive if I can. So I kind of opened myself up to being, you know, considering the heart transplant, my wife was dead set against it. Really? Yeah. So no pun no pun intended. And and why? Um, I think the the caretaker really is takes the brunt of the pressure and the, you know, all the agony. I mean, you're you're you're laying in bed with tubes and wires and half drugged out of every out of the world, and you know, you you don't really think about what all's going on around you, but your caretaker, your your spouse carries that burden. Yeah. So so she read on that, and she might just think that and she strong, strong woman with a lot of faith, and she's believing for a miracle, right? Right. We're not gonna have to have this. So anyway, long story short, you know, about three days after my appointment with Dr. Call Carney, I was driving down the road with my pickup truck, and I could take you to the spot where that phone rang, and um I recognized the phone number as the clinic, and so I I answered because I thought maybe they changed some medication or something, you know. But it was Dr. Call Carney calling me. Excuse me. And he said, uh This David? And I said, Yes, and he goes, Dr. Call Carney, and I said, Oh hey. He goes, Have you thought any more about that heart transplant thing? And I said, Well, I said, I I think I would consider it, but my wife don't want the name. He talked to me for 40 minutes while I drove home. And I got home and I said, Dr. Kalcarney, I just pulled in the driveway. I said, Let me talk to her. And he said, Would it be okay if I'd have someone call you tomorrow? And I said, Sure. Yeah, have them call. So the next day I get a phone call from Fort Wayne, Lutheran Transplant Center. And they said, Hey, we heard that you might be wanting to talk about heart transplant. And I said, Yeah, sure. You know, I might as well drive down Fort Wayne and listen, right? So she said, Okay, well, she said, call Dr. Kalcarney and tell him to go ahead and do the referral. I said, Okay. So I called Dr. Kalcarney and he said, Well, I did something I'm supposed to do. He said, They have your files. He said, You just go on down there. So I went on down and um take took me about 30 days to go through all the testing. I mean, they test you for everything because if there's anything lying in the weeds, it will come out as soon as they compromise your immune system, you know. So they said, Well, do you want to, you know, do this over the summer? Do you want to, you know, it's like, well, heck no. I mean, if I'm gonna live three months, I've got to hurry up, you know. So so we took 30 days a month of April, basically, of 2009 and did all the tests. Came back that I was strong enough to do, which was amazing with an EF of 10. You know, they don't take many of those people, but you know, my other health issues were strong, so I was good. So yeah, at the end of um, I think it was the 27th of April, um, they called me and said, Hey, we've accepted you as a patient. So when would you like to come to the hospital and start all your therapy? And I said, Well, we might as well get started on it. Right now. Yeah, so I went in on a Thursday, and there's just certain perimeters and numbers they look for, and so on. Saturday, um, they kept asking me if I was doing okay, and I said, Yeah, and they said, Well, you're really responding to the medications and everything, and you're you're doing well. Probably five to seven days, we can send you home and they put you on an IV at home and keep you ready, you know. And so fast forward to um Yeah, how long were you on the list? Technically, a day and a half. Wow. So wait, excuse me. Holy cow, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:You were on the list for a day and a half. Did they know they had the heart before they okay?
SPEAKER_01:Just let me tell the story quickly. Yeah. As quickly as I can. That's amazing. So Saturday night um at midnight, my nurse came in and woke me up. She said, Are you doing okay? You feeling good? And I said, I feel great, you know. And she said, I'm gonna do something. She said, I'm calling the doctor. And I said, Why are we calling the doctor? And she says, I gotta get his permission. We're gonna put you on a 1A. She said, You're ready for heart. She said, We can put a heart in you now. She said, You you're ready. And she said, It's it's a good weekend, you know, if it's prom time and stuff, and it's another sad statistic, but it's a good time to get a heart. Yeah. So, um, yeah, but so midnight, one o'clock in the morning officially, Sunday morning, I went on a list. Um about then I was very hyper. I'm just a type A or A plus something. I don't know what I am, but anyway, I'd take little white pills if I was in school today. But anyway, I I uh was very, you know, anxious. And so I know that they kind of you know subdued me a little bit. Some juice put in my there's probably a Dr. Bryan in the background. That's probably true, yeah. Some happy juice. But anyway, I was um I do remember Sunday morning um that a nurse came in and took my water, just took my water glass. I had a water cup by my side. And I I was like awake enough to know that that happened, but not awake enough to say, hey, I'm thirsty, I want my drink, you know. And so about I guess it was around 1.30 in the afternoon, Sunday afternoon, I was startling awake. I mean, I just boom, I was wide awake, so I know that they had done something to do that. Right. And I looked up and I was thirsty, and so there was a nurse standing in my doorway, and I well it wasn't my nurse. At that point, you have your own nurse. Right. So I there was a different nurse standing in the doorway, and I said, and she goes, Oh, you need something? And I go, like, yeah, I'd like my drink. And she goes, like, there won't be any water. And I said, Why not? About that time, my nurse comes up behind her and she goes, We have a heart for you. Wow. And I'm like, Oh, wow. That's crazy, you know. And I said, Oh, oh, okay. And she says, Where's your family? And I said, Well, they all went to church. I said, Um, they should be here. They were all, they were gonna load the excursion full of people and come to see me today. So she said, Well, do you want to call and see where they're at? And I said, Yeah, and she says, I'll tell you what, I'm gonna call your wife. And she said, When your phone rings here, pick it up and she'll be on there. I said, Okay. So my phone rings, pick it up, and I said, Hey Di. I said, Where are you guys at? Well, we're about five minutes from the hospital, and I said, Okay, because they want you here because they found a heart for me. Yeah. What I didn't know, my wife accidentally had put it on a speakerphone. She had my mom, she had my whole family. Everyone heard me say they've got a heart for me, so that's kind of cool later. But anyway, that that just starts the process. So then I was actually transplanted at six o'clock um on Monday morning. Yeah. But what's really neat about this story is that there was a young man that had his heart today, and he was in an automobile accident, and um the only injury was on the side of his head. But they said if they would open that, you know, his brain would boil out. He was that, you know, injured. So but that had happened a week before. It happened on a Friday night. This is now Sunday. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. The parents, he was an organ donor, but they wanted him on life support. And they knew the the dad'll tell you, I mean, I talk to him all the time, that they knew that they were losing their son. But they just weren't quite ready to let go. But he said that Sunday morning he woke up. And he said, Now Dave, I'm not real religious man or nothing. But he goes, I was taking a shower and I heard God say, Today's the day.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So now remember if it would happen any earlier, I would not have gotten started. Yeah, exactly. Wow. So he said he walked into the hospital and he said the doctor was in the hallway and he said this was every day. He go, like any decision. Yeah. The doctor asking the father. No. But he said that Sunday morning, he said, I saw him and I said, Hey, hey, Doc. He goes, Today's a day. Yeah. He said, We're going to pull the plug. And so all that had so that's why legally, technically, I was only on that list for about Day and a half.
SPEAKER_02:Day and a half. Wow, that's crazy. So when they did it, just the heart, right? Did they do they didn't do the lungs as well? Just heart. Just heart, yeah. Wow.
SPEAKER_00:So how how long, Brian? That just kind of a medical question, too, like when months. Usually no, no, no. Yes, I know. For the list, right? I mean, that's being generous, right? Months, and you hear kind of horror stories of how long it takes.
SPEAKER_01:20,000 people again die in the US waiting on them.
SPEAKER_00:When somebody, when they say, like, hey, like, we're pulling the plug and um he's on life support or whatever, there's an accident, or how long do they have for that heart beating to get it over to the new transplant patient?
SPEAKER_02:So so we typically for hearts, it's a little bit different than than lungs and or than uh kidneys and liver. Um heart, we actually we take it out in the operating room pretty soon after. Like we we keep them uh keep keep the patient's heart beating even though they've passed. So we within the body itself. Within the body itself as they take it, and then they they um they transplant it right away. I mean, it goes straight from basically if not in the same hospital, they they will take it directly to a uh a helicopter or plane and get it straight to that to the mine was Evansville, Indiana.
SPEAKER_01:So then I think the max is maybe a couple hours. Yeah, I think it's six or eight, yeah. And they put it on ice, they they okay. Yeah, I think it's it's longer than it was even back sixteen years ago. Yeah, probably, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And so you've had your new heart for sixteen years. Yes, sixteen and a half. So I want to ask you a question, and it has to do with faith. You know, they say that having faith is believing in something that you haven't seen yet.
SPEAKER_01:Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_00:Did it make your faith stronger by going through this process?
SPEAKER_01:Well, it certainly didn't weaken it. I would you know, and and I I I've made the remark that I don't know how someone does it without having faith or being a believer, but you know, the Bible does say every man is given a measure of faith, you know. So I think how much you exercise that is how much more you get. Um so i I just for me, maybe I'm a weak person, but I I do not really know without having a faith in God and knowing that someone's pulling from me. I I don't think I personally could have done it. How was the recovery? You know, I did recover fast. Um on the seventh day I was home in my own bed. Yeah. Wow. Did have a problem after that because you know, a lot of biopsies early on to check for rejection. And um they punched a hole in my heart wall and did not know it um in the biopsy. And um I ended up spending 30 days in the hospital. It was actually harder than the transplant. Really? Yeah, because that had I took on a lot of fluid. Yeah. And that that almost cost me. Yeah. So but then if if that little and I'm not I I'll be the last to judge those doctors, you know, from anybody can make a mistake. It was just a small error. But that's how you would know, you'd understand how you know touchy in that situation. Oh, yeah. To shove a camera and the scissors up somebody's groin, to take a little, you know. It's just such a micro environment that I cannot imagine. But I I know, because I I've watched a heart cath and stuff, I can imagine, but I don't really have a feel for how tight that tolerance is. You know. So for them to punch a hole in my heart wall, I never you don't I I I just say it to say that it did put me back in the hospital for 30 days, you know. But um, but other than that, you know, I never had to do physical rehab. Really? Yeah. I come out of there swinging, you know. It's probably all the farming, right? I mean people want to farming. I think it's more of a personality thing. That's true. I think you, you know, some of us refuse to go down, you know. So so that's I'm one of those. That's not I'm not bragging. It's just my making. Just who you are, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So are you're one of the longest surviving transplant patients, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, well, you know, as time goes on, those, you know, the average life is lifespan is longer than it used to be. Um but yes, I'm I've there's my there's um mileposts that, you know, they know that um if you make it five years, you're probably gonna make it seven. So between seven and ten, they get real nervous, and I just finally ask them, you know, because I want to know, right? Yeah if I'm gonna try, you know, you're you're making me do things that we didn't have to do before. I want to know why. You know? And they're like, well, we lose most of our patients between seven and ten. The chronic rejection phase, yeah. So so there's those things. Right now, I'm to the point where it's like, hey, kind of, yeah, you're kind of at the woods at this point. Yeah, it's it's more part of you now. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Interesting, interesting. Well, that's cool.
SPEAKER_00:That's an awesome story. Um I do want to ask one more thing when uh as related to that. What what do you think you've learned over the last 16 and a half years? You know, what what is the biggest thing you've learned?
SPEAKER_01:Patience, probably, which is far from a natural attribute of mine. But um just, you know, I used to be the guy that like if the doctor was five minutes late, I'd be like PO'd pretty good, you know. And my time's valuable too.
SPEAKER_00:I'm laughing because it sounds familiar to myself.
SPEAKER_01:You know, like it sounds but you know, I remember one time I was laying in the hospital there just for a checkup, and they were gonna do um a biopsy on me, heart cath biopsy. And uh I'm laying there and I'm all prepped, I'm ready to go in. The guy put the medicine in me and everything, you know, and they come out and they go, like, um, gonna have to push you back on the hallway. And I go, Something wrong? Not with you, but we have an emergency. Yeah. And you know, I laid there for three, four hours um on a stainless steel table um waiting, and I had to learn that, you know, that emergency was much more important than my little procedure I had to have that day. So I learned to wait my turn, I learned to be patient. That's probably the biggest thing that I've learned. And also I'll learn to follow instructions. I have been very faithful in doing what they ask me to do. And normally I'm the kind of guy that rips everything out, throws it on the floor, and try to find the screw that puts a hole. You know, but I learned that with this, this was my life. I'm I'm going to do this and I'm going to be successful at it. I need to listen and I need to learn. So I've educated myself and I've learned that, you know, the doctors, the whole staff, they're just people too, you know. And I I've often the very high regards for any doctor that would take a living person and take an organ out of them and try to put a better organ into them. That is a leap of faith in itself. Who is your doctor? So I started out with four doctors, and um uh Dr. Ludowski was actually the head uh uh Lutheran at the time. So then um we had a personal accident and but did miraculously come back to work. So um went to I IU hospital, is where all that staff is now. They've all retired, the doctors have all retired. Um so yeah.
SPEAKER_00:How long is that surgery? How long is the heart transplant?
SPEAKER_01:Oh, six, eight hours, ten hours, depending on I was in there about six hours.
SPEAKER_02:So depending on how much. And if you do heart-lung together, which sometimes they do, it's even longer.
SPEAKER_00:What about the anesthesia? What what is different about that procedure, maybe the transplants that you know than a normal right surgery?
SPEAKER_02:So that's probably the most complex anesthetic that we do. Um, because so it's initially it's a it's kind of a regular anesthetic, and then you have to do what you would do for an open heart, which is bypass and all that sort of stuff. And then you circ a rest, which means you stop everything, right? So even when you're on bypass, you're still there's still blood circulating. Typically for a lung train or a heart transplant, you do a circulatory arrest where there's nothing moving at all, and then you implant it. And so now it's not just a heart surgery, it's also a transplant surgery, which has all kinds of other kind of complications. So the anesthetic for that is is very complex. I mean, that's probably the most complex surgery that that we do as well. That there is. Yeah. Interesting.
SPEAKER_01:So yeah, because you know, I didn't they didn't wake me up till, you know, so I went in there at four o'clock in the morning on a Monday morning. I did not wake up till mid afternoon. No, yeah, Wednesday. It was probably mid-afternoon. Do you remember the date? I remember it very well because they give you very specific instructions, and then you know, they they're right there because they they know, they know the second you're gonna wake up, you know, and they're talking in your ear. Remember what we told you, you know. And the first thing your instinct is to rip everything off or to try and, you know, gasp for air. And they're like, don't breathe, just relax, you know. And so I remember waking up. Oh, I'm like, oh, I made it, you know, I didn't die on the table. And I'm going, then I start. My mind instantly went to those because they're saying this to you. Remember what we said, yeah. Remember what we said, you know, don't do this, don't do that. And I'm like, remember them saying I'm hearing saying it. So you it it it's really I'll never forget that moment of waking up as long as I live.
SPEAKER_02:I can I did they take the tube out when you woke up? Is that no it was already out, or you kept it in for a couple days? It was left in, yeah. Interesting, yeah. Um so that was deep. Yeah. I I do now want to go on to something that's more sort of fanciful, which is your social media. So tell us, first of all, tell us what your handle is, tell us what you do and then how you got into it.
SPEAKER_01:So it's Shrock Dave on uh TikTok, but you can go on my Facebook and I'll I'll I will friend you if you ask. Uh just Dave Shrock. I'm gonna have to do that now that you said I'm gonna befriend me. So um, of course, my Instagram is tied to my Dave Schrock too. So um, so I this I'm I'm a part of Total Acre. Total Acre is a peer group of uh 700 growers across the United States and Canada, and we share our cropping data information. So I've helped farmers through that, and um then I have I'm part of a uh site called Farm Life. It's also on all those platforms. Um also have a Facebook site called Crop Mythbusters. Okay. So there's just a lot of misinformation, probably like what the reason you do it's like. You know, it's like it's in every industry, right? And everyone has these assumptions, right? Everyone's a professional since Dr. Google came around. So anyone's chat GBT, chat GBT, yeah, AI now. So I just over the years, well, it back to my heart transplant. Um, I had a little bit of a come to Jesus, you could say. I had learned a lot of things about farming because I was analytical and I liked to dig into stuff. And so I had learned that there's just little things that make crop farming better, right? Well, I realized that almost died, and that information would have died with me. Yeah. And so I felt a need to share that with young growers or even older growers that want to learn, whoever, whoever has an ear. It's got so since in that whole 16 years since then, social media has exploded, right? So everyone's a professional now. Everyone who can grab a mic, can grab a phone, whatever, do a podcast, whatever, is a professional farmer. And there's just so much misinformation out there. So I'm always trying to, you know, better that. So I just thought another avenue of doing that is just do silly videos, right? Satire. Show people how, you know, do we really don't think through things, we just hear that, you know, oh, these are. You guys are very similar. That's right. Yeah. So, you know, you I'm like, okay, well, I'm just gonna show you how dumb we really are, you know. And it's people call me up all the time, man. We really don't think much, do we? We just listen, right? And I said, yeah. And so yeah, it's I get a lot of phone calls. So yeah, on my Facebook site, um, I do just the satire thing. I I I pick up a little, you know, like people say, like, well, you gotta do this to your crops. And so I'll just say, here's what we did, you know. We didn't do anything. Yeah, and the wigs. I love the wigs, too. Yeah, so that's I uh yeah, I I make a lot of I have a long-haired wig I wear.
SPEAKER_00:So do you guys still you live on a farm? Oh yeah, we farm actively. Um and you have uh animals there or no animals, no animals, but uh because of your heart, but uh corn?
SPEAKER_01:Soybeans, soybeans, wheat.
SPEAKER_00:So do you think we should bring Brian down and we can do some some informative, funny content on the farm.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, we should. Sure. Yeah, definitely.
SPEAKER_00:I was thinking about this. I'm like, this is a great opportunity to get you back on the farm. Back on the farm, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Back on the farm.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I mean, you didn't grow up too far from farmland.
SPEAKER_02:No, I wasn't far from a farm, but I was in no way, shape, or form a farmer. Not a farmer. No. He was a waste of a few.
SPEAKER_00:You consider yourself a city guy? Suburban. Suburban guy. Yeah. But growing up, Zionsville. Suburban. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. But Indy wasn't as big. No, no. And I lived right. I mean, um, there was one house between me and then a farm that was probably, I don't know, probably small for you, but eight, seventy, eighty acres. So we used to run through the corn.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Uh well, how about this? We will bring the camera down there. Let's do it. Let's do it. And we will uh do some cross-content videos on the farm.
SPEAKER_01:And where can we find your book? So, my book, you're gonna have to contact me personally because I did not want to sell a book. Okay, I wanted to be a blessing to people and give it. So you can email me, um, shrockfarms at yahoo.com. That's easy. S-C-H-R-O-C-K farms at yahoo.com. I'm gonna send you one. Uh, we do have them on the bookshelf at Influence Church in Granger, and there you have to pay a little something because I donated for the church, but it's cheap. So we'll get you one. You just got to get hold of me. Awesome. Tell Brian and Brian will get hold of me. Yeah, there we go. Yeah, yeah, put it put a comment in the uh yeah. Put an address in the comments and we'll we'll get you a book.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I I will say this is uh this is a treat to have you on and uh blessing to to be able to talk about this with you. Yeah. I actually did one story. I'm a journalist. Yes, if if Brian got you up to date on that. And um I did one story years ago about a uh a young um a young gentleman who is from Pennsylvania originally, and he was very young at the time. I think he was fourteen or fifteen. Okay. And a young woman from Elkhart, Indiana passed away because of a tragic accident, and he got her heart.
SPEAKER_01:Awesome.
SPEAKER_00:And uh I did the story on the five-year anniversary because they remember her every year. Sure. Sure. Yep. And um, and now he's 20, I believe he's 24, he has a child. Wow. And uh he's a firefighter, actually, but he has a second heart. So his first heart rejected rejected after about five or six uh it was longer than that. It was about probably in the seven years, seven or eight years, right when you're saying. Yeah, okay. And uh he received a new heart, but he is knocking on wood, he's doing okay. Good. And um and so it just reminded me of that story and uh knowing that there's a connection between the family and the recipient. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And um, I have a very good relationship with my donor family now, so I've been in their home half a dozen times and feel like we're family, talk to them quite often.
SPEAKER_00:So I was a young journalist when I told that story, but it's still one of my all-time favorite stories to tell because you know it's it's real. Yeah, you know, and uh so I appreciate you coming on the podcast and Brian O'Brien appreciates it. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, thank you. It's an honor to be here. I really appreciate being allowed to be here.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely, yeah. That's it's awesome. Yeah, we we we're usually a little funnier. I think today was a nice change to to have the deep funny, have a deep conversation. I'm hilarious, all right?
SPEAKER_01:Because I can do funny.
SPEAKER_02:I know you can. I know you can. I'm really looking forward to this cross content.
SPEAKER_00:We'll do the funny there. We'll do the funny there. So all right. Well, David Trock, thank you so much for being on the podcast for Brian Spencer of Vahid Sadarzadi. And this has been going under Anesthesia Answered, brought to you by the Butterfly Network. Butterfly Network. We'll see you in the next one.
