17 Brain Surgeries. 7 Misdiagnoses. 13mos ICU

Shaun & Julie Francis have endured what hopefully no other human being has to endure. 17 brain surgeries, 13 months in ICU, multiple comas, seizures and more. When 7 surgeons told Julie her husband's only option is to enter hospice, she said "figure out a way" and they did. Without her advocacy on his behalf while in a coma, Shaun would be dead long ago. Julie's stern approach gave her husband over 1 decade of family time, travel and more. And, Shaun is now alive and well!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Folks, today we're going to, we're going to defy gravity as I like to say it with this story. This one is incredible. I have Sean Francis and his wife, Julie here. So thank you for being here guys. This is a story of stories. So 17 brain surgeries, a total of 13 months in ICU and neuro ICU, correct? Which is different. We'll talk about that a little bit. But this is a story that just delivered when I did the pre-interview, so much hope and inspiration and even just change in mindset in the last couple of days since we've been through the pre-interview. So I want to thank you for that. Folks, we're going to get right into it. Sean and Julie are going to both talk through their own experiences because there was a lot of times throughout this six-year period where Sean

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was

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in either

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coma or unconscious, right? So this is just going to be very, very special. So thanks again for being here. Start off and tell us, how did it all start? So it's... fairly complex, but if you keep it straight by realizing there are two medical traumas that we went through. So the second was actually the brain trauma. Six years ago, I drank myself into a coma, changed my life, went straight into living right. Previously, I was drinking 40 to 60 ounces of vodka a day. I was trying to drink myself numb, I was working for a bully CEO who was the worst human being I've ever met. I was nervous because Julie was pregnant. I was feeling pressure because the job felt lower than what I had been previously doing. All those things. And it's my own fault. I take 100% accountability. Everyone says it's a disease. You can't blame me. No, I blame myself because I let myself get to that point. I was going to quit every Monday. Every Monday I had a reason to rationally decide, no, next Monday's better. And I realized it was a slippery slope. Julie realized it was a slippery slope. And, you know, I started hiding the drinking. I was able to drink at work. I was able to function. I mean, that CEO that I didn't care too much for, when I had to do my meetings with him, I would make sure to take an extra couple hits. I mean, I was drinking good when I went in to handle the meetings. So I drank myself into the coma. I call it my 16-day nap. Julie in the medical community decides they call it a coma, whatever.

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Potato, potato.

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But it was interesting. So drank myself into the coma, heart failure, kidney failure, organs shutting down one at a time. They gave me less than a 5% chance to survive. By God's grace, survived. Changed my life, reconnected with my faith, focused on my wife, focused on my daughter, in that order. Four years ago, brain infection. That's where the 17 brain surgeries was. When I tell people the story, people gasp. And I always come over the top and say, but it wasn't 20. 20 would have been excessive. And they look at me dumbfounded. And I explained to them, I said, you know, you can complain and cry about it or you can laugh about it. We choose to laugh about it. And it's a lot more fun laughing about it. And it's a lot easier to get through laughing about it. And it's made us closer. So, you know, we got through that. It was a good experience. I would say two and a half, two to two and a half year recovery. I think it was more like three. A ton of exercises. And, you know, I start off my story saying the same thing. I start and finish it the same way. I say, God is good and I am blessed. And that woman right there is the best human being I've ever met. Not only because she was my voice when I had my brain trauma, she gave me a second chance with my drinking. I didn't deserve it. And I work every day, every day. So she doesn't regret it. Because I know the sacrifice she made. And I know just the emotional toll and pull it took for her to say, okay, I'll forgive you. Don't do it again. And I'm going to trust you. And look, at that point, what can I say besides that she's the best human being

SPEAKER_00: 4:21

in the world? Yeah. So we have two... We have two different events, right? So you talked about the drinking and what that led to. But then you were out of the hospital. Right. Correct. Right. And then this other event is not related at all.

SPEAKER_02: 4:35

No. The brain infection. No.

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Okay. What's the name of it? So,

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yes. She's got it. It's called hydrocephalus. Unfortunately, we know way too much about it. And it's not... Cephalus. It's hydrocephalus. It's not syphilis. It's

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hydrocephalus. You had both a hydrocephalus and a brain infection. That was the issue.

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Right. The hydrocephalus led to the brain

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infection. And what is that for everybody

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out there? So what happens, and Julie probably knows more about it than I do, but what happens is your spinal fluid filters through your brain. And what happened is it got stuck and it led to infections. And I had a mass that usually if you get a mass, it forms on the right or the left side. Yeah. Right in the middle. Because when good or bad... I always say we don't half-ass anything. We overachieve. Unfortunately, the same thing with it. Yeah, exactly. All in. So the mass was in the middle of the brain and they're like, we can't get to it there. And we've got to get the infections out to be able to get the spinal fluid to start filtering through my brain again.

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Yeah.

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So a bunch of surgeries, you know, shunts went in, temporary shunts went in, and they'd fail. Permanent shunts would go in, and they'd fail. They finally wound up actually getting, if I remember correctly, not that I remembered then, but from discussions, they got a shunt from out of country, and the neurosurgeon worked 48 hours.

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It was a pediatric

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shunt. Pediatric shunt. And had to customize it to fit this warped brain. Not surprising. So... And it worked. Now, the interesting thing is they wanted to put me in hospice. And, again, I'm going to go back to the best human being I've ever met. She said, no, I'm not approving that. And they asked her a couple times. She can talk you through it because she's first-hand. They wanted to put you in hospice. And she said no. Yeah, because they ran out of protocol. They didn't know what else to do. They said we're going to get you uncomfortable and let them transition to whatever you guys believe. Oh, man. And they wound up the same surgeon. spent about a day and a half researching to try and say, what can we try? They found a tuberculosis case from 1959 where they injected a cocktail of like a steroid or something different, but like a steroid to break up the infection and then a clotting agent so you didn't get a brain aneurysm and die. They tried it multiple times, three or four times. I'm not sure how many exactly, but three or four times. No patient got off the table, and that was in the lungs, not the brain, right? So... That's about my part of it. And then all hell broke loose for me or, or, or my naps started, you know, and you took over, you really

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ran the medical

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care part of it. Absolutely. All right. So, so you get a phone call from, I'm guessing a doctor

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or a surgeon that says, Hey, we're in hospice. Yeah. That was the first.

SPEAKER_01: 7:26

Yeah. That was the first week. They said, there's nothing more we can do. We've already removed those shunts and there's, there's nothing we can do. We need to put them in hospice. And that was the first week. And I said, no, you guys haven't tried hard enough yet.

SPEAKER_02: 7:36

That was your response. It wasn't that nice. Don't lie. It probably wasn't. Don't lie. It was not that nice.

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The first time might've been that nice, but I said, you guys just haven't tried hard enough yet. Right.

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So, so I told, since our pre-interview, I told this story to

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some people and I said, yeah, You've got to realize in here that it wasn't just one doctor, right? It was a group of doctors

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who

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all

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got it wrong. And nothing would have happened. You wouldn't be here if you didn't push back. And irrelevant,

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your pushback was nice, mean, in the middle. It doesn't matter what it was. You pushed on them to find what? What did you want them to do? But it wasn't one pushback. It was several. It was three. It was three. Three different

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patients. You said they didn't try hard enough. What did you feel? You had to be feeling something. What didn't they try?

SPEAKER_01: 8:29

Well, it was only a week. I mean, they'd only been working on him for a week. So who's to say the next time they try to place something, it's not going to work? I mean, they told me at the beginning he had about another 5% chance of survival. So I just felt that they weren't working hard enough, that they might have already written him off as, why are we going to waste our time on this? And let's move on to other patients that we can actually save. And I just refused to let them do that.

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And then what happened? So how'd the call end up? Let's start there. Well,

SPEAKER_01: 9:00

they approached me a couple times. And the third time they approached me, I said, let's get the team together that's been working on it. I want to talk to everybody, but I couldn't go because it was during COVID. So I had them on the phone. And that's the only way I could communicate with Sean was like through FaceTime and stuff like that. But so I got everybody, I said, get everybody together. And they all introduced themselves. I want to make sure everybody was there. And I said, okay, guys, I'm going to tell you, don't. asked me to put him in hospice again. It's not going to happen. I said, you guys need to put your fucking heads together and go make some goddamn history. And I hung up on him. I said, don't call me back until you do it. I hung up on him.

SPEAKER_02: 9:34

Can you reenact exactly how you say it? Because that's not how you said it. Say it how you say it to me. Seriously. Say it how you say it to me. These are

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doctors. I was very mad. I was really mad. I told him, I said, you guys go make some fucking history. Don't call me back until you figure it out. I hung up on him. I was irritated. I was so irritated with all these brilliant neurosurgeons that they couldn't figure it

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out. Right. A team.

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A team of them. Put your heads together. Go make some history.

SPEAKER_02: 10:00

Wow. All right. Then what? Well, when they pick their jaws off the ground. The doctors, because they'd never been talked to like that, I'm sure. Then what, hun?

SPEAKER_01: 10:09

They didn't call me back. I would call and check on him. They didn't call me back for like a week or two. So obviously they were racking it, racking their brains trying to figure it out. And they came back to me with the crazy tuberculosis, like we can get in and out. We have seven minutes to get in and out, place the shunt, and close him up. We want to do it. I said, absolutely, let's go for it. Did

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you know

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about it? Well, I knew... I knew they were going to do a surgery because so, as Julie said, it was during COVID. So I, FaceTime was the only way of seeing them. So they said, we're going to break COVID because we're not going to sure he's going to get it, get them off the table. We're going to give him a chance to say goodbye to his wife and daughter and for them to say goodbye to him. So they gave us, they gave us, was it 20 or 30

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minutes, 30 minutes

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to say goodbye. And of course, you know, we're all traumatized from this. Helena's, I've got an eight-year-old daughter, and she's got pretty severe PTSD from all this too. For sure. Well, the doctors all cheered, and they were happy to see these guys when they came in. The doctors and nurses were all there to greet them. Scared Helena, and for the first-

SPEAKER_01: 11:12

10 minutes or so. Yeah, at

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least. It felt like 10 hours, but the first third to half of it, Helena was upset and crying, so we couldn't even talk. So the 30 minutes was really more like 20. Yeah. And

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I didn't tell him why I was there. I brought you a picture book, and I didn't tell him why we were there. I just told him they let us in finally. I

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didn't know it was to say goodbye until after.

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So you were

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allowed in during COVID just because of this one rare to say goodbye. What hospital? Where were you at? Emory. Thankfully, Emory. Here? Yep. Dr. Kong. Phenomenal. What

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happened?

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So

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was there like a, an acute event that took place that you had to get rushed to the hospital to find out you had hyper hypo hydrocephalus? Was it acute? Was it pain in your head? Did you fall? What happened?

SPEAKER_02: 12:05

I never would go to the doctor. I mean, ever. And I, The headache got... I had a headache for a week. I was in bed for a week. I mean, literally couldn't get out of bed. And if the landscapers were there, it'd blow me up. She'd have to go out and ask the landscapers to stop. Wow. I mean, and I went to the hospital and they said it was a stress headache. They did a CT scan, stress headache. Came home two days later, I can't take it. Go back, stress headache. Came back a second time. Yeah. The next day, we have a baby monitor in the bedroom for when Helena's in there alone sleeping so we can see her.

UNKNOWN: 12:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 12:40

I was taking a nap and I went delirious. And she could see it. And she came in and I started talking to her and I said, you know, do you want ice cream? And why is this guard looking at me? Why has he got his gun pulled? I'm just crazy. And she called 911. They rushed me to the hospital. And that's when they... Flew me from Johns Creek to main campus, took the helicopter. Dr. Hong, who was the neurosurgeon they wanted, was on vacation. Not too far away. They got her, brought her back. She performed surgery. She figured I had 45 minutes to an hour before I asphyxiated from the pressure on my brain. No way. Yeah. Yeah. So they bring her, you're in flight. They're prepping me. They bring her. Right. And then they're prepping me while they are bringing her back. They're prepping me for surgery. So when she lands, scrubs, starts cutting.

SPEAKER_00: 13:23

What did they know in the helicopter to tell? Do you happen to know that? Like, what did they tell her? Did they just say like, this might be a stroke?

SPEAKER_01: 13:30

No, they knew what it was. They figured out what it was because they did a CT with contrast, which if they would have done the first time that he would end with a headache, they would have found it and it would have been a very simple basis shunt.

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Antibiotics with a potential shunt, one

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and done potentially. Yeah, maybe a couple of days in the

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hospital. But the shunt might have done it by itself by just taking the infections out

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of it. Yeah. So she was well aware of what was going on because the hospital that he was being flown to called me and said, we're going to go over everything right now because we're not going to have time when He lands. He doesn't have enough time. So they went over everything. They said, we do have to call you back. We're just going to ask you for permission to operate on him. And that's it. We're not going to explain anything. Two sentence discussion. Do we have approval? Yes. They were gone for like three hours.

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Did you meet him? Were you able to meet him at the

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hospital? I met the, I met the team when I was able to say goodbye to him. I was, and I've met Dr. Wong, not before that surgery. No.

SPEAKER_00: 14:23

Nothing like blind trust, huh? What was the feeling at that point? Did you think that was the last time when they pulled out that you were going to see them?

SPEAKER_01: 14:31

Yeah, I just panic. Just absolute panic. You know, just not being able to do anything. You feel helpless. Right. You can't do anything. I couldn't help them.

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And you just watched the helicopter go.

SPEAKER_01: 14:42

I couldn't even go into the hospital and they took them because of COVID and the regulations. They took them out the door and that was the last time I saw them for almost six months. Oh my goodness. Except on FaceTime.

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Except on FaceTime. Yeah, every day

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for hours at a time.

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Any time you wanted. There's no like visiting hours on FaceTime or

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anything like that. No, but he was funny because he couldn't remember that we would have FaceTime. We

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FaceTimed three, four, five times a day and we'd do it again and I'd get mad. Why haven't we talked in two days? I miss you guys. And she's like, honey, we talked four times today. This is the fifth time. So they put a board up and I would start, you know, this is part of the recovery process, I think. I mean, they didn't tell me to do it, but I started, you know, finding cheats. So I'd talk to Julie and I'd put the time and the date. Yeah. Talk to my dad, put the time, put the date. It's funny because they said that I would only remember impactful conversations. I can remember Dr. Huang and Lindsay, the nurse that I got close to, I always remembered our discussions once I started writing it on the board because I couldn't remember we talked four times until I looked at it. But I remember, oh, yeah, they cooked out tonight. Oh, yeah, they had pancakes for dinner. You know, simple things and silly things like that. But when I say she's the best human being I've ever met, think about this. So you just heard at a high level just the cognitive and rational thought process that she has.

UNKNOWN: 16:16

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02: 16:17

The loyalty, the drive, the strength, the courage. But then just the creativity. So I didn't know this until I started doing the recovery. But speech therapy is a big part of recovery. And it's not so much for your speech. It's really for memory. And I would like go to sleep, take a nap, and I'd wake up and I wouldn't know what day it was. It took me six months to be able to understand a.m. and p.m. I had to learn to read and write again. I mean, all of that stuff. But she did all these things like, you know that game Simon with the colors and it doesn't matter? Played that for hours a day. In the match game and cards, hours a day. Oh yeah, and then she did note cards and she would write a word. And when I got good at that, then she added in colors. Then she added in actual physical colors, not just the word of the color. Like yellow would show a picture of a yellow circle. And she would do things like that and it would force me to constantly fire new pathways. You know, when neurons fire, they fire. Fire neurons and it becomes exponential effect. And I worked at like a full-time job. Ask her, I would work that. And I'm not exaggerating.

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For hours. 10

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to 14 hours a day. Because I looked at it this way. God's given me a third chance at life. So he gave it the same chance that we all had. You had two chances, right? Because you surrendered to yourself and you recovered, right? But now I'm getting a third chance after being born, my drinking, and the hydrocephalus. I said, I better take full advantage. Everything he's given me and given us, or that's a sin. Or I'm, you know, that's just, I'm throwing it out.

SPEAKER_00: 17:51

Yeah, makes sense. Okay, is that why you answer better than I deserve? Absolutely. Where does that

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come from? So, and it's the truth. A young man that worked for me, I'm good friends with him, I'm actually getting ready to hire him again. Peter Rogowski says, every time you ask him how he's doing, he says, better than I deserve. And I, you know, I used to get a little bit annoyed by it. And then I thought about it. I said, why would you be annoyed by that? I mean, and then I thought about my life and I said, man, what we've gotten through, what she's gotten me through, what I've gotten me through, what he's gotten us through.

SPEAKER_00: 18:20

Yeah.

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Even a bad day is a good day because it's better than sitting in a damn hospital bed saying, okay, what am I working on today? Today, short breaths. Today, long breaths. You know, I mean, just things like unbelievable. I just said, even a bad day is a good day.

SPEAKER_00: 18:33

Incredible. All right. So let's go back. Let's stay on that surgery. So you get rushed in, you go through surgery, you come out. You wake up. Let's pick up right there. So you wake up to what?

SPEAKER_02: 18:48

I don't know if you remember. I won't. I don't remember that. Do you want to know my first memory when I woke up? Yeah, first memory. Okay, so I eat like a third grader. Chicken fingers and fries. Yeah. Steak, that's about it. No, really, and ice cream. But I hated the food there. I would get plain turkey sandwiches, and they were like, the turkey was slimy. But breakfasts were always good, pancakes and crispy bacon. And so they'd bring me two breakfasts because they knew it. And I remembered that my first memory is I was excited because they came in and took my breakfast order.

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That's my very first memory.

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All right. Yeah, that figure's a fat guy, right? Yeah, I'm just kidding. But yeah, so that was the first memory. I remember telling you, how many times did I tell you how excited I was breakfast is coming

SPEAKER_01: 19:33

up? We talked about breakfast every day. Every day we talked about breakfast. What

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was life? at home like then during this

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it was hard it was hard because it was during covid yeah so

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no friends no family

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yeah i had nobody to help me with helena so that was difficult because she wasn't in school yet because she was only what four

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yeah

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so she wasn't in school yet and it felt i mean like i was just a single parent i mean it was just it was really hard and the hospital would call me at all hours of the night asking me can we do this can we do that you know and but you

SPEAKER_02: 20:03

you were a single parent even before that though if you think about you became a single parent with my drinking

SPEAKER_01: 20:07

yeah

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right i mean And that was two years of drinking. And then the recovery, you weren't a single parent, but I couldn't be full, you know, because I was working on getting healthy.

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You were a single parent

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for longer than

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that. Yeah. It was just, I thought, I don't know how I'm going to be able to do this again. That's what I thought in my

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mind. Right. How am I

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going to do it again?

SPEAKER_00: 20:25

Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Were there, staying in this period of time, did you come out and have any like... dips. Oh yeah. Like terribly. Were they calling you and saying, Hey, we might not make it through the night kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_01: 20:41

And, or they'd call and they'd say, we need to take them back into surgery. Or I would be talking to him and I'm like, there's something wrong with them. You need to take them down to CAT scan.

SPEAKER_02: 20:48

Yeah. She became part of the team because they couldn't tell when the shunts were failing. Right? Or there's some type of complication from whatever procedure they just run. She could tell within 30 seconds of FaceTiming me. So again, talk about knowing me. What's an example? What would she tell? What would you tell through your eyes? What would you see?

SPEAKER_01: 21:08

He would hallucinate that he would see me and Helena the most when he was doing really bad. I

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would think they were outside of a conference room when I'm in Japan.

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Yeah.

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And I'm like, hey, when I finish up this meeting, they're behind. I got to get in. I'll be out. Wow.

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He would hallucinate about us. Or just his speech alone would tell me something's not right.

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Wasn't it slurred a little bit? You

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noticed? It would

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be slurred.

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And then that would do what to the shunt? Does that mean it was loose?

SPEAKER_01: 21:36

It would mean it wasn't working. It just wasn't draining fluid fast enough, and it was just putting pressure on his brain

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again. Because you're trying to, what, drain fluid? Well, the infection, and then you've got to get the infections down for the spinal fluid to be able to keep draining. So in normal,

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like right now, is

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it working

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normal for

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you? Well, I hope so. I

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don't want to

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jinx

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it. I'm not answering that question, Johnny. No

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problem.

SPEAKER_00: 21:58

For me, what's happening in my body right now? Spinal fluid is going up my spine?

SPEAKER_02: 22:03

Yep. Filters through your brain. Filters through your brain. And then

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it goes

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back.

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And then back down. So it's an automatic process. And if you're going to go any deeper than this, we're getting Dr. Huang on the phone and you're not giving me a headache.

SPEAKER_00: 22:14

Maybe we will. That would be awesome. Next episode, we'll do that. All right. That's incredible. Oh, my gosh. So you get out. How long were you in that time?

SPEAKER_02: 22:25

So the first time I was in... Six months. The second time I was in six and a half, seven months. Six months at one stay? The alcoholism, the pancreatitis was six months. Okay. The brain trauma was six and a half, seven months. Two different hospitals.

SPEAKER_00: 22:39

What was the neuro stuff that you talked about? The neuro, is it neuro ICU?

SPEAKER_02: 22:44

The second time was neuro ICU. So that was at main campus Emory downtown. Okay. And what, so we hold the record to have the longest stay ever. in neuro ICU at Emory.

SPEAKER_01: 22:55

Somebody that survived. And walking out on their own. And

SPEAKER_02: 22:58

you like the second part of that title. Not so much the first, but it was really neat though when they let me out. This is another good memory. So there were basically two shifts of nurses. And both shifts came in, plus the folks that had the day off. to cheer and as i came down they were all cheering as i as i left the house but you know how you see that on tv sometimes when kids or adults cancer they did something similar i was like i can't believe i'm going home and then i got in the car and you know because we were in the front julie parked i get i've got goosebumps julie parked they both got out first you came and hugged me and Helena was getting out and she jumped in my arms and we got in the car and we just got settled for a second and Helena sung Moana to me. That Moana song she sings all the time. Oh, it was. I mean, we're already crying. It's awesome. I don't know the title of

SPEAKER_01: 24:04

the song. I don't know the title of the song either. It's the one that says I'm not the perfect daughter and he just lost. I know

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I'm not the perfect daughter. So cool. Yeah, so it was And

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he came home against medical

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advice. Oh, yeah, AMA. You did? Yeah. Six months? So tell

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her. He would ask me a lot to come and get him when he was in the hospital, and I couldn't.

SPEAKER_02: 24:29

But I went to rehab. So I went to rehabilitation for the brain trauma so I could come home because I had the mentality of a six-year-old, and it was probably less than that. And they said, let's get him in rehab. He can stay here for a couple months. A couple months, yeah. get his faculties back, be functioning before he goes home. So it's not a burden for her and a burden for Helena, but obviously more so for her. And the insurance company got all screwed up. I wound up staying by myself, you know, for another four or five days. And then when I finally got there, I finally told her, I said, Helena, I mean, I called her mommy. I said, mommy, listen, uncle, I've never given up in my life on anything ever in my life. I've never, I haven't succeeded in everything, but I've never given up. I gave up. I said, they said, I'm done, uncle. I

SPEAKER_01: 25:15

can't do it anymore.

SPEAKER_02: 25:16

I can't do it anymore. I couldn't. And that was

SPEAKER_01: 25:19

it. That was it. I wouldn't go at him. I knew at that point, if I didn't, if I didn't go get him, he was going to break and that was going to be it. I mean, there was no, no way you could stay there.

SPEAKER_02: 25:28

I think I was broke and you fixed me by doing that. And then, then they screwed us because they were so pissed off because we checked out against their, They took the PICC line out. And the last thing that I was getting was three doses of antibiotic, like a real heavy antibiotic that had been injected. It couldn't be pill form because it was that strong. So they took the PICC line out. I had no way of being able to get it to myself. So I'm home now. If I don't get this... Well, you handled that. Dr. Huang found out. She contacted Dr. Huang. Dr. Huang contacted the pharmacy because... It was like 9 o'clock at night.

SPEAKER_00: 26:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 26:09

Pharmacy's closing. Kept the pharmacy open. We got there at like 1045. So this is an hour, 45 minutes after it closed to get in. And we know how to, you know, I've got diabetes from that. Alcoholism. Yeah. So injecting is not the issue. Yeah, but that was funny because I said, it's a big syringe. I said, squeeze my leg. I go, make sure you squeeze it. And I said, squeeze it like this here. Well, she thinks she's got to squeeze it really hard. So she clamps on it. She squeezes it. I go through the roof. She goes through the roof. The needle goes flying. I'm like, all right, let's start over. This is how it's going to be. You don't have to squeeze it. That's how it's going to be. But here's the thing. We have laughed more in the last six years, really, the last... Four years, especially the last year.

SPEAKER_00: 26:53

Yeah. And

SPEAKER_02: 26:53

it's because you can complain and cry about it or you can laugh about it. And so here's an example. We have a rule. The fat guy made it, which is when you have cookies... You don't leave one. You go in the pantry, grab the other bag, because I don't want to come to get one cookie.

SPEAKER_00: 27:06

Right, right.

SPEAKER_02: 27:08

Well, she grabs the Chips Ahoy bag and says, who left one cookie? And I'm sitting there on the couch all cocky, and I go, that wasn't me. And she goes, how the fuck do you know? And I'm like, oh. You were on the phone with your mom. I was on the phone

SPEAKER_00: 27:22

with my mom. That's right. How

SPEAKER_02: 27:24

would you know? And I'm laughing my ass off, right? But then she nicknamed, every time she would FaceTime, she nicknamed it 50 First Dates, you Remember the movie where Drew Barrymore every morning woke up with insomnia?

SPEAKER_01: 27:36

I would have to explain to him every day almost what was going on.

SPEAKER_02: 27:39

And I can remember on the board, COVID, you know, there's COVID. That's why your family's not here. They love you. They miss you. You know, it was on that same board that we had off that vision board. But then there were other like genius things. Like when I was asleep and I'd wake up and, you know, I'd take a nap and in bed and I'd wake up. I'm like, oh my God, you know, because you panic, right? Sure. You know, when you wake up, you're unsettled. Think about being unsettled and having 17 brain scrambles and you don't know morning from night. I can't imagine. You lay down for a nap at 1 o'clock. It's probably about 3 o'clock. You woke up. We're outside playing. You know, just stuff like that. Tonight, we're going to dinner. And just things like that. And it was... Those types of elements, and then think about the memory games that she put in. So all these things, my speech therapist is taking notes. She goes, I'm going to use that. Yeah, establishing routine makes all the sense in the world. She goes, what made you think of that? And she said, well, I do the same thing with my daughter, and I did it with my daughter and me when he's doing this. The routine takes out that anxiety. Okay, what's next? Right? So every time you can feel it. So this is the best human being I've ever met. I'm going to keep saying it. Beautiful and smart is not a bad combination. Right. What is

SPEAKER_00: 28:52

long and short-term effects of all this stuff, like with memory?

SPEAKER_02: 28:57

I want to say three-year recovery. If I'm going to be honest, it was a four-year recovery. The first six months, she couldn't leave home. Until nine to 12 months, right? Before you left me alone because we were afraid I'd turn the oven on and keep it on. Leave the fridge door open. I mean, I had a mentality of a six-year-old. So I was afraid. So your brain like reset or went back? Yeah, it went back. I've got to redevelop. I had to learn to read and write again. I mean, everything, everything. So I started to, you can say plateau. I actually, and I think you'd agree, I started to egress at about... 18 months. And at two years, I finally was allowed to drive alone. So I had good therapy by, I would take the vet for a drive, but I couldn't go too far and I had to make sure I had the GPS, right? Because I would get lost. And it had to be short. And same thing with my walks. I'd walk a mile and I'd walk straight so I could come back. But at two and a half months, I was able to take Helena by myself. Not

SPEAKER_01: 30:13

at two and a half months.

SPEAKER_02: 30:15

Oh, I'm sorry, two and a half years. Sorry, two and a half years. Two and a half years. Yes, two and a half years. Two and a half years. Yes, sorry, two and a half years. I'm sorry. Thank you. Yeah, I had to wait. At that point, my recovery went through the roof. And I said to Dr. Huang, she goes, how's it going? I go, we both feel like it's not egress anymore. I go, in fact, it's starting to fast track again. She goes, I'm not surprised. She goes, every time you're in a new situation, you're firing new neurons. Even if you go to the same place twice, you're with different people. Helene's playing and doing something different. She's hanging out with different kids. You're firing new neurons. It's firing neurons. It's firing neurons. And it went through the roof on that. And then the other big thing on the recovery, two things. I started doing the ice plunge challenge. You did? Yeah. Yeah, he did. So I'm addicted to it. It's my new vodka. Soda water and ice baths have become my new drinking

SPEAKER_00: 31:06

fix,

SPEAKER_02: 31:08

which I think is a good trade. Yeah, yeah. But she said it makes all the sense in the world. And you see me huffing it out here.

SPEAKER_00: 31:16

Oh,

SPEAKER_02: 31:16

yeah. You know, five, six days a week. And the reason being is... I can do it because of the ice baths because it literally, your body recovers and you play sports, you know what I mean? But the best part is the clarity of thought because it releases all these toxins and it's getting your circulation better. Because I go underneath for the first minute and then I'll take time periodically going underneath. And it went through, but the number one thing, so all that stuff worked, all that stuff, they were catalysts. The number one catalyst was her. One day she saw me getting frustrated and I actually broke it. I started to break down. She was sitting next to me and she turned my face right to me and she looked this far away from me, eye to eye. I won't do it to you because that'd be creepy. And she said, that beautiful brain is still there and I still love you as much as I did before. And all of a sudden I went, okay. She still loves me. She still sees me for the man that I am. Now, now I'm going. So even a rough day, you know, a hard day where I feel like I'm just, I'm struggling. And even yesterday I had a rough day and I said it and I actually said it to you. I said, yeah. Do you remember? I said, yes, I'm having a rough day. She got me out of it. So she knows my, my favorite time is family time.

SPEAKER_00: 32:36

Yeah. For sure.

SPEAKER_02: 32:37

I mean, the best. Beautiful out. And I said, hey, if you're up for it, because she's got a collapsed lung, by the way. She's got bronchitis. Yeah. She's recovering from a collapsed lung.

SPEAKER_00: 32:48

Oh, my goodness. You guys. So

SPEAKER_02: 32:50

she's been on her back. She's been in bed for weeks. She just got out of bed like four days ago and just got out of the house yesterday. And she's like, hey. I'm by Arby's. I'm going to get dinner. Do you want to have a picnic out at the park? I'm like, yeah, I want to have a picnic out at the park. I've been wanting that forever, right? So all of a sudden, that day of confusion and all, I came back. I thought it got sharp again. And the rest of the day, it was glorious. Vanished. I keep saying it. Best human being I've ever met, right? Because she sees it, right? She sees it.

SPEAKER_00: 33:19

Yeah. Is the bad day, is it just like a normal bad day and that's fine? Or is it a bad day because of something memory-wise?

SPEAKER_02: 33:27

Well, it's, so it becomes a downward spiral because I'll see myself forgetting stuff and I get very frustrated. It's not like you lose your phone because everyone does that. It's stuff that, hey, yesterday, There's a box that she wanted to save. It's a lava lamp to try and relax that I got. And three times I tried to throw the box out. And three times she said, don't throw the box out. I want to look at it because there's some directions. And I said, you know, and that's how it started. And what happens is then I get frustrated. And the second time it happens, then I'm waiting for it to happen a third time to pounce on it, to get mad at myself. It becomes a downward spiral. So you know the process of rewiring the brain, right? It's all about rewiring the brain. And that's what I've spent years. a lot of time reading Jordan Peterson or listening to him

SPEAKER_00: 34:11

I don't read a lot and

SPEAKER_02: 34:13

talking about rewiring the brain and I started doing research on rewiring the brain and it works and we've talked about it and she's working on it too but the thing is she knew I needed to be set back off that course I was going. She knew I needed different neurons firing. She rewired the situation, which helped me rewire my thought process.

SPEAKER_01: 34:34

Anytime he gets stressed out, he will go back. Even now. If he's very, very stressed, he can

SPEAKER_02: 34:41

rest

SPEAKER_01: 34:42

a year. It's crazy. It happens so fast.

SPEAKER_02: 34:45

I could regret to the point where I don't know if I should be driving alone

SPEAKER_01: 34:48

anymore. Where he can't find his way home. It happens just like that. It's all from stress.

SPEAKER_02: 34:54

You know it. that it's happening. Or you have to catch it. I can see it. I can feel it now. It used to be she had to catch it. I can feel it

SPEAKER_01: 35:00

now. He can feel it now. Yeah, you must

SPEAKER_02: 35:03

know. I try and be as self-aware as I can be. I mean, it's just... I've got to. It's out of survival, right? It's out of safety for her. You know what my focus is on safety for these guys. Yeah. Right? It's on safety for them. I've just... So you've got to know him. Oh, she knows me better than I know myself.

SPEAKER_00: 35:19

Beyond anything we can even fathom. So this hydrocephalus is hereditary.

SPEAKER_02: 35:30

Yes, 1% of the people

SPEAKER_00: 35:31

have it. Tell us about that. So who gets it? How do they get it? What do you know about it?

SPEAKER_02: 35:34

So I don't know a ton, but I know the cliff notes that are important, which is 1% of the people have it. Usually it doesn't show itself. People who have lived their whole lives never know it. If it does, you usually get it as a kid. And it's typically, if it's not advanced, it's typically antibiotics and you're done. I'll go back to the, we don't half-ass anything.

SPEAKER_00: 35:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 35:57

All in or not. Right. We... Well, that's an example. I just lost it. I just lost my thought. You're

SPEAKER_01: 36:07

talking about, it's either infants or old people. That's normally where it presents itself. Not a middle-aged person like him. Old

SPEAKER_02: 36:14

people is when you run into more complications. And of course, we overachieve in good and bad. We waited until we were that

SPEAKER_01: 36:21

old. Did you know you

SPEAKER_02: 36:22

had it?

SPEAKER_01: 36:23

No, there's no way to know. No

SPEAKER_02: 36:24

idea. We didn't know until this happened. How do kids know? Well, I think... Can they do a blood test on it?

SPEAKER_01: 36:31

I believe they can. Well, what happens is if you've ever seen like elephantitis of the head, a lot of times it's the fluid that's built up in the head. And that's why you see that. Yeah. You're not going to know you have it until it presents itself.

SPEAKER_00: 36:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 36:46

But normally they catch it and... This doctor that didn't think to do the CT with contrast just

SPEAKER_02: 36:53

blew it twice. Well, and the other thing, too, is back then I was not listening to my body. Yeah. And I wasn't, you know, I always say God talks, we don't listen. Right. He's telling me that, too, right? Another example. Because if you don't think he told me that with the drinking. Yeah. Right. But I waited.

UNKNOWN: 37:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 37:13

Well,

SPEAKER_01: 37:14

I mean, but we had no idea. I mean, they said it was a stress headache. What are you going to do? I mean, no matter how much... Yeah, they would have sent me home

SPEAKER_02: 37:19

either way.

SPEAKER_01: 37:20

I mean, they gave them pain pills and everything. But they said, they said, we have

SPEAKER_02: 37:22

no idea how you're... And they said the same thing with the gallbladder, how you're functioning. Yeah. It's functioning... I don't know. But I like to say I've become more acute to– or more cognizant of listening to my body. And then, what was it, two years ago, my gallbladder almost exploded.

SPEAKER_00: 37:41

So

SPEAKER_02: 37:42

I'm like, I got pancreatitis. I got pancreatitis. I've got chronic– not chronic pancreatitis. I've got acute– you know, periodic pancreatitis. So it was just, all of a sudden, your head flare up or whatever. But it hurt, it hurt, it hurt. And finally I said, I've got to go, I've got to go to ER. So I go to ER. Well, he rushed me into surgery to remove my gallbladder because they thought it was going to explode. This surgeon said to me, I've never seen such a diseased patient. gallbladder in my life. He goes, how were you walking? And I said, it hurt. That was the least of your. Yeah. So, so I've, I've been trying to listen to my body a lot more without becoming a hypochondriac.

SPEAKER_00: 38:23

Gosh, incredible. So what, what I think everybody, what I hope to hear is not in a bad way, but just don't trust the advice that you get all the time. Like, just because they... Well,

SPEAKER_02: 38:37

I think... Well, what I think it is... Yes, I would say it differently. I think you have to be your own advocate. And if you can't be your own advocate, you better have a good advocate. Again, that's me being... You're not even

SPEAKER_00: 38:50

here

SPEAKER_02: 38:51

without her advocacy.

SPEAKER_01: 38:53

He would have been gone the first time because he flatlined with a pancreatitis when everything shut down.

SPEAKER_00: 38:58

With her in the room.

SPEAKER_01: 38:59

With me in the room. And they only shocked him one time. And I looked at him. I said, what are you doing? Shock him again. Really? And they shocked him again and he came back. Because they'd written him off because he had a 5% chance of survival. His kidneys had failed. His heart was failing. I mean, he couldn't breathe on his own.

SPEAKER_02: 39:14

Well, they shocked me a couple times and then they gave up. They shocked twice and gave up because I remember Bulat telling us that.

SPEAKER_01: 39:20

Was it twice? I only remember doing it once. I was standing there. I'm like, what are you doing?

SPEAKER_02: 39:25

Right. Yeah. Again, point.

SPEAKER_01: 39:26

Do it again. But they had written him off at that point. Well,

SPEAKER_02: 39:29

protocols are shocked twice, right? They shock twice.

UNKNOWN: 39:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 39:33

She goes, no, you're not done. Incredible. And here's the thing though, right? It didn't end here. This is a lot. And

SPEAKER_00: 39:43

this is so much, this is four years, but we have more to go in this story. Right? So things were good. And then,

SPEAKER_02: 39:53

and I'll help Brooklyn. So you change your life. Um, we had a really, um, A close friend of mine from work at Pure Red moved in with us. We have like a basement apartment moved in with us. He's family, right? I mean, he is. He's family. He introduced us to North Point Community Church. We started going there. We got addicted to that. That's my other vodka. I've got multiple vodkas and they're all good. Good for me too. We just got really ingrained in the church and started. We loved the sermon. It was relevant. It was relatable. I wound up getting baptized two years ago in April.

SPEAKER_01: 40:40

We thought it was probably good.

SPEAKER_02: 40:42

I got sprinkled as a baby. She grew up Italian Catholic. I grew up Irish Catholic. Guilt on guilt and guilt on guilt on guilt. But this church, it was much more of a celebration and more of a, not a thou shall not, but this is how you should live. Don't do this or this or this. It was... Do more of this. Do more of this. Do more. And, you know, the more we got into that, the more it was pulling me. I started leading a men's group. You know, just we love it there. And started walking every day. You know, I see you out there going much faster than me. Because I'm on a golf

SPEAKER_00: 41:21

cart.

SPEAKER_02: 41:25

Chasing

SPEAKER_01: 41:28

a kid.

SPEAKER_00: 41:29

Playing tag. Yeah,

SPEAKER_02: 41:30

fair

SPEAKER_00: 41:30

enough. Running in front of a

SPEAKER_02: 41:31

car. Fair enough. Fair enough. So I started spending a ton of time really focusing on health and healing. Everything I wanted to do in life was around health and healing. So health is do good for myself. Healing was do good for others and do good for my family and enjoy that and living in the moment. I spent my whole life worried about tomorrow. My whole life worried about, I mean, you know, if I had$10, I needed$20. If I had$40, I needed$150, you know. And I stopped doing that. And I was looking back, and I still at times will go, every morning I have a folder of pictures that I look at, every morning and every night. And the pictures start out with me in the hospital bed in a coma, and it progresses to,

SPEAKER_00: 42:23

wow.

UNKNOWN: 42:26

Wow.

SPEAKER_02: 42:26

It progresses to me having a ventilator off and being out of the, no, and then me being out of the coma and then Julie laying in bed with me, smiling as I'm asleep. At the hospital. Yep, in the hospital bed. I still have all the IVs in me. I mean, I had 11 lines, ports. And 22 lines. And then, so her laying in bed with me with her arm around me smiling, I can still see it. And then me standing up for the first time. And then all of us together. And I go through that list. I mean, that chronology. And it gets me from make good decisions to live in the moment. Wow. Right. And it sets me for the day for the right MO. Yeah. And then it sets me for night for peaceful sleep. And then I pray in grace and gratitude. That's the other thing. I'm off. So I was on... This is like an Oprah show. Or an AA meeting. I... I forgot what I was saying.

SPEAKER_01: 43:47

You were on a bunch of medications.

SPEAKER_02: 43:49

Oh, yeah, I was on seven psychiatric medications and two general medications for gout and stuff. I'm off all of them. All of them? All of them. Grace and gratitude. Oh, my God. All on grace and gratitude. So on the health and healing journey of my research and Jordan Peterson, if you focus on grace and gratitude. So grace, what do you do? Well, every time I see you, you did me wrong. I don't think about you doing me wrong. I'm over it. I'm not going to let you do it again. I still don't like you. But I'm not reliving the details of that moment. And then gratitude. Physiologically proven, the part of your brain, you can only have one emotion that dominates, that you're feeling. So if I say, right now, you're not going to say six things out of the gate. The first thing you say is typically your dominant feeling. That, if... Gratitude is the dominant feeling. It actually puts up a firewall. So anxiety and depression and all those things driven by PTSD can't become the dominant emotion in your brain. So it helps you rewire your thinking process. That's what got me off the psychiatric medications. I think the ice bath is what got me off the physical, like the gout medication. Because my pancreas started producing insulin again. It's not enough. I still have to shoot some insulin, but I'm shooting like a third of the amount and it's reducing. I don't know if it might recover. They've never seen, they never saw anyone have their kidneys come from, like they're putting me on the kidney donation list. They've come back, they're fully functioning. I just had blood work done, dead nuts green.

SPEAKER_01: 45:28

Oh my. From the drinking, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 45:30

And the pancreas that they thought I might have killed. Oh, we got to tell the blood clot story.

UNKNOWN: 45:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 45:36

So we're moving now in the timeline of the trip that you took. And that's the biggest, right? So that's two years ago. You all get a camp, an RV. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right. Or did I skip some? No, no, no. Yep, you've got it right. So two years ago. I think it was your idea. We always talked about renting an RV and doing

SPEAKER_01: 45:59

that. Just going wherever. And

SPEAKER_02: 46:00

she's like, let's rent an RV. Yeah. So we were going to do spring break and we were going to do the southeast. And we'd driven 300 or 400 miles. And I said, yeah, I don't feel great. I'm going to pull over. So I pulled over. And I said, I'm going to take a week. And typically I like to pee outside. So I went outside, even though I got a bathroom and RV. And I went, came back inside. Within two minutes, I was unconscious. I had a seizure. Bit my tongue, bleeding all over the place. So thankfully, I pulled over. Julie had Helena get her phone because she was holding me. And I'm bleeding all over. I'm bleeding like a stuck pig, right? Because I cut, I almost, I mean, I bit my tongue on both sides really hard from it, you know, when I had the seizure. So she got, she got Helena to get her phone. She called, you know, she had Helena, Helena knows the dial 911, but,

SPEAKER_00: 46:54

and

SPEAKER_02: 46:55

handed her phone, called 911, got me. And, you know, it took a while to get home, get settled, but we got to go home and get settled. But think about that. How many times have I said, have you heard me say, God talks, we got to do better listening, right? And I pray on that every morning and every night to listen better. He told me to pull over because I didn't feel great.

SPEAKER_00: 47:16

What did you feel like?

SPEAKER_02: 47:18

I was just, I was feeling... A little bit claustrophobic to the point where, you know, we were talking yesterday when things start to condense and start to blacken around you. And my stomach started getting upset and I'm like, this doesn't feel right. This isn't, I'm not at, you know, peace. I'm not at even, I'm not balanced right now. Something's wrong. So I pulled over. Yeah. Two minutes later. Yeah. Wow. The hospital after that? Mm-hmm. Yep. Where and

SPEAKER_01: 47:48

when? I don't even know where we were.

SPEAKER_02: 47:49

LJ. LJ? LJ?

SPEAKER_01: 47:51

Yeah, somewhere. Yeah, no, that's where your cousin lives.

SPEAKER_02: 47:54

Yeah, yeah. Oh, so you're in the North Georgia mountains.

SPEAKER_01: 47:57

Yeah, yeah. Okay, you're far out. Yeah, I mean, trying to get...

SPEAKER_02: 48:00

Yeah, we were going to Nashville.

SPEAKER_01: 48:02

Yeah, trying to get the... Tell the people where we were was horrible because to get them to him because I was in a Kroger parking lot or something like that. And I just told him what I was seeing around me because I had no idea where we were at. And I didn't look at his street before we pulled into the parking lot. And I couldn't let him go because he was jerking around so much. Yeah. And finally somebody at dispatch said, I know where they're at. And the cops got there first. How did he know? I don't know.

SPEAKER_02: 48:31

Probably GPS of the phone, don't you think?

SPEAKER_01: 48:32

I don't know. I don't know. One of the cops figured it out

SPEAKER_02: 48:37

where

SPEAKER_01: 48:37

I

SPEAKER_02: 48:37

was

SPEAKER_01: 48:37

just

SPEAKER_00: 48:38

from the description. So you're North Georgia mountains. You got the RV. They come ambulance to local hospital, I guess. And then what happens there?

SPEAKER_02: 48:50

So that was interesting because I was, obviously I came back. I was cognizant. The next morning, yeah. I knew everything. They were able to explain it, and I was able to understand everything that happened. But now I'm thinking, is this going to be my life now? Or is something wrong with Shunson? I'm not going to have life anymore, right? So now we're nervous about that, and I'm like, how do I get in with Dr. Huang? Because this woman, I mean, she's as specialized and good as she is. Most of her time is going to be applied in surgeries, right? Yeah. So, but she saw what happened. We got in quickly. She said, listen to this. So she does a CT. We did a CT scan. And she comes back and says, well, everything's great. She goes, actually, it was a blessing in disguise. I'm like, what? She said, yeah, because the shunts that she said, I was very, very happy with where the shunts were placed. She said, for me to get them where they were, or where they are now, from where they were, I probably would have killed you. It actually had the shunts shift just a little bit to be better. She goes, at this point, you'll survive a nuclear winter. I don't know if I want that, but it's good to know.

SPEAKER_00: 49:59

Oh

SPEAKER_02: 49:59

my

SPEAKER_00: 49:59

goodness. Yeah. So what was it? Like it was a seizure? It was

SPEAKER_02: 50:04

just from all the brain trauma. So I wound up having to go back and do neural checkups for another 18 months. In fact, I graduated from them last month. So I don't have to go back to them or my neurosurgeon unless I have a problem. That was also Emory. So yeah, he was part of the same department, departmental team. So it's Hwang. Say the name again. Hwang. Hwang. Yep. H-O-A-N-G. Lady. Yep. Kimberly Hwang.

SPEAKER_00: 50:30

Neurologist.

SPEAKER_02: 50:31

Yep. Neurosurgeon. Neurosurgeon. So she does brain.

SPEAKER_00: 50:34

Yep. Actual.

SPEAKER_02: 50:35

Yeah, actually, what's pretty cool is she's, you want to, So she's currently doing, worked with, she's testing large primates, human trials next, a cure for brain cancer, where she's surgically implanted smart microbots that seek out and destroy the cancer cells and leave the healthy ones alone. If it works, it might be applicable for many mass tumor cancers, kidney, pancreatic, ovarian, breast. So we're just trying to accelerate her work. In fact, Julie and I are owners of a, of a business that, well, take a step back and maybe talk about honest words.

SPEAKER_00: 51:15

Yeah, I mean, if you want to. Yeah,

SPEAKER_02: 51:16

yeah, yeah. So during the time of the brain trauma, a former colleague of mine, I used to mentor her at GE. I was the head of HR for a GE business, and she was a young, high-potential talent that we were trying to fast-track. Survived stage 3 breast cancer, and she was also at Emory. And she was so torn up from the radiation, she couldn't wear a bra. And her and her fiance designed shapewear that incorporates in the bra. And after the fourth iteration, her doctor said, it's approved, go patent it. So she penned it. We went into business together and we started listening on Amazon in six weeks, which is pretty cool. And here's the cool thing. Two arms of the business. for-profit, non-for-profit. The non-for-profit, half the money is going to the Emory Winship Cancer Institute that saved her life and half is going to my neurosurgeon that saved mine. And that money will be able to help her with the brain trauma. Oh, my gosh. And, you know, so I say we're going to try and do well by doing good. So my business partner, Lillian Hamilton, and her fiancé, Michael Reed, we go by the creed, we're building a culture of God-fearing patriots. Right?

UNKNOWN: 52:24

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02: 52:24

And that we're going to do well by doing good. But it's amazing to see all those nightmares you hear about Big Pharma. It's true. We have a huge challenge with Big Pharma starting to come after our Shaper company because if you think about it, it takes out the reconstructive surgical business and it takes out a lot of other complications that lead to needed drugs and pharmaceuticals. So they're coming after us. The reconstructive surgery business Vertical is coming after us. But I met a guy here in the community here who used to be the CEO for a chemo business. It was a targeted chemo business. He said Big Pharma was all over him. But what they would do is they would take cells from the mass and they would shoot different strains of chemo. And the most effective one is the one they'd obviously use. And then what that did is it reduced the amount and the efficacy. Yeah. Big Pharma came after them for that because it's going to go into their wallet. Sure it is. I mean, you think about it. So that, that is disgusting. But you know what? We're going to keep that on. Yeah. We're going to keep that on.

SPEAKER_00: 53:33

I had a brain surgeon on a couple episodes ago, Piedmont or Northside. Yeah. Northside. And it's interesting. He just posted, I saw it yesterday on Instagram. He was at a, whatever it is, a glioblastoma type of gathering. That's what she's testing it on. Okay, so

SPEAKER_02: 53:53

that's what you're talking

SPEAKER_00: 53:54

about. I just saw that yesterday. They made a giant stride forward that they announced yesterday in getting to this.

SPEAKER_02: 54:02

They had a big announcement. I just thought you were talking about the big announcement last year. They had one yesterday. I'm going to have to research that. He just posted it on his Facebook stories yesterday. There's like a big trial that happened. Can you get to it? Yeah. No, just send it to me when you get a chance. I didn't mean to interrupt you. No, no, no. I will for sure. I was so encouraged by it. It was just a really cool family. So I had lunch. It was pretty cool. I had lunch with her and Matt Ryan. Because they did a shark tank at Emory. And she was one of the three presenters. And he was one of the judges. So I got to have lunch with them. And it was amazing to hear that.

SPEAKER_00: 54:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 54:43

I mean, she was getting like really good results for, you know, what she's seen already. Yeah. So I have huge optimism and I have even as good of optimism. I'm saying it's not just going to be for you, but all the way. All the real tough ones. What did I miss through your eyes?

SPEAKER_00: 55:07

I know it was like we glossed over the story. What? What stands out though? Like what major areas did we miss?

SPEAKER_01: 55:15

I think probably when he went in for the pancreatitis and he was so sick, I was disgusted with the fact that originally they put on a trainee to take care of him because he had a 5% chance of survival. So I felt like he was like a guinea

SPEAKER_02: 55:32

pig. Yeah. And

SPEAKER_01: 55:34

she came in one day and I was having to be sitting in there and she had something in a syringe. And I said, what are you injecting him with? And she said, penicillin. And I said, did you read his bracelet? I literally slapped her hand because she was like, had it like in the thing. I literally slapped it out. I said, did you read his wristband? And I said, penicillin would have killed

SPEAKER_02: 55:50

him.

SPEAKER_01: 55:51

And I said, out, get out, get out, get out, get out. And I said, I want the head nurse. I said, she comes back in this room and I'm going to own this hospital. I'm going to

SPEAKER_02: 55:59

kill them. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Because of a severe allergy. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I've been allergic to penicillin. Yeah. And they don't read your bracelet. Right. And it's red. It's red. It's bright red. That's why I was going to laugh and say, you know, you get bracelets. Great. But you put a big red bracelet right here.

SPEAKER_01: 56:14

Which means allergies.

SPEAKER_02: 56:16

Written in black ink. Penicillin. Or PNC.

SPEAKER_01: 56:19

Because they were having problems because he had so much infection in his...

SPEAKER_02: 56:22

body. I got sepsis and the worst kind of sepsis, by the way, the most effective way to deal with it is penicillin.

SPEAKER_01: 56:30

Penicillin, they couldn't. They had to mix like five antibiotics together and you got these horrible blisters all over his

SPEAKER_02: 56:36

body. I... if nothing else, like to keep things exciting. And she's lucky

SPEAKER_01: 56:43

for that. Yeah. I think the first, the first, the first, yeah, the first round of it really showed me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 56:51

All right. So that happens. What else? So that

SPEAKER_01: 56:53

happens. Well, then I got the best two nurses that they had because I basically told, I'll own this hospital. There's a mistake made on him because I know you're not looking at him as a patient anymore because he has a 5% chance of survival. You don't know him. I do. Oz and

SPEAKER_02: 57:04

Paul. Oz and Paul.

SPEAKER_01: 57:07

And, wow. But yeah, while he was in the coma, they had to run tests on him and said, well, if we run this test, it's going to destroy his kidneys. But if we don't run it and part of his pancreas is deceased, that'll kill him. You know, what do you want to do? You know, so it was either bad or worse. Decisions is basically what the options were for me for months at a time. Just every day it felt like there was something.

SPEAKER_02: 57:27

But they figured I was going to be on dialysis and kidney transplant, right? They had to put him on dialysis. She was going to blow up my kidneys.

SPEAKER_01: 57:33

I destroyed his kidneys for about five days only, which was surprising because then he's... sitting there one day and I'm like, is that urine in his bag? I'm like, what's going on here? And they, they, they're like, we've never seen it before. And his kidneys just started coming back, but he was on dialysis for a couple of weeks. You're on dialysis.

SPEAKER_02: 57:50

It was agitating too. I can remember that. I know, even though I was just going to say, even though I knew I was in the coma, I could, was I more agitated? I don't know. I know you tell me.

SPEAKER_01: 58:00

Yeah, you were more agitated.

SPEAKER_02: 58:01

Cause I can remember the feeling. I remember getting, pissed off and tried to tell you guys to stop.

SPEAKER_01: 58:06

Yeah, you were agitated.

SPEAKER_02: 58:07

Well, that was the most frustrating thing, being in the coma. Oh, thank you. Because I, well, you're a great host, you are, I'll tell you. I don't edit this out, by the way. Good. Yeah, you're a great host. It would be better if you had

SPEAKER_00: 58:21

it on heels.

SPEAKER_02: 58:25

That's right, man. All you do is process improvement.

SPEAKER_00: 58:28

Yeah. All right. So, all right. Then what else?

SPEAKER_02: 58:32

That's two major things. But they were all shocked, though, when they saw urine. They said they'd never seen that before. Yeah, that was a great thing. Yeah, that was incredible.

SPEAKER_01: 58:41

Yeah, I was like, what's going on? Because he hadn't produced any urine in forever. It was just like he just wasn't... Because they were putting fluids in his body, but nothing was coming back out, so that's why they had to start the dialysis. After the MRI with a contrast that destroyed... But the good thing was, is that the pancreas was not diseased. So I was a little bit irritated, but they said, but we found a blood clot right behind it that would have killed them. So we got lucky finding the blood clot. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 59:12

Behind the pancreas?

SPEAKER_01: 59:14

It was behind, it was hidden. And

SPEAKER_02: 59:15

they said within months that that would have dislodged and killed them. So they were able to open it up?

SPEAKER_01: 59:20

They gave them medication. Yeah. Medication.

SPEAKER_02: 59:23

And then... Wow.

SPEAKER_01: 59:27

And then everything just started coming back slowly for him. I mean, it was a long process, but everything just started working again, except the pancreas, of course, because he's still in the penicillin. But

SPEAKER_02: 59:38

the pancreas is starting to. There's hope. You

SPEAKER_01: 59:43

never recover. Your pancreas never recovers. There's no medication for pancreatitis. There's none. It's just time, and it never heals.

SPEAKER_02: 59:51

There's a pretty risky surgery if you have chronic... Pancreatitis. Yeah. But it wouldn't be. What's that? No, it's not worth it. Is it their name for the surgery? I can't remember. I looked at it a while back. Sounds. But yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:07

Yeah. He has pain periodically. Sometimes we'll have pain for a week and then we just say we watch him.

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:12

Because it will flare up and they said it's going to happen. There's no medication. There's just time. And it's painful. And it's never going to heal all the way.

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:19

Yeah. It's a reminder. What's a

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:21

flare

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:21

up

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:21

like?

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:23

Start feeling pain? Oh, yeah. No, if it's a bad one, you can't walk. Just from the pain? Yes, and you're debating whether or not you're going to the ER to get checked to see if there's something worse. Does it go away? Yeah, so Thais told me about this IV in a bottle drink. So when I start to get them now, if I drink one, two days in a row, it's gone.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:52

Yeah. It's worked three or four

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:54

times. So I owe Thais something fierce.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:56

They need to know that.

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:57

Yeah. The

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:58

company

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:59

has to know that. Oh, that's a good point. I should do that. You should do that. Yeah. I've got to send a... You need to be in a commercial.

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:07

That's

SPEAKER_02: 1:01:07

incredible. Because they gave me a bunch of pain pills. Not that I'm going to, but I've got an addictive personality. I'm not going down that path. I'm not going down that path. How often have I taken a pain pill that they gave me? Not often. Liquid IV or IV in a bottle. He

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:29

said it tastes terrible, but it works. It tastes

SPEAKER_02: 1:01:32

salty. It's not as bad as I say it is because I I try and be overdramatic for her, for sympathy. It doesn't work. I might as well be honest now. It's not that bad.

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:42

I just got an app for it yesterday. It's

SPEAKER_02: 1:01:44

not that good either. But, and it also, like if you're dehydrated. Right. Unbelievable. Yeah. You need to, I should drink. Yeah. That's what I was just saying. You need to start drinking.

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:54

All right. What? So, so that's three huge things. What, what else then along the way, like through your eyes, like he, he did a great job explaining it. What are some things we missed?

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:05

Um, I think, I would say the recovery from the pancreatitis was harder than the recovery from the brain trauma.

SPEAKER_02: 1:02:12

Physically

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:13

it was for you. Physically it was for me because he couldn't walk. I would have to strap him to me to go to the bathroom. The only good news was I was

SPEAKER_02: 1:02:21

so emaciated.

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:22

He was so like atrophied, like his muscles just, I mean, for him to like do the physical therapy. Yeah. I had a physical therapist. I had Ike come in three times a week. And then he would also do the routines on the days that Ike wasn't there because he just couldn't walk. He couldn't barely hold himself up. I was doing

SPEAKER_02: 1:02:39

double sessions. I was doing two a day. And then when I could handle it, I'd do three. And then when I could handle it, I'd do four. Because, you know, it's an hour. But it's not like... terrible and a lot of it was stretching and all balance, a lot of balance stuff, right? So, again,

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:52

full-time job, right? Yeah, it was. It was a full-time job and he listened to everything I told him. Both times he did. So you're a good

SPEAKER_02: 1:03:01

patient.

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:02

He's a good patient,

SPEAKER_02: 1:03:03

yeah. Remember with Scott? Yeah. So, my big fear was having to go back to the hospital. Oh, we didn't about having to go back to the hospital. So let's go back. Where are we at? With the third, with the third plunge. This is one. This is the drink. So

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:22

one and two. No, no, no. You had to go back. It was. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, this

SPEAKER_02: 1:03:26

was two. Yeah, you're right. I'm glad you're. This is after you get the hydro. I'm going to say it

SPEAKER_00: 1:03:30

right by the end of

SPEAKER_02: 1:03:31

this. Hydrocephalus.

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:32

Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:03:34

Nice. Hydrocephalus. Nice. All right. Yeah. Um, I forgot what I was saying. I'm a slow learner. I'm sorry. I was going to have to go back to get that third stick, the antibiotic. Or no, a drip. They had to put me

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:47

on a drip. Yeah, they had to put him on a drip

SPEAKER_02: 1:03:49

because

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:51

I don't really remember what it was, but it had to do with coagulating, his blood coagulating. And And I promised him I would not send him back to the hospital unless it was absolutely necessary.

SPEAKER_02: 1:04:03

She promised me. She's never broken a promise.

SPEAKER_01: 1:04:05

She promised me. And I had to send him back. But I sent him... I called upstairs to intensive care and asked them to contact CDU to get him into CDU because it's a really nice, big room. You're by yourself. It's like the Ritz-Carlton. What does that

SPEAKER_02: 1:04:21

stand for? Critical decision unit. And it's the Ritz-Carlton of hotel rooms. Yeah. No way. So it's got nice... calming colors. It's got dimming lights. It's got a flat screen TV. And it's got a couple of nice comfortable chairs in it for guests and people. So it doesn't feel as... It feels like a hotel. Yeah, it feels like a hotel. More than a hospital. Somehow she got me in CDU. Now think about that. Obviously there's not... Maybe 12 beds in CDU. Somehow she is in... They want to keep those beds open. Somehow... She got them to keep an open bed for me. So when I got there, I was in CDU. Because on the way home, she promised me on the way home, we said, we weren't going

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:09

to have to go to the hospital. Not unless we absolutely have to. Right. Exactly. I don't see that happening, which is wrong.

SPEAKER_02: 1:05:14

But then that PICC line, where we're going to have to get the third plunge, the third injection, The doctor called the pharmacy and forced them to stay open because they were closing in 15 minutes. Oh, I did it. I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm having a rough day. Oh, that was on the way home. Yeah, we had to on the way home. You're getting firsthand seeing it. I love it. That's the other thing. I'm working on this and it doesn't help that I took something to help my anxiety this morning because that gives me something. That I forgot what I was saying.

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:57

You were talking about the PICC line that they took out and getting the medication, but we already talked about that. But we did have to go back to the hospital, even though I promised you I wouldn't take it. And I felt horrible. But the problem was his brother

SPEAKER_02: 1:06:07

was

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:10

calling him and telling him, we're going to put you back in the hospital because I wanted Scott to come and help me because it was a handful for me with two of them. And his brother didn't want to come down. And he said, I'll put him back in the hospital before I come down and help you. And he told Sean that he was going to put him back in the hospital. So for a weekend,

SPEAKER_02: 1:06:29

so for a weekend from Friday till Sunday night, Monday morning, I got up from the couch and kept looking at the driveway.

SPEAKER_00: 1:06:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:06:38

She finally asked me and I finally broke down and told her, you know, I said, look, I'm going to be honest. And, you know, I was pretty stern because I was,

SPEAKER_00: 1:06:47

and she

SPEAKER_02: 1:06:48

said, and she said, what's the one thing you, who's the one person and the one thing you can count on me is that you can trust me. I gave you my word.

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:57

Yeah. And by then he'd already been back to see to you and everything. And they only had him for like 18 hours. I said, babe, they're going to push us as fast as they can to get this through your system. I said, and I will be back in like 18 hours to get to you. But we couldn't do it at home. It was an IV drip. We couldn't do it at home that we found. I think one of the doctors called me and said, oh my God, you got to get back to the hospital because of COVID. this and we couldn't do it at home so

SPEAKER_02: 1:07:21

that's right that's what it was and then the third plunge was the pick line issue and what so so critical decision what does critical decision mean so they're deciding course of treatment sometimes it's go to ICU sometimes it's go to hospice and anywhere you know certain surgery normally

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:39

older people no I've been in there

SPEAKER_02: 1:07:42

no it's anyone it's anyone it's any it's any

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:45

when they can't figure out exactly what's going

SPEAKER_02: 1:07:47

on

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:47

yeah when they can't figure exactly what's going on in the ER. Yeah. They send you there before they send you to either ICU surgery.

SPEAKER_02: 1:07:53

Surgery or hospice.

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:54

Yeah. Oh, okay. So they need to figure out what's going on with you and they are just at their end. They can't figure it out. So it's not

SPEAKER_02: 1:07:59

like necessarily

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:00

the last stop before hospice or something. No. No. No,

SPEAKER_02: 1:08:04

but it's the next step typically is severe, right? Yeah, it's ICU. It's not like. Yeah. No. It's not like you should go home. Yeah. You don't go home from CU right away. I mean, you might, but it's going to be the now and away. Okay. Now that makes sense. So we have a family member.

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:22

We can tell him, too, about my legs kept giving out on me because I crushed my discs in my back because I was carrying him around so

SPEAKER_02: 1:08:28

much.

UNKNOWN: 1:08:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:30

I ended up in the

SPEAKER_02: 1:08:31

same. No way. She's got problems. And she had a bad back from gymnastics. I mean, we talk about this. So, you know, I played ball in college. Okay. What did you play? Hockey and baseball. Yeah. And she says... Those aren't real stuff. Only one difference. He's got talent. I don't. I forgot what I was saying. I keep sidetracking. I'm terrible. I'm sorry. You can't do that, too. No, and the best part is I'm having a rough day. Good. Well done.

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:03

Yes, you did see my typical day with

SPEAKER_02: 1:09:06

him. So she goes, those aren't real sports. And I'm like, they're not real sports. What are you talking about? They're not real sports. And she said, you know, she was a swimmer and diver in college and did gymnastics. I go, stud, three-point athlete, three-sport athlete, stud. But I see what she's done to her body. She's had seven surgeries on one foot, multiple surgeries on the other, but seven on one. And her back's all compressed. All her discs are compressed. And then I've made it worse. Yeah, you made it worse. Because she's having tears.

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:35

And we would laugh and I would say, my legs are given out. And I would just fall down. And we'd roll. And we didn't know. At first, we thought I was falling asleep. I

SPEAKER_02: 1:09:41

could break away.

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:41

At first, we thought I was falling asleep because I was so tired. And then I realized it was my legs were literally going numb. And I would drop for a second. And then it got to the point where I fell. fell one day and I couldn't get back up.

SPEAKER_02: 1:09:54

And then one day she fell fast forward and the dog got between her legs and as she was walking she De-gloved her hand. Oh, yeah. The grossest thing. You saw it once. I

SPEAKER_01: 1:10:12

wouldn't look at it. I don't

SPEAKER_02: 1:10:13

look at it often, but it was awful. But it's gross. I mean, she de-gloved it. Yeah, we don't do anything half-assed. There's a common theme, right? Nothing half-assed. She's

SPEAKER_01: 1:10:23

the best human being I've ever met. And I couldn't go to a doctor because I couldn't leave him home alone. So I just suffered for months and months and months because it was during COVID. What was I going to do? Leave him and my four-year-old daughter in the car and say, I'm going to go to the chiropractor while you guys sit in the car? No, I can't do that. So I just waited two and a half years, and then I finally got to go to the doctor. But it was rough. I ended up in CDU because I couldn't feel my legs by the time I got there. They couldn't figure it out, so I ended up in CDU for a couple days. Jeez. Yeah. Just from the compression of carrying him around so much.

SPEAKER_00: 1:10:59

Right. Okay. Well, what's life like now? So we're two years almost. No, we're a year. I'm going to say episode three. That's probably not the right way to say it, but like a year of. No,

SPEAKER_02: 1:11:13

we're two.

SPEAKER_00: 1:11:13

We're two years.

SPEAKER_02: 1:11:16

We're two.

SPEAKER_01: 1:11:16

Yeah, no hospitals.

SPEAKER_00: 1:11:18

Yeah, so

SPEAKER_02: 1:11:31

I graduated from my, you know, the seizure, the ongoing neural check-ins. from a seizure

SPEAKER_01: 1:11:43

three months ago, four months ago. It was like he was going all the time for stuff. It was

SPEAKER_02: 1:11:48

insane. And I graduated from check-ins with my neurosurgeon around the same time. Yeah. So unless there's a problem. Which means like no more unless there's a problem. Unless there's a problem. And now we just got to watch Helena that she doesn't have the same problem. Right. And that's what I was going to ask. Is there anybody else in the family that has had this? Not that we know of. Not that we

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:08

know. Well, it's hereditary. So somebody has it. But the signs never came

SPEAKER_02: 1:12:12

out. Someone's had it, but no one's been able to. Are you going to test

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:17

her? We thought we researched it. We thought we can test her. We think we can test her for it. Yeah, we probably should. Yeah, we probably should. Yeah, you can edit that out. But

SPEAKER_02: 1:12:25

it's something that it seems like if you test for it.

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:29

You can't do anything about it anyway. You can't do anything about it. You can't prevent it from happening. But I'm sure

SPEAKER_02: 1:12:36

if you have an episode of it as a child, I'm sure there's symptoms of it. Otherwise they don't know.

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:42

Well, yeah. Yeah. Right. And she's at the age now that she's not, it's mostly like infants. So she's not in that danger

SPEAKER_02: 1:12:48

zone. She's not in a danger. I mean, that's why.

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:51

But if she ever did get a really bad headache, first thing we would do is take her to the hospital and say, do it with contrast because we need to see what's going on because of her dad. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:12:59

So the guy I'm, I'm intrigued by, by so much of this story, but I keep coming back to that guy who didn't do the contrast. Mm-hmm. The doctor. That's a doctor's decision, right? Yes.

SPEAKER_02: 1:13:13

Do we know why he... We don't. I am not a litigator. Mm-hmm. So... Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:13:26

We... We don't know why he didn't do it. We have no idea why, especially the second time, because you had him the second time, too. He came back two days later. He came back, had the same doctor, and he still didn't do it.

SPEAKER_02: 1:13:36

By the way... She had him one time when she went in. I told him I didn't want him. And that was the time she went in to see to you. What is it? What is it? He's just, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01: 1:13:47

He's an ER doctor. He's just, I don't know if he has a specialty. I actually told him I didn't want him near me because of what he had missed with him, you know? So I got a different doctor and they ended up putting me in CDU. But I mean, he, he made a mistake twice. That's how I feel. If someone comes back a second time for something that severe, it's, Why wouldn't you just do it with and without? You got him in CAT scan. I mean, why not?

SPEAKER_02: 1:14:11

It's all right. Look, I'll go back to it, though. It sucked. And I wish it was different. I really wish it was different. So it's interesting because probably about a year ago, we were talking and I said, considering where we are now, would you go through it again? Would you say yes? We'll do it again because this is what we came out of it. She said yes, and I feel the same way. I truly do. It's taken a family that was shredded, pulled us together, and pulled us together even tighter. Right? Wow. And now it reconnected me with Lillian and Michael. And we got a chance to do some great things for the world. Right? I look at it as he didn't just have us survive. He's having us thrive. God let us survive to thrive. And I truly believe that. I truly believe that. Wow. And you would agree with that?

SPEAKER_01: 1:15:24

I was ready to leave him when he was drinking. I had a divorce attorney. I mean, I might have one foot out the door.

SPEAKER_00: 1:15:29

Sure.

SPEAKER_01: 1:15:29

And then he got sick. And the nurses said, why are you sticking around? He's my friend. And he's still my friend. I might be mad at him, but he's still my friend. I don't leave my friends behind. Ever. Ever. Oh, so that happened close. Oh, yeah. It was like I had a divorce attorney. I was ready to go. Because it would have already been two years. Helena was two years old. And he was still drinking and he wouldn't stop. And I thought, I can't do this to her. So I had a divorce attorney. I was ready to go. And he got sick and it was...

SPEAKER_02: 1:15:59

Christmas Day, right? Remember Christmas Day? No, no, I'm saying Christmas Day when you saw me...

SPEAKER_01: 1:16:04

Drinking. He went out to the car and he was drinking. He had something in the trunk and I saw it. I can't do this anymore. My daughter was

SPEAKER_02: 1:16:11

opening gifts.

SPEAKER_01: 1:16:13

So I can't do it anymore. About three, four months later is when he got real sick. But I had already contacted an attorney and I was ready to leave.

SPEAKER_02: 1:16:20

Hmm. And now look where we are. Now look what you signed up for a couple years later. Now I see why. Oh, my gosh. So this is a

SPEAKER_00: 1:16:30

story of redemption. This is a story of there's so much in here.

SPEAKER_01: 1:16:35

I remember thinking if I could just get him a year sober, then I can trust him again. And then when it became a year, I was like maybe two years sober that I can trust him again. It took me a long time to trust him again. I told him, if I catch you drinking, you'll never see us again. Yeah. Ever.

SPEAKER_02: 1:16:49

Yeah. No, what

SPEAKER_01: 1:16:51

she said was... You might as well get a gun and break your mouth and pull the trigger. What she said was... He's going to kill

SPEAKER_02: 1:16:54

you. No, she said, I want you to tell me. And the first thing we're going to do is go and pick out your coffin because I'm not going to have your mother do that.

SPEAKER_01: 1:17:01

And

SPEAKER_02: 1:17:01

then I'm leaving you because I'm not going to watch it. And more importantly, I'm not going to have Elena watch it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:17:06

I said, make it fast. Because they told him if he ever drank again, it would be too hard on his pancreas. He would kill him.

SPEAKER_02: 1:17:11

Yeah,

SPEAKER_01: 1:17:12

it'll physically kill him. He would not survive another bout of pancreatitis. No,

SPEAKER_02: 1:17:17

absolutely. And... There's no doubt about

SPEAKER_01: 1:17:21

that. Yeah. But he never, only one time. Yeah. Only one time he came to me and said, I feel like I could use a drink and let's just go for a walk.

SPEAKER_02: 1:17:30

No, what I said was, I'll never forget

SPEAKER_01: 1:17:33

this. I said. I knew something about wanting a drink.

SPEAKER_02: 1:17:36

I had the promise that if I had the feeling, we would talk. One time in six and a half years, I've come to her and said, I'm not going to. But if I was going to, I would have a drink right now. Sneakers on, walk for 15 minutes, craving goes away. Cravings are only the last 15 minutes. If you can fight through 15 minutes, the craving goes away. And you can stay on top of it. That's cool. So you get

SPEAKER_00: 1:18:06

your

SPEAKER_02: 1:18:06

sneakers on and go for a walk. So we did.

SPEAKER_01: 1:18:08

And that was probably two years after the pancreatitis. So it had been two years. So in that, you know, but... He's never drank again.

SPEAKER_02: 1:18:20

Honestly, apart from reconnecting with my faith, it was the easiest and best decision of my life. It truly was. Knowing what I'm going to miss out, you see Helene and me a lot and how much fun we have. The pool, the golf cart. Everything. The time with her and us when we have time as a family, I was going to kiss all that goodbye. Over a drink? Yeah. No, I'm not doing

SPEAKER_01: 1:18:52

it. I think the hardest thing was educating people that alcoholism is a disease. It's not a choice. And it took my family a long time to forgive him, if they even have, for what he put us through. But telling people it's a disease, it's not a choice. Nobody wakes up and says, I'm going to be an alcoholic.

SPEAKER_00: 1:19:10

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 1:19:10

you know, or a drug addict or anything. Addiction is a disease, no matter what it is.

SPEAKER_00: 1:19:14

And

SPEAKER_01: 1:19:15

once I understood it better, I was able to be okay with and forgive him. But it was still hard. It took a lot to trust him again. And

SPEAKER_02: 1:19:25

she's done better at forgiving me than I have myself, to be honest. Yeah. Which is big of her. But it is a disease. I absolutely agree with that. I'm not saying it's choice. I made some bad decisions that led to the disease. Progress. Progress in me.

SPEAKER_01: 1:19:42

Because that's the thing. You could have gotten treatment just like you go on insulin. If you have diabetes, you go to a doctor and you talk to him. There's stuff you can do. You can go to rehab. You can do other things you can do. But it just got out of hand. It happens. Everybody makes mistakes. That's how I look at it. But you make the same mistake again. It's different.

SPEAKER_02: 1:20:01

You're stupid. Wow. What a story

SPEAKER_00: 1:20:08

told very well. Now I see when you came in day one and I was expecting to sit and interview you and you had your wife with you.

SPEAKER_02: 1:20:17

Now you get it.

SPEAKER_00: 1:20:18

Now I get why this made it just like to hear it through both. Wow. Well, thanks for taking the time.

SPEAKER_02: 1:20:25

The one other story. Did we talk about when I was in the coma, the things I remembered?

SPEAKER_01: 1:20:34

No, I don't think so. This is interesting. This is worth mentioning to people. This is one. This is

SPEAKER_02: 1:20:40

during alcoholism when I was in a coma then. It took about five, six months, but I had literally six distinct stories that came back like, hey, did you play Frankie Valli and A Tribe Called Quest? I have a big range of music. She said, yep. It was on all day, all night, both of them. Because it relaxed you. I said, did I watch a Good Times marathon, the sitcom Good Times with J.J. Walker? No way. Yeah. She goes, yeah, there's a 36-hour marathon on TBS. I kept it on for you. I said, did you rub my feet and say, every time you came in and left, honey, I love you. Keep fighting. We need you at home. We miss you. You've got this. Every time I came in, every time I left. So I've given some presentations at hospitals, at Emory as well. to share with people that, now, not everyone is gonna have that, that experienced a coma.

SPEAKER_00: 1:21:38

Yeah, yeah. But

SPEAKER_02: 1:21:39

there's people that probably do, right? I'm one of them. It's not the anomaly necessarily. So, you know, we've talked to people that are dealing with folks that are, you know, in a coma. Yeah. You know, they have relatives and friends in a coma and we've talked to, you know, medical professionals, staffs, hospital staffs, so they know too. But what made me think of that and why I wanted to share that is that Some of the nurses would say to her, hey, honey, you can go home, you know, because they saw what this was doing to her. They knew. I mean, they were family, right? We're real close with some of these folks. They go, honey, go home and get some rest. He doesn't know you're here. And she said, no, he knows I'm here. He knows I'm here. And I know he knows I'm here. She was right.

SPEAKER_01: 1:22:19

And he,

SPEAKER_02: 1:22:20

yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:22:21

And I didn't tell him anything. I just figured eventually someday he might remember, but I wasn't going to tell him. I mean, everything's journaled, you know, but he hasn't read the journals, you know, what he went through on a daily basis. But, but that's why I told him in the, in the, the ICU staff was really happy to hear that because they'd never know because nobody ever comes back and tells them, hey, I can remember her being there. I know she did these things. It took me a while to remember. And he might have forgotten, but in that moment, he knew I was there. But he might not have remembered until six months later.

SPEAKER_02: 1:22:51

But that was another genius thing. So I was reliving major moments in my life like they were real time, which was great for the good times. It wasn't great for the bad times because there were some bad times that I was reliving that I thought was happening for the first time when it's... Totally. When it's not. It's the second time. I forgot which

SPEAKER_01: 1:23:12

one it was. I do not know. It was the brain surgery. It was when you were living places you'd been. Oh,

SPEAKER_02: 1:23:18

because I would talk to people and say... Well, today I'm living in Kazakhstan because I've lived in 22 countries. When I worked at GE, I loved it. But I was reliving those like they were happening in real time. One time I called and I was telling her, I was in a meeting in a conference room. I can still see it. I can see the conference room and I can see my team. And we're presenting to the CEO and the CFO. And I see Helena and Julie outside the conference room. Like, getting anxious, and I can see Helena starting to get fidgety, and I can see her getting angst. And I'm like, hey, these guys are behind. I've got to keep going here. On the pitch, I can't accelerate it. I'm sorry I can't get out there. I'm not in a conference room in Tokyo with them. I'm reliving it. So she said to him, that's fine. Just let him. Let him.

SPEAKER_01: 1:24:15

Let him relive it. He's

SPEAKER_02: 1:24:16

happy. He's not here. He's enjoying it. He loved traveling. He loved living in these... Genius, right? Go back to the... Here's the board when I wake up from my naps. Here's the Simon game. Work on your memory. Here's the match game. Now here's this.

SPEAKER_01: 1:24:30

Yeah, I said, just let him go. I'll let you know if something's wrong. Because one time he got off the phone with me because he thought you had to go to a meeting. And you're like, these people don't know what they're doing. I got to go. And I'm like, all right, baby, call me later. I

SPEAKER_02: 1:24:42

swear to God. I swear to God.

SPEAKER_01: 1:24:43

You remember that one? I swear to God

SPEAKER_02: 1:24:45

on my life, I remember that

SPEAKER_01: 1:24:46

one. Yeah. I absolutely remember that one. I said, he's fine. Just let him go. His mind is just

SPEAKER_02: 1:24:50

gone. I go, these guys. Yeah, I remember. I

SPEAKER_01: 1:24:53

absolutely remember that discussion. Yeah, these guys don't know what they're doing. They have heads up their asses. C.K. Lee

SPEAKER_02: 1:24:58

was my auditor. I absolutely remember. He's a great guy.

SPEAKER_01: 1:25:02

Yeah, just let him go. He's not in the hospital right now. He's somewhere else. Just let him

SPEAKER_02: 1:25:05

be. Think about how smart that is. He's not in the hospital right now. Let him be. That's awesome. And that was your decision? Mm-hmm. So cool. So smart. I didn't want to tell him. What does it all look like now going

SPEAKER_00: 1:25:16

forward? Enjoy one day at a time?

SPEAKER_02: 1:25:18

I'll let you go first.

SPEAKER_00: 1:25:21

What's the...

SPEAKER_01: 1:25:21

I tell him all the time, live in the present. Don't look back and regret things. Don't make the same mistakes. Don't worry about tomorrow. Just be in the present, especially when you're with your family. Just be here today. You never know if tomorrow is going to come. Believe me. Right. We kind of know that. Live for today. So cool.

SPEAKER_02: 1:25:43

Yeah, I think after I got sick the first time, it became– Living the present, absolutely. It really had me focus what's important in my life and what I have to prioritize. And that became my ability to do better. And when I say do better, I mean, you know, every morning, every night I pray for God to help me hear him better. Mm-hmm. To live life and walk more righteously following the footprints of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To make me a better husband. To make me a better father. To make me a better son, brother, friend, employer, and employee. Again, that's what I talk about the betterment. And then the concept of making sure I'm doing right by Julie. And I'm doing it right by Helena and praying that I can help them both live their full potential and full fulfillment in life. And that's truly every move I'm making right now. And it's the first time in my life that I've thought like that. But that puts me in the present. Some baggage comes with it too, right? Because now it's so important. It's more fragile than it really is. So you're hyper, you know, now an overthinker, it's like, you know, crack for him, you know? So I got to work through that now. And I'll tell you, I've had, if I die right now, there's a lot that can be said about me. Yeah. one thing that will be consistent is they'll say that you had a good life and he lived it to his fullest, right? And I've lived my life like that, but it has never been as fulfilled as it is right now. And it's really because of reconnecting with my faith. It truly is. Life is so much better there. So much better there. So cool.

SPEAKER_00: 1:27:57

Man, thank

SPEAKER_02: 1:27:58

you so much for this. This was so cool.

SPEAKER_00: 1:28:02

Last thing. We'll end on this. Did insurance cover all this?

SPEAKER_02: 1:28:08

Yep.

SPEAKER_01: 1:28:10

He's like the$4 million page.

SPEAKER_02: 1:28:11

Yeah. You know what they say? I always say, you know, they say you can't put a price tag on health. Yeah. You can. Bullshit.$4.2 million. Is that what it is? It was something like

SPEAKER_01: 1:28:22

that. I remember we were trying to figure it out. But that was only for one of the stays. That wasn't for both of them. Yeah, that wasn't for both. That was the brain trauma. No, that was the brain trauma. I mean, his file, it's like this thick. I mean, it's just bills, just lines and lines.

SPEAKER_02: 1:28:32

Well, look, you know, it's a page for an ad bill. So you think about just six pages. It was

SPEAKER_01: 1:28:43

over$4 million.

SPEAKER_02: 1:28:45

None of that would be there if I didn't have the advocate that I had. You were going in hospice. That's the thing. We touched on it. In the medical field, if you're not your own advocate or have a strong advocate, there's

SPEAKER_01: 1:28:59

a good chance you're not going to make it.

SPEAKER_02: 1:29:00

That's the message here,

SPEAKER_00: 1:29:02

bigger than anything else. That's incredible. All right. So thank you for your time for sure. But thank you for your vulnerability. That's the most important piece of it. That's what's going to move this message along. You guys willing to be vulnerable. I mean, you shared some great stuff here today that I know helps me personally. And I can't imagine how

SPEAKER_02: 1:29:24

many people it's going to help. So thank you. We appreciate the opportunity. Absolutely. Thank you so much, guys. We appreciate the opportunity.

UNKNOWN: 1:29:31

All right.