Latest / The Uncommons / Our Son’s Accident and How We Held Our Family Together | Ep6

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Our Son’s Accident and How We Held Our Family Together | Ep6 · The Uncommons

• speaker-0: All our kids have been on skis since they were so little. speaker-1: He's like, no, not everything's not okay. He's bleeding and they're to fly him out. speaker-0: I see a guy next to him going like crazy at the ski patrol. speaker-1: I was trying to be as calm and collected and be the support for everybody. speaker-0: keep telling myself, I'm like, why? speaker-1: I'm sure everybody's family kids end up in emergency rooms, you know, it's a normal part of life and and the Severity goes up and down or there's other issues that come up. How do we deal with shit like this? speaker-0: I keep going back to what we have as my anchor. And I feel like if that's in place and if we're close and if we handle it together as a unit, then we can carry on. speaker-1: in situations like this is where we really figure out who speaker-0: Hi everyone. Welcome to the Uncomments Podcast where we challenge the ordinary and explore what it really takes to build a fulfilling life. I'm Parisa. speaker-1: I'm Pez. speaker-0: and he's a little moody today. speaker-1: That's not true. speaker-0: I mean, not just today, recently. Today we're going to talk about... We're going to talk about... I forgot. No, no business. No, no, no. I had a plan. I followed a plan. I want... I was just shooting for... I want it. speaker-1: Let's talk about business today. How about we don't follow the plan? The hip once in a while. Well, let's talk about like what we were just talking about. Our boy. speaker-0: That's still fresh for me. speaker-1: We promised our audience that we're gonna be raw. So how about we talk about it while it's fresh? speaker-0: Okay, I might cry. Okay, let's talk about it. So our son had a really horrific ski accident. was not a good way go to he's been on ski since it was too. All our kids have been on ski since they were so little and with him, especially because he was a little more on the scared side, first kid syndrome. So we had to warm him up a little more. So we started very young. We got him used to the skis. We got him ⁓ worked through his fears and he's been very confident, doing so good, skiing better than me, and almost. ⁓ every time I go skiing, I have this in the back of my mind, like I worry, what if they fall? Maybe they break a bone, maybe they have, I don't know, like some sort of like their nose, they hit their teeth, whatever. But this was really out of anything I could have imagined. It's a little graphic because you say. speaker-1: We had ⁓ about ⁓ three and a half weeks ago, ⁓ four weeks ago, about a month ago. Yeah, tomorrow will be a month. On a Friday, had ⁓ gone away to, we have a home in Mammoth Mountain and we've had it forever. And I've been skiing all my life and apparently so. She was a snowboarder. I mean, cannot believe I dated a snowboarder, let alone marry one. But then she converted, came to the right side of the fence. speaker-0: We made an agreement that I fulfilled and you didn't. We decided that I switched to skiing and you come rock climbing with me. You did one time in 10 years. speaker-1: I I fulfilled my agreement. always fulfill my agreements. So we've taken our kids, of them, excuse me, this last two trips, my two year old boy, he's almost three. We took him down the slopes with the harness. it was like a great accomplishment. Yeah, super cute. And you know how you're before you marry, think about what would life be? speaker-0: very minimal. speaker-1: if I ever got married, you know, and I got married at 50. So I'm like, do I want to be married and kids and all that? And, you know, that was my conversation, you know, internal conversation for a long time. And one of the things that I imagined was that having a family and skiing like that, you know, the how you see the ducks are swimming in the pool or in pond and, skiing with you know and the kids going behind us. I had a really beautiful imagination and ⁓ it actually came through a couple years ago when we had myself, Parisa and my older boy and my daughter all skiing down down the slopes. It was like beautiful actually, ⁓ very heartwarming and it felt like very accomplished. And now we got our little two-year-old on skis. They all got on skis at the age of two. And my boy, he's eight, he's a pretty good skier. ⁓ I wanted to get him on the ski team, but it was a big commitment, so we hadn't done it. And my boy is from another woman, my older boy. Taking him on this, and we've taken our kids all over the world and do really cool shit with them. ⁓ But he's got another mom. And it's always kind of like, especially for Parisa, for me, it's... It's like more natural, but doing all these things and taking away, taking him away from, not from his mom, but doing these trips where his mom was not there. And usually accidents happen when you're doing things that are out of your norm. was an emergency room doc. So I've seen it time and time again, that. Yeah. But I see it time and time again where people get injured. speaker-0: saying any. speaker-1: when they're skiing or water skiing or they're on scooters or on vacation. know, there's a lot of things happen on vacation as opposed to normal life because you're doing things that are out of your normal everyday program that you're used to. So a month ago, shy one day, we were in Mammoth and I was working at the lodge. Luckily my daughter who speaker-0: every day. speaker-1: never says I'm tired. The tired doesn't enter their vocabulary. For the first time in her life, she didn't want to go skiing and she wanted to go back with a younger boy home. So I asked Paris and my boy to go up while I work and I'll catch up with them so they could get some laps in and stuff like that. And ⁓ Leon is a great skier. He does blacks now at the age of eight and he just turned eight in January. So He started doing black runs at the age of seven. so I get at 2.30 in the afternoon, Friday, I get a frantic call from Parisa to come up, to let me in an accident. I'm like, okay, I'll come up. She goes, no, you need to come now. I'm like, okay, like what do mean? Is everything okay? She's like, no, not everything's not okay. He's bleeding and they're gonna fly him out. I'm like, what? So anyhow, so I... I don't know how I got there, but I got there and I got to the ambulance and it was hit by a snowboarder and the face. speaker-0: down, down the mountain. I take him on the other side of mountain because he loves soccer. And there is one run in Mammoth mountain that's called World Cup. And he's been asking, go, we go skiing so often during the ski season. And for the last few trips, he's been asking, he wants to go on a World Cup run, which is from where we are. We have to go a few lifts over to get to it. And we were going up again and he's like, but daddy promised me, really want to go to world cup today. Why don't you take me to world cup? I'm like, okay, I'll just, I'll take you to world cup, which was not a really a difficult run. It was just on the other side. So we go a couple of lifts up, we're skiing together. So he's doing so good. And usually when we go all together, Paige usually goes in the front and then the two kids and I go in the back in case somebody falls, I can just be there and pick up obvious easier. And. I'm going behind him and he keeps looking back at me the whole time. And I feel like he's going to hit somebody since he keeps like turning. So we're going to one lift that he's never been to, to go up, to come back. We already did the Cup. He was so happy. And he was like, but where are we going? I don't know where we're going. I'm like, just that lift. We're going down there. We were at the bottom of the run. We're like, we're going to go a few more like yards, I don't know, and get to. that lift and go up and he's like, why don't you go in front of me and I'll follow you. I don't know where we're going. I've never been on this side of mountain. I'm like, okay. So I go in the front and I go a little down and I turn around to look at him and he is on the floor, on the ground. So he gets up and I'm like, okay, well, we fell down and he's gonna, they fall like, I don't know, a dozen times a day. So I'm like, he's gonna get up and come. And I see a guy next to him going like crazy at the ski patrol. So I just take off my skis and start running up the hill and I just, the face, like I go in front of it, it's him, he's standing there and here is just like the eyes are his and the rest is just from out of a horror movie, like open all the way, all the way through, the jaw is broken, everything's hanging down. I mean, Yeah, he was very shocked. Then he was bleeding on me and he was like, I don't want to, am I dying? I don't want to die. And I'm like, no, it's just a scratch. It'll be okay. While I'm losing. speaker-1: Deep breath, he's alive. Yeah, it's been really traumatic for everybody, but especially Parisa because Parisa also lost her dad when she was 11 in a bad car accident. this this triggers a lot of stuff that she's got. speaker-0: Yeah, but even if it wasn't that, I mean, it does trigger that because there was a lot of blood and that scene too, by itself, it was just like, I've never seen anything like that. You know, I've never imagined anything like that in the face. It's just... speaker-1: Very traumatizing. again, I lived in an emergency room for many, many, many years. And I've seen a lot of crazy stuff, but this was pretty massive. The ski patrol was in shock. The ambulance transfer people were in shock. The jet air vac team was in shock. They've done some crazy stuff. ⁓ But you and an eight year old little kid had a laceration from one side of his nose all the way down to the other side of face and his face is hanging off essentially. I got an ambulance and... He was actually relatively calm, and he didn't cry from the whole time. The whole time I was there, he didn't cry. And I don't know, maybe because he couldn't cry, because every time he started breathing from his mouth, blood and bubble would come out of his face. They were going to transfer him to Bumfuck, Reno, and I had a little discussion with the pilot, we... Yeah, I think my father instincts kicked in and we flew, the plane to redirect it to Vegas and ⁓ called some of our people and we had the trauma team stand by. So we did everything that we could. Luckily I know a lot of the people, so I called and figured out who's on call where and ⁓ got the detail on the plastic surgeon that we want to use. so forth before we flew off. so the trauma team was waiting for us before we got there. So they did really well, but it was shocking, you and I was holding his face together the whole time, this hour and 20 minutes, the longest hour and 20 minutes of my life. speaker-0: Meanwhile, they didn't let me on the flank. So I had to go back trying to find the skis. Like Paige would call me every five minutes, go do this. And I would be like, go to the ski patrol, go get our skis, go home. I fainted a few times on the way. speaker-1: Yeah, so Paris are fainted ⁓ after we left because... speaker-0: trying to pull it together. speaker-1: And then she drove all the way with the two kids and our nanny, ⁓ which is extremely scary. speaker-0: It really wasn't, because I feel like I was on high adrenaline, high like I was in so much, I don't know, my body was in shock, but I was so alert, like I couldn't eat, I couldn't blink, I couldn't fall asleep, like none of that. speaker-1: The sympathetic mimetic system, is in flight or flight or fight. Again, that's when accidents happen. So, you know, we're flying, lay on down and I was so worried about you and the other two kids. And it was a very rough afternoon. But anyhow, we got him to Vegas and we got the plastic surgeon to go in and they did a really, really good job on repairing the administration. He's got a big scar going from here to here, ⁓ even worse, large facial fracture on the facial bone up here. So he had a second surgery done a couple of weeks later, a couple of weeks ago, and they had to extract out all his teeth upfront, permanent teeth, ⁓ and to repair the upper jaw. So they repaired the upper jaw, but is toothless. And we can't put implants in until it's 15. speaker-0: The At least. speaker-1: at least 15. So we're going to Children's LA and really painful, especially when you're a doctor and you can see the fuck ups. And I still haven't dealt with these two doctors that I think they just screwed up bad. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because they told us that, you know, I told them I was like, look. speaker-0: doctor that took the teeth. speaker-1: If it's a simple surgery, I'm okay. Otherwise I want to take him somewhere else. I want to get a pediatric, you know, maxiofacial surgeon, blah, blah. And the guy's like, ⁓ not a big deal. The teeth are in place. We just have to put the bone back and, and, and, and, put wires in and you know, be fine. And then when we got to the operating room, they said, well, ⁓ another doctor was doing the procedure, which by the way, I know both of these guys for like 20 years. They said there's a chance we have to take the teeth out. And they, they, they did. So I'm. Part of me is I'm very, very upset about the whole situation. And part of it is I think what happened was a little substandard. But at the end of the day, thank God for what happened the way it did, because it was a little bit lower. He would have been 100 % dead, no question, or blind, or comatose, or paralyzed, or without a nose. So it was a horrible accident. and it was not a normal accident. speaker-0: I've seen all these years who are skiing. I've never seen anything like that. Like I keep telling myself, I'm like, why? Why did, like out of nowhere, what happened? speaker-1: I think it's a good topic for us to talk about. I know you're very emotional about it, but, and we weren't planning on talking about this and I know you're about to cry, but maybe it is the right time to talk about it when emotions are high and maybe we could talk about it a month from now. But if this podcast is about the reality of life and we promise everybody we're going to be raw, then shit happens in our lives. I think this is, was talking to Pari, telling Pari, I was like, This is probably the biggest, most painful event that has happened to my life, second to my mom dying. Or maybe first, I'm not sure. Really, I'm not sure. You know, she had cancer and we she was going to die and she suffered a lot. Versus this beautiful, and I think everybody thinks their kids are beautiful, but this boy is just beautiful. Small little nose, perfect lips, beautiful eyes, just a beautiful boy. almost a little too pretty. So I told his biological mom, I'm like, he was too pretty anyway, so I could use a little scar. But I think it's a good topic because people go through it and kids have the children. speaker-0: I mean, we were skiing, when was it? A few years back. We just had our daughter and I was recovering from the birth and I'm like trying to get on skis again. And I was going very slow and I fell out of nowhere somewhere that I wouldn't normally fall at all. And you came back to help me. And right then and there, another boy just flew off the edge and went face down on a big rock. Thank God I fell and you were there, because if you weren't there, he would have been dead. He was choking on his teeth. So you went down and kind of, so I saw that, but compared to this, was like, I was traumatized from that for like two months. then compared to this, like our own kid with that level of... I just, you know, I have good days and I have not so good days. And even during the day I go like this, because I think about like, ⁓ my God, some days I'm like, thank God, it could have been like so much worse. Like it could have been anything from, it could have even been, you know, people have, ⁓ go through a lot of like illnesses with their kids that we don't see. You know, we have friends that have had their kids have had cancer, God forbid, and things like that. And I thought about it. I'm like, what if something happens to one of our kids or, you know, ⁓ some, have friends that have lost a kid or two. And it's very traumatic, it's very painful. I, some days I'm like, between all this stuff that could happen, losing a kid, like cancer, like diseases that are so horrific. and a really accident that could have been a lot worse. We just lost four teeth. You know, I take that over many, many other cases, but then a lot of other times that's rare. Like I feel like that in the back of my mind, I keep reminding myself, but then a lot of times I'm like, what the fuck just happened? Just, just the shock of it and not being expected. And then, ⁓ I couldn't sleep for like, first two, three weeks, I kept closing my eyes and his face, bleeding, would come right in front of me. I just, that was all night, every night. speaker-1: In situations like this is where we really figure out who we are. It's not when we're having fun going skiing or everything's great or blah. We're having a beautiful dinner, all of us together holding hands and singing kumbaya. It's times like this where, you know, like tough times. And how do we do, what do we do and how do we come out of it? Farias and I have been both into many relationship courses and training and blah, blah, blah. And it talks about, and we talked about this in our last episode, these cycles of a relationship, of a loving relationship. We've gone through a lot, I'm sure a lot less than a lot of people, but this cycle is the more you go through and the more you come out. And the more you go through and you're able to come up with solutions and deal with these kinds of problems. We talked about this one of our episodes, like going through the fact that everybody was against us because of our age difference and go on and. speaker-0: Because you were Jewish, was Muslim. speaker-1: I'm a Jew and she's Muslim. I really don't give a shit, but my family did. And I'm sure your family did a little bit, ⁓ so we overcome that, overcome our age difference. And then I found out that my ex is pregnant with Leon, my son that had the accident, right? And we had just kind of started going out. It was like, how do you deal with that? How do you deal with... ⁓ we're about to get married, but some other woman is going to have your child. I don't know if I would have married me. Like, why the fuck would I want to marry an older guy that is 22 years older than me and has done everything, ⁓ lived a life twice, and I want to live with someone who I'm going to share my life with, and I do all these experiences together, blah, blah, blah. speaker-0: Live the life to a speaker-1: All this stuff, I probably wouldn't. But she saw something in me, I don't know what. And we overcame that. My son was born two weeks after we got married from another woman. And then four months later, my mom dies. And in the middle of all this stuff, I got this massive litigation just like. like multi-layer litigation, high stress, and ⁓ I mean, overcame all of that. speaker-0: I married you for money. speaker-1: Yeah. And, and, ⁓ on top of that. Yeah. speaker-0: A lot of people said that. Most of my friendships, because they were like, ⁓ you're marrying him for money. I'm like, he's almost losing everything. Here you go. That makes you happy. speaker-1: Yeah, and then we had our first big fight, and actually we really don't fight. It's kind of crazy, like we don't fight. speaker-0: because we knew that one of us is really reactive. speaker-1: On Reactive. speaker-0: You don't like yell and scream. You're reactive in a way that you shut down. speaker-1: I grew up in a family that my mom and my dad were fighting, loud, obnoxious. My dad would fucking close doors and fridge and shit would fall apart. It's just horrible. speaker-0: Yeah, but I mean, you worked on yourself. Yeah, I worked. I always say if we met maybe 10 years earlier or five years earlier, we would never connect. You worked on yourself so much. did so much of that. And then since we've been together, I've never seen you raise your voice once at a business meeting. I heard you raise your voice. speaker-1: That was my north. Many many many many years. Yeah, and I've learned how to control a lot of things. I was like, mean, I'm a type a craze. I mean, I'm out of control. speaker-0: Thank you, you're not. speaker-1: I've trained myself to control my emotions and especially in a business meeting or at home, just like how my dad was or whatever it is, I don't lose it, but if I lose it, it's bad. I remember. I remember once, one of my medical centers, I was going walking by emergency department. I owned a little mini hospital and we had a billing department. and the door was open, was walking by and I heard the head of my billing company, which I later found out she embezzled money from me, had told it was telling the team that Dr. Batty said blah, blah, blah, blah, which I had never said. And I just heard as I walked by and I came back and I remember losing my shit and the entire little mini hospital was just dropped. Nobody, I mean nobody could believe what was going on. was like yelling and screaming and just out of control. What happens like every three, four, five years or something like that. But going back to these us not fighting and how we overcome over these things and really to be honest, it's you. speaker-0: Thank god I haven't seen that. speaker-1: not me, you just know how to handle my ass. I don't know, it's like we've made for each other, it's just the weirdest thing. Not that we don't have, not at that time that I wanna like. No, killer, but I know it's the same for her. ⁓ But I love her and I realize how much I love her and this love, stages of relationship love, the more of these obstacles that you get over, the sooner you can pass through these stages. speaker-0: As long as we fully get over them. A lot of people go through it and it just builds up resentment and more and more like emotions that are unprocessed. Thankfully, I I just think the biggest gift that I have learned somewhere in the process of all the personal development courses and workshops and therapy sessions that I did in the past is that I learned how to Like take my emotions, deal with them, process them, and then bring them to you instead of throwing up on you. Which it kind of went the other way too, because then I had started suppressing some emotions, which we had a session about it and we talked about it. And you told me I can handle it, even if you need to throw up on me, because I was going the other way. So I'm trying now to actually bring my emotions to you instead of... trying to do it all on my own. But ⁓ I just think this whole, I mean, we've been through a lot, you're right. And we've, mean, everybody goes through. The reason I didn't want to talk about this topic today was not because I would cry, was because I just don't want to keep talking about problems. know, this podcast is not about just problems and struggles, it's about reality of life. But again, right now. We are in a section of our life that's like pretty, it was pretty traumatic and we're dealing with it. But it, I don't think we've been through anything like this before. I'm just thankful because as the cycle of relationships that you talk about that Tony Robbins mentioned in one of his workshops, in the same workshop, a lot of people would stand up and talk. And he has examples of the challenges that could happen at each. cycle at each season. And in a lot of them, there's like death of a child, illness, things that are very hard to deal with. And a lot of people would stand up and be like, ⁓ we lost our kids or we had dealt with this illness and that illness. And every time I'm like, what's next for us? Because something's going to come up. mean, challenges come up. But I was like, please God, whatever happens. nothing happens to our children. So that was always in the back of my mind. And compared to everything that could happen, this was not, again, I keep telling myself it was just for teeth, you know, it was an scar, but it was not like as bad as it could have been. But that's just me trying to calm myself down basically. speaker-1: This is a podcast of relationship growth business and really kind of talking about this and hopefully we'll have people share what they go through. All right. We're in the middle of one of our biggest challenges in our lifetime and we happen to have our podcasts, right? I know you don't want to talk about it yet. And until you process it and then come out and that's you, but, and I'm the other way around. like, I'll just, just, just, just do it, bring it on kind of a thing. But. which is my personality, but I honestly think it might be wise to see our current emotions now and maybe two months from now, whatever it is, but it be a disservice to ourselves and the audience. If we say we're going to be real, we're going to be raw and not do it and talk about it. This is probably the biggest event that's happened to us. And ⁓ you are me going to like, ⁓ my God, thank God it's not death or peril. kids not paralyzed, whatever it is, just four teeth. ⁓ And the other side of it is like, ⁓ my God, this boy is disfigured. When he smiles, when he smiles like now, half of his face doesn't go up, he's deformed, he's got no teeth, he looks like Frankenstein's. You know? So it's bad, it's fucking horrible. But. speaker-0: Kid. speaker-1: this, how we do things and how we go about it is, mean, many, many, many times in the past month, I just lost it once when I called, oh no, I'm lying. I lost it on my dad. I lost, you know. speaker-0: It's been a little, irritable. speaker-1: So I lost it a couple of times, but I really lost it when I just called my best friend, which we were so close, we don't talk all the time, we just grew up together as one of my best friends, like my brother, and I just picked up the phone and I couldn't talk. I called him and I just couldn't talk. I couldn't even say hello and I just started crying. And it's like, ⁓ my God, what's going on? just like, and so the discussion was, I think when these things happen, how we handle it. think that what we want to talk about with the audience, like how to handle situations like this. Cause I'm sure it doesn't have to be your child. It could be your child. I'm sure everybody's family, kids end up in emergency rooms, you know, there's a normal part of life and, the severity goes up and down. There's other issues that come up. How do we deal with shit like this? How do we deal as me, my emotions at the time, same thoughts, same dreams. And I was holding his face for an hour and 20 minutes and just breathing with him on the airplane. And this flight nurses are freaking out and luckily I didn't want the tissue to get damaged. I was like, me the gauze, give me a wet gauze, dry gauze. I was doing all this stuff. And meanwhile, it's not a patient, it's my son. And he had to breathe through his nose, otherwise this would open up. And that whole thing for me, was like, I couldn't believe it. was like, is this real? Is this real? Is this my son's face that is gonna be completely? speaker-0: shock and speaker-1: deranged, know, or so, so from going from not real in my brain to real from anger and sadness and I wanted to, you know. speaker-0: I mean, it was, I think we were both very thankful that you weren't there when it happened because you would have killed the guy. speaker-1: When I lose control, I have no understanding. I was thinking about the things that were going through my mind. I'm holding this kid's face together. I'm imagining if I was there, how I would put my pole in the guy's trachea. I mean, this horrible feeling. And a lot of people don't talk about this, what they really feel. And then at one point, I'm like, all right. Parisa's like she's trying to keep it together, but she's up and down and then my son's mom is Hispanic. She's Latin and very very emotional and and I didn't even tell her until The kid went into the operating room to have a two and a half hour plastic facial reconstruction surgery without without the bone recruits just just a face because it was all the way through to the jaw and the jaw was fractured pieces. And if his mom saw him, it would have been, I just don't know. So I didn't let her know because she thought we were a mammoth. Meanwhile, we flown out, you know, and so the minute he went to the OR, I called his mom and she went nuts over the phone and, then she was coming over and, ⁓ you know, relationship with her is, is overall really good, but has, has this ups and downs like any, you know, any, any mixed relationship. So handling that portion of it and whatever's going on and handling our two kids. So I was just trying to be as I was trying to be as calm and collected and be the support for everybody. And meanwhile, down the different side of I was broken. So broken. Like I was heartbroken. to see my son like that and to see my family suffer like that. And just really, really, really tough ⁓ to have these emotions and be able to kind of keep it balanced. And I know you were just going up and down and I could just feel you at nighttime next to me. And ⁓ I was still going through it, obviously. I'm crying, you're crying, but. ⁓ So I don't think there is a playbook on how to keep it together. speaker-0: But I think one thing that has been on my mind and I keep reminding myself is that I keep going back to what we have is my anchor. know, whatever happens outside in the world, like even when I'm upset and I'm, it's so easy to lose it on you, because you're the safest person to me. And it's so easy to, for you to throw up on me. because I'm just there, like I wouldn't, we would carry on, you know, but I keep telling myself when I'm so irritated and when any little thing could trigger me to just lose everything, I keep reminding myself that, okay, like he's irritated right now, I'm irritated right now. If this gets damaged, we're not okay anymore to carry on. Everything else will go on, you know, we will handle it. This is what fuels us, this is our anchor. And if this gets damaged, then, and it's so easy to damage it in situations like this. So even like the other night that you were mad at me for, I don't know, falling asleep, it was something little that normally you wouldn't even care, right? But you were so irritated. And I was upset that why is he like talking to me like that? Why is he mad at me? I didn't do anything. But then it's so easy to get lost in those cards. But It takes energy to bring myself down to, okay, this is the real, this is what matters right now. Like I don't want to, if he is irritated and I'm irritated, it's so easy for me to lash out and it's so easy to just like go off on each other. And maybe sometimes we do, sometimes we should, but savoring this has been my number one priority. And I feel like if that's in place and if we're close and if we handle it together as a unit, then we can carry on. Like everything else will be, ⁓ in all reality, emotions aside, whatever is on his face, like there's so many ways to fix the nerves. There's so many ways to take care of the scar. There's so many ways to fix it. Like, know, in today's day and age, there's so many solutions, thankfully, in medical system. But then when the emotions come in, it's devastating. speaker-1: Yeah, was definitely a lot of ups and downs still. Lots of different, but internally, it was going on. I thought about the same thing. I honestly think one of the reasons that I call our relationship successful is that no matter what, I mean, we this deal together, right? This is from day one, that we come first. This comes first because if we don't have this, we don't have anything. And I've seen it. fall apart in a lot of people, my friends and so forth, is because emotions go up and down. And like you said, this person is the first person I could fight with. And if the fight goes back and forth and we lose this, then everything else is lost. That's why I know a lot of people when they have a kid ends up with cancer, they get divorced or kid dies. get, you know, they just like something happens that's that devastates this. This is the Tony Robbins. cycle is where they don't progress from one season to another season and the causes are the bigger the drama, the more likelihood of this loss. speaker-0: So one last thing I wanted to say is that, ⁓ you know what, the reason I think a lot of these outside situations cause drama in the marriage, in the unit and the core of it is I feel like ⁓ it's easy to go from us to me. What about me? To be like kind of filled up with. myself and like, okay, I'm irritated right now. I'm not feeling good right now. And a lot of it is unconscious. Like I don't think about it, but when I'm up to here, it's hard to see where you're coming from and have compassion, you know? But I feel like through all this stuff that we've been through and the ups and downs, I've kind of learned that even if the balance between like when to make it about me, and have needs and have boundaries, which I kind of struggle with that side a little bit still. But then the other side of being compassionate, like the duality between being compassionate and understanding somebody versus standing up for myself and my needs and me right now, I'm irritated right now, I'm upset right now, you know, making it about me. So I feel like in, in when situations like this happens, unconsciously go to giving without expecting you to give me and you do the same thing just throughout the stuff that has happened. And we've learned that that's what works, you know? And then sometimes I give and you're just caught up in your head and you can't give back. And sometimes you give and I'm just like not feeling well to be able to give to you. But then this, the fact that both of us can get out of our own heads and attend to another person. I just honestly think that's what does it. Or we could have really been in big fights since this happened because we've been so on edge. ⁓ speaker-1: And meanwhile, tens of thousands of young, beautiful Iranian kids were murdered every day. And that's going on in the middle of all this thing with our son. And to me, I think it even exaggerated things more on both ends, looking at those kids that are dying. And I have my kids hurt. I'm like, ⁓ my God, can you imagine how painful that what pain the parents of those kids are going through. And not just five or 10, like the head count is over 100,000 people were just murdered, cold blood in three days. And the other way around is like, you know, ⁓ my kid is hurt just like all those kids are hurt. And just like, it was really, really, still is really painful. And at least my end is like, no matter what was going on inside of me, the requirement for me to be balanced. And I thought I was balanced, even though I was so irritated at all. And I knew I was irritated because every single thing was getting on my, and I'm not like that. a relative, I mean, I'm type A, but I'm relatively easygoing at the same time. It's kind of weird, but I was just constantly on the edge and still knew that I gotta keep this shit together because I got you and the kids and my mother-in-law and Leon's mom and more importantly, Leon, I didn't want him to feel that the whole world is turning upside down because down deep inside what I wanted and I think is happening is that A, I kept saying there's a reason. And things happen for us and not to us. And this kid who's been pampered by his mom and is just beautiful, good looking boy, that his mom always relied on looks. I thought that if this doesn't make him go downhill about being self-absorbed and self-conscious and at the beginning, he's like, I don't want to go out because people might laugh at me. But now he's just going out and nothing's happened. His growth from this, think, is something that could really make him a powerful human, way more than what it would have been if this hadn't happened to him. Those are the thoughts that go through my mind now. But bringing back to a powerful relationship within the couple, I believe that these things will happen. Some worse, some not so bad, whatever it is, is this. what we got and the support that we have together. Gonna be able to absorb all of these incongruencies that life will bring to us. And I think after all that I think I accomplished in my life, my biggest accomplishment in my life is you and me. and our family, how we live our lives every day, through good and bad and tough and down, with money, without money, with whatever. I can't be happier even though this horrible thing has happened. That's how I feel. speaker-0: The end. speaker-1: The end. speaker-0: Life happens, life goes on and we grow and we learn. And I started working with this lady that does trauma therapy. So she's been helpful. I just did my second session and I was telling her like the two things that come to my mind all day, every day I think about is one, why did it happen? Like, did I attract it? Did I, like, was my energy so off? Like, have I been on low vibration? That's like all that, that stuff, that side of it. And then the other side is like, how can I grow from this? I'm impatient. I know five years from now, we're going to look back and be like, well, this happened, but look at all this stuff that came out of it, right? But I'm impatient now. I'm like, okay, how, how are we going to grow from this? How is this going to contribute to our life and make it better in some ways? And I keep thinking about that, but I'm practicing to let go and to surrender and to accept that even though it's hard, it's something that came up and it's a part of life and it will be history in a few years. It will matter probably in five years, 10 years, it will matter. I learned this from a therapist a few years ago that ⁓ She was saying about kids ⁓ when something happens before getting stressed about it, because I would get stressed about everything. And she was like, think about it if it would matter in five hours, five days, five months, five years. And if the answer to five years, like it wouldn't matter five years from now, you don't have to be so stressed about it. And I thought about it in this situation. It's helped me a lot because a lot of things that would stress me out with kids. wouldn't matter five years from now. So with this situation, it could matter in five years. It could, if his nerves don't repair themselves, like it could matter and the scar and everything. But ⁓ I'm hoping it matters ⁓ in a way that he becomes, he comes out of this stronger and more courageous. If he can put this behind us and if we can get out of it stronger. And like right now, when I think about skiing, I start shaking. But if we can get out of fear and not let fear pull us down and for him to truly overcome this, I feel like it would really help him in a long run because he was a very soft and naive boy when he was born full of fears. He was afraid of everything. He was afraid of doorbell. He was afraid of flush in the toilet, everything. When we got him to a point now that he can ski so confidently, he could. We'll see how it happens after this. But he is very social now. He goes out in the park. He makes friends with that face. That's all deformed. And it's like nothing for him. And for me, I would be maybe self-conscious, but it has helped a lot that the first few days he was worried that he looks weird. And then... show them a picture of Einstein. And I'm like, look at this guy. Does he look weird too? He's like, yeah, he looks weird and his hair and all that. And I'm like, he's the noblest scientist and he's the most smartest person ever lived and blah, blah, blah. So it's not about how you look, it's about who you are. And I keep telling him every day, it's about who you are, it's about how kind you are, how courageous you are. And I feel like it has impacted him a lot because he goes and does stuff that normally maybe he wouldn't and he puts himself out of his comfort zone. without being worried about how he looks like versus before the accident he was kind of like about looking pretty and his hair being nice and nice clothes and all that. So I feel like if we can handle it right in the long run, this could be a gift. It's hard to see it right now, but you never know. speaker-1: I think it will. I think no doubt if it doesn't kill you, it's going to get you stronger. And I think there's a lesson in it for all of us. Doesn't change how painful it is now, but I also, I'm a big believer, the bigger the pain, the bigger the growth. So I'm sorry it's happened to him. I wish it would have happened to me instead of him all day long, but it's, if it happened to him, then it needed to happen to him. So I choose to look at it that way and I choose to have us the conduit of stability and growth for him and for everybody around us. speaker-0: Amen. Thank you. Thank you for being with us. Thank you for ⁓ letting us. speaker-1: That's a heavy, heavy... speaker-0: Yeah. If anyone out there has had their kids getting hurt, my heart is with you. We're stronger than we think and we can go through this. Let's share, let's stay connected and we'll talk next time.