Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 789: Organ Transplants, Little Bucks, and Learning the Importance of Time in the Field with Zach Fleer

Transcript

Ep. 789: Organ Transplants, Little Bucks, and Learning the Importance of Time in the Field with Zach Fleer · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: the White Tail Woods, presented by First Light, creating proven
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Light Go farther, stay longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Podcast. I'm your guest
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: host Tony Peterson. Today I'm joined by Missouri bowhunter Zach
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Fleer to talk about organ transplants, facing your own mortality,
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: and how unimportant big bucks are in the grand scheme
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: of things. All right, folks, welcome to the Wired to
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: Hunt podcast, which is brought to you by First Light.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: You might notice that this isn't the squeaky weird voice
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: of your usual host, but instead is the voice of
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: your good old backup QB. Tony Mark is off today
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: getting a medical procedure because he suffers from an uncommon
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: genetic variation of male pattern baldness, which only affects his mustache. Essentially,
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: he's getting hair plugs for his upper lip, which is
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: a worse process than it sounds, because they have to
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: remove the hair from his lower back and well lower
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: than that. I'm sure he'll have a luxurious mustache when
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: he comes out of hiding, and please don't call him
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: stinky lips or anything like that, because he's pretty sensitive
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: about this stuff. My guest today is a good friend
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: of mine named Zach Fleer, who is a really skilled
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: white tail hunter from Missouri. Not only does Zach routinely
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: kill good deer on public land, he's also living with
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: a spare part from his brother after experiencing near total
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: kidney failure. Zach's story is a humbling one that frames
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: up just how important family and friends are and how
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: you shouldn't take a moment for granted, whether you're at
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: home or in the woods. Zach, it's good to see
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: your face, buddy.
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: Good to see you, Tony. Appreciate you having me on.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we didn't know for a while there whether we're
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: going to have you around or.
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: Not, and it was a little touch and go for
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: a minute.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: But you you know the reason I wanted to have
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: you on here. You and I met on a hunt, Geez,
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: that was probably I don't know what seven or eight
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: years ago now, on a Turkey hunt. And you have
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: have gone through some medical stuff that really I'm guessing
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: we're going to get into here, but has really shaped
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: the course of your life, and that's you know, we're
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: kind of running this shit Hits the fan series here
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: where we're talking to people who you know, have probably
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: have a different perspective on hunting and family and life
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: than a lot of folks who haven't had something go on.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: So why don't you why don't you start? Let's start
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: with this, what's wrong with your kidneys?
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: Well, it's a. It's an autoimmune disease. And I was
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: unaware that I had I've probably had it my whole
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: life until it got really bad pretty much and things
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: started going downhill. So they call i G A there's
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: a big fancy long term that I can't pronounce and
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: can't remember, but i GA is what they refer to
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: it as. It's worldwide it's the most common autoimmune kidney disease,
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: so it essentially turns your your kidneys into scar tissue,
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: so they don't they don't work anymore.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: And how did you know though? What was the first
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: indication where you're like, man, something's going on.
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: It was the it was the headaches, which I didn't
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: know this. I learned a lot about kidneys over the
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: last couple of years. But your kidneys actually affect your
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: blood pressure or control your blood pressure. Had no idea,
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: but I started having really bad headaches, and it was
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: right after our daughter was born, so I just assumed
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: that lack of sleep. It was second kid. It was
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: a little bit of a rough transition, and so I
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: was like, I'll get over it. But they progressively got
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: worse and worse, and I was like, well, maybe I
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: have migraines now, So, you know, started taking lots of medication,
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: and it got to the point they were every day
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: and like the first part of my day until medication
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: kicked in, I was just kind of out of it.
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: So as a guy, I'm like, yeah, we're fine, I'll
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: make it through. But my wife made me a doctor's appointment,
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: and so went into that doctor's appointment just for the headaches.
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: They were going to check me out. My blood pressure
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: was two twenty four over one twelve or something when
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: I got checked in, and the nurse was like, uh,
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: you might be having a heart issue. So they I
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: got hooked up to the cardio thing and my heart
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: was fine. So went through a whole series of other things. Uh,
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: and they're well gave it away. Was actually my ankles
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: were super swollen and they've always been that way. My
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: wife made fun of me quite a bit for having cankles.
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: But the doctor's like, there's probably something wrong with your kidneys.
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: And so that started off a whole journey of I
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: hadn't gone to the doctor and I don't know how long,
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: but I made up for it in a very quick
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: amount of time.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: So so when was this When did it all start?
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: July of twenty twenty one was when the headache started,
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: and it was January or February in twenty twenty two
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: was when I went first went to the doctor.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: And so you put up with the headaches, just assumed
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: it was, you know, life with another new baby, you know,
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: put it off till you couldn't do it anymore.
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: Huh yep, yep.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: And they don't. They don't mess around with high blood
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: pressure when you're young and in shape.
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: No, No, that's what doctor says. He's like, something's wrong
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: because you're I mean, you're not very old, you're in
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: good shape. So it was they moved things along pretty quickly.
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: I did got an appointment with a and the prologists.
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: They did a bunch of blood testing and he didn't
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: have any baseline to go off of for like what
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: I was previously to where I was at at the
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: first round of testing. So he's like, we're going to
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: have to We actually waited out for about a month
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: still with a headaches because he's like, a most blood
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: pressure can medicine we can give you is going to
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: damage your kidneys. So he said, I want to make sure.
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: He thought it could also been because all the medication
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: I was taking to get rid of the headaches. He said,
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: sometimes those can temporarily give you they lower your kidney function,
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: and it actually got worse as we did lab so
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: he said, it's definitely not that because I've quit taking
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: medication for it. So then I got to do a biopsy,
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: which in and of itself was one of the more
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: traumatic things I've ever done. You get to be awake
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: for that and they use a really large needle and
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: just stick it right in there. I was like, this
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: is can't get worse than that.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: But do they at least use some local anesthetic or something.
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, they do, but you can you can feel
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: it go in. It doesn't hurt, but you can feel
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: it going in there. And yeah, that was a good time.
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: So you and I'm guessing here, but with your autoimmune disease.
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: Were you were you like a special kind of to
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: go in there because did they have to be more
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: careful about you getting sick other ways? Was that like
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: a big concern or not?
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: It wasn't at that time. It is it is post
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: transplant because of the medications I'm on. But at that time, no,
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: they weren't. They weren't worried about it. He said genetic
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: because I was. I was worried about my kids, and
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: he's like, you're not gonna have worry about your kids.
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: He said, it's pretty random. He said it's the most common.
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: But he said it's really random. He said, your genetic
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: markers just lined up that way.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: Just bad luck.
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: So how old were you in twenty twenty one then
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: when you were started going through this. I was twenty
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: seven so and you had two kids at home.
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: I had two kids at home.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: So when you when you started going through this, I mean,
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: what are you thinking? It was so hell?
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: Stuff doesn't has never really scared me that much. It
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: was a wake up call, like you know, going through
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: college and my young adult life. I was a good athlete.
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: I was proud of like my body and my endurance
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: about that stuff. So I'd never really thought anything like
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: this would happen, and so when it does happen, you're
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: taking back a little bit, like, Okay, I'm not invincible
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: like I thought it was, but I just didn't know
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: what it looked like going forward. At that point, I
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: was still functioning pretty well. The first round of labs
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: I did, he's like, your kidney functions out about nineteen percent.
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: Was when I first found out about this. And he said,
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: if the doctor said, if you go back in your life,
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: you would have known if you knew what to look for,
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: which was was in college for me, was when my
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: ankle starts falling, when I was playing baseball doing all
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: that stuff. So it was kind of a time of reflection,
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: like and he's like, it wouldn't have mattered. They can't
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: treat it. And the only way he treated is you
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: eventually you get to the point where you need a
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: new kidney or you go on dialysis.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: So what's the cankles thing? Is that it just a
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: while retention thing.
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yep, your kidneys aren't are filtering fast enough and
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: so you tend to retain water.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: So this this started to show up, you know, manifest
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: itself in some symptoms. You know, at least quite a
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: few years before you, you know, started getting the headaches
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: and really started getting it treated. And did you you
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: know you you were really good at baseball, right, M
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: play college baseball, That's what I thought. So as somebody
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: who played collegiate level sports, and you know you said this,
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: you looked at it and go health wise, I'm kicking
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: ass and taking name tags right like I'm not. You're
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: not worried about that. And then all of a sudden,
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: maybe not all of a sudden, but in a fairly
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: short period, you find out that there's something that you
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: have no control over because as many times you go
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: for a run and go to the gym, do whatever,
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: it doesn't matter, Like what was that?
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: Like, it's it's humbling because it's like I said, I
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: thought I was invincible for a while. And then and
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: you you know, my wife talks about this when you
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: get married. It's like for better, for worse and sickness
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: and health, and you like, you never think about that
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: until something happens. And because most time, I mean most
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: people live their whole life and don't have any major issues.
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: And it's like and then it happens, and so you
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: have to slow down a little bit and it's like, Okay,
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: we're this is now reality, and like how do you
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: move forward from here? It was kind of my mindset
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: because like, I can't. There's nothing I can do about
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: it now, so we either have to work through it
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: and where you can. I wasn't going to just give up.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: I guess well, I mean when I wonder about this
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: and I know that you're not this way, I feel
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: like I would be this way if something like that
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: happened to me. I'd be an insufferable prick to everyone
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: because I would be like, take care of your health,
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: because you know, there's enough stuff we do to ourselves
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: to put ourselves in bad health, right, we know all
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: the routes to take to really destroy your own personal health.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: And on top of that, you have this just you know,
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: satellite thing that might happen in your life where all
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: of a sudden, out of your own control, something vastly
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: changes your health for the worst. And now you're at
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: the whims of you know, the medical system and what
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: you have access to and just like a little bit
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: amount of luck there too.
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, medical system is I hated it I never
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: went to the doctor, and now it's like, I'm thankful
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: we have the medical system because they did save my life.
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: But yeah, it it brings you to a point, like
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: for me, it's like I'm not in control, and you
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: kind of come to a point.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: And I don't know if.
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: You're religious, kid or thing, but it's like, okay, God,
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: let's have this conversation because clearly clear you're the one
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: in control, not me. And so it just brought perspective
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: really to everything. And like like I said, to the
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: health part, it was it was really annoying because I
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: had to go on a super strict diet, which because
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: they're like all these things affect your kidneys, so you
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: can't eat processed food, you can't eat salt, can't eat sugar.
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: So I basically ate grilled chicken and salad for almost
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: two years, which I was like, it's a that was
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: probably that was sadly, probably the hardest part. For a while.
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: I was like, I am tired of eating salad and
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: grilled chicken, like this is it's just annoying.
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: But you couldn't eat venison, no red meat.
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: That was why that's why I switched to the long
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: bow for a little while because it definitely decreased my
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: success rate in the hunting. So that's yeah, very limited
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: red meat, like a the amount of protein which I
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: would I would eat more steak over like dessert. That
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: was just who I was. And so they they said
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: you can have between eighty and one hundred grams of
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: protein a day. I was like, that's like one meal.
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: So that was that was an adjustment, uh, for for
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: our grocery shopping, for our family meals. We all got
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: a lot healthier for a while there.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: So so when you when you're talking about doing that
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: for like two years of being on that super restrictive diet,
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: is that is that because you're on the waiting list
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: now and you just got to maintain the healthiest level
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: you can until your number gets called or what.
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: So I already actually have done the transplant. Oh we
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: we got that last year twenty twenty three. My brother
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: actually donated a kidney to me, which in and of
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: itself is a very humbling experience because my brother is
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: worse than I am. He hates doctors, it's terrified of needles,
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: all that stuff. So it was a it was a
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: traumatic experience for him and so just humbling that, Uh,
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: you always hope that your brothers will be like there
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: for you when you need him, and uh, he stepped
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: up and did it. So I'm thankful for my brother.
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: Gabes is he is he ever going to let you
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: live it down?
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: He's been pretty he's been pretty good about it. He
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: said that beforehand, he's like, you don't know me anything.
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: He's like, I know you'd do it for me. So
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: he's been okay about it. I've you know, we try
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: to do a few more favors for him.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: But so you when you when that doctor said you
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: know you're at nineteen percent function with your kid knees,
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: I mean, are there is that right away? Are they like, listen,
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: we got to get you on a list or we
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: got to find a donor asap.
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: So we started, we started getting set up to get
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: on the waiting list, which is a long and lengthy process.
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: You got to get all your past history, medical history.
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: I had to get dental lect rays to make sure
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: I didn't have any infection in my teeth, like just
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: all kinds of crazy random things. So that process took
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: a while to get on the list. And they also
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: were they can't solicit live donor. So you have to
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: sweet talk people, you know, to call this number to
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: see if they want to get test said, to see
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: if they're a match. So it was a long kind
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: of a long process there. And the dialysis is also
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: an option, which for me, I always I never wanted
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: to get on dialysis because that was that was like
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: rock bottom in my mindset, when you're hooked up to
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: a machine to stay alive. I was like, that's gonna
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: get which I ended up having to. But yeah, so
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: I think fifteen percent is where that's where they normally
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: will say they can put you down that dialysis. But
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: at my age, my doctor was pretty laid back. He said,
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: you will know when you need to be on dialysis.
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: And he said, as long as you're still doing doing
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: what you can do and are feeling okay. He said,
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: it's not like you're, you know, gonna at that stage.
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: He's like, you're you're gonna be okay. But he said,
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: you'll know when you have no energy, and you did.
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: I got there. I was pretty stubborn. So he's there
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: was a couple of markers. He said, you'll he said,
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: you won't want to do things you normally love doing uh,
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: and he said you won't want to eat, and he
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: said those are the two things that he said you
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: need to watch out for. So I got to the
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: point where I didn't want to eat, and I kept
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: forcing myself to eat because I was like, I don't
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: want to do it. And hindsight is really stupid because
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: I would have felt better having been on dialysis and
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: went in better shape, and I lost energy. There was
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: there was. I did a lot less hunting that year,
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: just and playing with the kids like stuff as normally
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: as I do. I've I spent a lot of time
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: just kind of laying on the couture, laying in bed.
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: So uh. They actually ended up forcing me to do
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: the dialysis just because my when we got closer to surgery,
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: my blood work and stuff, He's like, it's bad enough
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: now where he said you you may not get through
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: a surgery with the shape that your body's in. So
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: he said you have to get on dialysis.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: So well, and that laying around like that wasn't worse
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: for you than the diet.
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: Well, if I laid around a lot, I didn't eat
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: as much, so that leveled it out.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: So when you did you originally go on the donor
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: list and then end up you know, takes a little
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: bit of time when you're not you know, because I think,
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: isn't it like three to five years on average or something?
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: Yep, four years is average, okay, which is three to
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: five So they're trying to speed that process up now.
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: But yeah, they said it's going to be a minimum
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: of three years, so they tried to speed that process up.
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: And in that case, you're waiting for somebody to pass
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: away who's a match, right yep? And then in that
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: in that time frame, your free to go out and
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: beg and plead anybody that you're related to or whatever
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: who might be a match that for a spare part.
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: Yep, yep. I did my I think my mom was
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: my champion there. So she I don't have social media,
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: so she blew social media up, and like of course
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: we talked to my my siblings knew what was going on.
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: So they got to a lot of people we went
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: to church with were kind enough to get tested. People
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: I work with, I think they just did that so
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: they didn't have to do extra work. But but yeah,
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: so they we had a lot of people that, like
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: I said, again, that's humbling because I'm a very self reliant,
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: self sufficient kind of person. So it was humbling to
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: have a lot of people call in and willing to
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: give a kidney if they're a match.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: So what is that like? I mean, what are you
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: thinking when you're in that position where you're like, all
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: these people are going on their way to help me.
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: It's got to be like a little bit of an
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: emotional roller coaster because there's a lot of there's got
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: to be a lot of promise and then a lot
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: of Nope, not a match or whatever. That person has
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: something going on, they're not healthy enough to do it.
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: What's like going through your head as you progress through
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: that stage and you know, it's just.
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: You always wondered, like I would do that for somebody else,
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: but having somebody do it for me it was It's
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: it's hard to process. I honestly intentionally didn't think about
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: it too much kind of throughout the thing. It was.
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: It was very much an emotional roller coaster for my wife.
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: She she probably took on the brunt of a lot
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: of this, taking care of the kids, taking care of
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: the house. I was wasn't doing much of anything, doing
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: as much work as I could on the computer and
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: then kind of hanging out in bed. Uh and it
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: got it got worse as the time went on. But
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: but yeah, yeah, when I got down to the end,
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: we had a couple of people that got through to
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: the process to the point it's a pretty extensive process.
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: They they won't different hospitals do it differently, but we
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: did that at the University of Missouri, and they are
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: super strict on who they'll let donate because they want
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: they don't want to cause health person problems for the
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: person that donate. So they run them through a bunch
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: of tests and they turned a ton of people away
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: just for different issues like wait, anything, they would turn
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: you away. And so we had a couple of people
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: get to the final stages and get turned away, And
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: so that was that was really hard for my wife,
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: you know, her her normal life was was not very
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: normal for a while. And so when we finally my
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: my brother got through the testing and I think he
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: called us for a match, it was I was pretty
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: emotional for my wife and and myself. You're like, okay,
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: there's there's there's light at the end of this tunnel, but.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: Was it was there a point there where you're losing hope.
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: Mmm, I don't know that I ever lost hope. I
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: was pretty convinced that that God had a had a
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: plan first through this, But there was there was a
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: point where, uh it got got pretty bad for a
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: couple of days, Like I was in bed for probably
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: three days, just didn't get up, and uh here at
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: that point, you're like, okay, like is this is this
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: gonna like am I gonna make it to surgery? So
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: you start wondering, and like I said, my my wife
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: was she took a lot more of that trauma on
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: than I think I did. I don't think I from
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: my perspective, don't think I realized how far downhill I was.
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: From her perspective, she watched the whole progression as I
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: just kind of tanked the last couple of months.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: So we focused like a lot on the physical aspect
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: of it, like how you're feeling and super tired and
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: you know, all of these like physical things. But mentally,
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: that's got to be such a heavy lift to sit
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: there and watch your wife handle everything while you're not
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: doing very you know, like you're not capable of doing anything,
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: and you have a lot of time.
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: To think, yeah, yeah, it was hard, and she was
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: a trooper and there were some days that were real
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: hard for her. And I can't remember who who told
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: me this, but there it was one of I think
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: it was one of the doctors, and he said, you
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: you going through this. He said, you're not really aware
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: of how bad you are. He said, it's just just
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: kind of the human thing with something like this, where
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: it's a slow decline, he said, I. He said, it's
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: hard for you to realize the point that you've gotten to.
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: And so, like I said, there were a few times
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: where was like, Okay, this is this is bad. I
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: just laying in bed. I can't get up. I don't
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: want to get up, and the the horror parts. The
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: thing I think got that got to me the most
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: mentally and emotionally was my four year old son. I
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: put him in bed one night and he's like, Daddy,
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: are we going to wrestle again? And that was it
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: just like broke my heart because he didn't know what's
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: going on. He knew something's going on. There's a lot
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: of stress, but I hadn't wrestled with that poor kid
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: in months, and it's just like I didn't have energy
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: and I was like we'll wrestle again, buddy. But I
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: think that that was the point where I was like,
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: it's gotten it's gotten really really bad. Like my little
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: four year old kid just wants to wrestle.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: So that's like real shit. I mean, that's like framing
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: it up really as you're as you're going through that,
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: Like how hard is it to just slide into a
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: pity party? Like I I just wonder what it's like.
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: I mean, because you see so many people out there,
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: a lot a lot of young folks, Like it's it's
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: really easy to sort of adopt this victim mentality and
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: you know, the world's against me whatever pity party stuff,
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: but you're actually like the person who should be having one,
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: you know, like if anybody's entitled to a pity party,
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: it's you laying in bed with your kidneys dying on you.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: Like how hard was that?
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: I don't know. My My mind set normally is like
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: you give me a challenge, it's like I'm gonna I'm
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: gonna push as hard as I can just to get
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: through it. And so I'd have to ask my wife.
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: But there wasn't there wasn't a lot of pity party
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: on my part. I don't know. I look at it
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: from a perspective, it's like, if somebody's gonna have to
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: have this issue, I was like, I'd rather be me
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: than one of my kids or my wife. So it's
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: like I'll bear this burden. I mean, we all had
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: a burden a bear during the season, but it's like,
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: I would rather just be me. So it wasn't. I
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: don't know. I didn't. I didn't tried not to have
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: the pity party. I tried not to to make a
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: big deal about it or talk about it. I got
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: it got pretty annoying with everybody asking like how are you.
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: It's like I am, I'm still here. Quit asking. But
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: but so, yeah, I didn't. I don't know. I didn't.
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: I didn't go down that path.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: So I could see that being an easy path to
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: go down for a lot of people. So you go
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: through this, you're you're on the waiting list. Your brother
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: finally gets through all of the testing and everything finds
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: out he's the guy, even though he's terrified of needles
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: and he doesn't want to do it. There there has
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: to be a of relief there, but maybe like a
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: new sense of fear, Like now you can see the
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: light at the end of the tunnel, but you're not
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: you are not there.
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: Yet, yep, and it was that was a real thing.
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: Like my poor wife, she called it that this doctor
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: multiple times, like is he going to make it the surgery?
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: And we kind of got to a point where it
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: was too late. We had the surgery schedule. I think
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: it was December thirteenth of twenty twenty two, I think
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: is when the surgery actually got scheduled for, and we
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: had kind of picked that date. We could have done
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: it sooner, but I was trying to let I make
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: it a convenient time for my brother and little so
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: we scheduled this in October. I'm pretty sure it was
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: October September, October. And at that point in time, like
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: I was, I didn't feel great. I was still kind
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: of getting around doing some stuff. So I was like,
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: we'll be fine, you know, having that whole conversation, and uh,
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: that was when the bottom kind of fell out. And
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: so then it was a point was like, okay, am
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: I going to make it to surgery and I still
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: didn't want to do the dialysis thing, and uh I
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: started dialysis on at the end of November, and that
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: that was the point we're even hunting. I we a
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: rifle hunted that year. I actually shot that really big
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: a point, but like I couldn't do anything of that deer.
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: After I shot it, I was like, I can't move it,
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: I can't feel addressed. I was just there. I had
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: to call for help. And that was that was when
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: I got a little more real because I was like,
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: this is what's what I always loved, doing what I
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: want to do, and it's like I just can't do it.
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: So that was a little bit of like am I
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: gonna Am I gonna get to the point where we
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: make it the surgery and then then the call were there.
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: So I was doing labs weekly and you can kind
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: of see the progression where it was going down to,
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: and that that last round of labs, I was at
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: six percent of kidney function and came came home and
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: like you're sitting about that. I quit showing my wife
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: my lab numbers because it just it was so much
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: stress for I got that phone call They're like, you're
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: going to have to be like on dialysis and so
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: one of the main reasons I didn't want to be
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: on dalysis is they they fuse a vane and artery
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: in your in your forearm, they like cut them and
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: I don't know how that process works, but it's he's like,
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: you will you'll lose some feeling in your hand. And
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: I was like, I just don't want to do that.
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: I don't want to put a port in my arm.
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: And it was the way they had it set up.
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: You had to I had to get the I don't know,
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: like pre off or whatever. They walk you through the
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: whole process. That takes about two weeks to get scheduled.
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: Then you do the surgery, and then you have to
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: wait two weeks before they can use the port to
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: do dialysis. And we got to the point where or like,
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: I can't no longer do that, so they had to
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: put a direct port in my like in my neck,
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: straight in. So that was that was not fun either.
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: I was like, it was like it was all kinds
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: of terrible now.
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: But so when you you know, you and I kept
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: in contact through that whole thing, and I knew I
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: knew you were. You had mentioned a couple of times
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: that you were running real low on energy and not
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: feeling great, but every once in a while you'd send
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: me a kill photo of something and I'm like, well,
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: he's still getting out there, could you? Were you still
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: enjoying hunting at that point, because at that point you
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: were like, what a month out from surgery or not
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: even quite a month.
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. Then that November one, so I didn't hunt
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: near as much. I like, getting up in the mornings
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: was almost impossible, which some morning hunts were just were
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: just out. So that whole fall, both season and everything,
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: I think I hunted twice. I did did kill a
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: dough with a boat, which was I felt like it
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: was pretty pretty good accomplishment out of that point, thankful
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: I had to help getting that deer out too. And
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: then November the day I think I shot that deer
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: an opening day, but like the day before, it was
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: one of the worst days I had, and I was like,
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: I'm probably not gonna go hunting and ended up going
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: out and it was I was cold all the time
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: anyway at that point, and we had a pretty cold day,
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: so I had every layer of clothing that I had on.
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: I was inside a sleeping bag and just bundled up
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: and I was about ready to give up. I was like,
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: I'm going back to the house. When that deer came out,
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: so I was like it was like a little bit
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: of a lift in spirits. I was like, okay, we
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: can we can get through this. But yeah, it got
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: pretty bad there to the point where it was like,
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: I I didn't hunt any mornings that whole season.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: It's just but when you did hunt though, you know,
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: just the random an afternoons that you got out there
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: and you felt, okay, was it? Could you enjoy it?
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: Was it like a good welcome distraction. Yeah it was, Yeah,
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: it was.
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: It was. It was really good just to just to
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: be out there. I took took my little son multiple
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: times too, and I just just enjoyed being with him
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: in the woods. Yeah it was. It was a good
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: escape for a little while where he didn't have to
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: to think about it really, So it was nice. It
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: was a nice little break.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: Did you find yourself when you when you were hunting
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: in those moments because you've killed a lot of big deer, Like,
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: did you find yourself going like caring about that part
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: less and just being like, man, I just need to
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: sit here in the freaking woods.
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah? Killing was there was so I actually didn't know
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: if I actually wanted to kill something because then I
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: had to get it out. And so I was still
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: hunting some public laying and it's pretty good hiking some
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: of those, and just that in and of itself was
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: was It took a lot of effort, but I was like,
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: I want to do this, just just still want to
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: be out here and enjoy nature. And but yeah, and
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: when it came down to like rifle season, I was like,
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: the first legal deer that comes out is going to
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: get shot at, because it's like, I don't know how
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: much longer I could do this, But so that was yeah,
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: I was like, I'm just gonna whatever's whatever comes out
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: and is legal.
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: When you were doing that way, I mean when you
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: were getting close to surgery time and you're running real
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: low and you're still going out there hunting and still
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: doing your thing, was that driving your wife crazy or
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: did she encourage you?
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: She encouraged that because she knows just that it's kind
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: of my It's always been kind of my escape. Like
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: you you know, you work hard and to have a kid,
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: it's like, okay, I'm gonna take take this time and
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: just go and do that. So she was always very
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: encouraging for that. I didn't go a lot but I
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: think she was probably the times I went by myself,
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: she was probably a little worried, but she still allowed
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: me to go, which I appreciate, so.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: She probably knew how it was to you.
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: Mm hm.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: So you go through that, you kill that big bastard.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: You're right up on the on the cusp of this surgery.
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: What's it like going into it?
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: Well, so that it actually the surgery actually got pushed back,
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: which was I started on dialysis, which is it's kind
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: of terrible. Honestly. The doctors all told me that you'll
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: feel better. I was like, great, I'm looking forward to that,
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: and so the first session I did feel little bit better,
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: but I was going three or four times a week,
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: and you're in there for four hours, so you don't
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: you've got a lot of time to read books and
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: think about things.
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: But I remember, hold on a second, Zach, can you
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: I don't really even know what dialysis is. Can you
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: explain it?
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: Uh? So they put the port into one of your arteries.
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: So they went down into my actually through my neck,
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: into my whatever artery that is. I don't know. I
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: biology is terrible. Yes, there's that's the word for it.
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: So they did that and then they hook you up
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: to this big machine that's got some kind of fancy
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: filter on it. I learned a lot from the guy
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: been doing it for a long time. He said they
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: used to use seaweed to filter out, so they're they
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: pump blood out of you continuously. It's it's cycling through
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: and it filters out all the toxins, which is what
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: your kidneys are supposed to do, but mine were no
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: longer filtering anything. And it pulls fluid off you too,
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: because when your kiddies get bad enough, you don't don't
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: urinate as often and your body just builds up fluid,
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: and so they can use that process too to pull
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: fluid and it filters your kidney. So I like, it's
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: a giant machine sitting beside me, and you can wash
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: your blood pump through it. You can feel it coming
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: in and out. Like it's it's interesting that it's that
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: room was full of people that were in worse shape
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: than I was. Like, that was that was pretty humbling too.
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: You walk in here, It's like, man, all these people
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: look like they're already at the end of their rope.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: Were they all getting dialysis too?
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they're all on dialysis that they had a special
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: room that's just Diallasis patients. So you go in and
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: that's your appointed time and get hooked up.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: So you were doing this like twelve to sixteen hours
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: a week.
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: Yep, for four days a week for about it took
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: about four hours. The sessions were so.
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: It didn't make you feel better.
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: The first time, I was like, okay, this is good.
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: I felt I had some energy, but they didn't run
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: I can't remember all the technical terms for it, but
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: they run you for a certain amount of time and
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: they pull a certain amount of fluid off and the
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: filtration rate all that stuff. So basically to just get
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: your body started. It was a pretty short session and
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: I actually felt better, but they forgot progressively worse, like
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: the more I did it, And they said that some
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: people's bodies just don't tolerate dialysis. I mean, it's a
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: pretty The guy that's took me up, he's like, it's
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: kind of a form of torture, but we're keeping you
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: alive for now. So and it was it just you come,
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: you get get through the process, you come home. And
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: I always went in at seven in the morning and
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: i'd come home around eleven eleven thirty and would eat something,
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: say how the kids, and I was in bed until
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: probably six o'clock at night when I could get back up.
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: It just wipes you out. I can't have no energy.
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: It was nice. So that was if half of your
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: blood isn't inside of you, Yeah, for four hours.
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's a I'm thankful for the process. It
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: kept me alive longer, but yeah, it's hard to I'm
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: trying to think of how the guy put it. He said,
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: we'll keep you alive, but you're not really living. Uh,
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: but that's the way he put it, which was kind
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: of true.
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: But so then so then your surgery got bumped back
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: a little bit. Why the surgeon.
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: Had a family emergency and his daughter actually got super sick,
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: and so they pushed it back. It was scheduled for
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: December thirty teenth, and they got pushed all the way
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: back to January nineteenth. So it was at that point
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: in time I was very thankful to have started Dallasis
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: because it would have been pretty rough that extra few
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: weeks trying to get to surgery.
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: So what's the surgery, Like.
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: We go in and there's they do a bunch of
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: blood tests, they do all that stuff. They take you
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: to big prep room and shave all the hair off
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: your everywhere on your body. Uh, what's that's always? That's
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: my joke. I was like, I go into the hospital,
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: I always have to take my clothes off. I was like,
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: is there a time where I can just come in
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: and not have to get naked? Like every time I
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: go in there, Like I'll just take my clothes off
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: when I walk in. But yeah, so it's, uh, that
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: part's awkward. And then they tell you, you know, all
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: the things that they're going to do to the surgery,
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: all the risks you have, and then you know, do
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: you have any questions like how do you feel in today?
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: You know, I asked a surgeon. I was like, hey,
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: on the day you got, how's steady hand? But he's like,
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: I'm good. Yeah. So my I use humor to deal
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: with stressful situation. So, uh, my wife doesn't appreciate that
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: very much. And that is moments. But yeah, there's then
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: there's that time where like my brother came in right
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: before he went to surgery that that was probably hard
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: because he he could tell he was nervous. Like I
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: felt really bad for him because like he just despises
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: needles and knives and all that stuff. So I just
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: stressed for him. And then they take you to a
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: room where you're just kind of sitting and waiting. You
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: get get to think a lot a lot of things there,
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: and like you reflect on life, like where have I
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: What have I done to this point? And so like
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: you think about jobs and all the hunting stuff, and
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: I was like, none of that is is really all
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: that important in this moment, Like you start thinking about
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: my wife and kids. I was like, at that point,
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: my wife was actually pregnant again, which I've left forgot
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: to mention that she's she was a our our third
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: child was born ten days after my surgery, so she
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: was ready to pop. So the pushing the surgery back
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: for her was like she's like, I'm gonna have a
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: baby and you're gonna be surgery. Like it was, it
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: was stressful.
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: But do you think she was more stressed out than you?
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, significantly. And she's still she still carries more
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: trauma from that that that or I just haven't dealt
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: with any of it yet. But but that's the stuff
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: you think about it. I'm like, I'm leaving a wife
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: behind who's has two kids. She's nine months pregnant, Like, yeah,
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: that's the You have no control over her. It's like
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: you just just pray. The God's sovereign and going to
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: take care of you in that time, and if you
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: take me, take care of my wife and kids.
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I bet her stress level was. I mean,
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: because if it goes wrong for you, you check out
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: and she's still got real heavy lift going on there.
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, I forgot that she had the baby
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: when you were just just post operation. Uh so you
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: you have to I'm I'm guessing they you had to
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: sit around and wait because they got to go in,
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: take his out, make sure everything goes okay before they
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: start on you. And so you're just like, however long
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: this takes, sitting there twiddling your thumbs thinking about all
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: the dumb shit you've done in your life and all
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: the decisions and all the like, probably going pretty deep.
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, yeah, you got a lot of time to think.
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: It was. I can't remember how long I but I
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: was in a room just laying there by myself. There
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: wasn't really any nurses in at that time. They had
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: me all prepped for surgery, and it's like we'll come
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: and get you when when they get when they get
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: the kidney out of my brother, they said, we wait
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: for that because if something goes wrong, we don't want
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: to have you already prepped for surgery, like in surgery.
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: And so yeah, you do, like get to reflect a
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: lot on life, what you've what you've accomplished with your life,
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: and like in that moment, none of those big dear,
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: none of that stuff mattered. Like I was like, I
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: spent a lot of time pursuing all of that, and
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: it's like a perspective. There's a lot of times where
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: early in our marriage, I was like, I ditched my
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: wife a lot to go hunting. It's like, maybe I
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: shouldn't have done that. Like you do, you reflect on
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: all those things, like all the decisions, all the what ifs,
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: Like there's probably a lot of things I should have
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: done differently. So it was yeah, for an hour and
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: to happen to do that.
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: Obviously I've never gone through this, but it sounds like
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: such a very natural thought process. But at the same time,
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: you've got to weigh that against having something that you're
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: that passionate about to where you're still going out to
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: the blind with your son when you can barely walk,
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: you're sleeping all day, there's still there's a component of
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: that passion for the outdoors that's carrying you through to
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: some level, you know. I mean maybe it's two percent
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: of what the family is or whatever. But it's like
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: a it's not an like it's not insignificant, you know.
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: But then you but then you go through this and
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: you frame it up against the rest of your life
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: that you could have lost. Yeah, it's just the big
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: deer just not that important. They're not.
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: And like even post post surgery and all that, I
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: don't hunt there as much as I did. That's because
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: I think it well, part of you have three kids,
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: so you're just busier. But the perspective of that, and
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: my wife said that too, She's like, there's been a
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: lot of change since then, Like I'll spend I spend
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: as much time with my family as possible. I spend
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: a lot more time serving other people too, like in
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: our in our church, and just like eternal perspective, like this,
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna die at some point, I know that, but
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: there's you have an eternal life after this that you
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: can live now for. So there's been there's been a
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: big shift. I still love hunting, I would do it
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: all the time, but having gone through that and coming
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: to a point where you get to reflect on like
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: this is what I did with life pre surgery, and
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: I feel a little bit like I have a second chance.
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: Now It's like, Okay, I'm going to reset some things,
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: reprioritize some things, and try to try to really focus
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: on family, like investing in my family, because the reality
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: of this is is kidneys have a shelf life. They've
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: already told us that, and so it's like, this one's
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: not gonna last, probably not going to last the rest
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: of my life. Average is fifteen to twenty years. I
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: was a close enough match to my brother. They said,
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: you'll probably get longer than that out of it. I
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: think the longest one they've had like up to forty years.
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: But so there's a reality there that's like this is
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: a temporary fix. So they'll we'll we'll either have to
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: do it again or But so that's that's a good
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: reminder to keep things in perspective. Right now.
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: So when you come out of this, like what do
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: you what do you feel when you wake up from
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: that surgery? Like what do you like when you come
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: out of that and you're kind of like, you know,
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: your your brain's going back a little bit and you're
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: realizing what's going on, Like what what do you feel?
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: I didn't have a headache, was the first time I noticed,
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: which is the first time in however many years. It's like,
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: my head doesn't hurt. But I was, you know, pretty groggy.
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: Like you go in, you get on the they have
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: you move over to the surgery table, and when you're
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: in your nice little gown mostly naked, and uh, anesthesia
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: starts and like there was a lot more people in
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: the room than I thought there'd be. So I was like, well,
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: I was awake. This would be embarrassing, but like whatever,
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: so you do the breath and then you're out, like
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: and then just remember waking up and I had there
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: was just like cords and things stuck in me everywhere,
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: and I was I was curled up on my side
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: and just I was coming in and out a lot.
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: I remember the nurse saying something to me. I have
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: no idea what she said, but but you're it's like
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: I'm awake. I was like, that's gotta be a good time.
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: Like I'm still here. This is I don't think this
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: is what heaven looks like. It still smells like a hospital.
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: So so yeah, I was like just grateful to wake up, like, okay,
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: I'm still here, and then I don't know what. I
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: was pretty out of it cognitively at that point, so
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: I don't know how long it was before like they
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: allowed my wife to come in and see me. It
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: was a several hours long surgery, and so it was
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: good when I finally got to go into the recovery
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: room when they could come in, and they had pretty
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: limited visitors because at that point they they shut my
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: immune system off completely so it didn't reject the kidney.
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: And so you're on a pretty heavy immuno suppress and
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: after after.
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: The yeah, well immediately after surgery, they hooked me up
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: to they call it a rabbit. I can't remember what
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: the long name was for it, but it's something they
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: derive from from rabbit. So that was a question they
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: asked me, like, do you eat a lot of rabbit?
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: I was like, well, I have, I have before, but
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: I wouldn't say a lot. But it just shuts your
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: immune system down, which is why they leave in the
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: hospital for quite a while after. But and I'm still
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: on immunosuppress a meds, but they're not not to that
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: level like at that point in time, they're like, yeah,
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: cold or anything, like you don't have an immune system,
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: like it can take you out. So it was it was, yeah,
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: interesting that you can have a visitor in there, but
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: they were pretty strict about that.
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: So so even when you even when you go through
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: all that, you went through and you get out on
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: the other side, now you have a new concern that
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: the kids picking up some kind of virus at daycare
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: or whatever can all of a sudden turn, you know,
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: it can break bad in an instant.
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, real bad.
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: It.
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: So we were in quarantine for ninety days. Like I said,
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: my wife had a had or third third kid, Solomon,
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: ten days after surgery, and I couldn't go, which was
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: really hard, Like I enjoy really enjoying my kids and
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: like being there in that process, and it was really
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: really hard for her too, Like I got to FaceTime
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: in which is not it's not the same, but yeah,
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: like you you miss that, like missed the burth of
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: my third kid. Yeah, there was a lot of weird
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: things happening, and so ninety days, you're pretty much. I
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: was stuck at home. I did some try to do
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: some work on the computer and stuff. But I mean
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: it's ninety days where even my wife can't really go
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: anywhere because if she brings anything back, it's like it
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: could be crash and burned for me.
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: So so give me, give me a don't know scale
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: of one to ten. One is not a bad ass
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: at all. Ten is super duper bad ass. Where's your
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: wife fall after this whole thing?
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, she was, She's definitely in ten. Yeah, she had
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: a baby on her own. She took care of the
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: baby and be and our other kids on her own
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: after that. Like it's just she was a trooper through
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: that all I think. I think in the moment, like
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: she did what she had to do, and coming out
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: of that now is where she started processing all of it.
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: So it's more of a like any health stuff right
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: now is an instant trigger for her. And like I said,
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: either I'm just either I'm not very emotionally aware or
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: ignorant or what. But I was like, it still doesn't
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: really like I made it through this, Like God provided,
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: I feel like I don't feel like he's gonna take
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: me like with another sickness or something. But for her
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: it's real because again she's like I've got three kids,
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: like you go off and die, like I have to
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: take care of all of this.
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: So it's it's hard to it's really hard to contextualize,
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: probably because your experience, I mean, you were the to everybody,
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: you were like the victim, right, like you were the
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: one who was suffering, and she's just got to put
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: on a brave face and survive. But her experience is
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: vastly different than yours, but real bad and kind of
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: in a way that she can't really even get it.
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: She's not getting credit the same way you are for
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: getting through it, like it's a different experience.
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, And we had we had a lot of
• 48:49
  Speaker 3: friends from church and wherever, just they were constantly checking
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: in on me, like how you doing. It's like I'm
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: doing fine. You need to check in on my wife,
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: especially during that ninety day quarantine, like baby, you know
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: you got some just a lot of emotions after you
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: have a baby and hormones going crazy. Like I was like,
• 49:08
  Speaker 3: just just check on on her, like.
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: She do you know what it's like? And I have
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: you this is this is gonna be a terrible example,
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: let me use it anyway. So you're this rich dude
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: who goes to this premier hunting place and shoots a
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: one hundred and ninety six injure and get your trophy photos,
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: and everybody's just like, oh my god, Zach's the best
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: hunter ever. Meanwhile, your wife's just the guide who did
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: all the work to find it, all the work to
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: set up the stands, run the cameras, pattern it everything,
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: and she's just sitting back there like, well, you know,
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: like I pitched in a little too, but everybody's like, no,
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: you're the man. That's that's what I think of when
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: you tell me that.
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, excuse me that that is one hundred percent kind
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: of how it went.
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: So I in preparation for this podcast, I was just
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: reading up on organ transplants and kidney failure and stuff,
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: and one thing that I read about that's pretty interesting
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: is with a lot a lot of organ transplants, uh,
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: people's personality will change afterwards. And so you know, you
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: kind of look at that and go, is this just
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: going through something super traumatic and you know, like facing
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: your own mortality kind of thing, or is it are
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: you taking a piece of that person with you and
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: becoming a little bit of them, Like do you do
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: you now suddenly do any of the annoying stuff that
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: your brother does.
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: So we do have this joke. My my wife read
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: up on about a lot of this stuff, like and
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: kidney kidney disease is probably the best thing you could
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: have because everybody has two kidneys. So like you got
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: a heart problem, like nobody's gonna freely donate their heart.
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: I don't think so anyway. But yeah, so my brother
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: he shops all the time, Like we make fun of him.
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: He says he doesn't, but he's always shopping. And when
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: you have ninety days of quarantine, like you can read
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: some books, you can do some work, but you and
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: evily end up on Amazon. Like my wife's like, this
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: is real. It's like you're you're doing it. But I
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: was like no, I mean, I was like, what else
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: are you gonna do? So I bought like a I
• 51:06
  Speaker 3: think I bought a pair of parents in some church,
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: which I don't. I don't ever shop for clothes. But
• 51:10
  Speaker 3: she's like, this is a real thing, Like you're so
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: I wouldn't say I still shop a lot. I don't.
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: I don't think my personality changed a lot.
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: But would would she say that it has.
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: I don't think she would. Other than that experience where
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: I shopped for like two.
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: Weeks but you got so bored you close shop I did.
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: That was pretty terrible.
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: But dude, I I kind of get it when I
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: when I got COVID and I was in you know,
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: my ten days or whatever. Back when COVID was everybody
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: was scared and you know you actually did quarantine away.
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: I started like online shopping for shit. Like I look
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: around my house and if I didn't kill it, like
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: or take a picture of something, like, it's not going
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: to end up on my walls, right, but my walls
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: are covered in decorations and stuff that Like, you know,
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: I was thinking about this the other day when I
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: was working on I'm like, I've never bought a blanket
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: in my life. Like if you were like, go buy
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: a blanket, I'd be like, I don't know, I guess
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna go Target and try to find one. But
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: they show up in my house all the time, like
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: all these decorations and stuff. But when I was in
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: when I was in COVID quarantine, I watched every Jackass movie.
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: I watched. I mean I was like, I kind of
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: get like a little bit of what you're talking about,
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: because I was starting to look at stuff like, oh,
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: this is a cool thing to like put on my wall,
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: and I never do that.
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I watched fishing shows, which I have nothing. I
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: like fishing. The fishing shows, I don't know how you
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: make them exciting, But I watched a lot of fishing
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: shows during that time too. I was like, I don't
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: know what I'm doing, just what I did.
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: As somebody who filmed a fishing show last year. They're
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: difficult to make exciting.
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: I can imagine that.
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: You know. I filmed it with Andy May, you know,
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: the whitetail Hunter, and I think what made that show.
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: I mean, we caught a lot of fish, it was cool,
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: but I think what made it cool was just us
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: giving each other NonStop shit, like when you're fishing with
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: your buddies, you know, because otherwise I mean other Fishing's
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: tough to make fishing compelling. I mean that's why most
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: of the content is all tournament based, because there's some
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: drama built in there, you know, total sidetrack. So you're
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: you're out of the you got a long runway ahead
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: of you now before you even start thinking about this,
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: this latest kidney here maybe maybe starting to wear down
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: on you a little bit. Well, how does it you?
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: Kind of you kind of alluded to this, but like
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: what are you looking at for like your future now?
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: Like have you changed how you plan? Like are you like, man,
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: we're taking the kids to Disney, We're doing this, We're
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: doing that? Like what did it? Did it change at all?
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: How you're like, I'm I'm grabbing life by the short
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: and curlies and I'm going hard.
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah it did. I came out of it with a
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: little more motivation to do things differently, Like I think
• 53:59
  Speaker 3: one for me was like this life's going to end,
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: so thinking about eternity, like I started doing I started
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: doing pastor training. Still still am going through that process.
• 54:11
  Speaker 3: But I was like, I want to make I don't
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: want to have all my uh all my hopes stuck
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: in in this life because I know it's gonna ended up.
• 54:19
  Speaker 3: It just about did. So that's been a big big
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: change for our family too. But outside of that, like
• 54:27
  Speaker 3: I said, just like really investing in time with my kids.
• 54:30
  Speaker 3: It's like I don't ever I wrestle with my son
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: all the time, every day, lunch breaks or at night.
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: He's just it's it's uh, it's fun. So I don't
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: want to miss out on those opportunities. And there was
• 54:42
  Speaker 3: a lot of times with with my kids and with
• 54:45
  Speaker 3: with my wife where I missed opportunities just to be
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: with them, be present. And it's like, so I think
• 54:52
  Speaker 3: coming out of it, that's been the biggest two things
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: for me was like just being being present because it
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: got pretty close there too to my wife not not
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: having a husband anymore, and so it's like I don't
• 55:03
  Speaker 3: want to I don't know, I talk about like the
• 55:06
  Speaker 3: rent widows and all that stuff. It's like I don't
• 55:09
  Speaker 3: want her to feel that way anymore. And so it's
• 55:12
  Speaker 3: been a change with a little more perspective on investing
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: in in my family and it just yeah, what what
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: God has called me to do with you know, sharing
• 55:24
  Speaker 3: the gospel.
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: So when you look at your your hunting future with
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: White Tails is one of the things that I've always
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: respected about you is you have access to private land,
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: but you you spend a lot of time working on
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: public land here too. And you know, a lot of
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: people when they get when they're like, hey, I can
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: go to the farm, even if it's you know, farther
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: away or whatever. They're like, I'm going someplace where the
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: food plots are and the box p lindes are and
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: I'm taking I'm taking that route. I'm not going to
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: go fight it out on public land down in Missouri
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: like you do. But you still do it? Are you?
• 55:57
  Speaker 3: Like?
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: Do you look at hunting now? It's just differently, like
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: I just want to go do like be where I
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: want to be when you take the time to go,
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: do you look at it differently instead of just thinking
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: like my best chance for a big ones here or
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: I know they work this ridge and I want to
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: get up there, like you, do you plan it differently
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: at all now or not?
• 56:19
  Speaker 3: So I have to plan it differently because I can't.
• 56:23
  Speaker 3: I can't scout as much as I did, So from
• 56:27
  Speaker 3: that aspect, it's playing a lot differently. I do a
• 56:32
  Speaker 3: lot more scouting as I'm hunting now, finding fresh shine,
• 56:36
  Speaker 3: which should have been doing all that before. But a
• 56:38
  Speaker 3: lot of times scout before season and I go to
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: where that is, but like finding where the der are
• 56:42
  Speaker 3: because it's like I got a lot more limited time
• 56:44
  Speaker 3: to actually be here, so I got to make a count,
• 56:48
  Speaker 3: and I'm kind of a realist, So the expectations I
• 56:52
  Speaker 3: have for how big a buck I'm going to go
• 56:54
  Speaker 3: after are what they were, you know, two three years ago.
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: It's like, I'm I have an amount of time out here.
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: If I like the deer I shot last year, I
• 57:03
  Speaker 3: think I was as pall as luck I've ever shot.
• 57:05
  Speaker 3: But it was pretty exciting because I was like, that
• 57:07
  Speaker 3: was the first deer I've killed post surgery, like it was.
• 57:10
  Speaker 3: It was just awesome to be back out there again.
• 57:14
  Speaker 3: So just enjoying the moment like I it helped me.
• 57:19
  Speaker 3: It probably helped me enjoy hunting even more because I
• 57:21
  Speaker 3: just enjoy being in the woods more now and shooting
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: whatever gets me excited in the moment without the weight
• 57:30
  Speaker 3: of expectation of killing a trophy, which I I wasn't
• 57:35
  Speaker 3: real bad about it, but it was always there, like
• 57:37
  Speaker 3: there's people that know me have an expectation that I'm
• 57:41
  Speaker 3: going to kill a big deer, and it's like I
• 57:44
  Speaker 3: may not. I may just go out and have fun
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: and shoot the first legal thing. Like it's I don't
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: really care anymore.
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: And you were you're speaking my language now, buddy, I mean,
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: it's just uh, there's a freeing aspect to not caring
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: about the big antlers as much. There's just like it's
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: like freeing to just be like I view this more
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: as as like an outlet for me to just go
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: be in a place that really matters to me. And yeah,
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: it's important to get to meet It's it's fun to
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: shoot them, it's fun to do the whole process. But
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: when you when you fly real close to the sun
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: with the trophy stuff, and then you realize, like, it's
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: it's cool, but it's there's a lot of it that's
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: not cool and it doesn't matter as much as we
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: make it seem. And you kind of come back to
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: earth a little bit and you're like, I'm looking at
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: this the same thing that the trophy hunters are doing,
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: but I'm looking at it a different way. It's it's
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: really freeing, and it's like it's a that's a message
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: I've been pushing a lot, you know. That's one of
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: the reasons. Last year Steve and I went down to
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: Oklahoma to hunt public land, you know, Steve Vanilla, and
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: I was like talking to him beforehand. I was like, dude,
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: we're going deer hunting this is not going to be
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: a big buck deal like we're we If we get
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: deer in front of us, it's going to be freaking awesome,
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: and it's it's hard for people to grasp that. And
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: I killed two little bucks on that hunt. I know
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: I'll get a ton of shit for it, but I
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: don't care. Like four days on public land and you
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: get a fifteen yard broadside at something in a state
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: that's ten hours from home, it's just like, yeah, it's
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: there's a different feel to it than going out and
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: you know, chasing a hitlister on grandma's farm or whatever,
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: and they're all great, but it's fun when you kind
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: of achieve that level where you're just like I don't
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: need that pursuit of big antlers, Like he walks out,
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: I'm going to shoot him, like you get on you know,
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: Like I'm not saying that, but I'm just saying, like,
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: when it's not that's like not priority one things, just
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: you just look at it differently. It's free, and yeah,
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: it has.
• 59:41
  Speaker 3: Been a lot more free and like I just just
• 59:43
  Speaker 3: enjoy hunting Moore. There's not the pressure of I have
• 59:47
  Speaker 3: to make sure it's legal. That's that's my biggest hurdle
• 59:50
  Speaker 3: right now. I use the buy nos a lot, and
• 59:52
  Speaker 3: I'm not one I shot last year. I was scoping
• 59:55
  Speaker 3: about pretty hard and I'm like, dude, he's got four
• 59:57
  Speaker 3: points on one.
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: Side because you've got aprs there.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we got gotta be four points on one side.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 3: So and when I first saw him, I was like
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 3: I was I felt disappointment because I was like, I
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 3: don't think he has four points on one side. And
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 3: then he turned and I was like, oh man, I
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 3: was like, go time, he's got four points. But uh yeah,
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 3: just it's more fun. And I think it's really good
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 3: that I'm in this place now because next year or
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 3: this year, Titus will be six. So in Missouri you
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 3: can start honting when or six and like taking him
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 3: out with no expectations, like you shoot whatever you want, buddy,
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 3: We're going to have a good time with this. And
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 3: so that's more what I look forward to now, Like
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: I'll be excited if I shoot a big deer, but
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 3: I'm not going to pass. I'm not going to pass
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 3: a lot of deer waiting on a big one.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: So, uh, at six, is he just going to rifle hunt?
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 3: Then I'll see if he can shoot the crossbow. He's
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 3: he's not real accurate right now. He just gets excited
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 3: to shoot a gun or the crossbow or whatever. So
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 3: we got some skill to hone over the summer. But yeah,
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: we'll see how he does with the crossbow. But he may.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 3: I don't want to push him too hard either, Like
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 3: if he's not not ready, I won't force him to go.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 3: He just says he'll enjoy going with me, and he
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 3: always wants to shoot squirrels too, so we might try
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 3: to get some of the practice in on squirrels before
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 3: we hit for deer, so it's.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: A good way to start it. He hasn't turkey hunted yet.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 3: He's been with me. He didn't get to carry again
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 3: or anything. So yeah, he just he just enjoys being
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 3: with dad mostly.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah, six is young man. I mean, it's
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: it's just they're on the cusp there, you know. And
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: I even look back, I didn't start my daughters until
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: they were eight on turkeys and deer, and I look
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: back at the pictures of them now and I'm like,
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: I can't believe I took him out there when they
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 2: were that little, you know. And my wife is really
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: like I can't believe you took my daughter's you know,
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: gun hunting turkeys when they were eight when you look
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: at the pictures. But it's you know, it's cool to
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: get him on an animal. But it's just that that
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: part of like my hunting, that that's what changed me
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 2: the most is when I could take my girls. I mean,
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: I'll have years now where the first month of the season,
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: I don't even pick up a weapon other than carrying
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: one for them, and I don't care at all. Like
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: gets so fun to take and just experience it, you
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: know through their perspective. Now it's like, yeah, it's so
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: fun to be with somebody when any deer is anywhere
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 2: near you, or a turkey gobbles anywhere near or anything.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: They're like, oh my god, this is the best thing
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: that's ever happened to me.
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 3: Eyes are getting huge. Yeah, that's It's been a lot
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 3: of fun just to just to re experience stuff that
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 3: I'd forgotten about, like little things you find walking through
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 3: the woods. They get his pockets to be full of
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 3: acorns by the time we get out, just stuff like that.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 3: He just he gets excited about everything, and I'm like,
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 3: I need to I need to just enjoy all the
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 3: moments again, whereas you get for a while, I got
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 3: so focused on, you know, killing that big deer. It's
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 3: like I missed out on just enjoying being out here, so.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 2: Right, I dude, They they let you know how much
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: cool stuff is out there. Yeah, and you know, you
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: think about I think about this a lot. Where you know,
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: if you you have limited time and you go out
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: and you're scouting or you're hunting, you're so mission focused
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: and you kind of miss a lot of that stuff,
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: you know, Like we don't when I was growing up,
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: like it was pretty common we're just going to the woods,
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: like we're just gonna go walk through the woods, you know,
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: or like just be there and you're just doing that
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: for the experience of being there and not because you're
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 2: going to get a pattern on a one sixty or whatever.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: And kids are just like they're perfect for framing that
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: up for you, like they're they don't they just view
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: it differently. And it's like such a nice centering moment
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 2: because we can go so far you know, I don't
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: know if it's even the wrong way, but we can
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: we can go down some different paths that where we
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: just don't appreciate the woods for what it really can
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: offer you. It's like if it if it doesn't deliver
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: me that hitlist or it was no good, and it's like, man,
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: that's just not It's a rough way to go about it.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it really is. Yeah. I was the same way
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 3: growing up, but a lot of it was to escape
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 3: doing you know, chores at how But we lived on
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 3: fifty acres, so I was just gone all day, playing
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: in the woods, playing in the creek and just loving it.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: And so it's been been good to get back to that.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 3: Just just enjoyed being out there.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: So big time. Did you did you kill that buck
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: last year? In public?
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 3: I did? Yeah, it was I know, there's we camp
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 3: We camped out. I went with a couple other guys
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 3: just camped in the back the truck, which was a
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 3: lot of fun. And it was one of those days
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 3: where I set them up and and every spot that
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 3: I wanted to go after I got them where they
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 3: wanted to go, somebody somebody was like pulling into the
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 3: parking spot. I was like, this is December. You guys
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 3: should be hanging out for Christmas or something. But so
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 3: the last spot I would ended up going was there was.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 3: There was actually a bunch of fresh signs, so I
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 3: was like, okay, well we'll hang out here. But but yeah,
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 3: he's a public Laian deer.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: So what what what was he doing? What'd you kill
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 2: him on?
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 3: I was in in a transition aery like there, I
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 3: was real tight to betting, uh, and there's a bunch
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 3: of crop fields behind me, and he was just working
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 3: his way through down a trail. I I shot him
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 3: at eight yards, which was probably good. I needed a
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 3: close shot. It had been a while so but yeah,
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 3: he was just slowly moving through that care in the world.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 3: I was on the ground too, which made it made
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: it even cooler.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 2: So so you went into Missouri public land in December
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: after the guns, he's enraged through speed scouted a spot
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: after playing you know, a B, C and D was
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: taken up by other dudes, and found some fresh sign
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: set up in there and killed one from the ground
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 2: to eight yards I did.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's pretty awesome, I thought. The only only mistake
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 3: I thought I made was I there was a tree
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 3: on the ground that had a split trunk, and so
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 3: it was a huge tree and I sat up in
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 3: front of it. But the trail actually came by me.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 3: One of the trails came by me at like feet
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 3: and so it split off at about eight yards in
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 3: front of me. And so as he's coming down this,
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 3: I was like, you better turn otherwise this is gonna
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 3: it's gonna end bad. And he did, which is way
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 3: I thought they would go. But it could have got
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 3: I don't. I don't. I don't know if I could
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 3: have shot him if he came straight or not. But
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 3: but yeah, it was. It was fun.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 2: Did you kill that deer with a compound?
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I haven't been shooting the longbow very much.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 2: Just I really don't need the challenge anymore.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 3: I do at some point, but not I have enough challenges, so.
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 2: Right right, Yeah, man, I love it so much. Your
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: story is freaking wild. Dude. I'm so glad you made
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: it through that. Uh, it's great to see you. I
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 2: really appreciate you coming on and sharing your story. I
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 2: think a lot of people are gonna listen to this
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 2: and they're gonna maybe reevaluate how they look at their
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: hunting a little bit.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I hope. So I'm glad to share.
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 3: And yeah, I think the woods in general would be
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 3: a lot better placed if everybody's out there just enjoying
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 3: it and gets a little competitive, I think. And just
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 3: go out there and enjoy it and enjoy your family.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 3: Take them out there. Wike it?
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I love it, buddy, Thanks so much for
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 2: coming on.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 3: Yep, thanks Tony.
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: That's it for this week, folks. Make sure to tune
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: in every week for some more whitetail goodness. I'm your
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 2: guest host, Tony Peterson. This has been the wire Don podcast,
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: which is brought to you by First lad Now. If
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 2: you want some more whitetail content, feel free to head
• 1:07:35
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• 1:07:37
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• 1:07:39
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• 1:07:42
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• 1:07:44
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