Episode 25: Last One

Brandon Held wraps up his life story by sharing significant recent events including his grandmother's passing, estrangement from his son, and health challenges that derailed his fitness journey at age 50. Despite experiencing profound grief, relationship uncertainties, and medical issues, he continues moving forward with a new home, supporting his wife's law school aspirations, and recommitting to his health and fitness goals.

Please start with Episode 1. Go to my site BrandonHeld.com

• Visited his grandmother "Mamaw" before she passed and cherishes their final breakfast together at Bob Evans
• Currently experiencing unexplained estrangement from his adult son Ethan despite previously close relationship
• Purchased a new home in 2023 and developed a loving relationship with his Brazilian mother-in-law despite language barriers
• May need to relocate depending on when/where his wife gets accepted to law school
• Experienced debilitating nerve pain and headaches after turning 50 that derailed his fitness and caused significant weight gain
• Finally received effective treatment and is now working to get back in shape
• Plans for future episodes 

Intro

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:24

Welcome back. This is Brandon Held, Life is Crazy, episode 25. All the joys of podcasting. So I had already completed this episode and then, you know, I went back to listen to it after the fact and the recording. I was trying to convince myself to just let it ride, but couldn't even listen to it. It was my own podcast, so. I sounded like I was in a tube. I was talking through a tube into a microphone. Not paid$100 grade quality or anything, but it is disappointing for a$100 microphone the way I feel like the quality of this microphone happens to be. So anyway, enough about that. I also wanted to tell you that if you're listening to this podcast for the first time, Please start in episode one, the story of my life. And episode one, obviously, is the beginning. And you go to brandingheld.com, no matter where you found this podcast, because I am listed on every type of podcast except for YouTube. But I'd prefer people go to my page. Having said that, I'm last. episode, I went off on a tangent about becoming a better man, which is a big point of emphasis my entire life, but that was more related to relationships. So I'm going to finish up this episode and bring you to the current state of my life. I'll go through the last couple of years pretty quickly, and I'll start with what was one of the most difficult times of all for me. And that was the passing of my mamaw, my grandmother, one of the most significant people in my entire life. You know, so was my great-grandmother, honestly. And she was in my life until I was in my early to mid-20s. And she was a strong woman who was so strong and I thought mean that I didn't think Loved me into, you know, work ethic in me and understanding don't just half-ass your way through things. If you're going to do something, give it your best effort. And that gave me a sense of pride for things that I do. My great-grandma did that. My grandma was more the just soft, loving type. Just the I love you no matter what or who you are type. And for me, that worked out great. I can't say so much for a lot of other people. As much as I love her and loved her, she was just an enabler to some of my uncles being alcoholics, no matter what. And anyway, I went back to Ohio with my wife, June, when she was towards the end of her time. She had been on dialysis for some years and now she was just And that was really bad. And my mom had relayed to me, I need to come see her if I wanted to see her alive again. And I had a choice. I could go see her alive and miss her funeral. Or I could wait till she passed and go to her funeral. So I chose the first option. And she made it clear to me when I was there that she was glad I chose that option. She was constantly telling me, I'm so happy to see you. I'm glad you're here. And that felt good. And she made it clear that she would rather me be there towards the end. So I made the right decision. And when I was there to see her, it was a good and bad time. The good time was I got to see my brother, which is always great. I love my brother RJ very much. He has his own demons and stuff to work through. I got my son, Ethan, to come up, drive up like almost three hours, I think, from Dayton to heading out while we were there. And my wife, Jew, was meeting the whole family. Juliana was meeting the whole family. And my son, Ethan, for the first time. And it was all pretty good. The only real issues I had, obviously, were my grandma was bedridden and she died. Couldn't get up, and my aunt, her oldest daughter, was like a pit bull, not wanting her to get up. A woman in bed who basically only got up to go to her dialysis, and that was it. And my grandma was 92, and she would take herself to her own dialysis. She could barely walk. She, just to tell you what kind of person she was, she didn't want the other people around her, some who were unemployed and had nothing better to do. And she still took herself to her dialysis, which was wild to me when I found that out. But anyway, my aunt and I got in a fight. A big part of my childhood and my memories with her was her taking me and my sister to And sometimes my brother out to eat every once in a while. She did other things like take us to Cedar Point and take us all to on vacations, not like anything extravagant. But it was the only type of things I got to do that were outside of just growing up in my small town and living in my small town because my mother wasn't able to provide those things. And she didn't take us on trips or vacations or anything like that or anything Even take us to Cedar Point. My mom was a very absent mother. She was a very hands-off mother. And my grandma filled that role a little bit. And so it was a tough time that she was at the end of her ropes. And so finally, after fighting with my parents, my vital morning there, I got to teach. We went out. I don't know, a bunch of family members. There were probably 10 to a dozen of us. Went to a breakfast at Bob Evans, which was a classic thing we used to do. And it was just great. It was a wonderful time with her. And I left Ohio later that day. Everything was good. I got to see my grandma. My aunt and I had said our apologies after fighting. I got to see my mom, my sister, my brother, my son Ethan, my brother's family. And everything was cool to our lives. And after we had returned, it wasn't but I believe about three days later that my grandmother passed. And that was really difficult and hard. And as an almost 50-year-old man at that time, I cried. There's been multiple times when I've thought about her just out of nowhere or something has happened and it makes me sad and sometimes brings me to tears. I was at a theater and this was before I went in bad shape and I was at this gaslight theater in Tucson, Arizona and at the end of the show, They were paying homage to people who were there for anniversaries or whatever, and they just started singing a song called Don't You Call Me Sweetheart, and my grandma crying in a damn show. People probably thinking I was crazy if they saw me, but it just hit me like if someone had punched me right in the face where I was fine, and all of a sudden, boom, I got hit with this flood of emotion. And so I've been going through that and that was the toughest loss. And then also shortly after that time that I visited Ohio, Ethan, who I was on good terms with when we left, one difficult period in our relationship where I used to get him for every summer after I joined the army and he would stay with me until he was 14. And then the year that he was 14 and he came to stay with me, him and my ex-wife were just at each other so badly that it was miserable for everyone involved, including myself. And he was breaking some rules, being a little rebellious, 14 year old, a little bit again. Not in my opinion at the time or now, was he like out of control or anything? I just didn't want to follow every rule that was set forth because he wasn't used to that life when he was with his mother. But still a little, can you just help me out here? And then with her, I'm trying to balance having my son there and make her happy. She was just, she's someone that you couldn't rationalize with. She was irrational and she just had this ridiculous set of rules and would just lose her mind if she left his towel in the bedroom instead of taking it back to the bathroom after he showered. Like one thing she definitely, the important things in life, like the things that really matter, she would get so upset over the dumbest things. I remember one time my kids got a toy from Chick-fil-A and their kids meal was a cheap little thing and Maximus broke it like pretty much within an hour or more and I was like what is wrong with this woman like she has no perspective on what's important in life and I always felt that way about her and I tried to help her get perspective but you can only do so much people are who they are I told Ethan I said look You don't have to come back here next summer if you don't want. You don't have to come back again if you don't want to, because if I were you, I wouldn't want to be here. And I said, I love you and I want you here, but it's the way that she is and you're not helping because you don't want to listen and follow her rules. And you never did. come stay with me again. And I got divorced when he was turning 18. So that was the end of that. He was off to college. But he got to come stay with me at one point. And what happened through that, as I already explained that to you. And through it all, I tried to be a good dad to him. I tried to give him sound advice and guidance in life and I don't know. He just decided to cut me off a couple months after I was in Ohio to see him. Don't know why. Don't understand why. I love him. I miss him. Some days I cry about it, but I'm going to let him be. I'm going to let him be until he's ready to be in my life again. I want him in my life, and I miss talking to be someplace he doesn't want to be. So that's where that relationship is at right now as I record this podcast. And so back here in Arizona, my wife and I decided that and I wanted to buy a home. So we did that. We bought a brand new home in July of 2023. It was newly built. When I say brand new, I mean, I love the house. And I hope I get to stay here for a while, but I don't know if I'm going to. But what's cool about it, when we moved, was her mother, who is Brazilian and speaks Portuguese, doesn't speak English, she got to come visit us in America for the first time. And she helped us move, and it was great to see her. It was my first experience of just being around her on a regular basis. She has like a fun, loving energy, and she's a great cook, and she's a hard worker. She's helping us move. And that was nice. That was where we started to start a bond together, her mother and I. And, you know, we get, we have to translate when we talk, either through my wife or through a translator, but it's just all good. It's all positive. There's no translation needed in hugs. And you just know when two people care for each other. And so she got to see our new home and how well her daughter did some of the gear with me in America. Not saying she didn't before. You don't know what your daughter is going to be in another country until you get to come see it for yourself. everything that's going on with her daughter and our relationship and her life in America, even though they're apart. And for that, she's thankful and she has shown that to me and I can tell that and I appreciate that. My wife is currently working full-time, which is basically a master's degree in law, but she has decided and realized as her impending completion is approaching, that she wants to get a JD. So she's going to be applying for law school to get out just this new home, even though it's not even two years old. And that'll be where, cause I love this house, but I can't bring my wife from another country who gives up everything. Be like, Oh, I can't move to another city because I love my house, and I want to be close to my kids. It's not far. We would potentially move to Phoenix, which isn't that far from Tucson, and I could still see my kids. But you would mean leaving this home. So that was it. She doesn't like me talking about that stuff. She says, what if I don't get accepted into law school? You're telling people this. But she will. She's... English is her second language, and she gets strange, and... college, master's degree, English. And she doesn't even, I think, sometimes understand just how capable she is. And so I try and pick her up when she needs that. And then finally, I have been working out, getting back in shape. Back in 2023, I turned in August, I turned 50 and I was About in the greatest shape of my life, I don't know about cardiovascularly, but strength-wise, I could, according to muscle fitness, adopt just by far the strongest I had ever been. And I don't max because I don't like putting that kind of pressure on my joints. But I was able to bench press 315. I could rep that eight times in seconds. incline bench press or 95-pound dumbbells, eight repetitions of 95-pound dumbbells. And legs were strong, calves were strong, everything was strong, back was strong. I was doing really well. And then out of nowhere, I had two medical issues pop up. The first I had this feeling in my arms that basically started from my shoulders and shot all the way down my arms to my hands like a lightning bolt. Imagine a lightning bolt striking your shoulder and going down your arm. That's what that was feeling like. And I had gone to some doctors and I tried to see what was going on there and no one really or how to treat it or anything I could do. And I just actually recently had A PA at an allergist's office really gave me a solid explanation of what could be going on with nerve overuse, just like you can do overuse of your joints. That's probably most likely what was going on in that situation. And very shortly thereafter, I got this insane headache that was incredibly painful, so painful I had to take a full week off of work for a headache. You know, I barely ever had headaches in my entire life. Now I get this thing probably equal to a migraine. For the first time in my life, because I had never had a migraine, it was terrible. It shut me down and nothing was, I was taking Motrin, et cetera, Tylenol. And then finally after a week, Like seven days, it finally decided to die down and give me some reprieve. I don't know what I did or how it happened or why, but it happened. But it never went away. And so for a year and a half, I had been going all these things to try to help take care of this footache. I had even gone to the emergency room twice, the VA emergency room. And they really just gave me some motion, threw an IV in me and sent me on my way. And finally I got to a neurologist who, you know, really helped me by putting me on a medication called nortriptyline. And it finally got to where my headaches were controllable again. And they were exercise induced before they were. I woke up and it was like a level two or three pain if I tried to do some kind of workout or exercise because I was like, oh, it's not so bad today. Yeah, so I was in pretty bad shape and I got out of shape over that year and a half. And not only wasn't I able to work out, I went crazy on letting go of my diet because for whatever reason, when I'm exercising and working out, It's wild. And then when I stopped working out, my body's, oh, give me sugar. Give me pizza. Give me snacks. I love sugar. Give me sugar. And I gave into it. I wasn't holding back. Part of it was because I had been on such a structured, regimented lifestyle prior to that that it hurt me like a bitch. And it's never going away. So I'm going to get comfort somewhere. And I got it in food. I allowed myself to get up to about 246 pounds and a little bit of a belly. And now I'm back to the more structured, healthy eating and trying to get myself as close to back to where I was at 50 as I can. Probably less strength and more just fitness this time. I'll probably trim down. I don't know what the reality of my situation is going to be. I think in my head, 215 would be a good ideal weight at 630 pounds away from where I am right now. So that's what I'm going to be doing and that's what I'm going to be working on. And so this brings the end of my life story and current to where I'm at right now. And dialing some ideas, talking about my time in the Air Force versus the Army and comparing it to talking about lessons I learned from marriage and divorce. I'm on my fourth marriage. Lessons in fatherhood and being a father. Lessons on my professional journey for work. And, you know, nutrition. stuff that I know and have learned along the way in life too. And those are just some of the ideas that I have right now for different podcasts going forward. And I thank you for listening to my life story and I thank you for listening to this episode and