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  • Podcast Transcript

    Please note we intially post un-audited, ML-generated transcripts and later revise them. As a result some errors may be present in the unformatted versions until they receive a subsequent and final review.

    Hey everybody, Welcome to a special Polychromatic podcast session. It is Sunday, February nineteenth and we are here one to let you know we're. You're probably hearing this on Monday because we're going to actually release it automatically released on Monday, just because it's going to be the start of the week for you guys. Kind of unexpected. We already did a podcast yesterday, so this is kind of a special treat for you guys right now. Additionally, we are not actually taught. We don't really have a topic today. The topic is Let's talk, Let's talk about us so you can get guys can get to know us a little bit better naturally. And so it's going to be just kind of a free form. Whatever you want to talk about, but I thought to get us started, we would maybe read off our horoscopes. Absolutely. I think we should introduce ourselves. I'm Elaine and sitting next to me here is my son Zack co - host as well. And we call our podcast the Polychromatic Podcast cause it's really representative of the facts that we've experienced the spectrum in life. I think I think we've experienced some real highs and some real lows. And we also take the time of occasionally to educate ourselves on things you know i usually watch a lot of youtube videos. They do a lot of reading on the internet and these are my. My natural vocations. Back before, when I was working in a lab, I would find myself coming back home and watching science videos. And so I used to think that was a kind of a phony kind of thing that people would do, you know, to just create an image of themselves. But really, I started to become impassioned with it. And so for me, you know, science, getting involved in research, specifically, getting involved in nicotine addiction research. And since pretty much early twenty fourteen to present, I really kind of shaped my. Has really shaped my life for the past several years. Unfortunately, I had a health incidents and I guess I'll go ahead and tell them now I lost my leg due to an infection, something that we spent two years and ten surgeries trying to. While seven surgeries trying to solve, and then another three surgeries to actually get an amputation and. Was quite tragic. And while it pulled me out of research and I'm away from everything at this point. And it's one of those experiences that you can never prepare for and and it's you know, something that you feel you can feel very lost about. And so my mom here has been next to me witnessing all this and so that's kind of been what we've been mulling on, what's been occupying a lot of our time and a lot of our energy has been dealing with the fact that there's been a huge hit to my mobility. Was. Guy, I think is very courageous that you talk about this. This is part of the reason why we really start our podcast as well. And we have had a lot of real traumatic experiences. Were still in the midst, I believe, of the grief and the shock and the numbness that comes with it. And the more we do these podcasts, you're really going to find out more and more about us because we do want to be transparent. It's not. You know, there is a privacy part of this that we don't go out and we don't tell everyone in the world, which I guess we're doing now, but not everyone we meet at each particular time about our life, but I think that we're hoping that other people will connect. As we've said so many times, polychromatic is about connecting with others. And so with our own experiences in many different areas of grief, loss, and just speaking specifically, since Zach brought about his leg, the. Basically the. The feelings that go around that and and walking that down that road is extremely difficult and. And we want to find ourselves now because refined ourselves, reinvent ourselves, reinvention. And that's why I was basically going with what I sang, When when you lose something or someone, I should say, when you lose someone, you lose a part of you. The same is true when being a mom, you see your son lose his leg. You have to learn who you are now after going through that experience. Because it is extremely traumatic. And it not only for Zack, who's been. I can't even imagine his trauma because I'm not in his shoes, as I've said so many times, but as a mom, it's been heartbreaking and very difficult to watch. It has. Actually. I was living in California and moved back to Colorado because of it. And it has been a life changer for both of us. And so we as we have been positive throughout our lives, as we have experienced extremely difficult and tragic times. We do this once again and so a connection is deep within us because that's what we know. And then also understand trauma and absolutely trauma. And as you probably have already realized, Zach and I are extremely close. We actually do. I dunno. I. I think it's kind of like a twin. Ah, we know what each other's thinking. We'll go to the refrigerator at the same time. We're thirteen hundred miles away, which was the case for the past twelve years before. So it's actually fourteen years ago. But two years ago, twelve years we spent apart. She was in California pursuing her education in her field. I remained out here. I did not go with her and we got to grow on our own. We got to become seasoned and not co - dependent on one another. So it was a very trying experience. A very challenging, hard experience for us to have to kind of lean on ourselves rather than one another. But I think it made us stronger in the long run. I totally agree. I think that at the time it was what I needed to do because I was literally dying of a broken heart from another aspect of my life which will bring up at another time. And realize that if two things actually two to three if you include me with my all - time had cancer in two thousand and five. So that's another thing. Yeah, if we just focus on you what that there are three things. There's a couple other really traumatic things. Not to mention I'm just through the years we've been through so much. And that's part of the reason why we really wanted to do podcasts. Because our life. We've gone through many, many things that probably relate to many people there. Yeah, we feel this change. Everything's changed from the way it was in the nineties, right ? Doesn't it feel like we live in an entirely different world now ? Well, that, but not only that is. Is that when we go through these personal griefs, there's a part of us that feels like other people don't understand. And. And quite honestly, that's probably truly fair. But I also think that people out there who have lost a limb could really gain and benefit from this podcast and future podcasts because it has to be extremely hard to pick yourself up from. From what that means that for the rest of your life because it's a life changing event that will be the rest of your life. Me as a mom with going through trauma with two other members and this on top of it has been. Really. I made me so broken hearted that it brings back the old trauma of the past. Things. And I had a very difficult time getting to the point of where I am today. And I'm still recovering from this. And when I say recovering from this is going to take time. It's going to take me time to be. Invent who I am just as it is. Sack. And so you know, I mean to be able to say what you did today is accurate. I. I'm. I'm sorta feel like I may be caught off guard. A little bit caught off guard because I didn't know you were going to. To do this. But that's what we do. We don't script. We talk about what's on our mind and that's really what we're going to go today. But anyway, I'm a guy. Going back to what you had spoken about before. When I'm. And I'm. I ended up in California, which was one of the most amazing things in my life and will go into more detail. Because today we were going to just talk about second eye for today. But I do want you to eventually know that through all of this, there is a beautiful silver lining of. Of what I've done in my life and how this has made me become more courageous. To reach out and do things I never thought I would have done. And really, when you're in that position of trauma and loss, you can either give up or you can say I'm going to be. I. I've got to figure out something. So as I was saying, I was. I moved to California because I was dying of heartbreak and I can tell you what that's like. That's like I could actually feel myself dying and it is for those of you that may have actually experienced those feelings. You will know exactly what I'm talking about. And for some people, they do die like you talk about spouses that have been together for many years. And one spouse dies and within a couple of months, maybe even less to wear. A few months later the other spouse dies. That they die of a broken heart. It's a very real thing. I. Two sticks are really against you for a living. I have fought to not die of a broken heart. And after Zach lost his. Like. Or I knew he was gonna lose his leg. It was one of the most terrifying times in my life. Even though I've had a lot of trauma and I didn't know at one point if I was going to come out. The other end I thought I'm very strong and I don't. But I did not know whether or not I could make it through it. So what it was like for me. The best way I can describe it as being on the edge of a cliff and losing my balance and trying to gain it back, or being on a tight rope and trying not to fall off. And I had to. Really. In my mind conditioned myself to think more than ever. I've got to hold it together because he needs me more than than any. Probably any other time in his life. And so miraculously and I think it is pretty miraculously how we have pulled things together to make them positive and move on in our life. I hope this is somewhat an inspiration to those of you that are going through hard times and know that God I. We know our hearts with you. We know the depth, the absolute frickin depths of losing people, of losing what it is like of me witnessing Zach losing his leg and Zach himself being able to share with with you what it's like. And we're still. Early on. This just happened in August and it was after two years of exhaustive and energy that very frustrating with the doctors that were presently involved earlier on, earlier, not presently, but earlier on that honestly, there were made mistakes made, there wasn't. There was no support and these people walk away and they don't care. You don't. And so there's still a lot where processing. So for me to be able to name this in a way that I can really name it clearly, I'm sure a year from now I'm going to be able to talk about this and. And tell you more of what I've learned from this. But I'm on a journey and Sax on his journey. I'm on this journey together because he's my son. I will walk with him wherever he needs to go, because more than ever he's needed me to be there. And I plan on doing that. So anyway. Ah yeah, like I. I've had to try to come up with words. We don't script anyway, but just to be able to go to that place of what this is like for me and be as descriptive as I can. That's pretty much the way it's been. And I just want to say, Zack, from the whole core of who I am. You are such a good, craziest young man. And you've taught me so much about life. And you are my hero. Because I don't believe that many people your age could have walked the walk of trauma and sadness. You have. And you still do not give up. And oh my gosh, you guys, I do have to tell you something very exciting. He's walking on his prosthetic and doing amazing. And it's like I'm going, Wait, you just got this. How can you be walking and this is who he is. I'm telling you this guy's amazing. And I'm so super proud of him. Because you don't. You don't hold back and feel sorry for yourself. You're never the victim. You don't play victim. I learned from my biological father. Playing the victim is not the way to go. Is it okay if I say some stuff I don't want to interrupt ? Absolutely. I just felt like I just kind of had to go into the depth of it. The depth of what this is because I felt as though when you brought this up. Whoa, This brought a welling in my heart of a lot of different feelings. Trying to explain to our listeners and also trying to let people know as apparent and what this is like if you've experienced something with loss of a child or loss of a child going through something like this. And so. Anyway, yes, thank you, May. I just felt as though I needed to define it as much as I could. And we'll talk about. I'm sure we'll talk about this more as it goes on. I mean, I think you guys are all in this walk with us and know if you're going through something similar. We want to become a walk with youtube. So anyway, I hand it back to you. I didn't mean to. Is. What I'm trying to say is, I did not mean to go into so much detail but I really. My heart was just in that place when you. When you brought this subject matter up. Yeah, I was gonna say the overarching theme in our life the longest time has been revolved around disease and both, you know, conditioned and natural. Not to go into detail, but for me myself. And I just wanted to say two things of what I'm going to be doing. I'm going to talk about from my perspective what it's been like, but then I'm gonna also go straight into the horoscopes so we can kind of break it up. And so, from my perspective, suffice to say I had cancer in my leg in two thousand and five. And in two thousand and five, I went through some serious health issues that I was only given a fifteen percent chance of surviving. Fortunately, I survived it. I went back to school, studied pre medicine. I wanted to give back. I got involved in research now along the way. Because of that cancer, I had metal in my leg. I went through my leg was never really one hundred percent and you know, they rebuild it. But when they pull out a tumor that's hollowed out completely, hold out your tibia and it's going to be hard to reconstruct that in a way that is, you know, pain free and functional. Completely functional. You know you're losing your patella, patellar attendance, You're not able to really extend your leg is easy. There's a lot of extensor lag. These are terms that you hear in physical therapy. If you're ever involved in a leg injury, you'll be very familiar. But extensor largest means that you can't straighten out your lay completely. In English terms, and physiology has a whole different scheme of anatomy and physiology terms, Sony ways. My perspective it was I was dealing with chronic health issues that came on in two thousand and twenty fifteen. I went to my primary care doctor. She just thought I was depressed or anxious because I had a history of that. I told her that this was very different. She didn't trust me. She did do some things early on that I have to give her credit for. She did and since I had a cancer history, agree to do a full body city which is a whole huge dose of radiation. But just to make sure there wasn't any chance of recurrence. So that was reassuring. My oncologist said, You know you probably want to get in contact with your leg doctor. Make sure there's not anything going on with your leg. Unfortunately, I did have surgery on my leg and twenty fourteen and it took me especially long to get better. With that. I feel like I was judged unfairly from her. So next time my interaction with her was not good and I predicted it was not going to be good to really put me on the spot and she really judged me in ways that were not fair. I think you can use your imagination to know what that means later on. Might be more explicit about this, but I think you know exactly what I'm talking about. So anyways, I was accused of doing something which often didn't and just was dealing with a chronic health issue. She didn't even really check out my leg. So I'm dealing with the stuff. I then become a lab manager in two thousand and eighteen and just push through, you know, just treat the symptoms and. Pharmacologically. And so now we get to February twenty twenty one and my leg is in full breakout mode. It's completely infected over the course of. From Thursday to the following Monday, and I had to go on during the weekend to tend to the animals. And once I got to Tuesday I was hardly able to walk. I don't even remember. I think I got to see. Went in to see my orthopedic doctor that Thursday. So she told me I might have to do a two stage revision and which is where they have to take out all the metal, replace it with antibiotics. Met around a metal rod. They have to actually fuse the lakes. I don't have any for a period of time, but she decided that it was probably early on based on their test and what I was saying, they thought they might have caught it early so there were going to save me all that hassle and put me through a one stage revision. The problem is I'm going to be critical here. But my surgeon really kind of did a piss poor job because all my surgeries to try to treat this. We're always the last surgery of her caseload on a day. So she was already tired. The team is already tired and I don't know way of proving this, but I'm pretty certain they didn't do a dirty side of the operating room and clean side of the operating room. What does that mean ? It means that when they go to cut everything out, they move you to an entirely new clean table to put it, paired everything back together and that's a. That's generally speaking, switching gloves, switching all their PP, that's protective equipment that they're wearing to entirely new ones. Rewatching. Re scrubbing is probably critical to treating my kind of infections cause I got five separate staph epi infections that they cannot get rid of. They made it sound like the entire time it was the same infection. So let me just say this real quick and then this will really summarize it. I got put under general anesthesia ten times to get this under control, the whole tube and all. And for one of them I was in such a weird position that I couldn't swallow. After the surgery I spent twenty one days in the hospital for my amputation, and it took three as a surgery and surgeries relate to the amputation to get it finished. And then it took another. Let's see, cause I got us to October third, November third, December third. January. Third was another three months until I got my prosthesis and I'm only on my. Just finished my third week of of PT. I am able to be up but for a short period of time is still very painful to fully weight bear. I've got a ways to go. I don't know with insurance insurance, you know. I think I have forty visits per year. I had already used twelve or sixteen before this. I think I have twenty four. Something. That's enough for six weeks. And I asked my physical therapist, you know, if I could pay out of pocket. You said you can't afford it. On their hour long sessions, we really focus on some things. The last thing I learned was what's called a three point walk and we'd be learning a different type of gate pattern next time. So many ways to break it up though cause that was haul very dense and very probably emotionally dense and I think can be helpful for just to us to kind of decompress here real quick. I wanted to read the horoscopes cycle so I happen to be a Gemini and I definitely know in my heart I'm a Gemini because I've got two people constantly battling in my head. It seems like. So my horoscope for this period of time for February, I guess for this magazine is a Gemini. You are able to see exactly what you need to do next and when best to do it. The location you've always loved to visit. It can be a part of your future now. True, Soumya felt you had to hide flow from your lips. But what am I doing right now ? I'm letting these things out. I dunno if it's a good idea. I don't know if it's going to be well meant, but I'm gonna go ahead and take the risk and do it. And I'm being as transparent as I'm comfortable with at this point and I am pushing my comfortability level a little bit out. But I think it's kind of important for context. And then it goes on to say you are ready to say more into Gemini fashion and I'll tell you Geminis are extremely talkative if you pair two Geminis together. And I happen to know a very wonderful older woman who happens to be an older client of mine. I used to have a side business. She and I. Anytime I'd come over to our house to work on something, she would seriously get completely entranced in conversation with me in a way that was just so hard to pull away. And I'm not sure if you've ever had those kinds of conversations before, but they're very real. And then would you like me to read yours real quick ? If you don't mind, I'd appreciate it and remind me What are you going ? I'm a Virgo. Okay, sorry. I guess I know what your birthday is. I could actually look. But okay, Virgo ambitions may have let. Sorry. Ambitions may have to be left on hold for longer than you would choose, but now you get the chance to turn them into reality. You may need to be firmer with family and friends and make sure you dedicate enough time to your own dreams. Wow, that's huge for me because I have not been focused on myself at all. I moved out here and back from California. Quick move in November of twenty twenty one and have totally been focused on Zac, which needed to be and trying to get my life back together for me and at this time which I've got a lot of plans and a lot of positive things that I think is in the near future. So I think that's pretty telling. I think that's actually really true, that I need to really do some focusing on myself because a lot of it's really been tied up with my stuff to the point that I think it has been difficult for you to be able to focus on any of your other vocations, any of your other things you're wanting to pursue. I think the latest thing to. Told me if it's ok, let's talk about it is you are wanting to do your own podcast, separate podcast, self help podcast and as an extension of your business to put some helpful stuff out there out in the ether for people to be exposed to in a way that naturally organically will draw them to. Getting to know you as a therapist before you do work with them so you really know what to expect. When did you work with you if they do choose to work with you. And I think you're an amazing, amazing, amazing person that gives up so much of your heart soul to what you do. It's not just a job, it's a calling. It's very purpose built in a way that is truly meaningful. It's not some sort of facade. It's not just a money grabbing operation. You do it for the love and passion of it. I can very much tell because I know you've always operated in that way. It's just sometimes it's hard with your specific population to get paid for your work. Unfortunately, just due to the nature of it. Well, I'll tell you why. It's not for the pay. It's for the love. And you're absolutely right. Thank you about that, Zach. And I really did learn a lot about myself and I went back to school and the population I work with are people with co - occurring disorders, saw primarily in the substance use area and mental health. That's what the co - occurring disorders are. Generally. Most people who have a substance abuse dependency, slashed dependency issue also have a co - occurring disorder, which means anything from anxiety to depression to bipolar to other types of mental health. These go hand in hand and doesn't matter which one happened first. But I've never met anyone who is not co - occuring with the disease. And that is what Zach is kind of preparing you for is. And this has changed my life in such a dramatic way because my connection I make with people most of the time is, I've never met a therapist like you that gets this. Okay, So I do put my heart and I love what I do. And these people are like my. I call them my peeps because I understand them and because you know what I've found is people with the disease of addiction have the most sensitive, beautiful souls. And we don't stop to really think about that because we think a lot of them are in trouble with the law. Well, that all happened with using to begin with. Because when people use, they do things they normally would not do. Because drugs are so powerful you will do whatever you need to be able to not only find them, but to be able to pay for them. Well, and you know the reward pathways in the brain. I'm not meant to speak over you, but as you know, as you're already very much clearly no reward pathways in the brain are in the lower brain centers, in the brainstem, etc. And the problem is there's also the amygdala and the medulla can hijack the frontal cortex, which is our higher brain centers. It's like the same thing is imagine an alarm going off saying run run run run run run run run run run run. And it's not ever turning off. Well, absolutely. And see, The problem is is once you start using substances, dopamine level is you no longer produced helping your brain. It goes to very high levels. And that is what makes it so hard. And this is when I begin my podcast on this. That's what makes it so extremely hard for people to stop because the simple things in life anymore are boring because they've taken. Meant their neurons have been fired to such a high level of dopamine that that memory is there. And so it's not as easy as some people think. All you gotta do is stop this. That is to me ignorance. Because for people that have that opinion, they've not even Google to look for themselves. All you gotta do is google it. It'll tell you. But it's not it's it's. It's a sigh. There is a science to it and basic lay people that, as I was saying, that have this disease are people. I like people that are genuine people that take their shirt off their back for you because they genuinely care their kind when they're using. Know but innately who they are under. Underneath those drugs and. And the legal issues they've gotten themselves into are some of the most amazing, brilliant, wonderful personality, I. Unique eye for their own unique selves and and very interesting, incredible human being. So I'm looking forward to doing this. And you know I've been told by many, many people from my job. I worked at a psychiatric hospital when I lived in California and. And I was told back then. And you need to write a book. You need to do. I mean, you know this, you know, and because I decided I would do this podcast. I've been wanting to do things for a long time, but I decided after we started Polychromatic. I really want to do a podcast so that those of you that struggle with this may be able to find comfort in what I have to say. And you may feel very connected. And maybe through these podcasts, those can be very helpful. I think it's a preview and I just want to see Steamer Cookers. Okay, I want to say that you know people that do become addicted. It's like they're chasing a phantom. Like it's like continually out of reach. Because it's like it's trying to go back to that first experience and you can never get back to it. Since you're chasing a ghost, you chasing a phantom. Absolutely, you are. And and and the. The problem is most people that even began it can be mental health and induced. Meaning that you self medicate because of your anxiety is so bad in the world. Handle it. And so it's mainly about being able to handle the feelings that you feel so deeply. And that is where the highly sensitive people come into play with this because I truly believe I have my own work and I have actually not done a research paper on it. I and I have not actually done. Counts. So I cannot. But I will. I. I would believe that most people with this disease are some of the most sensitive people you'd ever want to meet. Because I would say at least over ninety percent of the people I've met and I've met hundreds upon hundreds of people are some of the most high sensitive kind individuals you'd ever wanna meet. So more on that. I'll keep you informed as to when that is going to be happening. Hopefully within the next few weeks. I plan on getting onto that. And hopefully that will be a way that many of you can connect. That do have an addiction issue and hopefully at some point just as we plan with Polychromatic to have. Collins. Yeah, you know me. I plan on doing that with this so that you can actually talk to me and we can talk about. Way it is for you. Because that's education for other people who have that unspoken understanding what this is all like. Because it is not an easy thing to stop. This is like opiates are killing people every single day, especially since fentanyl come out. I mean, we are having record deaths and it's heartbreaking because it is so easily accessible and you know people that use. Know where they can get it. And unfortunately, if you don't have the tools, life skill tools, coping skills, those type of things to be able to. To go to when you feel the feelings that you feel, then that continues the cycle of use. So basically what I'm going to be doing is educating things about coping skills. I'm going to be talking about the disease in full. I'm going to be talking about the co - occurring disorders and just ah, a lot of therapy type of things that I I really hope will be helpful. And again, if we can at some point talk one on one and this could become a really beautiful thing. So I'm going to let you get to know me first time. You know, polychromatic, you'll have some mot somewhat, but as a therapist, I want you to make that choice for yourself if you feel like you have. I am someone that you can talk to. I wouldn't be able to. To make that possible. And so Zach has already designed and it's been in the works for a very long time. He did another beautiful job with designing a website and it's links, counseling, as the name of the website and just to give you a preview. And it's just so he puts his heart and soul when he does anything, his heart, art and selves in. TIP. But when he's got his passion about things, it's even more so as as you will see the Polychromatic website. So anyway, that's up and running. There's still some things that need to be added to it. But that is what you can look at. And. And it's going to be in the future. Says something to look forward to. So moving forward. Because again, we don't script this. I did it now. Zach was going to be transparent about his leg today. I'm. I'm really super proud of him, but it really caught me off guard. And generally our brains really connect. And as you probably have noticed, we really bounce off each other very easily. But that would kind of took me by surprise. So sometimes we do have surprises. But I think really we want to keep this like this is. Today. We thought, What do we want to talk about ? That we sit down behind the mics and go, let's just talk. So basically I would like to mention, and even as Zack, how he's been able to make it through. Like, what have you done ? Because I think this is going to be valuable. Some are some of our listeners. What positive things have you incorporate into your life through all their past trauma and the most recent loss of your leg ? How have you dealt with this and what has Ben ? What you have felt to be therapeutic, somewhat therapeutic, or something that has kind of taken your mind off of it. Because I can only imagine that. How do you get your mind off of not having a. Limits there. It's right before you. So I'm just saying from my perspective, looking at you, what have you done for yourself to help yourself through this ? You know it's interesting that you asked this. And for me I really have to rewind. When you think about this, I'd have to rewind close to twenty three years to answer that. And in high school I dealt with some really horrible depression. Like really, really really bad depression. Like the kind of depression where you look in the mirror and you hate yourself for absolutely no reason. Sorry. It's also just a coming of age kind of thing. I think the brain is developing and it starts to question your parents. Starts to question everything. Legitimate legitimacy of our very. Everything. It's when the brain is developing into it's final form and sprinting back connections. And it starts to question the world. And in the backdrop of all that came nine elevens happening and disliked the only thing on the news. And I watched three weeks of that. Finally to actually turn that off and never watch TV again. I may. May I just ask you how old were you then ? I'm trying to remember. So I would have been about fifteen or sixteen. Okay, and for me I remember something very clearly and it wasn't purposeful at first, it was just something. So there was this Korean emo game back in the day that I got into plane. It was something I've came across in December of two thousand and. And I saw it. But it is said to require like your address and your phone number. And it was another country and I'm thinking, Do I trust this ? You know, is this like some sort of scam ? It's the first, but it looks like a really cool game. It had for anyone that watches anime or understand the enemy. It has like these Chibi characters. That's the art form. These cute Chibi character style characters that are two D sprites on a three D in a three D environment and they have all these classes, job classes. I chose the Thief. Why did you ? I'm sorry, I just had to. Jack Tucker, Why did you choose the Thief ? Any special reason is really cool. The thief could do a double slash. You could steal from enemies you could hide you. You know you can like you. As long as you're up against a wall, you're invisible and you can go to places. And then later on they did a patch and built Thief and once you reach level fifty can become an assassin. And the assassins have Qatar's. I don't know if your guitars are but guitars. They're actually real things from the Middle East. They're a weapon from the Middle East. They're basically blades for people's arms. So you have blade arms. Oh, and you just like slice and dice and there's so many ways. It was a really fun game. I'll tell you what it was called. It's called Ragnarok Online. So what happened is completely by accident. I was horribly horribly depressed. Okay, I had a friend of mine in December, November, probably in October and November of two thousand that came up to me. He said, You know, Emma, MMO, massive multiplayer online gaming is going to be the future. It's going to be the future. And so I know this is going off course. But I promise this is going somewhere. I'm almost done. So what happened as I took a jump over Spring break of two thousand and one ? I spent my entire spring break inside her. Was playing that game. I made a ton of friends on that game. Soon after. I then revisited, we were prototyping this a memo site. It was going to be called M M M M. P gaming and and we had it up online. It never really manifested fully. But then I told my friends about this game and then they became completely addicted to it too. And then pretty soon the website we act. We actually, I said, I think we could keep the MMP. Gaming is like the parent company or the parent organization for this other website. And the website was called Ragnarok HQ So I was the founder, co - founder and administrator of that site. And it was a great opportunity because what ended up happening is several years later. And when I was a senior in high school there was an opportunity for a web design contest where out of three hundred and fifty compared to three hundred and fifty competitors, I won first place. So that was a very validating thing. Unfortunately, come new come junior and senior year, my depression lifted. Because why ? Because video games, video games, computer games literally saved my life through that depression. What coping skills did I learn ? I used to be very neurotic. I used to be have photographic memory has to be kind of a CD in what I learned to do with playing a game like that and just letting it can completely immerse myself was allowed me to just completely let go of things for a little bit. Decompress and it taught me. It sounds funny to say that I got my coping skills from it, but I even developed some skills, you know, with coding and stuff. I. I. I took, see, I took basic C and C Plus Plus in high school, and then I started learning P H P, my SQL, JS, CSS. Later on to Jacory and and and it's been a while. I'm very, very rusty. Saw him. There's no way. At this point I feel like I could be hired as a junior web developer. But if I really practiced it, you know, I think maybe in six months, you know, really really worked on my portfolio and really worked hard on some side projects. It's possible my biggest issue of the reason why would not be higher. Bill, and I'm just being honest as a programmer and mind you, this is one hundred percent vocational. I didn't go to school for programming. This is something I always did on the side. And I did work in tech for a couple of years, working for a company that did what, posting locally in Boulder and a DSL and sigh. Knew how to program a VCR and I can't remember what the other acronym is. But you basically program the DSL connections on a master router. So I learned some. I learned valuable skills like command line and. And you know, more for more of the full - stack development rather than just web design, you'll meet a lot of web designers that know absolutely no coding. The only. Note the user interface stuff, and they'll make a WordPress site by taking a template and selling it for thousands of dollars. It's crazy that people do that, but then those individuals don't even know how to fix the website when it's down there. Asked the host to figure this stuff out. So that's something I've been proud about. Is actually immerse myself in a way that was much deeper. And then one last thing I want to say is, or what drove what was the driver for wanting Claire. Popular programming. I wanted to be a video game designer from a young age and there are two things that happen. One is my brother told me about view source on web browsers. You could view the HTML source of any page and so I slowly started to learn HTML as first and then I was learning C Basic, C, C Plus Plus, the Basic Basic is a very good language to learn just to learn the basic operations of how programming works. And I'm almost done. And then I was able to adapt that. But going back to the reason why would not be horrible, even though I know the basics of object oriented programming and I'm not going to go into too much detail what that means. But basically, there are these things called methods which are functions of parlor a part of a thing called a class, and you have to restrict certain variables to certain functions. Either that function can only access that variable, or that you can extend them. Classes to a multiple classes and use a protected. So they're basically all these little rules that you do. And there are things also called constructors that you learn about anyways, I'm. I know I'm speaking French to everyone. The bottom line is, even though I know how to do that. Basically, I've never worked on a team to actually implement that. I think if I am going to branch out, probably my safest bet would be work on you. You argue X and. But it really comes down to whether or not someone would hire me. Given the fact I'll have the experience. I'm very rusty, but I have the experience and am very passionate once I've able to figure out the branding of something. But it's something that's also just rusty. I've spent dedicated the past eight, nine years of my life to research, and I did a lot of automating of our Google sheets and all of our samples, and I personally genotypes over twenty thousand animals and the five year period I worked on the grant. So anyways, that's a bit about me. That's a. To answer your question though, what actually saved me, I think, was video games is kind of a form of healthy escape. I realize it could have been hanging out with the wrong crowd and using. Doing drugs could have been very easy for that to happen. But fortunately, at a young age I was very scared of all that stuff. And I realize there's a possibility that that could overtake me. And there's reason why I voted. I had. I had plenty of opportunities to do it, you know, even offered in. And I chose not to. And I'm glad that I didn't, because I think developmentally you get involved with that stuff. It's really dangerous. So I developed some what I think are generally speaking, okay, coping mechanisms. Probably not the best in the book. Maybe not the healthiest because it avoids things sort of to not completely resolve them, but it was enough to keep me strong enough to do, I dunno, just hold it together while there's a lot to decode for me to decode and go back through. But just basically, I just wanted to say that what I heard is you speaking about. First off, yes, I do know that you had depression. We. We. We've spoken about this. Nothing new to me. And most of it, as I recall, was due to the fact that you were extremely popular as a kid. I mean, you had. Oh god, yeah, there was a transition that happen. You were like I'm booked out with friends for three weeks in advance. And all of a sudden when high school hit, everybody kind of did their own thing. Lost that and it was like trying to find your place is. I'm looking at it from my perspective. I came home just crying and I would just cry and cry and cry. My freshman year of highschool I cried so much that I just then after sit couple of months, I just went numb. So basically, and moving forward, that is what, ah, with what I saying. Basically, that's what happened. Is that was just very traumatic for you to go through that because you. That was something that was a big part of your lie. Was a leader that. And yes, so what you mentioned about that was really kind of amazing though. Because you were talking about how you got involved in video games and what I see from that is that that was like a great distraction for me so you wouldn't have to associate. It's important to incorporate those type of things in our lives that Arthur. Therapeutic. Yeah, you're saying maybe video games weren't the best. But also heard you say that you made friends online. So again, think about this. What do we talk about ? A pot has his connection. You had lost a connection with people that you'd known for many years. Once entering high school. That broke you because you felt alone. Because that was a big part of your life. What did you do ? You went out. He started using video games to help distract you. And in that time you made some outside friends. More connections. Okay, I'm putting this together, okay, Chinese. With creating. I created a whole website that at one point had five hundred people on it. Okay, then it made you more creative. So you. And also took that time to. Because you are a very creative individual to use that time to be creative. So this was a growth period for you. It may at the time felt like hell. I'm sure it did. But looking back and you telling this story makes me think that God, you really grew like you grew in such a way of figuring out who you were and what your capabilities were. And then to top that off, which I'll never forget, best website competition in Colorado. That was the big deal at that. Like even you. Think about it. That was all the high schools in Colorado competing competing and you got best website and that was not built from a preformed top. It was from scratch application. It was from coding it yourself. So that says a lot right there. With your talent and your creativity and really quite beautiful how you are talking about like I could have, I could intimate myself out. I could have done this. I could have done that when you compare what you ended up doing to which you could have done. That was really healthy in many ways and you grew. You learned a lot through that time. You just. You pursued a lot because you use that time in a really effective way to grow any. At the time you may not have thought of it as growth because sometimes see we don't. Sometimes we don't see those times until we look back. I always talk about the silver lining just because I think that most of the time there is a silver lining to most everything. And presently with what we're going through. I'm guessing there must be some type of silver lining to this. But moreover, I really have to say that I'm so glad you didn't get involved in drugs and I'm so glad you. You kept moving forward and that also I think means a lot for. What happened to you most recently with your amputation is that you are that person that just goes forward and you just do not give up. And there's something to be said about that. Because in time when does it reach a point when you feel like giving up, right ? So no, I know that you've always really loved those things, but also know you're really creative. You're a creative writer. I mean, I've read some of the things that you've written on your web design, as I was mentioning earlier, is top - notch. I mean, honestly, this guy can get on there. And it's not just what I love about it is the font you use, the colors you use. That creativity of the whole website. How that website goes to gather is so amazing. It's. It's well thought out. It's not just throwing together. You put all our heart and soul in it, so I think that it can be. You can see it, you can look up polychromatic. I think he worked really hard on that one and put his heart and soul in it and links. Counseling as well. Also another website that we're not going to talk about tonight, but or today. And but later on is a really beautiful website he created, so I've watched his work and very talented. Absolutely. Programming. You know, I think Sack tends to be really critical as I do. We're both very critical of ourselves. And our expectations are very high, both of us being profession is a paw. Our expectations tend to be higher for ourselves. And. But I just have to say, what I've seen you do has blown my socks off. Okay, it's just. It's cruel. It's. It's crazy, amazing. And I'm extremely proud of you. So I'm glad you found that. Thanks, you know, and you continue to do so. I just wanted to say that for myself and how I've made it through my life in general, in many ways and with. Where I've devoted a lot of my time is with horses and from a very young age. I don't know where it came from. I was about age five and I just remember just loving horses and wanting a horse of my own and insisting my mom take me to the stables weekly so I could ride. There was a little stable called Sombrero Ranch off of Twenty eighth Street in Boulder and I went there every week and. Road, and my dream was to buy my own heart. So like, what I started doing is like nine, ten years old babysitting. I got myself a paper at at age ten and I felt kind of like a little embarrassed. I'm going to say because back then girls didn't deliver papers, but I was really wanting this and I'm going Okay, you know, I'll do whatever I gotta do. So I delivered papers and I was the greatest babysitter because the kids loved me cause I played with them. I love kids, but I also played with them. We did all kinds of things, like leaving the weird Pete popping popcorn. It wasn't harmful things, but we just to make them laugh. Like we'd be popping popcorn and I take the lid off in the middle and depop all over the place. And the kids adored me and they like beg for me to come back. So I had a lot of babysitting jobs. I would save my money in a shoe box. It's kind of crazy. Didn't put it in the bank every panting I saved. So by the time I was thirteen years old, I bought my first horse and. Which was one of the most happiest days and most remember herbal remembered and memorable day of remembered and Memory Aid has one of the main days in my whole life and I will never forget that day. It was like I. I. I don't even know what to compare it to. What it was like, what I needed for me and that helped me throughout my teenage years. I supported it. I can my my horse throughout those years and today I'm still I. Recently what has it been now. About six years ago I purchased the horse I have. Today. He was just a baby. He's beautiful. His name's Cobain, and he has helped me through this, this health crisis with Sack and. And there's nothing like going out there. And for those of you that know about horses, there's a spirituality about them that's unlike any other animal, and they use them for equine assisted therapy. I may have brought that up in another podcast, but he knows my brain. We connect on such a deep level that we're doing liberty work now, which is actually where it looks like a dance. But we move to gather and I'll be killing. But I really won't be queuing. He'll be knowing where my brain is at that time, and I think I spoke about that. Will. But yesterday's podcast. But going to the stables, just being in that environment and being around him would check me out of where I presently was with watching this and the intense emotional aspect and the frustrations that giant, incredible frustrations I had toward these doctors who I'm very disappointed in and more overly disappointed in his. There's a lot of things that went on that shouldn't. Tab because I to truly believe that Sack may have. It's like today, if these things didn't occur. Ah, but overall, that has been my outlet throughout my whole life is really that connection with horses. And so, you know, there are things that we can do which is important in our lives. Even when we go through hard times to have something that we can focus on that is therapeutic to us because that. Check this out. It's OK to check out in that way. It's OK to get our mind off things because that can help us. That can be a coping skill to help us get through whatever we need to get through. And. And that's just part of what can help us when we're in a crisis or when we're going through difficult times. So yeah, that's what I pretty much have done. When things are difficult for me and Tom, I think that everyone will have their own interest and can pursue whatever that might be if you just allow yourself to. I think that's what's important is to reach out and just say, Wait, you know, I need to get my mind off this. What can I do now ? You know, we all develop our own coping mechanisms for things and I feel like at large were told that there's a right or wrong way to cope with things. And generally speaking, there are some themes that. That's true. You know, there's some things that are more productive, more creative than destructive. I feel like anytime that we are facing adversity, we're either forced towards creation or destruction. I think you're absolutely right. I think that's a great great analogy to bring into the podcast. Because where he has our mind at that time, it's like to. We have that willingness to move forward. That willfulness, I should say that willfulness to move forward. Or is it too much where we're just going to crash ? Because really, we know that. You guys, and we know a lot of you out there have experienced this. And I may, I cannot say that any more than verbally, any more than I'm saying that to you. As we get this, this is today is about Elaine and Zach. Okay, there's a lot of stuff with what we've talked about that's been quite personal today. But you're going to be finding out more. And as we continue with our podcasts and in doing so, it's that transparency that we've spoken about. That and sometimes it's a bit uncomfortable, especially to people that don't know you. But in fact, it's our life. It's what's happened to Thrill. Yeah, are we victims ? No, Zach and I have never been victims throughout our whole lives. We look at ourselves as survivors and see it's the way that when you say that sack, I think it's also the way you frame it in your mind. Am I going to be a survivor ? I'm going to be a victim now. It's. Hey, there, there are victims out there are victims that people that are raped our victim. I'm not saying that you're not a victim, but you can turn that right around in a positive sense and think of it as a survivor and build on that. Because if we stay in the victim role, what happens ? Ah, I think that she got stuck. That's it getting stuck and it's sometimes it takes everything that that we have but to move forward. So I. You know, I know you still le video video games and you really enjoy them. And I know that that still is a big part of your life. Just like courses are part of my life. And you know, I'm really glad at that age back when you were your adolescent years. You know you maybe didn't have that tool of knowing what to do, but you figured that out and that's. That's actually pretty mature while. Thanks. You know I feel. And I've been told that I am an old spirit here are very wise so I can. Actually sounds weird to say that's OK, but I promise you it's actually more enticing than it seems like. And I can hold conversation with people in their seventies or eighties perfectly fine. And you have a lot of friends that age, and the reason why is because they know they feel that I'm an old soul. Like, Why am I an old song ? It's real simple. When you go through enough stuff in your life. It's just like when you have kids while you get white hairs. Yeah, it ages you in ages you in a way that is proportional to the experience. So what can I say is like for a kid that loses appearance at the age of before the age of ten, what does that do to that kid ? By the time they're seventeen, they're more like thirty. And I think that phenomenon goes on a lot. There are some people that don't know how to cope with it. And for those individuals, they might get stuck going down a path that they kind of regretfully went down and they don't know how to get out. But but for certain people, it can be a catalyst in their life to motivate them to do things like truly did. I really wake up one day and say I'm going to go back to school, study pre - med, and I'm going to get involved in a lab while that was one possibility, but I also thought maybe equally I'd end up in med school or a physician assistant or a physical therapist or something like that. Get my doctorate in physical therapy. But it was one of the options that I said. And what's even more freaky about it as I did do a blog a long time back was a video blog just for myself. And I stumbled upon it years later. And I said if I could only earn sixteen thousand dollars part time to get my foot in the door at a lap. You want to hit the weird part ? That's exactly what fucking happened. I manifested a manifested down to the actual exact amount and what was weird about it ? I gotta tell you cause the the starting pay and researches you boulders thirty two thousand dollars. And if you're part time, fifty percent is sixteen thousand dollar salary. And it's so weird about how specific it is. I think in life we do the steering in faith in God and a higher power is responsible for the timing. And in our terms, things don't always happen in the timeframe we like. So for instance, right with where I'm at right now I feel very stuck. I feel like this is a repeat of when I had cancer. Kind of. You know, it's like when am I going to go back to normal ? And the reality is every time I put on my leg and I took off my leg. And the sooner that I can get to the point of full weight bearing imbalance and doing all of the cycles correctly so I don't cross back pain, I don't cause all these issues, the sooner it's going to become more normal. And thank God there are no plasticity in our brain exists because otherwise this would be a just a hopeless wasteful time of a situation to try to even try this experiment. It's amazing that I have a bionic leg, literally a sixty thousand dollar lake sitting in the room there that I can strap on and eventually with time actually be pretty normal. And I think that's a fucking miracle. And I'm glad to be alive at the time. I'm alive with technology. It also equally scares me, though with technology because of artificial intelligence and how we're we're, we're playing God. I mean, let me be honest, When I worked in genetics, we worked with recombinant DNA. Recombinant DNA can also be artificial. What are called genially goes that you can actually literally send a sequence to accompany and they'll print for you. And I'm exposed to those legal's when I'm working right because it's likely not going to do anything to my DNA. And but the reality is there are certain risks to it, just like there were risks with when I was doing the genotyping ethidium bromide, Ethidium bromide is a known known mutagen and so I wear gloves. I, you know, take special precaution. I mean I was the lab manager responsible for chemical inventory, responsible for what are called and what are they called ? It has been too long and what they are. Is there the data sheets for each chemical ? Whereas you know you're responsible for making sure that you have documentation alive for every chemical that people work with so they understand the exposure hazards, etc. One of those exposure have hazards beyond the dangers of ethidium bromide, which is really only if it gets in your eye or an open wound. It is a known mutagen, which means that crosslinks DNA, which is great if you're wanting to have it illuminate under ultraviolet lights. You can take a picture of your bans if you're doing what's called gel electrophoresis, but also the other major hazard was nicotine. Hundred percents and eleven lavatory, and so l nicotine lived lavatory nicotine, ninety nine percent we'd get from cigarettes, Sigma Aldrich, or it's a Fisher Scientific brand organics company. And if you get that raw stuff on your hand, you can have a seizure. So you have to wear gloves. You have to take precautions. And then the final scene that I was exposed to was also radiation. We worked with mostly alpha and beta miss meters, but we also dealing with Rubidium, which is a gamma emitter and with half lives of hundreds of years, if not thousands. So pretty scary stuff. And you know, you have lead bricks and stuff and you need a separate locked room and. And all that stuff. So kind of exciting. But I just wanted to see real quick. The reason why I loved lab as much as I did is it allowed me to reconnect with my old self with the natural leader that I lost when I was in high school. And I didn't lose it. It's just my friends didn't just go the other way they were. Actually a lot of them were actually very cruel to me and I don't know why. And and it really hurt me and I, you know, I went from being an extreme extrovert to an extreme introvert and then now I think I'm more of an extrovert again. But it really wanted to cultivate a very cooperative helpful environment. And I remember getting a text from Logan at lab when I wasn't there saying it has been absolute chaos without you here. There's. You bring order and peace to this space and by. Other lab member sadly made him feel like he was an intruder in his own lab because we were sharing space with another lab. It's their space. And he said every time he came across her he felt like he was. Intruder in his own lab. So that should give you an idea of what I brought to the table. And this is just objective truth. I'm just telling you the way it is. It's not about me getting back to this person. I'm not even gonna say her name, but she was our post doc and I really don't want to be in conflict with her. I think it'd be great when I have the energy and willpower to. You know, as I'm getting better here to spend some time volunteering in the lab just to test the waters, you know. And I really do miss it. I really do miss it. And I feel very lost given the fact there is not another. Grants and the. Really can't go back there. And I also spoke with my boss and he really wants to retire and it's probably inevitable. You're going to happen in the next couple of years. So do I need to be planning ahead for that. I can't really invest all my time here for him to retire and then, you know, be lost. But you know, I think it's amazing how in your adolescent years, really, I think a lot of that was finding who you are at that time. And I, as we've talked about that before, is being able to stand strongly on our own two feet and feeling stuck. I mean, I sat. Can I have experienced a lot of that ? Being stuck in stasis of waiting and waiting and waiting. And one of the examples is waiting to see if he was going to actually lose his leg ? Which. How. God, it was like we were literally standing on the edge of a cliff for how many months ? I would say overall a couple years, but really for a good. I would say probably ten months. And when Zac came home one day and said, Mom, this could result in amputation, that was the furthest thing from my mind. I couldn't even comprehend that. And I was saying No, it's not going to go there. There's no way. Because you know, I didn't want to even think of what that would be like. Because it was so far from my mind. Because it was such a terrifying thought. And you know, there is that stuck ness that Zac's talking about and what I hear you saying. Zach is stuck with being able to walk again. Stuck with not being employed, stuck with what is my future. I have to say that of my faith in God has always been there. I don't want to push that aside. And because that has been with me forever. Even though walking through these times sometimes I have felt like, Hey, I'm still here. Have you forgotten about me ? Because I. What happened with your leg ? Push me to an extreme of like really thinking is God with me right now ? And yeah, I knew he was. But in my own mental state of walking through that I didn't know if I would be able to come out the other end of that. Okay, because I didn't know if I was going to be able to literally be okay. And so that stasis. I think we're kind of both in. Because as we used to stop talked about earlier, you know, it's like relearning who you are and we've had. We've rehearsed this one so many times in our life. And really, this podcast is something we've never done. That is part of what we're doing. To learn more about ourselves, we decided to do a podcast. Cas today. Whose whose sack any lane and that was meant to re so that you guys could get to know us better. I didn't know you were going to notice this good yet, but there was. I'm really proud of Zach. That he shared this with you because he was ready to. It was. It was something that I respect and would never have said anything about till he was ready. It was his place. And I think that when he mentioned earlier how we were separated for twelve years to learn about who we were then we're learning that now. But we also have our really good respect for one another. Where. Yeah, I mean we're there for each other and we protect each other and we love each other till eternally. But we also that deep respect for one another's. And we know sometimes that one of us may be having kind of a sad day or in or on space and we don't intrude. That we just let each other be. And because there could be that real co - dependency of. Like I need to fix this. I need to make this person better. And we know we understand with. Understand that to respect someone is to let them walk through it. Yes, support them any way we can. But we all have to walk a walk in our own journey to make it through things. So I'm trying to recover as best I can and moving on with doing some of the things that I want to do. Because during this time I really had to be present there with you, with the doctors and all that. Pardon me but bullshit bullshit that was going on that should have never ever taken place. I in the medical field and becoming outraged and really losing my respect for someone who I thought was the most. One of the most amazing people I ever met. Which was one of the biggest disappointments of my life. When I found out this person was not who I thought she was. When Zachary originally had cancer when he's nineteen. That was extremely hard because I realized that there were things that were going on behind the scenes that were not okay. And when people don't do things in front or they don't tell you what's going on or they don't give it their all. Instead, they're worried about their licenses because of another person that they're working with. I can't respect someone who date. Who puts my son last on the list to protect her license. And that's very upsetting to me. But I'm. I'm focusing on how I can move forward. And I do have some ways that I can. Because Zach is now moving forward as well. But when we were in that along that journey of having to deal with this like literally on a daily basis. It was from one appointment to another day or two, another surgery and just not knowing like bad. Just really being on the edge of not knowing how this whole thing where this whole thing was going. And one of the most frustrating things to me is watching you for three weeks with tubes coming out of your legs from a prior surgery and having to call this doctor's office to report how much fluid was coming out of your league when I knew there was something worse going on and you actually brought that up to your infectious disease doctor who denied it and then come to find out You're absolutely right. I think it was that point in time they both knew both the the ah, infectious. The disease doctor and your Lyme specialist knew you were going to lose your leg and you went through more surgeries after that. Very heartbreaking to me. But you know it's disappointing, Zach. And I dunno how you feel about this has happened to me in my life more than once. I've truly believed in someone so much that I think I kind of put them up on a pedestal and really believe in them to such an extent that when I'm let down that disappointment it just overwhelms me. And so another lesson for myself to realize that you know we're all human beings and I get that. But I also think that people that I want in my life are people that are that genuine and caring. And whether it's a doctor or because doctors are very. They're. Has ended intimate relationship with a doctor. You're trusting them with your life, with your. With your body. I mean for God's sakes. I mean you're giving them permission to do what they think is right. And they're not revealing to you what's actually going on. Trying to keep the patient in the dark. And the problem is, you know the reason why they hated me so much and I think he is the right word is because on the way I was scrutinizing what they were doing and they hated it because I told them in early December I said something seriously wrong with my leg. I think there's an infection in there like. And my surgeon said I really don't know. Talk to your infectious disease doctor. So what do we do ? We walk into her office. You and I don't even have an appointment after that appointment with my like surgeon and we go into the room. They tell her kind. Rapid show, you know, can assure you. Picture. No, I'm telling you what's happening with my leg. I'm going through five boxes of Gaza Day for all the strain, which I can literally stand up on Rapid and put a towel down at my feet and they'll just be a river of fluid coming out of my lake. I'm telling you this is not normal. They ignored, ignored, ignored, ignored. She told me, Basically I was a hypochondriac. She said, it's impossible to have another infection. And lo and behold, about ten days later I have surgery. And then a week later, during the crisis in Lewisville, the Marshall Mesa fires that day with all that traffic and everything there's. She says, Hey kiddo, I know this sucks, but you've gotta coli. We need to switch you on immediately. Switch to a different outer bark. I need you to come down to Denver today so we can trial a new antibiotic that will treat both infections. So I have this infection raging in my leg. And if you do research in this matter for what's called polymicrobial for prosthetic joint infections or PJ eyes, you will find, If you have an infection that becomes PAW microbial, your chances go from carrying it from anywhere from the low end of thirty five to forty five percent cure rate to the higher of seventy eighty per cent. It makes it go down to single digit. If you're gonna becomes player microbial. And in that time they did. They did flirt with the idea of telling you that this is serious enough that I might have to have my leg amputated, but they just inserted that seed in my head. They didn't say what the actual chances were, even though they knew that pretty much doing all these extra surgeries was just gonna put me through unnecessary harm. Because why ? Because they chose to decide that they don't like me. And even though I've just been only a transparent person, you're the person I'm talking to you right now is the same person that would talk to them and told them my belief that my leg was infected and it was. It was when ignored and so now we might have to go down the path of seeking counsel to see how can be pursued. Because my life is forever changed and I think it was avoidable. I really do. While you know, I've never ever in my life no one have an infectious disease doctor and I was at Saks appointment with him and he said would you like to take a look at me like she goes now ? Then he even pulled out his iphone and said I've got pictures. Would you look at it this way ? She refused to look at it and I'm thinking this is really strange like, how does an infectious disease doctor diagnose something if they don't see it ? And she was so in her mind. And then the phone call, The nonchalant phone call like, Oh, this really sucks. Are you kidding me ? Where's the apology ? Where's the apology for not listening to me ? Oh, that's right. If she were to say that that. Admit guilt And so she's not going to do that. Absolutely. So Anyway, there was a whole cluster fuck that my doctor didn't even allow me. She gasped. Let me into saying that I could not have a different infectious disease doctor. And it took really the only reason why I'm here and alive. I lost twenty five pounds in that month, thus two months by the time I finally got a new infectious disease doctor. Which of course she hated that I got someone else involved. Why did you hate that sack ? Why do you think that she didn't want that ? Because if this ever came to litigation, there'd be a witness to say objectively, because they have to protect their license, what they actually think of this situation, because they have to be objective and that she almost didn't there there and practice almost didn't even take me. It took some begging on the phone saying that no, we're not. We're not seeking legal stuff. I just need help. What you're talking about the new infectious than he was yesterday. Infectious disease doctor and she doubled my dose. I'm so glad she came on board and I will be at forever thankful to her because you know exact. Said she could have very easily said I'm not getting involved with this because you know what. Let's face it, I remember the day when there used to be doctors that came to your house that really cared. And I guess maybe I'm back in that time. But I have talked to so many people. Can I mean just pass peep ? My coworkers are people I know that have had such bad interactions and results from doctors these days. Because what happened to the number one ethical responsibility of the doctor is do no harm. There is a print out several pages long called patients'rights that I highlighted. I can't even name all the patients rights that were were not followed and one of the major one sack brought up right now is that she would keep telling him who is infectious disease doctor was and and he already had another one and then that all. Infectious disease doctor was the one who prescribed the medication. It's like come on, we are working with someone new. So no, it was like you want to talk about a nightmare from hell and that's the way that sack and I have probably described it to be the most. I guess the way to describe what went through and the most descriptive way. What to set be to say a nightmare from hell. Because honest to God we were beside ourselves. And I mean, I even at the point during this whole time was thinking I was looking for another limb specialist and I couldn't find one. And I thought we thought we have an. Have to not go to another state and we're going. But what does that mean ? And that was all too complicated and asking, Zach, I actually does act. You remember the day I asked you to sack. I don't know what to do. Should we hire an attorney to help us because we've got to get someone to help you. This is how alone we felt because there was nothing being done and no human being should ever have to go through that. And I'm sure there are people out there right now going. Oh my god, if I could just tell you my story because I've heard people and not that we're on the subject of it, but just. You know, and you'd be talking about something and all of a sudden that comes up and they'll go. Oh god, the doctors today and I'm not saying there's not so good doctors out there. But I do remember when doctors took that oath of really caring. And I'm thinking of that patient's life. It's their life. And just one more thing about this that I has not been mentioned that I think is really extremely important. Do you guys know that I could have lost Zach through this very easily because that infection was pouring through his body ? His leg was dying. His leg. You look at his leg looked like it was almost dead. I had gone through was like twenty four, twenty solid weeks of ivy antibiotics. I was on three different antibiotics. And then I had that third different antibiotic raised doubled by the new infectious disease doctor we also pursued, or what's called bacteriophage therapy to try to see if that was a possibility if it could be treated that way. The. Fortunately really wasn't. And at that point my lake was getting worse. My lymph nodes were constantly sworn in my groin area, and I additionally, I had a tube in my leg for less. Counted out. I had a tube from the twenty second of December until I think it was like maybe two or three weeks into February. And so you're talking about twenty twenty one into twenty twenty two ? Ah, yes, exactly. And then by the time I actually had my. So then what happened is we get to june and my legs reinfected. Wall on antibiotics. And so I go to the emergency room and what happens ? I then have another surgery. There is another tube in my leg and that tube remains in my leg until I have my leg amputated. So the entirety of the leg with the tube was amputated together. And what's most bothersome about this is it. It started going into his bone and so then when we finally call, it's called osteomyelitis when it affects the bone. When we finally found it was incurable, by the way, you've. Only thing you can do is cut away. Austin. Realize you can never, you can never. Fully accurate. We've finally found a skilled surgeon who insisted upon taking the case. And this man. I will be grateful forever because you know you talk about the legalities. He cared enough to say he asked us, May I please take this case help or even said I'll contact your doctor and arrange the. The. The transfer of care. So thanks to him. And I'm not going to name names because I don't think it's. It's respectful to him, but I will say you now. And he actually salvaged Zack's limb to be. As long as it is to make it so that he could walk more easily with prosthetic and I really want to do as of yet, with everything going on in my state of mind and what we've been going through and trying to get our lives back together, have not had an opportunity. But that man will have at least a wonderful letter, if not a wonderful phone call from me. Because I'm totally grateful. And we really felt as though at that one point when I talk to you about being terrified, I realized that Sax Lake had to go or he was going to die. And that's what it was really up against. And god forbid he's all I have left. So bearing that in mind, and it was very significant to me. And when people say they're terrified, I really have to say I know that feeling and to feel that way is like a hellish feeling. Because it is. You have no control. There's nothing that you can do. And I was fighting with time trying to get some bacteriophage together with a doctor in San Diego is amazing. Actually, the bacteriophage has saved a man and that they. That was actually die and he saved his life. And so those people reached out and they helped us. And actually the wife of the man who was almost dying reached out to. Because you know why she did. Because she knew what this was like. Okay, that's my whole point. I think I want. I just want to say for you, those of you listening that can relate to this. It must feel really reassuring to know there are people out there that are talking about this stuff that a lot of people don't talk about. Because unless you've walked the walk of being in this case with a doctor who has done something so horrific to you, you're not going to be able to perceive what this is like. Okay, it's like you're alone and you. You don't know how this is going to turn up. But moreover, you don't trust the care of the person that still taking care of in my case, my son's health. I don't believe in her like I'm cringing every time she takes him back for surgery because I'm scared. And Zach told me, Mom, I was nice to her because I was afraid something bad might happen in surgery. Okay, there's the trust issues broken by that point when you don't even trust that person enough to go into surgery with them. That says a lot. And so people out there. This should shed some some light to you that this is something that is not rare. And I can say that because I've spoken to a lot of people and I think the key is to make sure your health provider. You demand there is a thing called patience, right ? You can look it up on the. On the internet. You've got to advocate for yourself too. You have to advocate you guys. You have to advocate and you have to put your foot down. And you have to say this is below. Care of what you are. You are required to do that you in fact have committed your life to giving and taking care of. Do no harm and you are harming this person. You are harming me or you're harming someone I love. And you know it's a horrible thing to feel that powerless at that time. And you know, yes, we're on the other end, so to speak. But there's a lot of rehabilitation. There's a lot of things that have to take place. And Zach was talking about feeling stuck. This is changed him for the rest of his life. Is there good that's going to come out of this ? Well, I kind of think this podcast is a good thing because it has given Zack and I. A voice. A voice of honesty, a voice of talking to some of you out there who maybe have experienced similar things. That you're not alone and. And be your own advocate. Fight, stand up and fight. And it's hard when you're down like when you're in that. The crisis of a health situation. It's hard to stand up and say I'm going to stand up and fight because you are already so we may be in a weakened state from everything you've been through with. You know, medically, and your body is just so tired. But you know what ? I am eternally grateful to God that I still have Sack because he knew that I probably may not have made it. My broken heart would have happened. I truly believe it would have. Because I. I don't think I could have really made it through one more hit of loss. And so I do believe there is a silver lining. I believe that we all experience things in our life that take us to greater things. And I don't like to say that because I don't necessarily think that you have to go to this extent of loss. Or you have to go through with this this extreme heartbreak in order to come out the other end. Okay, but I do believe that there is something really wonderful that is going to come into Zack's future. And being as talented as you are. Sack in so many areas of your life and your ability. Adaptability of whatever it is you need to adapt to. You've got a gift there, buddy. You've got a gift that some people don't have. And your resiliency and your willingness and your determination. All those things make you who Zach is. And as I said earlier, that makes you my hero. Because I've learned some of the things from you by watching you and thinking, Oh my God, has he gone to this and times have been hard. But you. Here you are and with that prosthetic. Man, I. Today we went to church this morning and when we came home I said to him, I said, Sac man, you are sport in that lake. Like you weren't using your crutches for a good part of walking today. He just got his prosthetic when the first part of January attack, like right after, like, yeah, it was. Actually got the. So my final surgery was on October third to remove the antibiotic rod that they placed during the second surgery, and then the first surgery they put. Once they put in one from August eighteenth, when I had what was called a guillotine amputation where they left the wound open with a wound vac two four days later when they went in and did what was called formalization, which is the closing of this. Of the wound, but also had what was called a targeted muscle reinnervation, or TMR, and the reason why I had that, as I had a plastic surgeon perform tomorrow because of the level of pain that had been dealing with for such a long period of time, they were especially concerned about it. I think it was the right move when I had my massage the other day and it actually kind of kind of caused more phantom pain because it's. It was massaging the nerves I was noticing yesterday. I was actually having a lot of a lot of pain after that massage, so I just need to be careful with that. But yeah, it's. It's completely different. I can't really best describe it. I can just tell you that if you've ever went skiing before and during really cold time, you know how your foot goes numb. That's what it feels like. It feels like in some ways, not always. But when I'm having phantom sensations and phantom pain, I can actually feel my foot. It feels cold, it feels numb and sometimes. Or shooting pains and. And other things going on, but generally speaking to you know, things have slowly improving. I think the thing I'm most concerned about is just building up in the endurance necessary to go back to work. So I just hope that disability doesn't push me out of it too soon. I'm hoping that they'll be patient and at least give me until you know the latest. Probably may or June. It just depends. I. I realized that this is going to be as I've been told by my physiatrist and my physical therapist. Expect your recovery to take about two years, two years from the time that you you get your prosthesis. So I got my present prosthesis. So the October third was my final surgery on January third was when I actually got my prosthesis. And it was a month later until I started physical therapy center. I'm into my third week of physical therapy. Unable to be up. I'm able to walk on it, but the problem is I can't fully weight bear on it yet all the time. I can do some walking and balance on it on my own, but it's extremely fatiguing to do the exercises correctly. I don't have the endurance there to do them correctly for very long. To give you an idea of walking about thirty feet, doing everything the way I'm supposed to will exhaust me and I'll have to sit down. Same thing with standing. Standing requires a constant amount of input energy. Otherwise the knee will give out because you have to maintain good posture in order to have the prosthesis stay locked. So there are all these different kinds of things. But generally speaking, one thing that I've been especially surprised about. If I'm being one hundred per cent honest, you wouldn't be any other way. Thank you. This prosthesis, this microprocessor, knee and ankle combination, which is called the Links. It's by Blatchford. It's a. It's a European company. They wanted an engineering award a couple years back for business design. It was one of a kind, but it uses artificial intelligence to determine the algorithms to know how to operate. Then he is under certain conditions using that. It's got an array of sensors on. It has got three or three days of battery life. And the general principle is it. Resist change. So if you're in a standing in your way bearing on it, it wants to stay locked, but if you don't maintain good posture, it will be pushing more horizontally on the knee, and eventually over the course of twenty seconds it'll give out cause it thinks that it's stuck. The same thing when the swing phase. If during the swing phase of the foot doesn't clear the ground, it will go stiff because it's better to go stiff than to go. But in the extreme cases, if the angle is sharp enough, it'll actually want to bend because it knows you have to commit the fall. So it's very, very complicated. But I think what I've noticed is sometimes there are small periods of time where I put it on and I walk on it and I think to myself this feels pretty normal with minus the pain and the discomfort and all that. Like I can actually see down the road how this could just fall into the background. Another thing that scares me about it, of course. And it's something I've had to kind of just be used to. Us. That I'm going to have to have healthcare for the entire rest of my life. It's. There's no way around it. Which is means going to have to be working. Which is okay. But the thing that overwhelms me the most right now is just I'm in a transition phase where. Don't get me wrong, I would love to go back to work. I don't not happy spending all this time sitting around. I'm really trying to relish at the end here because I realized I can sleep and stuff. This is like a lost opportunity but don't completely enjoy it. But for me, I'm not the same person I was when I was a kid. This would be a dream for me to just sit around and be on disability. But for me, I really do want to get back to something purpose purposeful. And I just also know that it's going to be a challenge to transition into it. And it's going to take rest and patience in the right employer to understand that I've got limits. Well, you know what still value me and not treat me like a number. You know, it's going to be really, really. And I've. I've. I. This part I've enjoyed just to see though. The kindness of people the. Yeah, the kindness of people. There are people that have actually stopped and help. Sack. And can we talk about the world being self centered ? There are people that just see him without missing a limb and they'll stop and they'll help. And so I. I have to say I've enjoyed watching that and just because it. It gives me that spark that people still caring and connecting. The other thing I was going to say is just to watch you grow with this. Your prosthetic. It's been. It is really kind of a magical thing to watch in. And like magic. It really is like magic. And to keep our listeners involved in how you're transitioning. Because you're gonna be walking this journey with us. I mean, you know, eventually, and when Zach is up walking, I expect him, which he could never. He has hasn't done since before he had his cancer. He couldn't do much. He. He wasn't, he couldn't run. And which will be pretty cool if you decide to pursue that whatever. But you know we've. We've. We've also seen similarly amazing stories of people who've climbed mountains who will run in marathons with these prosthetics. And all of that is just very encouraging because I know if anyone is going to get the best they can out of it, it's going to be back. And so hopefully. Sack. I'm thinking there may be some wonderful things that you get from having this prosthetic that maybe you didn't. Yeah, this is going to change my life in ways that I understand. I was just gonna say it was very touching for Jeremy and Cameron to become involved when I was at the hospital to come see me. To offer you no help getting home grocery shopping. I let her groceries, you know, and it's very unexpected. The reason why I say that is I think it's important that we state this is not that we have enjoyed being isolated from the family like it's not like we jump up and down and say yea, we're doing your own thing. The reality is the. The economy, if I could call it anything with the family is an economy of guilt and economy of shame and economy of constant judgment with their beliefs and their religion and constant judgment. Or are you going to church ? All these different kinds of stains and excuse me, you know what if you guys were less judgmental and you let us be ourselves ? We would love to be part of the family. We'd love to have family. We'd love to have family help us out with everything that had happened. But the rest. Simple reality is it was more damage than it was good. Except for Jeremy. We've always felt connected to Jeremy. And because you know what, he's the one person. Maybe. I dunno. I think. Natalie, to a degree. Maybe. But when the one person that's willing to come out of his shell and be real with us and you know, be involved and it's. It sucks to say that you know if the family ever hears this is not that we hate you guys, we don't. It's just that you need to understand that there is a lot of things that happened that really alienated me and my mom feel alienated and we had to kind of go do our own thing. And I don't think it matters if we go to church or not. But to answer your question, we do go to church. I'm sure the church we go to you guys would be rolling your heads with the message. You guys may not appreciate the message, but it's inclusiveness. It's fair, it's equitable and I believe it's the true manifestation of Jesus. And then turn to turn this into religious podcast. But I'm just speaking on the topic of comparative religion and philosophy versus a judgmental Old Testament kind of God. You know, I. I don't believe specifically in Christianity. I believe I even kind of believe in the kind of Buddhist belief that we're kind of reincarnated. So you know, I'm. I've got. I've got different beliefs. You know, it's not one specific belief. The whole thing is is that what you said is true. I do not despise or hate my family. It's just that we're different and we can't be late in. In order to be a part of it, you need to be just like. And that part I can't pull off. So you've always been the failure to. And I don't know why. Because I think you're truly gifted. You've got such a heart. And it's really sad that they can't see that. And. Cusack, But I do want to say and Jeremy and Cam, I love you guys so much and I are boys and you are a big part of what's helped us through this. I just want you guys to know that it's like just coming out of the blue. You came into our lives. Like at a time when Zach and I felt so alone and it's. I become tearful with that because it's hard. It was really hard because it was like, you know, I have friends that have been there for me and there are a lot of them are in California. But on this beautiful woman who's been a friend of Sacks for many, many years, and she's. She's eighty two or eighty three. Patricia, She feels like my sister. I mean, like we get each other and she's so giving and so kind. And it was kind of amazing because I had a friend that was going to come out from California to come be with me during sex surgery. Because as a person I felt. Might be the most comforting. And it ended up that she came down with co - lead. And all of a sudden I have not. I had not met this woman. I just heard about her. I speak or spoken to her on the phone. She had so many godlike qualities when I say that. So she is not judgmental. She's so kind. She. She's so giving. And I just felt like the first time. I spoke with her that she was like my sister because you know he or she is. And she's. She accepts me for who I am and I'm accepting of her for who she is. Do you know there could have been no one more fitting for that day than her. And I am forever grateful for her because it's because of her. I was able to make it through that day and it's like the blessings I guess. Maybe God has brought our way or just just made happen. Is that at that particular time to. Jeremy came forward and can was very supportive And you guys, man, we didn't expect you to buy our groceries. Shopping would have been enough. You guys went out there and you. Nothing said about money. You guys went and bought her groceries and delivered them and were worried about when the snow would come. But that would mean. And you live in another. You live in another town. It's not like you live across the street. I just want to thank you guys and know that I love you so much and it has meant the whole world to Zach and I. And we're going to get together for this chicken and dumplings soon. You know, Sack and I are still in a phase of disc working through things and trying to get our lives. I'd want to see normalize but just up to date to the point where you know, I mean, we're. We're functioning a little better, but we are going to get. Gather And I just have to say that. I hope you listen to this. Because I have the muskrat to two guys. Because you came when we needed someone and it was one of the greatest gifts that I've ever experienced in my life. Thank you guys for that. And I love you tremendously. Yeah, you know, rap. Random acts of kindness. You can never. You can never understand or grasp in today's world what a random act of kindness. Is that how it affects people ? It could be a smile. It can be a gesture, you know. And we all are going through our own stuff all the time and it's sometimes hard to get out of there. Our own vulnerability, forget about our own problems for a moment and focus on someone else's problems. But when we do, something magical happens because we actually feel like we're connected and we're not alone and we're in this together. And you know that I don't think you can ever completely underestimate the power of what that means and how it affects people. It can take someone's bad day and turn it into a good day in the same thing's true with if you're on the receiving end of that. So you know, I think that ultimately we need to be kind and generous to one another and do. Regardless of our religious beliefs or our backgrounds. And you know, just be real with one another and be kind to one another and understand that sometimes we don't even understand one another and what we're all going through cause might be might be some private things we don't even know about. But anyways, the bottom line is. And I feel fortunate for everything I have in my life. It comes from a position of gratitude and you have to learn to live. Grateful. And you know, I. My life transformed out of the original surgeries, reconstructing my leg, got a metal to. Now the amputation and having an exo prosthesis vs. An endoprosthesis. It's. It's a kind of a different thing. And I'm grateful because now I'm more certain that my health issues have a greater likelihood of resolving. They've just been. I've been stuck in this place for years and I don't want to think about the fact that you know, essentially, I dunno. Past seven or ten years have been, you know, just surviving, not thriving. But I'm open to what happens next. I'm open to the gifts that I'm given. I hope that I'm surprised it would be great if some genuine love opportunity came into my life. And it would be wonderful if I found someone that really truly understands me as a person and my biggest fears. A person of his being misunderstood and I care less better nowadays. But that's, you know, starkly, the way it's been. And I feel like there's a lot of misunderstanding and a lot of people don't really understand what it's like. So for those that do, the ones that donate to my GoFundme and stuff, I mean from the bottom of my heart it. I can't thank you guys enough for believing in me. I was completely floored. You know what is it ? Fifty two hundred dollars. Fifty five hundred dollars to contribute. Walter instead pay for my leg. I mean, I can use that for insurance for COBRA and. And other things until I move onto the next chapter of my life. And I feel grateful and humbled to receive that help. And I'm also feel grateful and humbled just for the simple people that have come into my life that have said Hey, can I give you a hand with that ? Or hey, I don't even say anything. They just shovel our walks. We wake up in the morning and our walks are shoveled magically. And you know, it's like that's the world that we should all live in. It shouldn't take having your leg chopped off to be doing these things for one another. But what's amazing is we have a neighbor next door who's also a complete. A hole and his tree fell through my window. Nearly killed me. And that fucking asshole. I didn't lift a finger. So that's just a different kind of contrast. Our neighbors on the south side of the house. Everybody and and and and the house one across from him. Jenny is also very nice, but have a lot of really nice neighbors. Like. That's the only one that has stuck a dick. I really. I used to be nice to him. I used to used to plough, has has walked for him several like all the time and he's never fucking. You know, done anything to you, you know he. He. He looks like a deer with, you know, oncoming headlights. He's like got that fixed. Lucky. It's completely clueless. You just even even gave himself the excuse to take a. A tree cutter this heavy fucking equipment that's played thirty three thousand pounds on a driveway that can only stand twelve thousand pounds to start just doing his own shit. And he's one of these a holes that took a classic house in this area tore down and rebuilt it. I'm not sure if you know, but if you want to do a quick Google search, you can find out how much a house in Boulder County is. It's very, very, very expensive. We're talking about usually a million dollars for a house and then if you're going to tear it down, that's another. Millions of people are spending two, three, four million dollars in this area to tear down houses and rebuild it. And he's built. What do you think ? Cause as a three or four story house, it's a tall house. But you know what ? Zac, I'm kind of laughing because this is like bitch day too. I mean, what's going on with Josh and or I'm sorry, sack in a lane. It's pretty easy. What's going on The second line, We say it for what it is. And you know that I understand you're angry at this man. I can't believe that people like this exist and you should be ashamed of who he is. And the reason why is. You know what he won't even fucking for Sir can just take away what he's doing and be a human. You know it. That's all it takes. All it takes is for you to trust your gut and do the right thing. I don't even think this guy has a conscience. So anyways, I'm sorry to complain about him, but you know, asshole, if you've ever listener podcasts, ever know that, figure out that we do have a podcast. You know, we don't love to hate you, but you've made it very easy for us to love to hate you. While you know that angers legit and and basically he really didn't want any part of the situation. And and truly, yes, if that, if a car would not have been parked where it was parked, SAC may not be here. That's another incident that happened along the way. So excuse me. I'm still kind of recovering from my hate. You know, sack. We really need to put kleenex box on the table. I just discovered that because I didn't prepare for this today. And just having kleenex boxes can be a good thing, I think. But I. It's okay to talk about the way you feel. I mean, I'm sure all of you have. Have thought of that in your life. And I know that eventually forgiving people for what they've done is what we should do to be healthy, not really forgiving them, to forgive them, but to let it let it go. But it's just so close to everything else we. That we had been going through and this man could care less that Zach is getting his leg amputated and did not even want to be apart. Of history coming through the window of our house. So which is still needing to be repaired, and because we have been focused on so many other things. Yup. So I think the most important thing I'd like to leave this podcast with is try to live each day to the fullest. And knowing that like when you just spoke about this, angers. Okay, it's totally legit. And and I still feel very angry as well. And at the lack of care. And. And I think the part that makes me. Maybe the part that's the hardest is, I just don't understand. I don't understand how you can just watch and not step in. But that's me. So you know, my brain doesn't think that way. I don't. I don't understand that. And to me, a person like that. I. I don't know if they don't have a conscience or you know where that goes, but nonetheless. Yeah, that was another thing that I wasn't even thinking about. That we went through during this whole time, which was just like, oh, and what else is going to happen kind of thing. But anyway, we are where we are today. We both, I think, are in a positive place and. And we enjoy doing these podcasts and you'll find him. Walk our journey with us. Were there to. To try to be real about the world and to try to promote connection with people that care for one another. I guess that's really what what you're talking about, SAC here is is knowing that there are people out there that do care and people that we don't understand and kind of but kind of leads me with out. Really anything to really say because I. I can't. I can't figure out so I can't wrap my head around what you're just talking about. I have the same feelings, but I can't wrap my head around it. Yep. Well, anyways, I don't think there's much more to talk about. And you know, we're just kind of where we're at right now. So we just thought of doing just like kind of an open form podcast today. And we actually listen to our last podcast. And towards the end we weren't really sure we had spoken for so long. And believe it or not, I think we're actually already close to two hours here. Now we're at. We're just shy of two hours. So I think when you'd end up pretty fast here, just to kind of keep it short. But the bottom line is we didn't we ? We thought that we hadn't really hit on the point of Connection, which was our previous podcast we did yesterday. But as it turns out, you know, we were not far off the mark. I think we did a really good job. I was addressing it and using Nora, our knowledge and her expertise and a very genuine way to really appropriate each topic, each subtopic of of connection. So that excited us. We just had come back from church and we decided to just throw one together. I was actually, what's weird is we didn't talk about initially. It was actually a thought I had in my mind in them and my mom mentioned, Hey, you want to do one real quick ? I was like, Yeah, hell yeah. And then we weren't really sure what to do it on. And then I was like, Well, maybe I'm going to be the kind of reserved. I'm not going to, you know, come out and provide so many details about myself. But I'm like, well, fuck it. You know, my horoscope is telling me to do it. So why not do it ? Why not be authentic and see what happens ? Because you know what people appreciate, People appreciate authentic authenticity and realness. Then people. Why do people appreciate that ? Because there's a lot of thickness in this world while people are afraid to. To say that much about themselves, because they are afraid what other people think, or they're afraid of offending people. But you know what this is, not to offend anyone. This is only meant to be a positive. And that's what we want it to be for those that can relate to us, which I'm sure many of you can. If you've listened to this podcast because it's about Jack and Elaine and. And we're going to have more about sack any Lane just because that will help you understand why we want to have. Be able to speak about things that were so passionate about. And that's why we want to put a podcast together for connection. Because you know what. Connection is not something that just is going to happen overnight and it may never. But you know, when you believe strongly in something, it's a voice and having a voice in this world. We all do have that voice and we have a right to that voice. And I believe that voice can be very positive to others who may be afflicted with certain things that they can relate to us about. And if so, please do remember what Zach has told you from prior podcast, You can come to poly chromatic dot com. That's p o l y c h r o m a t i c dock. Sorry a t i q u e dot com. Would you please say exact because I have missed. Sorry, It's so it's. We've been seen like polychromatic, but it's actually polychromatic. So it's actually the French version of polychromatic. I think at least that's what we've found on the Internet is p o l y c h r o m a t i q u e bank dot com. So you're close, but it won't. If they go to the IC one, it's not going to take them. The one they have to go to the i q u e one right dot com. And there you can interact with this. And you know it's early on. We're not seeing a ton of traction, but we've looked at some of the analytics. And in our last podcast we already have ten downloads and it's not even been a full day. So I would say that you know we're doing well there. And you know, a crossover episodes us over one hundred. You know, we're getting into the hundreds. So let's say we're making progress and you can just keep putting them out. Just you know vocationally and and then who knows, Someday maybe we can be having real conversations with you guys. I think that's when it's going to make it more interactive and more real and more connected. Yeah, it'll be interesting. So anyways, I don't know if you wanted to say something. No, I'm ready to go and I hope you all have a wonderful week and tune in again. We will be releasing this one, I believe Zach said Tomorrow. Yeah, we'll release it on Monday. We'll set up a schedule to really sit on Monday. So that way it will appear during your work week. I know for me I listen to podcasts during my work week, not on the weekends so much. And unless you happen to work on the weekend, which I guess I did, but I usually had Wednesdays and Sundays off. But regardless, it'll be there. Just know that it wasn't. If it matters, it wasn't recorded on Monday. It was recorded on Sunday. So alright guys again, check us out on the web, Polychromatic dot com and we'll see in the next episode. Bye to all of you. Take care !