Latest / Doug Has Questions / Episode 45: Nicole Holm; Hard To Kill! What Does Resilience Look Like!

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Episode 45: Nicole Holm; Hard To Kill! What Does Resilience Look Like! · Doug Has Questions

• 0:00
  Douglas: Welcome to this episode of Doug Hads Questions.
• 0:02
  Douglas: Today my guest is Nicole Holm, an RN down at search, and with a long backstory in Haynes.
• 0:08
  Douglas: Welcome, Nicole.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_05: Thank you.
• 0:10
  Douglas: Looking forward to oh and I keep forgetting these.
• 0:12
  Douglas: So you get a mug for showing up.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_05: I get a mug.
• 0:15
  Douglas: Look at me.
• 0:16
  Douglas: Swag.
• 0:17
  Douglas: I like it, swag.
• 0:18
  Douglas: You get a coffee mug for showing up.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_05: Fantastic.
• 0:21
  Douglas: Yeah, if we don't pay well.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_05: Oh wow.
• 0:23
  Douglas: Just a just a coffee mug.
• 0:25
  Douglas: Yeah.
• 0:25
  Douglas: That's all right.
• 0:26
  Douglas: So let's uh get into the Nicole Holmes story.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 0:32
  Douglas: Now were you born in Idaho?
• 0:34
  Douglas: Because you I think when you were younger you were back and forth a little bit, weren't you?
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_05: So my sister, my older sister was actually born here in Haynes.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_05: Um and then as Haynes does, the economy went to crap and mom and dad moved down south, and I was actually born in Oregon.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_05: My little brother was born in Idaho, and then we came back up.
• 0:50
  Douglas: When did you guys move back to Haynes?
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_05: We moved back up in 87.
• 0:53
  Douglas: 87, okay.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, mom actually went to school here.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_05: My grandpa on her side was a logger um from Oregon, so he'd been up here logging, and um then mom moved up.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_05: The whole family moved up in her sixth grade year.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_05: So mom actually went to school, grew up here, um, graduated high school, all that stuff.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_05: Dad was um he went to school in Idaho and Colorado, and then family members were, hey, I'm I'm headed to Alaska.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_05: Sold his Mustang, bought a four-wheel drive Ford truck, and says, Cool, so am I.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_05: And he came up here.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_05: Mom and dad met, got married in Haynes, and then Heather was born here and then bounced around.
• 1:30
  Douglas: And so when your dad did he come up to do logging or what was he just came up because he graduated high school and he was like, sounds good.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_05: He was tired of working in the mines in in Montana and just was ready to adventure.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_05: He was 18 years old and do something different, and off he went.
• 1:44
  Douglas: So, what was his first job here in Haynes?
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_05: I have no idea.
• 1:47
  Douglas: Because he's done just about everything once he's got.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_05: He has done just about everything, yeah.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_05: No, I have no idea what he was doing when he got up here.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_05: Um, he's done a lot of mechanicking and um like equipment operating and stuff like that, so I would guess something in that.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_05: Um yeah, I don't know.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_05: He did his ground school here for flying, always wanted to fly, and did it with um oh gosh, he passed away several years ago.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_05: Yep, Betty Holgate, yep.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yep, down Betty Holgate.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_05: Yep, yep.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_05: And then when he was when they moved out, he actually did his um his ground or his actual flight stuff and and got his flight license in Oregon.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_05: And then was many, many, many years before he actually got his first plane.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_05: He blames me to this day that it took him a year longer because um the year he was supposed to get his plane was the year White Fang was here and everybody was making money, and that was the year that I broke both my legs and didn't have insurance.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_05: So he tells everybody he had to wait a year longer to get his plane because somebody got in the hospital instead.
• 2:48
  Douglas: Well, we're we're gonna get to that.
• 2:50
  Douglas: But how old were you in 87 then when you made it?
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_05: In 87, I was eight when I moved back up here, nine.
• 2:57
  Douglas: So what was your childhood like in Haynes?
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_05: Um, you know, I mean, it's it's like everybody else.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_05: It's you know, you uh mom and dad had businesses and stuff, so we kind of grew up being involved in um small businesses and everything.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_05: Like I never ever in my house remember just picking up the phone and saying hello.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_05: It was Eagle's Nest Motel and Car Rentals from the time that we were old enough to to answer the phone.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_05: And so I mean we kind of grew up with I don't know, maybe a little more responsibility than than some people did just because it was it was part of the deal.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_05: But yeah, I mean we hunted, we fished, we were always going and doing and up Flower Mountain and out grouse hunting and just doing all the things that you do that you live here to do, snow machines and um you know, everything else.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_05: And then in junior high, kind of well, probably about fourth grade, I think, got into playing basketball because everybody plays basketball.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, everybody plays basketball, there's nothing else.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_05: So got into playing basketball and played ball all through junior high and up through high school, played basketball, ran track.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_05: Um yeah, did all that stuff.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_05: So yeah, no, I mean it was it was you know, it's like when you grow up here, it's kind of like, okay, yep, go through the magazine, pick out your school clothes back in the day.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_05: Because there was no Amazon, there was no shopping malls, there was none of that.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_05: And so growing up, you're kind of like, oh, you're so isolated, you didn't get to do any of this stuff.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_05: But you know, when you look back on it, it's like, but you did get to do all this other stuff that people uh down south would never do, you know.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_05: Like that's just a bad thing to do on vacation.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, we rode snow machines to school.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, we rode snow machines to school all the time.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_05: We my sister and I um had a 66 Mustang.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_05: We drove it in the summer until the snow fell, and then we either took dad's old Bronco or we drove snow machines.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_05: And I remember like distinctly, we used to have to dress up.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_05: I mean dress up for basketball games for when we traveled.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_05: It was and Heather and I would step in and have our full snowsuits on, unzip them, step out of our snow boots, into our dress shoes, and have skirts and dresses on underneath our snowsuits.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_05: Step out.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_05: That was just, yeah, I mean, that's you're ready to go.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_05: It was just what we did.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_05: I mean when Tim got to the point that he wanted to back out of being active military and stuff, w we wondered where we're gonna go, where what are we gonna do with the kids, and and it was like, let them run Farrell and Haynes, you know?
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_05: It's like, yeah, three boys, they want to hunt, they want to fish, they wanna they can do all the all the things and not not that you can't get in trouble, but you can't get in too much trouble in Haynes, you know.
• 5:28
  Douglas: I mean kind of everybody did break two legs in Haynes.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_05: That's true.
• 5:34
  Douglas: How did that come apart come about?
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_05: I had three years of just weird, random bad luck.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_05: The first year I was like eight, I think, and I fell off the top bunk of my bunk bed.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_05: Came down on the bottom and broke my collarbone.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_05: Kids break their collarbones all the time.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_05: It's like, okay, fine, whatever.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_05: The following year, I was playing baseball, and I was playing second base.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_05: Dad was one of our coaches, Kevin uh uh Davis was one of the coaches.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_05: Out there standing there playing second base, and you know, you're bent over like you do, and you're watching the batter and all the things.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_05: And I got I had this pain that came across my neck and my shoulder.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_05: And I grabbed my shoulder and I run over to dad.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_05: He's looking at me.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_05: He's like, What are you doing?
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_05: Get on, get back on the field.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_05: And I'm like, something bit me or hit me, and I moved my hand, and he immediately knew what it was and like lost his ever-loving mind.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_05: He was he was super mad.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_05: I didn't know what it was.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_05: I thought I'd gotten stung.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_05: So I take me to mom's.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_05: I had gotten hit by a stray bullet.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_05: There was people Wait, what?
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_05: There was people that were, I'm told, up at Comstock area that were uh intoxicated, shooting at squirrels and stuff with a 306 and a 308.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_05: And over there at Osland Baseball Field on the women's field, I was playing second base and got hit by one of the stray bullets.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_05: It came down across my neck and hit my the same collarbone that I had just broke and then hit my shoulder and bounced off.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_05: By the grace of God, it was going slow enough that it hit my bone, broke the bone, and bounced off.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_05: It didn't bury into my shoulder.
• 7:09
  Douglas: Um Wait, some knuckleheads were shooting a 308, a 30 odd six on Comstock.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_05: And I got hit with the stray bullet.
• 7:17
  Douglas: And you got hit with a stray bullet playing playing second base, playing playing baseball.
• 7:21
  Douglas: Why have I never heard this story before now?
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_05: What the heck?
• 7:24
  Douglas: Wait, what the heck year was that?
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_05: Uh that was in 89.
• 7:28
  Douglas: I was here that summer.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, that was in 89.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, had to go down to the police department, do all the the pictures of the wound and stuff.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_05: And I honestly, I was a kid, I don't really ever know what came of it, if there was charges or there wasn't.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_05: Um but yeah, broke rebroke my collarbone because it got it hit with a straight bullet.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_05: They found it.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_05: They found the bullet.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, found it.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, found it.
• 7:47
  Douglas: Was it it?
• 7:48
  Douglas: Was it in your shoulder?
• 7:49
  Douglas: It was just on the ground.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_05: And it was on the ground.
• 7:53
  Douglas: He knew what it was.
• 7:54
  Douglas: He knew what it was.
• 7:54
  Douglas: He's done enough hunting and shooting, he knew what it was.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_05: He knew it was because it came across my neck and then hit, and he knew exactly what that was.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_05: And yeah, and so um I was over at the house, and him and the other coaches were scouring the field, and Heather was on the team too, and she goes, Oh, I remember everybody was just, where is it, where is it?
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_05: We found it.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_05: There was a guy, uh I don't remember who he belonged to, but there was a coach, another guy, and his name was Chet, and I they're like, Chet found the bullet.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_05: Chet found it.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_05: So, yeah.
• 8:20
  Douglas: So that was your nine now?
• 8:22
  Douglas: I was nine.
• 8:22
  Douglas: You were shot at nine years old.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_05: That was your two.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, we're year two.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_02: We lived through that.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_05: I mean raised shot, yeah.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_05: So year three was uh 1990, white fangs being filmed.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_05: People are making stupid money.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_05: You know, we had um behind the motel, the entire area where dad's big shop is was converted to um a huge RV park.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_05: Um we had all like we had crew, we had all sorts of stuff.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_05: The motel, um, they rented out the entire motel at the bottom um to the dog trainers and the wolf trainers and the um trainers that had the puppies because there was three different batches of wolf cubs at different ages to film it all.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_05: We had all those in the motel, the two big wolf hybrids, Jed and Jesse, that played White Fang.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_05: We had them.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_05: And I think we had this Wait in the hotel?
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_05: In the hotel.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_05: Dad, yeah, he built plywood contain plywood um uh fences, like took out some of the beds, built fly plywood containers, and put plastic down on the floor and let the puppies and he's like, I'm gonna rip all the carpet out when we're done anyway, and just was like, Yep, whatever.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_05: And I think we had the there was a big St.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_05: Bernard, um, and I think we had him in there too, but I can't remember.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_05: So anyway, um, and then we had these three guys that were named their nickname, they were they were carpenters, and they were the carpenters from hell.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_05: That was their their nickname.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_05: Anyways, Scotty Dino and something else.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_05: Anyhow, and we've known these guys for for quite a while.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_05: They've been there, they've been building the sets, they've been doing the stuff.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_05: Dad was down on the sets quite a bit.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_05: He used his tractor to do some of the movie scenes.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_05: He's in the movie playing cards and stuff, and um when uh Ethan Hawk was in the the part where the bear is swiping at him in the big wood wood pile, that's dad shaking and dumping dirt on him with the tractor.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_05: He's using his his his his thing, dumping dumping dirt on him and stuff.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_05: So anyway, so we knew we knew quite a lot of these people, and it was a lovely, beautiful day in April, a Sunday in April, and it was like we're going up on the pass.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_05: We're going up on the pass.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_05: So we took, I don't know, we must have had 50 people up there.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_05: We had snow machines and sleds, and just we were like at three guardsmen, just barely across the border, and just having fun.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and we were doinking around and doing all the stuff.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_05: There was kids, there was adults, there was whatever.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_05: And I had been sledding for quite a while, was on one of the snow machines and got cold, got wet, whatever, and um went and sat in dad's truck for a little while.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_05: And then uh some of the adults, I preface this, the adults came by and they're like, Hey, hey, hey, we're gonna go over here, you should come, you should come.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_05: And I was like, Ah, well, yeah, I'm done.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_05: No, no, no, no, you should come, you should come.
• 11:03
  Douglas: So I did, and we had Now when you're saying adults are these your parents' adults, these are other adults.
• 11:08
  Douglas: Okay.
• 11:09
  Douglas: Adults.
• 11:10
  Douglas: Okay.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_05: These were the crew uh adults.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_05: And I we had had a eight-foot-long fiberglass lifeboat.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_05: I don't know whose boat it came off of, where it came from, but we tied it behind the snow machines and we're just sledding with it.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_05: It was great, worked like a dream.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_05: Like it was fine.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_05: Well, then somebody said, Well, we don't need the snow machines, let's just go sledding in the boat.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_05: So we went from this side where there was lots of free area to the other side, which was a little more down and steep, and they were like, Oh yeah, we're just gonna, you know, it's clear, it's open.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_05: So there was me and three adults, the two Wolf Cub trainers and one of the carpenter guys that got in this boat.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_05: We were like, Yeah, it's great, we're having fun.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_05: Well, we our trajectory changed, and we went from this wide open area of nothing.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_02: You don't say going down the hill with the boat in a boat with no steering.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_05: No steering, no nothing.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_02: Surprised that the trajectory changed on you.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_05: So the last thing that I remember was looking up and seeing the tree, and I was like, and we that other people watched it happen, and they're you know, from from sitting up standing up there, and there was nothing that anybody could do, but we apparently hit a bump good enough that we hit that spruce tree at about eight foot up on the trunk and hit the front of it.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_05: The two ladies were in front, and then me and Scotty were in the back, and I got flipped from the back right into the trunk of the tree.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_05: And the next thing I remember was him saying, I gotta turn you over.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_05: You're gonna suffocate.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_05: I gotta turn you over.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_05: And he had found me face down at the bottom of the tree in the snow, and him flipping me over, and then it kind of everything came back into focus, and there was screaming and chaos and and all the stuff.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_05: Um, so then we had people that you know I could look up and see them coming down the hill on snow machines and trying to assess and and figure what everything out.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_05: Um, Jimmy Horton was my cousin was here.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_05: Dad sent him.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_05: He's like, get to the border and call helicopters out of Whitehorse.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_05: We we got people that are hurt, we've got to get help.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_05: So Jimmy went back to the border and they had they had uh airlifts that they were dispatching that direction.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, back in 90 there was no airlift guardian that didn't exist, didn't exist.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_05: So this was the only option to get us off there.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_05: They um the guy that was with us, Scotty, had smacked his head pretty good.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_05: He had a couple broken ribs, blood pouring out of the side of his face because he'd split his ear.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_05: But he's like, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_05: Um, the one girl that was with us, she she's like, I'm okay, except she goes, my ankles toast.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_05: She goes, my I my my leg, something in here is is is it's bad.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and then the other lady, Pam, she was like, My back, my back's hurt.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_05: I I she goes, I can feel my legs, but my back's hurt.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_05: Like, and and then there was me, and I was just probably screaming like a banshee, who knows?
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and dad came down and he looked and was like, There's we can't get you guys from down here.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_05: We've got to get you back up the hill you just came down.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_05: And I do distinctly remember they were like, Okay, we're gonna put you back in here and drag you to the top, and I was like, Oh no, we're not.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_05: No, that boat just tried to kill me.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_05: I am definitely not getting back in it.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_05: And they had to get mom to come down and put her in it, and then me in her lap, and then pull it up with the snow machines.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but dad broke, uh, you know, got tree branches and stuff, and he made splints with my with the tree branches, like looked at it enough to be like, oh yeah, they're broke, and you know, and then got me and was like, we've got to do something else.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_05: Left Pam down there because actually laying her in the snow, it was keeping it cold and keeping her back a little under control, and they were like, okay.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_05: So anyway, and then the chopper shows up and he's like, they didn't tell me there was multiple people, I can only take one person on a stretcher.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_05: Awesome.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_05: Well, they took Pam.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_05: He's like, I don't know how bad her back is, like, she's gotta go.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_05: Um and he's like, fly her to Juno, route everybody to Juneau.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_05: So then they had to launch the ambulance from Haynes, and so then it was getting us up and finding different vehicles that we could pop the hatchbacks and sit in the back of these cars and try to stay warm and all this stuff, and um you know, and waited.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_05: So ambulance shows up, and I've got this leg you could see was broke.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_05: My left leg was a compound fracture, so it's obviously obviously broke.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but again, like you know, they can't give you anything, they can't do anything.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_05: And I I think it was Dr.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_05: Martinez, um, I can't remember, but anyway, met us at the airport in Juneau, or I mean in Haynes, and I remember him popping in and he opens the door and he goes, Well, I bet you'd like something for the pain.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_05: And I was just like, uh-huh.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_05: And I don't know what he gave me.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_05: Something great, probably more pain.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but yeah, it was it was great.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_05: And then Leighton Bennett was out there.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_05: Bennett stripped all the seats out of the back of it and and anchored down the the uh backboard and took me and the other girl, um, the other lady, and uh yeah, met up in in Juneau, and Pam was there and got her all her back was fine.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_05: She had a compression fracture and broke her foot.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_05: The lady, I think Lena had broke her foot and her ankle in like eight or nine places, so she had just destroyed it, and then I broke both my legs.
• 16:32
  Douglas: Um so yeah, so did they keep you all three of you in June, or did they send you a little bit?
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_05: No, they kept us all in Juno.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_05: Um yeah, Dr.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_05: Cedar was the orthopedist at the time in Juneau, he was amazing.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and I actually have no hardware.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_05: I didn't have any hardware from those fractures.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_05: Nope.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_05: Nope.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_05: They um were able to just I've got a little incision and they put the bones back where they belonged, and I had casts up to about mid-thigh for six weeks, which was super fun as a 10-year-old kid.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, fifth grade, yeah.
• 17:00
  Douglas: Yeah, you were loving that.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_05: That was super awesome.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_05: I had like six weeks of school left.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_05: Um, the old school was not designed for wheelchairs, was not designed, you know, for for any of that.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_05: Um, thank God Mr.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_05: Buck was my fifth grade teacher, and he the entire rest of the year, every Friday, would walk my whole class out to our house.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_05: Really?
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_05: Every Friday afternoon.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_05: He would walk the entire class out to the out to the motel, out to the house, and they would do ice cream parties or pizza parties or something so that I could keep somewhat intact.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, in touch with my class.
• 17:34
  Douglas: That was really cool.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and there was a few times that I went into the school, we were doing an exchange with like some school in Louisiana, and they had sent us up a bunch of craw ads and and stuff like that.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_05: So we were doing a big um shrimp boil thing on the front lawn.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_05: And um, yeah, there was a few times that I remember being at the school, and Mr.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_05: Heinrich was he had to have been principal at that time.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_05: And he would carry me up the stairs to the jun to the different classrooms because I couldn't get anywhere.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_05: There was no ramps, there was nothing.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_05: No elevator or anything.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so he would take me upstairs, and I think back on it now, and I was like, Oh my god, do you know how easy it would have been for me to just go down the stairs?
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_05: Because I mean there was yeah, and the wheelchair was too big, but it was yeah.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_05: And it was the same thing, like at my house, there it was upstairs.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_05: Everything so mom and dad would have to pack me up and down every time.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_05: Um, by the time I got those casts off, I had holes in the heels where I had because I'd scoot around and I had worn the plaster off of them.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_05: Um yeah, it was awful.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_05: And then they put me in cast like right at the middle of the city.
• 18:32
  Douglas: So that was still plaster cast.
• 18:34
  Douglas: That wasn't the fiberglass.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_05: No, that was plaster casts, clear up.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_05: So those are heavier than heavy, too.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_05: They're so heavy.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_05: They're so heavy.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_05: And they had the where that compound fracture was, they had put stitches in it, and so they had cut a window in the cast, and I had to go down to the clinic.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and they would take that window and do dressing changes and then eventually take the stu the uh sutures out.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_05: And I yeah, so I remember having to go down there and there would be this little window that they'd tape back on and yeah, and then cast to my knees fiberglass ones for another four weeks after that.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_05: So ten weeks of casts.
• 19:05
  Douglas: So once you got the fiberglass ones on, were you able to get around on crutches and stuff?
• 19:09
  Douglas: Then I could go on crutches.
• 19:10
  Douglas: Put a little bit of weight on it.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, no, then I could do crutches, and then it was not so bad.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_05: Then it wasn't so bad.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_05: I think it was like in the middle of June, but by the time I finally got out of cat out of casts and everything else, yeah, it was it was nuts.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_05: So yeah, broad.
• 19:22
  Douglas: So did did your dad have a discussion with the guy that ha came up with the idea of having the boat go down the hill?
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_05: I don't know.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_05: I mean I'm sure there were words that were said.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I just I don't know.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_05: It seemed like a good idea at the time, you know.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_05: I don't know.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_05: I see him on YouTube and and Snapchat or uh TikTok and stuff where people are like in a canoe or something.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_05: So I'm like, I've seen how this ends.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_05: This doesn't end well.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_05: Boats on snow, not a good, not a good idea.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah Yeah, I'm sure there were words.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_05: But it actually like he m him and mom got I don't know, the worst or the best, take your pick, end of it.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_05: Because the two ladies that had the the three batches of the wolf cubs, they couldn't get around very good.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_05: And so mom and dad were going down and bottle feeding and helping with these three batches of cubs every like around the clock.
• 20:11
  Douglas: Around the clock, they were down there.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, they'd go downstairs and they'd bring them up to me, and my siblings and I, we would sit there and help bottle feed them and then take those ones down and bring the new ones.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_05: And that was great.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_05: We got to hang out with all the puppies, but oh yeah, yeah, it was it was insane.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_05: It was definitely one of those where it was like, Yep, decisions were made.
• 20:33
  Douglas: So after your three straight years of bad luck.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, then it was pretty good for a while.
• 20:38
  Douglas: Think things went well for a while.
• 20:39
  Douglas: Yeah.
• 20:40
  Douglas: Was it your sister that was into horses?
• 20:42
  Douglas: Were you into horses?
• 20:43
  Douglas: Both you were into horses.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_05: We both had yeah, I mean we both we both had horses.
• 20:47
  Douglas: Um what age did that start?
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_05: I've always been into horses.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_05: I had horses in Idaho, we had horses before we moved up, um, then we had horses up here, had a break for a little while, and then I had horses.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_05: I went and got another one in high school and uh brought up from uh Washington State, brought a horse a really pretty Palomino horse up here, and mom got a horse out of White Horse, and so we had horses up there for quite a while.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_05: Um yeah, I still love horses.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_05: It's just stupid expensive to try to have them here.
• 21:17
  Douglas: Is that the main reason nobody has horses here anymore?
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_05: Just because of the cost, the cost is really bad, and it's it the vet care or I mean vet care because growing up there's a ton of people had horses.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I think the vet care is really not as big of a deal.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_05: If you take in if you're taking them in and out, you have to get a Coggins test every six months.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_05: But they allowed us to like, you know, Ron Walker would do it and he would certify that okay, yeah, I watched her draw the blood on that horse and they were fine with it.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_05: So it wasn't really like vet care wasn't really the big issue, but the cost of having 'em is astronomical.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_05: Last time I had 'em, it was about four hundred and seventy dollars a ton of hay.
• 21:54
  Douglas: And that four hundred and seventy dollars a ton?
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_05: Uh huh.
• 21:56
  Douglas: And that was And and how many ton of hay would a horse go through?
• 22:00
  Douglas: In the winter.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_05: Two and a half.
• 22:01
  Douglas: Two and a half tons.
• 22:02
  Douglas: Mm-hmm.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_05: And we had two or three at a time, two or three horses at a time.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and and just getting good hay.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_05: Like that was the guy that would bring it up from Fort St.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_05: John in big tractor trailer loads.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_05: And his hay was beautiful.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_05: But as less and less horses were in the valley, it wasn't as worthwhile for him to bring those big loads.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_05: And then you're trying to get it out of Desdiash or White Horse, and sometimes the border doesn't care, sometimes they care.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it just got and you know, like we always had ours right outside our back door, but a lot of people stalled them, and then you're having to haul water and you know, shovel out horse manure out of your stalls and stuff, and that's not nearly as much fun.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_05: And then there's just not great places to ride.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_05: You know, the moose love it, it's marshy, it's wet, it's gross, but horses not so much.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_05: So you end up riding on the roads a lot, and yeah, I don't know.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_05: It's just one of those things where it's it has happened.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_05: Like the farm used to have tons of cattle and you know, and livestock.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_05: There's Louie Nelson used to have huge hayfields and stuff like that.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and it's just kind of I don't know, ebbs and flows.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_05: We need to be able to do that.
• 23:03
  Douglas: Well Anderson always had horses at his place feeding out there and yep, always, always.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so it's just I don't know, we need another group of kids that are like, hey, I want to have horses and surge it back up again.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_05: So but yeah, no, I I would love I love working with horses, having horses, animals.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_05: I just don't make well that's when I was in um Georgia, that's where I worked as a vet tech and I loved it.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_05: But you can't make a living at it.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_05: You just like I just can't make a living doing it, so yeah.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_05: So three years, did some things, then then I was pretty good for a while.
• 23:39
  Douglas: Yeah.
• 23:40
  Douglas: So besides besides sports, what stood out in high school, besides playing basketball, riding your horse, any other momentous things happening during high school or not really.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, it was yeah, it was just high school.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_05: You did all the things.
• 23:53
  Douglas: So what was post-high school like?
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_05: Post-high school was you know, like a bunch of kids that are like, ah, get me out of here, I want to go do something different, and so you do, and then you're like, eh, it kind of sucks.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_05: Um I traveled, I went and did I went to college um in a couple different places.
• 24:08
  Douglas: Um studying, was that when you first started studying for nursing or did you think of something else first?
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_05: No, I first started going for pre-vet.
• 24:15
  Douglas: Okay.
• 24:16
  Douglas: Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_05: You wanted to do the that's what I wanted to do.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and then when Tim and I met, um he was in the military in Anchorage, but he wasn't active well, he was active guard, not active duty.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_05: Anyway, so he was in Anchorage.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and then when he went to active active duty, it was right when things were crazy down there, and he so we got transferred to Georgia, and within two months of us being there, he got deployed to Iraq, and it was a 12-month extended to 18, and he was home for nine ho and then redeploying again.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_05: And so it was like there was no way that I could do vet school with three kids and him being gone.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_05: It was like I just I could have, but I wouldn't, you know, I would have missed out on my kids growing up and I wasn't willing to do that.
• 25:03
  Douglas: So gone for 18 months.
• 25:06
  Douglas: What was that like for you staying home while he's you know, I mean, at the time you just kind of do it.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_05: I had lots of uh it it's weird.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_05: I didn't know anybody, obviously, in Georgia.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_05: Um, everybody talks funny over there.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_05: They they hear me speak and they're like, Are you Canadian?
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_05: Are you you all they could say is your accent is northern.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_05: You're northern.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_05: And I'm like, about as northern you can get.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, I am.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_05: Um and so it was just like this culture shock.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_05: It's hot, it's humid, it's you know, probably Georgia.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_05: We were at Fort Benning.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_05: Fort Benning.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_05: Um, so it's a huge base, it's a um huge, huge training base, it's a huge base for all of the aerosol schools and stuff go on there.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and so yeah, you end up with a really good group of friends that are all going through the same thing.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_05: Their hus husbands are gone too, or their spouses are gone too.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_05: And um, you know, a lot of them were like, You have three kids, why are you working?
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_05: Your husband gets hazardous duty pay, he gets separation pay, and I'm like, look, I'm not gonna stay home and wash my baseboards.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_05: Like, that's not me.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_05: If I don't work, I'm gonna go crazy.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_05: I'm I'm I'm gonna go crazy.
• 26:08
  Douglas: So what what were you doing for work?
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_05: I was working as a vet tech on the base, which was amazing because when you're on a military base, you don't have you don't follow state or or there's no rules.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_05: So like, oh, you're gonna intubate today?
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, fine.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you you know, I intubated dogs and cats and whatever for surgeries.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_05: I worked with military working dogs.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_05: We were the last stop for all of the people to um to to stop in Georgia before they deployed, and then when they would come back.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_05: And so we saw all the military working dogs that went overseas.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_05: We saw them when they go over, and we saw them when they come back.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_05: Yep, and they got health checks, and it was awesome.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_05: I loved it.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_05: It was yeah, it was super fun.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_05: I loved working.
• 26:47
  Douglas: How'd you get into that job?
• 26:48
  Douglas: Was it just because you you'd been going to school for it?
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_05: I had enough experience, and there was an opening, and went in and talked to the captain and stuff, and I was like, Look, I'm not certified.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_05: And they said, That's fine, we'll train you.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_05: And just kind of went off and and did it and learned how to, you know, they were like, Well, can you draw blood on a dog?
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_05: And I was like, Well, yeah, probably, and brought my own dog in.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, Yep, can draw blood on a dog, and they were like, Okay.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so we just kind of kind of went with it.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_05: And uh the boys were Dawson was 18 months when Tim deployed.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_05: So he was 18 months old.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_05: He'd never been in in daycare because I'd I'd we had always been able to trade off.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_05: Tim would work nights, I'd work days, and so our kids didn't have to be in daycare.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_05: Um and so this was but the the bases have amazing daycare facilities and stuff, and and so they yeah, he was in in the daycare and the other two boys were in school and I went to work, and everybody's it's like this whole little world of hey, my I just got a call that my kid's got a fever from the daycare.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_05: I have to go pick him up, and they're like, Yeah, we get it.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_05: Like everybody on that base understood what it was like to have somebody deployed, to have somebody gone, to have and so they they were flexible with you and they work with you, and it was you know, they everybody got it, so it just made it easier.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_05: Um but yeah, I mean there was there was no Snapchat, there was no phone calls, there was no um communication at that time during those deployments.
• 28:13
  Douglas: Were you getting emails or anything like that?
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_05: Nope, there was nothing he didn't have internet uh internet over there.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_05: Tim, when he first went over, was a brand new base, like there was nothing there.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_05: They built it from the ground up.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_05: Um we his unit would get uh once a week, we would get um a time to go to the base, or I mean to go to um one of the places on the base.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_05: And during that day, sometime between 8 a.m.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_05: and 6 p.m., we would have a 10-minute slot to spot to talk to our soldier.
• 28:42
  Douglas: Ten minutes.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_05: And we had no idea when it was.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_05: So here are She's heck you're heck.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, here we are with our feral children, all yeah, 35 of women and all of our kids waiting for our 10 minutes, our our spot.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, having no idea when it was.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_05: They'd uh your kids would start out cute and in, you know, dressed appropriately.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_05: Then yeah, they're starving, so everybody orders pizza and yeah.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you're lucky if and so yeah, then and you know, it would be like they'd go grab Tim and whether he was on a mission or he was doing whatever, or um, you know, they they'd go wake him up.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_05: Hey, it's it's your turn, and he might have been out all night, or he might have been, or it might have be nighttime over there, because of the you know, we had no idea.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_05: And yeah, so it was it was just weird, it was crazy.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but yeah, he would get our 10 minute our 10 minute blip on a giant video screen and trying to get your kids, look, there's daddy, there's daddy, and you know, the older ones got it, but Dawson didn't really and it was pizza.
• 29:38
  Douglas: Yeah, yeah.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_05: They were like, Okay, and yeah, so it was it was weird.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_05: Um and then he was high enough ranking then that he um he made sure all of his soldiers got to come home for R and R before he did.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_05: So he deployed Oh gosh, when did he deploy?
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_05: He was a good ten months in before or yeah, ten months in before he even came home for his two weeks of R and R.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_05: And I remember like going and taking him to go pick up the boys at their different schools and stuff, and Dawson wouldn't go to him.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_05: He wouldn't go to him, and that was just heartbreaking because it's like he'd been seeing him and he'd seen pictures of daddy the whole time and stuff, but then when he saw him in person again, it took him like a day and he, you know, and he was like, Oh yeah, that's dad.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_05: But to an 18-month-old kid, they just have that concept of time is is warped and stuff, and so that was you know, and they just kind of get back into a routine of having him and he has to go back.
• 30:33
  Douglas: He has to go back again.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, he has to go back again, and it's like ugh.
• 30:37
  Douglas: So yeah, it was So in those in those 10-minute phone calls and everything, did he kind of shield you from what he wasn't letting you know what was going on?
• 30:48
  Douglas: It's just like, oh, everything's fine.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_05: Everything's fine, I got your last box, I got the letter you sent.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_05: Um, you know, he'd be like, don't send milk duds or gummy bears, they melted all over the flat rate box or you know, whatever.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but yeah, no, no, I had no idea.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_05: The only time I ever had a clue how bad things were was when we give blackouts.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_05: And we knew that when there was blackout notices, um, it was because somebody had been hurt or killed and they were notifying the families first.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, and so they would not they would block all internet access and all telephone access from from them over overseas until the people were notified.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_05: And that was always horrible because you're sitting here in this, you know, this holding pattern of knowing that there's no communication.
• 31:32
  Douglas: But you don't know who.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_05: You don't know who.
• 31:34
  Douglas: Um, you know, I mean it's gotta be kind of bad because you're kind of hoping it's one of your friends rather than you, right?
• 31:39
  Douglas: Right.
• 31:40
  Douglas: So it's that mixed Oh yeah, it's awful.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_05: It's awful.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_05: And it's like, you know, I I worked on a base uh and was um so I mean there was people in uniform all the time.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_05: And you know, there would be a couple of times where um you'd have guys that would walk in to the to the vet clinic and I'd look up and I'm like, oh my god, they're in dress uniform.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_05: They're here, they're here to tell me something.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_05: And your heart just drops because that's what you're you're you're conditioned to think that that if they come to do a death notification or an injury, they're in their dress blues, they're in those uniforms.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_05: Um so yeah, it was it was definitely and it was the same thing when I would, you know, people didn't knock on my door, and every once in a while I get a knock in the evening, and I'm like, and it would be like the MPs, and I'm just like, oh my god.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_05: Oh my god, oh my god.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_05: And usually it was something, you know, really stupid.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_05: Like they we had a um a really big American bulldog, he's like 130 pounds, and they were had knocked on the door and they were like, ma'am, we've been um we're just letting you know that there's been some break-ins lately and there's been you know some activity, and we just wanted to.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_05: I'm guessing you don't have a problem because of that.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_05: Nope, I don't have any problems because ma'am, I just suggest you let him stay out in the yard a little more often so people understand what lives here, and I said, Okay.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_01: All right, we can do that.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_05: But having an empty- But you just scared the crap out of me by knocking on the door.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_05: Right, and poor guy, like he didn't know that, you know, and so it was yeah, there were there were times that that happened.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_05: And and we have friends that um that lost limbs and that were in uh you know awful situations and and stuff like that, yeah, and it's terrible.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, we have a a friend of ours that um her husband was in an IED explosion in an in a Humvee on their anniversary, on their first year anniversary.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, yeah.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_05: She got a call and said, He's going to Germany.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_05: Meet him, meet him there.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_05: And you know, and he lost lost both of his legs, and he's I mean, they're doing great, and you know, they're they've got two adorable kiddos and and stuff, but yeah, at the time, you know, these people have been married for a year and that's what you get handed, and you know, yeah, you're you're like I I don't want it to be mine, but in doing in in praying and hoping that it's not your spouse, you know it's somebody's.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_05: Somebody's it's somebody's, and you're just hoping you know it's like please don't let it be somebody I know.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_05: You know, but it's hard because you you end up knowing everybody, and so yeah, it's just it's it's its own thing.
• 34:00
  Douglas: But did you did you not watch the news then or were you focused on the news trying to pick up hints on what was going on?
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_05: I didn't really watch it a whole lot.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, um they by the time stuff hits the news, it's so out of date.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_05: It's so uh it's so you know it's wrong.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_05: So it's like nah, I didn't really watch it.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_05: I didn't pay attention to it.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, I'll get information this way before I ever get what's on the news, and so yeah, it's just it's a different world.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_05: His his second deployment was better.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_05: There was a lot more communication.
• 34:31
  Douglas: How long was his second deployment?
• 34:33
  Douglas: Um another 18 months or no.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_05: His second his second deployment was supposed to have been a year.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_05: Um but so he came home and then he went to uh he was home for about a year.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_05: Um and they were gearing up to go back to um to go back to Iraq, and he had gone to California, so they have a big um testing facility out there, and so he was gone for this big testing facility.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_05: I was in nursing school at that point, had decided that um as much as I loved animals, I was gonna go broke trying to do it as a living, and so I had started nursing school.
• 35:10
  Douglas: Um and did you start that during the nine months that he was home, or did you start that?
• 35:14
  Douglas: During when he was home, yeah.
• 35:16
  Douglas: Okay.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, when he was home, I had applied for a program and got in.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_05: And so I was in my second semester of nursing school, and um he was gone, and I was like, gosh, that's weird.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_05: And uh and I said, Tim, I found this thing, and he goes, What?
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, I don't know, it's this weird lump.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_05: And he goes, What?
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_05: And I said, Yeah, I said, it's gotta be nothing.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_05: And he's like, Well, go check it out.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_05: So I had a I had a doctor on the base and got a hold of her and she's like, You're 30 years old.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_05: There's no way you have breast cancer.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_05: She's like, You're too young.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_05: You have no family history, but let's not just blow, you know, let me put your mind at ease.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_05: And I said, Alright.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_05: So they did an ultrasound and they did a mammogram, or I think they did a mammogram first.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_05: And God love ultrasound and mammogram text and and stuff.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_05: They can't tell you anything, and they know they can't tell you anything, and it's just so this little chick comes in and she puts an image up on the on the like old school x-ray thing, and she says, I can't tell you anything.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_05: And I look up at it, and I was like, You have two things circled.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_05: We need to get further imaging.
• 36:17
  Douglas: And I was like, and so further imaging, or I need to call another that's never a good sign.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_05: I'm like, okay.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_05: And so anyway, so we did all that, and um, then they were like, uh, we're gonna we're gonna do a biopsy.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_05: Like, it's probably a fibroid, blah blah blah, but we want to do a biopsy.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_05: Tim's still gone.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_05: They scheduled it, they were really good about like, you know, doing it quickly and not making me stress out and worry.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_05: Did the um did the biopsy and stuff, and then by then Tim was home.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_05: And so we went and they were like, Oh, we scheduled you an appointment with um one of the base, one of the surgeons at at the hospital.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_05: And I was like, Okay, and they're like, he he's got all the information.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_05: All right, so we go in, and God bless this poor, I don't know what he was, Captain Major.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_05: For being a military wife, I'm really, really bad with knowing all their ranks and stuff.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_05: I just And now I've got two kids in the military and I'm still I don't, so it doesn't matter.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, there's some women that are really big on wearing their husband's rank, that that was not me.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_05: So anyway, this poor guy.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_05: And he's like, he's sitting there and he goes, Well, he's like, so this is this this is what you have and this is what we're doing, and and I'm looking at it and I'm like, what is he doing?
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_05: He was drawing like a mountain, and there was snow on the on the peak of the mountain, and he's like, got these rivers coming down it.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, I don't understand what you're doing.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_05: Finally, he turns it around.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_05: He was trying, for the love of God, to draw a breast with the ducts and all of the parts, and he was like, and this is what you have.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_05: You have this little thing that started in a duct and and it went beyond that.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_05: So you have cancer.
• 37:54
  Douglas: And I was like, Okay, you could have could have led with that.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, okay, and he goes, and I don't have anybody here that can do reconstructive surgery for you.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_05: He goes, We can do a mastectomy.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_05: He goes, but I don't have anybody that can do that.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_05: He goes, so I can do that, but then you're gonna have to have another surgery, or he goes, or I can just send you to Atlanta to Emory University and they can do everything.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, please.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_01: Send me to Atlanta.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, send me to Emory, like huge, huge university hospital.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_05: So anyway, um, so we did that.
• 38:26
  Douglas: 30 years old.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_05: 30 years old.
• 38:27
  Douglas: Breast cancer.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_05: Breast cancer, no family history, no, I've never smoked a day in my life.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_05: I grew up in Haynes where I didn't, I wasn't, you know, factories or anything, like nothing tracks, nothing makes sense.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_05: But here we are.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_05: Stage two breast cancer, okay, fine.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_05: So did a mastectomy, did a reconstructive surgery, all in one surgery.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_05: Tim was home for that.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_05: And then we get told um his deployment date.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_05: And I was a little less than thrilled.
• 38:58
  Douglas: I um I can imagine had some words.
• 39:01
  Douglas: Yeah.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and we they did these big briefings, these pre-deployment briefings, at this cute little church on the base, and Tim had already gotten it, so he's like, I'll stay home with the boys.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_05: You can go, the uh some of the other girls are going, you know, and get the briefing so that I don't miss anything.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_05: And he's like, You can go.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_05: So Tim wasn't with me.
• 39:20
  Douglas: The head So this is a family briefing?
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, okay, for all the spouses and everybody else to be like, This is when we're leaving, this is our plan, this is blah blah blah.
• 39:28
  Douglas: I didn't know they did that.
• 39:29
  Douglas: I figured they just told the soldiers and away you go, and try to give us a little bit of information.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_05: It changes, and so it's kind of useless, but they try.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_05: So anyway, so we had gone to that and and they were like, Well, this is you know where we're going, and then they were talking about coming home on R and everything else, and the cat the highest rank, I can never whatever he was.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_05: Anyway, he's up there jabbering.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_05: And they were like, Any questions?
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_05: And I said, uh, yep, got one.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_05: And he goes, Well, what can I do for you?
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_05: And I said, So I'm gonna need to know when my soldier's coming home for RR.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_05: And he goes, Well, I can't pinpoint for you for that.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_05: He goes, Are you are you trying to make plans?
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_05: And I said, Well, since you're taking him while I'm gonna start chemo for breast cancer, I still have another surgery I have to go through, so I'd like to know when he's gonna be home to be able to help with that.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_05: He wasn't really rude about it.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_05: And there was a pin drop in that place.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_05: Um, well, um you and I should talk afterwards.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_05: So I did.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_05: I went and talked to him and got the line of that my husband is very important and he's a leader in the US Army and they need him over there and can't possibly not have him.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_05: I said, Okay.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_05: Tim heard about it before I ever even made it home.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_05: His soldiers and soldiers' wives and said, Do you know what your wife just did to the colonel?
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_05: And I was like, I didn't do anything.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_05: Anyway.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_05: So that was all fun and games.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_05: So he was supposed to be deployed for a year.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_05: He left um early October.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_05: I started my first round of chemo October 14th on my little brother's birthday.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_05: I was in Georgia, had the kids, all the stuff, I had no idea what I was in for.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I did the first round of chemo.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, meh, this is not so bad.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_05: Like it's fine.
• 41:12
  Douglas: So you're doing chemo effectively as a single mother of three boys.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_05: And the youngest at that time was four.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_05: Dawson was four.
• 41:23
  Douglas: Dang, Nicole.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_05: So I did the first round and I was like How long was the first round?
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_05: Um, it's an all-day thing.
• 41:29
  Douglas: It's just the first time going through the city.
• 41:31
  Douglas: Yeah, just the first time.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_05: But you go in there and you sit all day long, and they I had three different meds that they cocktailed.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_05: Um, two of them would come out in big IV bags.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_05: The third one um they called Red Devil.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_05: Um, Adrimyosin is the name of it, and it comes out in 60cc syringes and is like let's see how old people are.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_05: Pink like methylade or really bright colored peptobismol.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, it is pink, and the nurses bring it out wrapped up in paper towels, and they are double gowned and triple gloved because they don't want to touch it.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_05: And they hook that up to my port and mainline it.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_05: But they don't want to touch it.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_05: That was the yeah.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_02: That was there's something going on in your head right now that I'm watching all that.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, Oh yeah, it's like you guys don't want this to touch your skin, you're triple gloving up and you're mainlining that into my into my port that goes right into my heart.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_05: Sounds great.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_05: Sounds great.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_00: So how how big were these syringes?
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_05: They were 60ccs.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_00: 60cc, two of them.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_05: And then the other ones came in a liter bag, they would mix them, and that was a liter bag.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_05: So you were you were there all day getting infusions all day long.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_05: And it really wasn't bad.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, I looked at it and I was like, well, yeah, whatever.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_05: It you know, I wasn't super nauseous, I um I didn't feel bad.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_05: And I was like, this is not, you know, this is not terrible.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_05: Um what they don't tell you, or what I didn't hear, or whatever, was the next day I went back uh and they give you a shot, a new laster, or something like um new laster to boost your white blood cell production because every round of chemo knocks you down, so then they give you this one to boost your white blood cell production.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_05: And that was the worst pain I have had.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_05: It makes every single long bone and big bone, your femurs, your your tibia, fibia, everything ache.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_05: Oh my god, and you can't you can't get comfortable sitting hurts, standing hurts.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_05: I remember leaning my arms over like a counter because that was the only comfortable position that I could get the pain to quit.
• 43:32
  Douglas: And how long does that go for?
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, it goes for it goes for days.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_05: It goes for days, and then it kind of seriously and then it kind of wanes off.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_05: But yeah, they don't tell you that when you or or you know, they're like, Yeah, chemo, it's it's gonna make you sick or it's gonna do that.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_05: No, they the the new lasta to boost your white blood cell production afterwards is way, way worse.
• 43:54
  Douglas: So So how how long between your first round and your second round?
• 43:59
  Douglas: Three weeks.
• 44:00
  Douglas: Three weeks.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_05: Three weeks.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_05: So I did that.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_05: I was miserable.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_05: I very distinctly remember talking to mom and dad, and I was like, I can't do this.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, I am in tears in my boys' bedroom with the two younger Yahoos and just tears running down my face saying, Please go to sleep.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_05: Just please go to bed.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_05: Because I I couldn't do anything.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_05: It was their bedtime.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_05: They were supposed to be in bed, but they were just bouncing off the walls.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_05: And um and dad's like, What do we need to do?
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_05: Do we need to bring you home?
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_05: You know, how do we and I and I was like, I don't I don't know how to do this.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_05: I don't know what to do.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_05: And within 24 hours, at the time my aunt was working for um American Airlines, within 24 hours I had a girlfriend take my dog, my big beastie dog, and I had tickets for me and the three boys.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_05: And we my aunt flew out and we packed suitcases, yanked my kids all out of school, and flew to Idaho.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_05: And we flew to Idaho.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_05: My mom um flew down, and my kids went to my sister's house, and I went to my sister's house, and we stayed there.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_05: Mom came down and she would deal with all the kids because Heather was working as a nurse.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_04: Yep.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_05: And so mom had all five grandkids, and she would they were so spoiled.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_05: She'd make them pancakes, hot breakfast every morning, all the things.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_05: I would stay.
• 45:13
  Douglas: And she would probably absolutely love it of it all.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_05: So it was yeah, so she they were having a great time.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_05: I would stay at my sister's house until I had to go do chemo, and then I would drive to Boise, and I would go do my infusion and then go rack out at my aunt's house until I quit puking my toenails out enough that I could go back up and see the boys and pretend to be a a a parent for a little while, and and I did that back and forth.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but every time you s you do a dose of chemo, it stacks on what you had before.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_05: So it's like, uh, I was sick for a day.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_05: Well, by the time you're four rounds in, you're sick for a week.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_05: You're sick for a week and a half.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_05: Um dang.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_05: You know, food has no flavor anymore.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_05: They literally will tell you, whatever you feel like eating, drown it in butter, put chocolate sauce on it, whatever calories you can, because nothing tastes good.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_05: It sounds great.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_05: I remember ordering big BLTs and stuff like that, and you take a bite out of it, and it's like sucking on a mouthful of pennies.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_05: Everything is metallic.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_05: It just it's just awful.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_05: So you lose weight, um, but you gotta keep doing the next round.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_05: Keep doing the next round.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_05: So I did um I did all my rounds, and I finished six, six rounds.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_05: Six rounds.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_05: So I finished in March.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_05: Was was you know good to go.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_05: Oh yeah, you finished.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_05: I had actually had plans that I was gonna um head back to Georgia, I think, at spring break, so the kids could go to their third school in a year.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_05: Um and I was at my sister's house, and I remember I was on the phone with mom, and I was like, man, my contacts are really blurry.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_05: Which is yeah, I mean I've worn glasses or contacts since I was a kid, and so I was like, man, they're really blurry.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_05: And she goes, What?
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, I don't know, they're just my contacts are really blurry.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_05: I gotta go rinse them off or do whatever.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_05: And walked downstairs, came back up the stairs, and I remember laughing, giggling, and she goes, What are you doing?
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, I don't know, my foot won't step up.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_05: And she goes, What?
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, my foot is like hitting the stairs.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_05: I can't I was like, This is funny.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_05: Well, it wasn't really funny.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_05: I thought it was funny at the time.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_05: Um anyway, so called my doctor and stuff, and they were like, You need to get down here, you need to be seen immediately.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_05: And it was like ten days after my last round of chemo, and my body just said had enough, and I ended up life lighted out of where my sister's house was, got into Boise.
• 47:34
  Douglas: Um and they life flighted you out of to Boise.
• 47:38
  Douglas: They sent to Boise.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_05: She was in a yeah, she was in a little town in central um Idaho.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, to Boise.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_05: Um got down there.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_05: So you just telling the doctors they knew they're like I was like, something's wrong with my vision, and my foot, like I can't pick, and they were like, Oh yeah, I know something's wrong, something's wrong.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_05: And it was ten days after, and I got down there, um, metabact me down there, and my hemoglobin had dropped to four point nine.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_05: What's normal?
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_05: Normal is like twelve and a half and twelve and a half to sixteen and a half.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_05: And so um, if you're sick, like if you're going through chemo and you're going through cancer treatment, they'll hold off until you're like an eight.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_05: Anything below an eight, they're doing a transfusion.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_05: You're getting a blood transfusion.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_05: And you're 4.9?
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_05: That's 4.9.
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_05: So I've got a transfusion, four units.
• 48:29
  Douglas: Um had nobody checked that, or just because you were 10 days past.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you you finished your chemo, you rang the bell, you're good to, you know, you're good to go.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_05: And it just, like I said, that stuff stacks.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_05: And so, um, yeah, so my I was super sick and I stayed in the hospital for a week.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_05: Tim got a red cross message and said, Your wife's in the hospital.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_05: She'll probably try to, you know, let's get you out of there.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_05: And so it took the week that I was in the hospital was the week it took him to get out of Iraq to Saudi to Africa to wherever to get over.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_05: So he shows up the day that I had gotten discharged from the hospital.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_05: And um, I was like, you know, I'm I'm feeling better and and you know, life is okay.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_05: Next morning I wake up and I'm like, I cannot, I cannot catch my breath.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_05: I can't, I can't take a deep breath.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_05: And I called the doctor and he goes, I'm sure I know what this is.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_05: He says, Come in.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_05: He says, actually, you know what?
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_05: Don't even come see me, go directly to radiology.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_05: I'm I'm putting an order in for a CT.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_05: I said, okay.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_05: So I go and I do it, and then I go over to him and he goes, You have a pulmonary pulmonary embolism.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_05: Because you've got blood clots in your lungs.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_05: Fantastic.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_05: Sounds sounds great.
• 49:47
  Douglas: Um typically what what is your thought process at all of this right now?
• 49:52
  Douglas: I just not only is the chemo just like stacking up, but all this the stress and everything of that's gotta be are you wondering if I'm ever gonna get through this?
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, I don't know.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_05: There were days like there were days that I distinctly remember like just this is I can't do this.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_05: This is awful.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_05: This is I cannot do this.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_05: And then it's like, you know, you suck it up and you move on and you get up and you and you do the next the next thing, the next thing, and and you don't you don't look at it as a month or a year or whatever.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_05: It's like today.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_05: What do I do today?
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_05: Today I can get off the couch, today I can, you know, walk out and check the mail.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_05: Today, you know, I stayed I only napped three times instead of five times, you know, whatever it was.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_05: Um so I I don't know.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_05: I never felt like this is gonna kill me.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_05: I never felt like I'm not gonna survive this.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_05: It was just like, well, that sucks.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_05: And do the next thing.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_05: Do the next thing.
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_05: Um typically with pulmonary embolisms, they make you stay in the hospital.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_05: And they didn't with me.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but I will tell you, I've had three children.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_05: That pulmonary embolism, the pain of that was worse than anything I've ever experienced.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_05: It was awful.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_05: It was awful, awful.
• 51:08
  Douglas: How do they treat that?
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_05: Uh with blood thinners, you get low uh uh heparin injections and stuff like that, and and great pain meds, which didn't even touch it.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, you they're like, Oh, we're gonna give you the good ones.
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_05: Here's double the dose, and I'm like, that's cute.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_05: It's still no.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_05: No, I remember Tim trying to help me because I could sit with my back against the couch with my legs up against the length of the couch, length of the couch, and it was pretty comfortable.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_05: And I must have had to go to bed or go to the bathroom or something, and I had turned, and then I was trying to get up, and we were like halfway with me in the halfway standing position, and it hurt so bad, and he's like, What do I do?
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_05: What and I was like, just let me go, let me drop, let me drop.
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_05: And he's like, I can't let you just drop, I can't let you fall.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_05: And I was like, put me back, and because it just it hurt so bad.
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_05: Whatever that movement was was just causing so so much pain.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_05: Just trying to stand up, just trying to stand up, and it was it was awful, it was awful, it was awful.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_05: So, but anyway, um, so I got through that, got to where I felt pretty great, um, and Tim went back to Iraq.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_05: And then um So how long was he home for?
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_05: He was home, he was he was there for like two weeks, maybe.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_05: Maybe.
• 52:15
  Douglas: Um so was that did that count as his R.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_05: Sure did.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_05: Sure did.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_05: That was his R and R.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_05: Uh-huh.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_02: Congratulations, Tim.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_02: You got to hang out in the hospital.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_05: Um, yeah, so so then he went back to Iraq, and I actually was I I took the boys and went back to Georgia and um, you know, kind of went back to life and and whatever else.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_05: And um, and then within, I don't know, three weeks, two weeks, I had a follow-up appointment with my oncologist going in and checking.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_05: Um they were like, How do you do that?
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_05: And I said, Do what?
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_05: Because I drove myself.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_05: My hemoglobin dropped back to a 5.1.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_05: And they were like, mm-mm.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_05: So another transfusion.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_05: And and then they they red crossed Tim again and they were like, I don't know what's going on with her blood, but this is not normal.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_05: Mm most people don't react like this after this the chemo and this far out and everything else.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_05: So uh, you know, we're suggesting that you come home.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_05: And at that time he had changed, there had been a change in the leadership, and his leadership said, I'm sorry, why are you even here?
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_05: He goes, Why are you why are you even here?
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_05: He says, Go home.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_05: And so then they sent him home that time and he stayed.
• 53:29
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and he stayed home.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_05: So yeah, by then it was just trying to get back onto life and figure things out, and but yeah, I was real mad because I had to uh I couldn't continue nursing school.
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_05: I had to sit out.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_05: They were like, we can't have you going through chemo and try to do clinicals and we can't have.
• 53:46
  Douglas: Tim it doesn't work that way.
• 53:47
  Douglas: No, no.
• 53:48
  Douglas: So how how long a delay was that for you?
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_05: Um it was a delay of about a year and a half because by the time I got to where I felt better, Tim got orders to move.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_05: Tim got orders to PCS.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_05: So then we got we got PCS to Missouri, and um then it was trying to find a school that would allow me to transfer and not make me start over.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_05: And typically in nursing schools, like they don't really accept, you know.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_05: I I'm not I don't know the the how they did their curriculum.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_05: Where our curriculum is this, we don't really accept that you start over, and I really didn't want to start over.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_05: And then I found one uh in Springfield.
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_05: How how how far I was two semesters into a five semester program.
• 54:32
  Douglas: Okay.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_05: So you're 40% in, you don't want to redo that.
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_05: I don't want to redo it.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_05: So um yeah, Cox University in Springfield um allowed me to transfer in, which was great.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_05: Um, so yeah, so then I got my nursing degree, and by then um we had been kind of toying with the idea of coming back here.
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_05: Um I had been bringing the boys up, driving from Missouri up here and spending the summers and and kind of taking over the tour business out on the lake and stuff, and um and Tim was like, Yeah, I'm just I'm tired of doing um tired of being active, which really we weren't tired of being active.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_05: We were tired of being active in hot and sticky places.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_05: We were like, look, send us back to Alaska, send us to I uh to to Washington State, to somewhere with mountains and stuff, and they're like, No, go to Georgia.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_05: We're like eh, we're bagging it.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_05: So Tim's like, yeah, I'm done.
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_05: Um so he didn't re-enlist, and we came back up to Haynes and moved up here I think in 2013.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_05: We moved back permanently.
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_05: And um Yeah, and he still did guard stuff, and I went to work at the clinic down here and um did the tours for a little bit, but then he got on full time with the fire department and was um EMS and fire down here.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_05: And so we sold the business to Tyrell and and him and Jeanette took it over and um raised the boys here and let them run feral and got to have all the fun stuff of of uh raising kids and you know, the things that you look back on as a kid and you're like, Oh yeah, that really sucked.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_05: And as a parent, you're like, No, it's great, it's great, they can't get away with anything.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_05: My boy, two two out of the three boys had really loud, obnoxious trucks, like I could hear them from anywhere in town.
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_05: It was like, yeah, they're fine, they can't get in too much trouble.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_05: So yeah, that was good.
• 56:21
  Douglas: So that leads us to the next medical incident.
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 56:28
  Douglas: What year was that?
• 56:29
  SPEAKER_05: I was in 2022.
• 56:30
  Douglas: 2022, moose hunting.
• 56:32
  Douglas: Moose hunting, so we're c we're coming up here on the fourth anniversary.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, that's pretty wild.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_05: Um, yeah, so we had gone, um the boys had all the I don't know, we had decided at some point that we were tired of uh being in Haynes and wanted out, and so we had moved to Montana right in the middle of the pandemic, right as the pandemic was kicking off.
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_05: I went down and managed a Nikki in a pediatrics department in um in a town in Montana.
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_05: Loved it, loved the job, the leadership was not great, and um the pandemic didn't help.
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and then Caleb decided he was like, Um, I want to graduate with my friends.
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_05: And we were like, okay.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_05: Um, so we flew him up here and he went to to live with grandma and grandpa for his last semester of his senior year, played basketball and stuff, and then Tim and me and Dawson flew into Ketchcan that March and showed up and surprised Caleb for uh regionals.
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_05: And Ketchcan Ketchcan is Ketchcan, like it's awful, it rains, it's miserable.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_05: Oh no, not in that year.
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_05: That year the tulips are through the dirt, it is beautiful, it is sunshiny, it did not rain the entire week, it was gorgeous.
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_05: And Dawson's like, Well, you let Caleb come back to graduate, I want to go back.
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_05: And I said, Babe, I let him go back for one semester, you have two years left.
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_05: I said, You're not going back for two years without you know, like, no, I'm not, I'm not doing that.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_05: And he's like, Well, but you let Caleb and Tim piped off, and he goes, Well, if he gets to go back to Alaska, so do I.
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_05: And I was like, Okay, fine.
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_02: Boats are in, mom got overridden.
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_05: Like, that's fine.
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_02: Back it up.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_05: Uh if I had been super, super happy at my job, it might have been different.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_05: But I had been at jobs enough that leadership mattered, and I was so stressed out every day, and it was not what I wanted, you know, it just it was not working, and so it made it an easy decision.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_05: So, anyway, so we moved back up.
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_05: Um, so yeah, uh, 2022, we were out getting ready for moose season.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_05: Um, it was me and mom and dad.
• 58:40
  SPEAKER_05: It was 9-11, because why not?
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_05: And it was beautiful, it was an absolutely gorgeous, beautiful day, and we were just going up to uh get gear organized and you know, do what you do to get ready for camp.
• 58:53
  SPEAKER_05: It was on a Sunday.
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and dad had had been having fits with the something with the airboat was goofy, and so he was he was messing around with it at the shop.
• 59:02
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and mom's like, Oh, I forgot the in-reach.
• 59:05
  SPEAKER_05: I got where's the in-reach?
• 59:06
  SPEAKER_05: I gotta have the in-reach.
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_05: And I was like, Oh.
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_05: So dad's like, go gas up the truck and go get the in-reach.
• 59:11
  SPEAKER_05: Mom and I bombed off and did that, and it was actually in the truck, it was down by the seatbelt holder the whole time.
• 59:17
  SPEAKER_05: Found it, got it.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_05: And then we went and dad had to drop off uh a dump truck at 18 mile.
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_05: So we picked up the airboat, and he's like, pick us up, pick me up on the way, and um, we'll be good to go.
• 59:30
  SPEAKER_05: There was construction, so it we got held up, and by the time we got to where he was at, he's like standing in the middle of the road, flagging us down in the middle of uh of us being pilot card through.
• 59:41
  SPEAKER_05: I just gotta stop picking the weird guy on the side of the road, it's fine.
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_05: So we do that.
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_05: It's a last bit.
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_05: It's fine, it's fine.
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_05: So pick him up, and we we go tearing off up there, and we've got mom and dad and me, and my three dogs at the time.
• 59:58
  SPEAKER_05: My three dogs, their two dogs, I don't know, we had a mess of dogs, and you know, just black and yellow totes full of camping gear and you know, just stuff, just stuff.
• 1:00:07
  SPEAKER_05: And um, like I said, it was gorgeous, it was beautiful.
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_05: And dad's like, um, you want to drive?
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_05: And I was like, sure.
• 1:00:13
  SPEAKER_05: And so I jump up in the airboat and we take off, and anybody who's driven airboats, airboats like skinny water, they like really thin, skinny water, heavy water, uh they bog down, they don't like it.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and so anyway, and I I ran the river a gazillion times.
• 1:00:29
  SPEAKER_05: You know, I was familiar with it, it wasn't that big of a deal.
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_05: And so we take off, and and I'm driving, and it is like I've never had a desire to go fly airplanes.
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_05: I fall asleep in them most of the time.
• 1:00:40
  SPEAKER_05: But dad's airboat has his seat sits up, the the captain's seat sits up.
• 1:00:44
  SPEAKER_05: It is so close to flying, it is so awesome, and you're just skimming over the water, and it was beautiful and sunny, and it was just it was awesome.
• 1:00:52
  SPEAKER_05: It was so so great.
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_05: Anyway, we're we're cutting around and doing whatever, and dad is sitting like at my feet just to kind of be there, and then mom's down below with all the dogs.
• 1:01:04
  SPEAKER_05: Came around a corner, and we were kind of scooting from one gravel bank to the other and and looking for the skinny water, and uh came around a corner, and I was like, okay, now we're gonna cut over here and go to the right-hand side, and the boat wouldn't turn.
• 1:01:20
  SPEAKER_05: I and I mean turn is you know they're controlled by fans anyway.
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_05: And so I'm pulling on the stick, and no, not going.
• 1:01:26
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, Am I being dumb?
• 1:01:27
  SPEAKER_05: I push on it the other way, and I'm like, I cannot get it to to cut over.
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_05: And so I kind of let off the gas.
• 1:01:33
  SPEAKER_05: Dad turns around, scowls at me, and smashes my foot down.
• 1:01:36
  SPEAKER_05: He's like, These things don't go if you don't have gas.
• 1:01:38
  SPEAKER_05: Like, there's you keep them moving, that's how they turn.
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_05: And I was like, it won't go, and he's looking at me, and um about that time I I like I glance up and I was like, Oh, that's a big mess of of leaves and stuff, and I was like, I can't peel off of it, I can't get away from it.
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_05: And um, and dad kind of looked at me and I was like, I can't turn, and then I looked up again and I was like, Oh, I'm gonna hit that.
• 1:02:06
  SPEAKER_05: But at that time, thousand percent just thought it was some alders, and I'm like, I'm gonna bounce off the the bank, and dad's gonna be like, What are you doing to my boat?
• 1:02:15
  SPEAKER_05: Knock it off, and I'm gonna get my butt chewed.
• 1:02:17
  SPEAKER_05: And so I was like, Oh, this is this is gonna be, you know, I was like, I'm gonna dump mom out or something because I was like, we're gonna hit and bounce off.
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_05: And it wasn't until the last minute that I saw the tree that I saw the big giant sweeper hanging clear out, and I was like, Oh shit, I'm gonna die.
• 1:02:32
  SPEAKER_05: I that was yeah, that it was that split second, and I was like, oh, this is this is really bad.
• 1:02:40
  SPEAKER_05: This is really bad.
• 1:02:42
  Douglas: Um how fast do you think you were going?
• 1:02:44
  Douglas: Like three quarter speed?
• 1:02:45
  SPEAKER_05: Oh yeah, at least at least, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:02:48
  SPEAKER_05: And the the log itself, as I don't, I don't think I could put my arms around it.
• 1:02:52
  SPEAKER_05: It's it's that h big and hanging out over the water.
• 1:02:55
  SPEAKER_05: Um so we hit and uh I got knocked out.
• 1:03:01
  SPEAKER_05: How long?
• 1:03:02
  SPEAKER_05: I don't know.
• 1:03:02
  Douglas: I woke up the bow hit the boat?
• 1:03:05
  SPEAKER_05: No, um the or the bow hit the tree.
• 1:03:08
  SPEAKER_05: I hit the tree.
• 1:03:09
  Douglas: You hit the tree.
• 1:03:10
  Douglas: I hit the tree.
• 1:03:11
  Douglas: So the boat if it was coming out over the top.
• 1:03:13
  Douglas: Yeah, so the boat went underneath.
• 1:03:14
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:03:15
  Douglas: Since you're up top, yeah, you took the full brunt of that.
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_05: So the the bow went underneath it, and mom went underneath it, and dad was at my feet and would have knocked knocked his head off, but he jumped forward and kind of went flat on the bow, and then I took all of it.
• 1:03:33
  SPEAKER_05: Um and so I woke up, and when it happened, it we had enough water and stuff that it must have like gone up this way and then kind of slid back a little bit or did something because all the dogs bailed off with no problem, except one.
• 1:03:47
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and mom was able to just literally like step off, and she was up on the bank.
• 1:03:52
  SPEAKER_05: And I woke up, came to whatever, and heard her get Nakole, get in a coal.
• 1:03:58
  SPEAKER_05: I woke up um with this knee pinned to my chest and a log in front of it.
• 1:04:03
  SPEAKER_05: And so that's how I was like, Well, I'm not dead, so let's start with that.
• 1:04:09
  SPEAKER_05: And I was very much taking an inventory of everything that was like, okay, can I move fingers?
• 1:04:14
  SPEAKER_05: Can I move toes?
• 1:04:15
  SPEAKER_05: Can I move on?
• 1:04:15
  Douglas: Because you've been in RN for how long at this point?
• 1:04:18
  SPEAKER_05: Uh almost uh almost 10 years.
• 1:04:20
  Douglas: Almost 10 years.
• 1:04:21
  Douglas: So you got a pretty good understanding of what's going on in your yeah, yeah.
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and so I was like, you know, things can I move?
• 1:04:30
  SPEAKER_05: Can I do this?
• 1:04:31
  SPEAKER_05: When dad like showed up in my face and he's like, we gotta move, we gotta move.
• 1:04:35
  SPEAKER_05: And he reached past me and turned off the the boat.
• 1:04:39
  SPEAKER_05: At that point, the engine was still running, I'm still being pushed against it, and as soon as he did, he's like, We're sinking.
• 1:04:46
  SPEAKER_05: But if he didn't turn it off, I was still getting pinned against the log.
• 1:04:49
  SPEAKER_05: So it's like and he's like, I gotta, we gotta move, we gotta move.
• 1:04:53
  SPEAKER_05: And um, so as soon as he turned the engine off, we were able to get away from the log, and he got me out of the seat, and I knew I was I knew I was hurt, but I didn't really have any idea of how badly um until I'm standing in the water up to about I don't know my knees, and I went and took a step, and that first step I said, Dad, my hips broke.
• 1:05:16
  SPEAKER_05: I can feel it.
• 1:05:17
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, it's it didn't hurt.
• 1:05:19
  SPEAKER_05: Adrenaline is a powerful drug, it didn't hurt at that time, but I was like, I can feel it.
• 1:05:24
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, and he goes, Okay, we gotta get out of here, we've gotta get off the boat.
• 1:05:28
  SPEAKER_05: Um, so we get to the bow of the boat, and then the bank is now like six feet and just steep, and there's no way to climb.
• 1:05:38
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, if I hadn't been broken, I probably could have.
• 1:05:40
  SPEAKER_05: Um my little mini Aussie was still in the boat, and she's like now swimming around in the boat.
• 1:05:48
  SPEAKER_05: And I was like, Dad, you gotta get Luna.
• 1:05:50
  SPEAKER_05: You gotta he's like, I don't care about the dog.
• 1:05:51
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, You gotta get Luna.
• 1:05:53
  SPEAKER_05: So he picks her up, and she's never been skinny a day in her life, and like throws his shoulder out trying to chuck this 52 pound football.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_05: Up the bank, gets her up there, gets her out of the way, gets me to the bow of the boat, and lays me on the on the front of the airboat while he's trying to figure out.
• 1:06:09
  SPEAKER_05: He's just like, Okay, I think we're gonna have to put a rope up and around the tree, and then we can, you know, kind of hoist you up that way.
• 1:06:17
  SPEAKER_05: And I am so I'm laying there and everything hurt.
• 1:06:20
  SPEAKER_05: And so in my infinite wisdom, I rolled over and then was like didn't have anything to hold on to anymore and started slipping, and dad's like yelling at me, what are you doing?
• 1:06:30
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, I don't know, I'm just trying to hurt less.
• 1:06:32
  SPEAKER_05: I'm just trying to hurt less, make it suck less.
• 1:06:35
  SPEAKER_05: So anyway, I've still got my float coat, everything on, and was able to get it underneath my armpits and stuff and um and get up on the th on the bank and then just kind of take a stock, I guess, of yeah, I'm I'm I'm broken, like there's there's lots going on here.
• 1:06:53
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but I could feel everything, I could move my toes, I could, you know, I'm like, I'm not paralyzed, which was really uh when I done it was my ultimate concern.
• 1:07:01
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, there I'm gonna because when I hit it my chest and stuff hurt so bad, and I was like, oh, I broke my back.
• 1:07:07
  SPEAKER_05: Um but anyway, so we did that.
• 1:07:10
  SPEAKER_05: Dad had to go back to the boat and get the in-reach because it was in the basket under the captain's seat, and smashed the in-reach button.
• 1:07:17
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and that went to a phone call to Tyrell and then to EMS and everybody else.
• 1:07:23
  SPEAKER_05: And so we knew we had people coming.
• 1:07:25
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but we were also, you know, like unless you knew we were there, you couldn't really see the boat was sinking and pretty much like disappearing.
• 1:07:33
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and it's fall time and everything is what color what color was your float coat?
• 1:07:38
  SPEAKER_05: It was dark blue.
• 1:07:39
  Douglas: Dark blue?
• 1:07:39
  SPEAKER_05: It was dark blue.
• 1:07:40
  SPEAKER_05: Um, yeah, and dad took his bright orange one and hung it out on the farthest branch that he could, trying to, you know, flag people down and stuff.
• 1:07:48
  SPEAKER_05: And um, and it actually was Dawson grabbed our airboat from the shop and drove it up, and then Ty and Jeanette um went up to the and they all met up at the air at the landing up there, and um it just so happened that they never even had to put our boat in the water, they hit it, and Robin and Cheryl Stickler were up there, and Davy and Inez and Autumn were up there, and they had just launched their boats, and we're getting ready to go enjoy the beautiful weather.
• 1:08:13
  SPEAKER_05: And Ty was like, I've got somebody hurt, I don't know how bad, I don't know who it is.
• 1:08:18
  SPEAKER_05: I've I need help.
• 1:08:19
  SPEAKER_05: And they were like, get in, get in.
• 1:08:21
  SPEAKER_05: And um, so um by then I don't even know how long it had been.
• 1:08:26
  SPEAKER_05: We we wrecked at about 12 30 in the afternoon.
• 1:08:29
  SPEAKER_05: Um and so we had heard earlier, I I thought I heard a boat, and it was a stupid plane.
• 1:08:36
  SPEAKER_05: Never have been more disappointed that it was a plane, not a boat.
• 1:08:39
  SPEAKER_05: I'm like, uh, stupid plane.
• 1:08:41
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but then so they got there, and the in between then, like I knew I was a little shocky.
• 1:08:48
  SPEAKER_05: Um, we were drinking Pepsi and stuff to try to keep blood sugar and stuff like that.
• 1:08:53
  SPEAKER_05: Mom came over and she's like, Nicole, she um it she goes, You're bleeding.
• 1:08:57
  SPEAKER_05: You've got blood down on on the back side of your leg.
• 1:09:00
  SPEAKER_05: And it felt more comfortable to have this broken hip elevated, so I had a sleeping bag underneath it, and so the blood was running down the back of my leg and pooling.
• 1:09:08
  SPEAKER_05: And I was like, Is it lots and is it bright red?
• 1:09:12
  SPEAKER_05: And she goes, It's no, it's not pumping, and it's not, and I said, Then it's fine, it's fine.
• 1:09:17
  SPEAKER_05: Not gonna worry about it, not gonna worry about it, it's fine.
• 1:09:20
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and so then Tyrell and them got there and still trying to figure out like what we're gonna do.
• 1:09:28
  SPEAKER_05: Dad's been trying to bust a trail to get off, like uh get a stretcher to be able to get through this alders and all this mess to be able to get somewhere where we could get to a helicopter, a boat, a something.
• 1:09:40
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and Tyrell shows up, and that was like one of the first times that I don't know why I well I do.
• 1:09:47
  SPEAKER_05: I had broken ribs, I couldn't breathe very good, and I changed position and they got me up to where I could sit up a little bit, and I was like, oh my gosh, that's so much better.
• 1:09:55
  SPEAKER_05: I could, I could, it didn't hurt as much.
• 1:09:58
  SPEAKER_05: And so Tyrell came behind me and put his back up against my back and just stayed there and supported me and held me up so that I could breathe a little bit and just never complained.
• 1:10:08
  SPEAKER_05: He goes, he he's like, You're sliding.
• 1:10:09
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, I know, I'm not meaning to, and he'd readjust and keep me propped up and keep me keep me upright.
• 1:10:16
  SPEAKER_05: Um and then the state trooper went zipping by and didn't even see us.
• 1:10:21
  SPEAKER_05: And so Davy, I think Davy went smoking after him and his boat and said, Dude, you you went past swinging a miss, come back.
• 1:10:29
  SPEAKER_05: Brought him back.
• 1:10:31
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and they at that point had still been communicating with the in-reach.
• 1:10:36
  SPEAKER_05: Um, you know, there was still communic trying to figure out how to get me off the river.
• 1:10:40
  SPEAKER_05: Like, what what are we doing?
• 1:10:41
  SPEAKER_05: What how are we doing this?
• 1:10:43
  SPEAKER_05: Um by then EMS had shown up um and a couple of them had gotten in one of the boats and they had a backboard, and there was conversation about Constantine or a different helicopter was maybe gonna be used, um, but there was no no confirmation and stuff, and Nemeck finally he said no, he he's like he let he looked at Robin and he said, Can you get her out of here?
• 1:11:06
  SPEAKER_05: Robin said, Absolutely.
• 1:11:07
  SPEAKER_05: And um so he they put me on a backboard, and um I Robin probably doesn't remember this, but I remember this.
• 1:11:16
  SPEAKER_05: He was like, Okay, um well we're gonna we gotta move you and so they were trying to get me on the backboard.
• 1:11:21
  SPEAKER_05: He goes, I'm just gonna put my hand in the in your pocket right here.
• 1:11:24
  SPEAKER_05: I was wearing black jeans, and he's like, I'm just gonna put my hand in the and then because they were like, Don't pull on her, lift her with her clothes, don't pull on her.
• 1:11:34
  SPEAKER_05: We don't know what all's broken, but you know, everything hurts.
• 1:11:36
  SPEAKER_05: And I just remember laughing at him and I said, No, you're not, they're stupid girl pants, there's no pocket, it's fake.
• 1:11:43
  SPEAKER_05: And I just looked at him and I was like, they're not, they're fake pockets, you can't you can't do that.
• 1:11:48
  SPEAKER_05: Anyway.
• 1:11:49
  SPEAKER_02: The things you remember, right?
• 1:11:51
  SPEAKER_05: Remember.
• 1:11:52
  SPEAKER_05: Um, yeah, so anyway, so they got me on a backboard and then put me in the jet boat and put me the head of my uh my head up on the very front of it, and then my feet up against the um the driver's console, and then just like held on to me, and dad was in there with me and stuff.
• 1:12:10
  SPEAKER_05: And it wasn't until later, like you think back on things, and I was like, if he'd hit a sandbar or something and I had launched off of there, now you're strapped to a plastic.
• 1:12:19
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:12:20
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, oh, yeah, yeah.
• 1:12:21
  Douglas: But I mean we had to get off good thing you had somebody that knew how to run the river.
• 1:12:25
  SPEAKER_05: Right, right, right.
• 1:12:26
  SPEAKER_05: We were so we were good.
• 1:12:27
  SPEAKER_05: Um, yeah, and and that's what dad said.
• 1:12:29
  SPEAKER_05: He goes, he goes, Man, you gotta make this smooth, you gotta make this and there was no like drops and stuff, like you get on the river and stuff.
• 1:12:36
  SPEAKER_05: No, he was great.
• 1:12:37
  SPEAKER_05: He was it was awesome, it was it was fantastic.
• 1:12:40
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and y there was nothing that anybody could do for me on that riverbank.
• 1:12:44
  SPEAKER_05: You had to get me off the riverbank.
• 1:12:46
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, like you gotta get we can't treat you here.
• 1:12:49
  SPEAKER_05: So um so anyway, got there, got to the ambulance.
• 1:12:52
  SPEAKER_05: Um where was the ambulance at?
• 1:12:53
  SPEAKER_05: They were at the at the airboat landing.
• 1:12:55
  SPEAKER_05: They were right there at the airboating.
• 1:12:56
  Douglas: At the Kelsaw.
• 1:12:58
  SPEAKER_05: At the Kelsaw.
• 1:12:59
  SPEAKER_05: Um, so got me loaded up into there.
• 1:13:02
  SPEAKER_05: And um, you know, and I don't know if people realize this, but like different levels of of EMS and paramedics and stuff like that can do different things.
• 1:13:10
  SPEAKER_05: And um when you're not high enough level, you can't access the good drugs.
• 1:13:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 1:13:14
  SPEAKER_05: So I got two Tylenol.
• 1:13:16
  SPEAKER_02: Two Tylenol.
• 1:13:17
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, two Tylenol.
• 1:13:19
  SPEAKER_05: Two Tylenol with a chaser of Pepsi.
• 1:13:21
  Douglas: Because they can't that's all they're that's all they had from the There was no Tim.
• 1:13:25
  SPEAKER_05: There was no uh Tim at the time was working for Guardian, but he was stationed or he was based in Ketchikan, so he wasn't there.
• 1:13:32
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but yeah, there's no paramedic, there's no nobody they could access the good drugs, and so I got two Tylenol.
• 1:13:38
  SPEAKER_05: Um yeah, so got it.
• 1:13:41
  Douglas: How was that right coming out of the Kelsaw in the ambulance?
• 1:13:44
  Douglas: Oh my god.
• 1:13:44
  SPEAKER_05: It was awful.
• 1:13:45
  SPEAKER_05: It was so it was so awful.
• 1:13:46
  SPEAKER_05: They had put a uh pelvic binder on um to kind of like try to hold everything.
• 1:13:52
  SPEAKER_05: You can do it with a sheet, and so you just kind of pull it and criss it, cross it and then pull it tight.
• 1:13:56
  SPEAKER_05: So like my hip and my pelvis were pretty stable.
• 1:13:59
  SPEAKER_05: Um at the time I didn't know how many ribs I had broken.
• 1:14:03
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and that's the yeah, that's where the pain was.
• 1:14:06
  SPEAKER_05: Oh yeah, that was awesome.
• 1:14:08
  Douglas: How many ribs did you end up breaking?
• 1:14:09
  SPEAKER_05: Six.
• 1:14:10
  Douglas: Six ribs, front and back.
• 1:14:12
  SPEAKER_05: Front and back.
• 1:14:13
  SPEAKER_05: I broke them, I broke them all off the front and on the back, so like those six ribs were free-floating.
• 1:14:18
  Douglas: Free-floating the hole.
• 1:14:19
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah, it's good times.
• 1:14:21
  SPEAKER_05: Um, so got me.
• 1:14:23
  Douglas: The definition of good times is different than mine, Nicole.
• 1:14:26
  SPEAKER_05: They give me to the clinic and uh They didn't just straight away metavaccu did you.
• 1:14:30
  SPEAKER_05: I think they were trying, but there wasn't.
• 1:14:32
  SPEAKER_05: So actually, actually, I know they were trying.
• 1:14:35
  SPEAKER_05: Guardian try Guardian was in route to come, but they landed in Skagway and popped a tire.
• 1:14:41
  SPEAKER_05: And they couldn't come.
• 1:14:42
  Douglas: So why did they did they have somebody to pick up in Skagway also?
• 1:14:46
  SPEAKER_05: Or why were they no, they were dropping something off in Skagway.
• 1:14:50
  SPEAKER_05: I don't know what it was.
• 1:14:50
  SPEAKER_05: There was something I think they were dropping uh equipment back to the clinic or something, and and they busted a tire and they popped a tire.
• 1:14:58
  SPEAKER_05: And so then they were they were out.
• 1:15:00
  SPEAKER_05: They were out.
• 1:15:01
  SPEAKER_05: Um airlift Northwest, they fly bigger planes that barely like meet the minimum for our runway.
• 1:15:09
  SPEAKER_05: And they were like, um, this pilot's timing out, and this plane is timing out, and we can't do it.
• 1:15:15
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and there was a guy, it still is a guy, his name is Ben, he works with Guardian, and um he got on the phone and talked to the pilots and talked to the crew, and he's like, No, I need you guys to go there and get her.
• 1:15:29
  SPEAKER_05: She is one you've got to get her out of there.
• 1:15:31
  SPEAKER_05: Like we cannot leave her in Haynes.
• 1:15:33
  SPEAKER_05: You've got to get and it was a bluebird, beautiful, beautiful day.
• 1:15:37
  SPEAKER_05: And there is a picture somewhere of both of their planes on the tarmac, and then literally they landed both of them, swapped their crew around so they could get this plane with that crew that didn't time out so they could get me.
• 1:15:49
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:15:50
  SPEAKER_05: So they could fly me out.
• 1:15:51
  SPEAKER_05: Because otherwise, they're I I don't know how long I would have had to have waited.
• 1:15:54
  SPEAKER_05: And then uh Juno was like, No, don't even stop here, go to Anchorage.
• 1:15:58
  Douglas: Coast Guard wasn't available to come get you.
• 1:16:00
  SPEAKER_05: Um the Coast Guard doesn't like to come unless you've been denied by everybody else.
• 1:16:05
  SPEAKER_05: So they would have maybe eventually, I don't know.
• 1:16:08
  SPEAKER_05: Um and at the clinic they kind of assessed things a little bit more, did some more x-rays.
• 1:16:15
  SPEAKER_05: They were like, Um, your pelvis is broke, your hip is broke, uh, my patella was shattered, and then the seat that was on dad's well probably still is, um, is a fiberglass.
• 1:16:28
  SPEAKER_05: And so when I had gotten pushed back, um the the chair cut in behind my knee, and so like I had not a lot of knee still attached to the rest of my leg.
• 1:16:38
  SPEAKER_05: It was, I mean, it was a that's what was bleeding.
• 1:16:40
  Douglas: That's what was bleeding.
• 1:16:41
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I had this huge gash, went through muscle and nerves and blood vessels and stuff back there.
• 1:16:47
  SPEAKER_05: Um, so that all and and now I've been sitting in the Chilkat River water, so it's nice and clean.
• 1:16:53
  SPEAKER_05: Um yeah, so so there was that, and then the rib fractures.
• 1:16:58
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and they were, you know, Haynes is like, we don't want to keep her here.
• 1:17:02
  Douglas: Um they don't have the doesn't know the facilities there for that.
• 1:17:06
  SPEAKER_05: No.
• 1:17:06
  SPEAKER_05: So they got me out.
• 1:17:08
  SPEAKER_05: Um mom was able to fly with me.
• 1:17:10
  SPEAKER_05: Uh Tim met me up in Anchorage, um, got into so I wrecked at like 12 30.
• 1:17:16
  SPEAKER_05: I got into Providence ER trauma bay at like uh 10 30 at night.
• 1:17:21
  SPEAKER_05: So about 10 hours to get all the way up there.
• 1:17:23
  SPEAKER_05: 10 hours to get up there.
• 1:17:25
  SPEAKER_05: Yep.
• 1:17:25
  Douglas: I'm assuming once you got to the clinic, they gave you something stronger than title.
• 1:17:28
  SPEAKER_05: I did.
• 1:17:28
  SPEAKER_05: Um, yeah, Rachel.
• 1:17:29
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, she gave me good drugs, I got morphine and stuff.
• 1:17:32
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I do distinctly very much remember of the provider that was there at the time.
• 1:17:36
  SPEAKER_05: She was like, um, because they had one IV, but I was cold and clamppy and and uh you know, all the things shocky.
• 1:17:42
  SPEAKER_05: And they were like, we need another line, and she goes, Oh, we'll just IO her.
• 1:17:45
  SPEAKER_05: And I was like, You will not.
• 1:17:46
  Douglas: What's IO?
• 1:17:47
  SPEAKER_05: Intra osseous.
• 1:17:48
  Douglas: What's it?
• 1:17:49
  SPEAKER_05: It means they're gonna put a needle into one of my big long bones and access and do access.
• 1:17:54
  SPEAKER_05: Oh it cut they come preloaded with a little drill.
• 1:17:56
  SPEAKER_05: Ring ning and it goes right into your into your here or into your tibial plateau or uh and they swear it does not hurt when you get that drill into your bone.
• 1:18:09
  SPEAKER_05: What hurts is when they then submit and they push all of the um the uh saline solution to break up the bone marrow that's in there, that's what makes people levitate off the table.
• 1:18:21
  SPEAKER_05: That's what hurts.
• 1:18:22
  SPEAKER_05: But drilling into your bone doesn't really hurt.
• 1:18:25
  Douglas: So not being a I don't I need some more information on this.
• 1:18:30
  Douglas: So they're gonna put pain drugs inside the board.
• 1:18:33
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it's a it's a little drill and it's a it's a catheter, a needle that goes in, and then they can just attach the tubing, and you can give people fluids and pain meds.
• 1:18:42
  SPEAKER_05: You can give anything you can give through an IV, you can give through an I.O.
• 1:18:46
  Douglas: So what what's the benefit of doing the IO instead of you don't have to sit here and futz around to try to find a vein.
• 1:18:51
  SPEAKER_05: Slam it in there and you're good to go.
• 1:18:53
  Douglas: And which is probably all right if the person's not conscious or doesn't know what it entails, but you knew what was coming.
• 1:18:59
  SPEAKER_05: I knew what it was and I was still awake.
• 1:19:01
  Douglas: And you're like, oh hell but no we're not, no we're not.
• 1:19:05
  SPEAKER_05: And Rachel, thank God, she goes, let me just give her because I did I didn't have lots of fluids in the ambulance.
• 1:19:10
  SPEAKER_05: And she goes, let me give her more fluids, warm her up, and I'll use the ultrasound and I can get another line.
• 1:19:15
  SPEAKER_05: And she did, thank God, because I was like, you are not and I told the provider, I was like, you are not IOing me as long as I'm still awake.
• 1:19:21
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, you are not, no.
• 1:19:23
  SPEAKER_05: Um so I did not get an I-O.
• 1:19:25
  SPEAKER_05: So got hooked up with the everybody else.
• 1:19:28
  SPEAKER_02: If you're still awake, say no to the IO.
• 1:19:32
  SPEAKER_05: Not a fan.
• 1:19:32
  SPEAKER_05: So then the airlift crew gave me ketamine, um, which Tim and I argue about all the time.
• 1:19:37
  SPEAKER_05: He uses it in his world all the time, and it is it has its uses.
• 1:19:41
  SPEAKER_05: For me, they kept doing push doses of ketamine, so I was like up down, up, down, and um having these violent hallucination, weird things going on, and then I would um basically was not on this plane of reality, but with it enough that I knew I wasn't, hated it, hated it, hated it, hated it.
• 1:20:00
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but it's a it's a very strong disassociative and and it does have its its uses, but usually they do it as a drip, so you have a constant instead of this.
• 1:20:09
  Douglas: This up and down.
• 1:20:10
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so that I was not a fan.
• 1:20:12
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but anyway, yes, better than the two Tylenol that I had earlier.
• 1:20:15
  SPEAKER_05: So got up there.
• 1:20:17
  SPEAKER_05: Um they I had a collapsed lung, so they put a chest tube in.
• 1:20:23
  SPEAKER_05: Um and then found out that my sacrum and scapula, my my shoulder blade were also broken.
• 1:20:31
  Douglas: Uh same shoulder that you broke when you were younger?
• 1:20:34
  Douglas: Yeah.
• 1:20:35
  Douglas: Yeah.
• 1:20:35
  Douglas: Yeah.
• 1:20:36
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:20:36
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, really, all my injuries were completely on the right side.
• 1:20:39
  Douglas: Everything on the right side.
• 1:20:40
  SPEAKER_05: Everything was on the right side.
• 1:20:41
  SPEAKER_05: The only thing that was on my left side was um this funny French term that I can't remember what it is, but it was basically a shearing injury.
• 1:20:50
  SPEAKER_05: Like all your muscle and your tissue and everything um lived together, and the handle on dad's airboat, it had came back and pushed against my leg, and so it re it pulled the muscle off that fascia and created like this opening that then filled with fluid.
• 1:21:06
  SPEAKER_05: And that thing hurt so bad because the fluid would push back and forth.
• 1:21:11
  SPEAKER_05: Oh my god, it was awful.
• 1:21:12
  SPEAKER_05: And there was never a wound on it, so it couldn't drain.
• 1:21:16
  SPEAKER_05: Um, it was it it was awful.
• 1:21:18
  SPEAKER_05: That pain was way worse than anything else.
• 1:21:20
  Douglas: So how how do they fix that?
• 1:21:22
  Douglas: Do they just put a tap in it with a needle or something to draw the fluid off?
• 1:21:25
  Douglas: They didn't have to do that.
• 1:21:25
  Douglas: They just left it to heal on its own, which it didn't.
• 1:21:28
  SPEAKER_05: That was another surgery.
• 1:21:30
  Douglas: So I've had So how how many surgeries came out of this?
• 1:21:33
  Douglas: Three.
• 1:21:34
  Douglas: Three surgeries.
• 1:21:35
  SPEAKER_05: So far.
• 1:21:35
  Douglas: So far.
• 1:21:36
  SPEAKER_05: So far, yeah.
• 1:21:37
  SPEAKER_05: So the my hip and my pelvis, um they put hardware in that night.
• 1:21:43
  SPEAKER_05: So I've got pretty cool hardware.
• 1:21:45
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and as soon as that was stabilized, it they didn't hurt.
• 1:21:48
  SPEAKER_05: They didn't they didn't cause me any problems.
• 1:21:50
  SPEAKER_05: Um my knee was in like, I don't know, 30 pieces.
• 1:21:55
  SPEAKER_05: My my kneecap was just destroyed.
• 1:21:57
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and then the big cut behind it had damaged a lot of tissue and damaged a lot of stuff.
• 1:22:03
  SPEAKER_05: Um, so I was in a complete immobilizer for eight weeks, no weight, couldn't bend it.
• 1:22:08
  Douglas: Is that still were you in the hospital for eight weeks, or did you you were able to come home?
• 1:22:12
  Douglas: I was able to come home.
• 1:22:13
  Douglas: Okay.
• 1:22:13
  SPEAKER_05: Um chest tube, I think I had that for four days, and then they they four or five days and they removed the chest tube.
• 1:22:20
  SPEAKER_05: Um and then this thing on my on my left leg.
• 1:22:25
  SPEAKER_05: And so I did end up the following year, so I did that in September, the following June.
• 1:22:30
  SPEAKER_05: I had a surgery on my knee because it had broke off some of the pieces of the patella or the kneecap had broke off and were free-floating.
• 1:22:37
  SPEAKER_05: So they went in and removed those because they were causing a lot of pain.
• 1:22:40
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and then I went into a and he tried to at that point in time the orthopedist tried to fix my left leg and it didn't stay.
• 1:22:48
  SPEAKER_05: Um so then I went to a plastic surgeon and he ended up putting in um drains.
• 1:22:54
  SPEAKER_05: And every like three days we would back the drains out like half an inch and had it with a wound vac.
• 1:23:00
  SPEAKER_05: And so that it kept the pressure on it and finally made that tissue adhere back to where it was supposed to go.
• 1:23:06
  SPEAKER_05: But yeah, that was stupid.
• 1:23:09
  SPEAKER_05: It it finally worked, but it was really annoying to finally to try to get that to do.
• 1:23:14
  SPEAKER_05: No, I left the hospital the day that Al Badgley came in.
• 1:23:20
  SPEAKER_05: So I remember very clearly I was in the hospital and they were in there getting me discharged and getting me ready to go when somebody somebody had called and they were like, Oh my gosh, Al just um Al's got a broken back and he's coming into Providence.
• 1:23:34
  SPEAKER_05: And we literally, I I think we might have been there at the same time, but it was the same day I came in and he left, or he came in and I went home.
• 1:23:42
  Douglas: So how long were you in the hospital?
• 1:23:44
  SPEAKER_05: A week.
• 1:23:45
  Douglas: A week.
• 1:23:46
  Douglas: Yep.
• 1:23:46
  Douglas: So with all this stuff to keep you immobilized, how do you get home?
• 1:23:49
  SPEAKER_05: They metavact me back home.
• 1:23:50
  Douglas: They met they didn't get back to the back.
• 1:23:51
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, guardian, guardian metavact.
• 1:23:52
  Douglas: I was trying to figure that out.
• 1:23:53
  Douglas: I was like, there's no way you're coming back on Alaska Airlines.
• 1:23:56
  Douglas: Nope.
• 1:23:56
  SPEAKER_05: Nope, nope, they metavaced me back home.
• 1:23:58
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and then we were in um so they brought me home and I was yeah, I mean, for all intents and purpose.
• 1:24:08
  SPEAKER_05: Like I was sore.
• 1:24:09
  SPEAKER_05: There was things that hurt.
• 1:24:10
  SPEAKER_05: The first time I sneezed, oh my god, I thought my freaking spirit left my body because it was so awful with six broken ribs that oh, it was awful, awful, awful, awful.
• 1:24:23
  SPEAKER_05: Um, so yeah, that was fun.
• 1:24:25
  SPEAKER_05: But other than that, like I started going back to work part-time from home because I could work, I could work remote, um and and stuff, and then Tim was like he was ten on, ten days on, twenty off.
• 1:24:37
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and I was like, I don't know, after about three weeks, I was like, dude, just go home or go go to work.
• 1:24:41
  SPEAKER_05: Go to work.
• 1:24:42
  SPEAKER_05: You're you know, there's nothing you can do for me.
• 1:24:44
  SPEAKER_05: I'm just kicking around the house.
• 1:24:45
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, go to go back to work.
• 1:24:46
  SPEAKER_05: So he did, and then I went septic.
• 1:24:51
  SPEAKER_02: Of course you did.
• 1:24:52
  SPEAKER_02: Of course I did.
• 1:24:54
  SPEAKER_02: This couldn't have been easy, Nicole.
• 1:24:56
  SPEAKER_05: So I yeah, um, they had pulled the last bit of s of stitches out from behind my knee, and it must have been, I don't know, just a fluke or something got it disturbed a pus pocket that was inside of it or something, I don't know.
• 1:25:11
  SPEAKER_05: And I yeah, I was sicker than a dog and ended up back at the clinic, and they were like, Oh yeah, you're you're septic.
• 1:25:17
  SPEAKER_05: And so I went to Juno.
• 1:25:19
  SPEAKER_05: Um and that was kind of a mess.
• 1:25:21
  SPEAKER_05: The ED was was awful.
• 1:25:24
  SPEAKER_05: I couldn't get like by that point I was I had all these meds that I was taking at home because of all my pain.
• 1:25:31
  SPEAKER_05: And of course I didn't bring them with me, and they wouldn't give them to me in the ER, and then I was there over shift change and had to like oh it was it was awful.
• 1:25:39
  SPEAKER_05: Um the surgeon that I had didn't want to just open up that wound and do a washout, which is what probably should have happened.
• 1:25:48
  SPEAKER_05: So he would come in every day and work from both sides and like milk the pus out through the suture holes instead of just cleaning it out and opening it up.
• 1:25:57
  SPEAKER_05: So that was that was a good time.
• 1:25:59
  Douglas: I was gonna say that that sounds a little painful.
• 1:26:01
  Douglas: Awesome.
• 1:26:02
  Douglas: Yeah.
• 1:26:02
  SPEAKER_05: And so I was a week in the hospital down in at Bartlett when I went septic afterwards, and then came home and behaved.
• 1:26:09
  SPEAKER_05: So yeah, no, no, it was not what I'd recommend.
• 1:26:14
  SPEAKER_05: Do not recommend.
• 1:26:15
  SPEAKER_05: Destroyed the boat.
• 1:26:17
  SPEAKER_05: Um but by then it was completely sunk, and so dad had gone back up, and all you could see was the little yellow KC lights um that were sticking out of the water, depending on what level the water was.
• 1:26:30
  SPEAKER_05: Um yeah, the boat was completely sunk.
• 1:26:32
  SPEAKER_05: They went up there in the winter time and made multiple attempts to get it up out of the water and onto the shore and all that, and um they were out there with George and the boys and Tim and stuff and cutting big blocks of ice out and stuff, and I think it took 'em four trips and they finally got it.
• 1:26:55
  SPEAKER_05: They got it up and we're pulling it along the ice and we're just trying to get it to the shore to where it could be stabilized, and it broke through the ice and started pulling the quads back with George.
• 1:27:09
  SPEAKER_05: And uh then they finally got the stupid thing out, and then dad spent the whole he spent that summer rebuilding it, put a grabbed found a new new old 350 engine.
• 1:27:19
  SPEAKER_05: That one runs off of Chevy 350s, and uh put a new one in and rebuilt the cage and um the the hole itself had no damage to it.
• 1:27:28
  SPEAKER_05: It was it was totally fine and and uh yeah, rebuilt it and had it back on the river the next year and have you driven it?
• 1:27:35
  SPEAKER_05: I have not driven it.
• 1:27:36
  SPEAKER_05: I've ridden in it several times.
• 1:27:38
  SPEAKER_05: Um I think the first time I was back on the river after that was in an uh Georgia's jetboat and it was rough.
• 1:27:48
  SPEAKER_05: It was not like you know, you I don't know, it's your body knows more than you're gonna be.
• 1:27:56
  Douglas: No, it was the success of being in that air spot.
• 1:27:59
  SPEAKER_05: It was a hundred percent.
• 1:28:00
  SPEAKER_05: The mental and and I didn't expect that.
• 1:28:02
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I was like, you know, you live in Alaska, there's a hundred ways to kill you before noon, and so um I didn't I didn't expect that.
• 1:28:10
  SPEAKER_05: And I rem I remember when I was on the river and um the stupid little fat dog that was with me um when I wrecked was with me, and I just remember sitting there just like petting her and being like, Oh, this is not great.
• 1:28:21
  SPEAKER_05: This is not great.
• 1:28:22
  SPEAKER_05: I didn't pass out, I didn't get too too crazy, but man, the first time you go by that giant sweeper that's still there, it's still there to this day.
• 1:28:30
  SPEAKER_05: Um, man, it's it's eerie and it's yeah, it's not super great.
• 1:28:34
  SPEAKER_05: It's not not super.
• 1:28:36
  Douglas: Has it gotten easier time to get it?
• 1:28:38
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it was it was only like the first couple of times that I that I ran the river that I was uneasy, and ever since then, I am fine.
• 1:28:44
  Douglas: Do you see yourself driving the airboat again?
• 1:28:47
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:28:48
  SPEAKER_05: I drive the jet boat, so drive, yeah.
• 1:28:50
  SPEAKER_05: It wasn't the boat's fault.
• 1:28:52
  Douglas: I mean, um it was Well, but it's still that that mental that mental aspect, Nicole, of just you know you you can tell yourself it's not your fault, but still putting back on that horse, as they'd say, sometimes can be tough.
• 1:29:05
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and that was the thing, is like I was really uh irritated or disappointed or frustrated with myself because I was like, how did I do that?
• 1:29:12
  SPEAKER_05: Like, you know, Heather has driven it, dad's driven it, like why why what happened?
• 1:29:18
  SPEAKER_05: What did I do wrong on why this stupid thing wrecked?
• 1:29:21
  SPEAKER_05: Like, what what was the deal?
• 1:29:23
  SPEAKER_05: And it wasn't until the water dropped a little bit um that we figured out what had happened, and dad's like, it wouldn't have mattered who was driving it.
• 1:29:30
  SPEAKER_05: And there was um just under the surface of the water, it was there was two cottonwood trees that were about this big around, and they had laid end over end or end to end and had made like a rail right underneath the water, and that's why when I was turning Yeah, the boat was caught on that and it wasn't gonna come off of it and it couldn't get off, and that's why I was like, why can't I turn?
• 1:29:52
  SPEAKER_05: Why can't I get away from this?
• 1:29:53
  SPEAKER_05: And it was because I was on this rail that pushed me right into this big giant sweeper, and we it was just under the water enough that you couldn't see it.
• 1:30:01
  SPEAKER_05: And when the water dropped, it was like, oh yeah.
• 1:30:03
  SPEAKER_04: There you go.
• 1:30:04
  SPEAKER_05: You can see it right there.
• 1:30:05
  SPEAKER_05: Which I mean, now we know and we avoid it, but as you know, stuff moves and shifts and changes on that river weekend to weekend, let alone year to year.
• 1:30:14
  Douglas: So well, better better for it to suck and you still be here.
• 1:30:19
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I mean, yeah.
• 1:30:22
  SPEAKER_05: It could have been really bad.
• 1:30:23
  SPEAKER_05: And and probably worse than that for me um was that I could have killed dad.
• 1:30:30
  SPEAKER_05: I could have killed mom, you know.
• 1:30:32
  SPEAKER_05: Like if dad hadn't moved or if mom hadn't been lower in the boat, that they could have, you know, that I could have I could have killed them.
• 1:30:38
  SPEAKER_05: And um that yeah, I struggled with that for a little while.
• 1:30:41
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, this could have been could have been really bad.
• 1:30:44
  SPEAKER_05: Um I mean, was it super awesome?
• 1:30:47
  SPEAKER_05: No.
• 1:30:47
  SPEAKER_05: Uh do I recommend breaking that many bones at once?
• 1:30:50
  SPEAKER_05: No.
• 1:30:51
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but if that's what it was, is as you know, the trade-off or whatever you want to call it, then I'll take it.
• 1:30:57
  SPEAKER_05: You know, like that's fine.
• 1:30:59
  SPEAKER_05: That's fine.
• 1:31:00
  Douglas: All of all of these medical situations you've been through, do you think those have kind of been a background or helped you in as an RN and how you're relating to patients?
• 1:31:12
  Douglas: Because you've kind of had a lot of those pains that they're dealing with.
• 1:31:15
  SPEAKER_05: I think it does, but I think it also um it makes me a little more jaded, um, you know, when you've got somebody that's sitting there and they're like, Oh, you know, my pain is a 10 out of 10, and they're posting to TikTok and they're playing on their phone.
• 1:31:28
  SPEAKER_05: I'm like, you don't know what 10 out of 10 is.
• 1:31:30
  SPEAKER_02: You have no idea.
• 1:31:31
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, you know.
• 1:31:32
  SPEAKER_02: Suck it up, buttercup.
• 1:31:33
  SPEAKER_02: Pretty much.
• 1:31:34
  SPEAKER_05: So it does, I mean, it makes me a little more jaded about some of that stuff.
• 1:31:39
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but I think it it also is like you, you know, you recognize and you can realize that um being remote and rural in Alaska, these things happen, and you know, how can I help people through them?
• 1:31:55
  SPEAKER_05: And how can you, you know, be as safe as possible while still enjoying everything that's out there?
• 1:32:01
  SPEAKER_05: Um, you know, every year people see my posts.
• 1:32:03
  SPEAKER_05: I'm like, okay, what's everybody's in reaches?
• 1:32:06
  SPEAKER_05: Does you know, do you have them?
• 1:32:08
  SPEAKER_05: Um, you know, I'm like, they don't do any good if you never get them out of the package.
• 1:32:11
  Douglas: They don't do, you know, you have to have them with you in order for them to work.
• 1:32:15
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, gotta have them with you.
• 1:32:16
  SPEAKER_05: You know, and even when we did that, like we had it with us, but it was in a basket underneath the captain.
• 1:32:22
  SPEAKER_05: Well, now mine clips to my float coat.
• 1:32:24
  SPEAKER_05: I have a okay.
• 1:32:25
  SPEAKER_05: I have a brand new actually, Tim got it from here.
• 1:32:27
  SPEAKER_05: Um, one of the orange ones, and it has a spot up here, and mine clips right there.
• 1:32:31
  SPEAKER_05: It doesn't do any good if you can't get at it.
• 1:32:33
  Douglas: Yep.
• 1:32:34
  Douglas: So do you all have them now?
• 1:32:39
  Douglas: Or is it just one per one per boat or but everybody Ty has one, I have one, and mom and Dad have one, and Heather has one.
• 1:32:45
  SPEAKER_05: So when she comes up, she brings hers.
• 1:32:47
  SPEAKER_05: But yeah, we don't we don't go anywhere without the inreaches.
• 1:32:50
  SPEAKER_05: Um when dad flies, he takes them.
• 1:32:53
  Douglas: Yeah.
• 1:32:53
  SPEAKER_05: So they're with us all the time.
• 1:32:57
  Douglas: Other than an inreach, what else have you learned from all of that?
• 1:33:00
  Douglas: Not only that, but your battle with cancer, your you know, your injuries as a as a child.
• 1:33:07
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 1:33:08
  Douglas: None of these are considered.
• 1:33:13
  Douglas: I mean, it's not anything that's like, oh yeah, that could happen to anybody.
• 1:33:17
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 1:33:18
  Douglas: I mean, can't yeah, a lot of people get cancer.
• 1:33:20
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:33:21
  Douglas: But 30 breast cancer, like you said, no pre-exist.
• 1:33:24
  Douglas: That's that's not a normal thing.
• 1:33:26
  unknown: No.
• 1:33:27
  Douglas: Getting grazed by a bullet while you're playing Little League in Haynes, Alaska.
• 1:33:31
  Douglas: Right.
• 1:33:32
  Douglas: That's only one I know of.
• 1:33:34
  SPEAKER_05: Didn't have that on my bingo car.
• 1:33:36
  Douglas: It's like one-on-one.
• 1:33:38
  Douglas: Yeah, no, it's um walking away from a jet boat crash or airboat crash.
• 1:33:44
  SPEAKER_05: Well, almost a jet boat.
• 1:33:46
  SPEAKER_05: We were out there when when George when George caught on fire when his boat was caught.
• 1:33:50
  SPEAKER_05: We were out there for that.
• 1:33:51
  SPEAKER_05: Um yeah, I don't know.
• 1:33:53
  Douglas: I mean sometimes you just think you got this black cloud following you around or something.
• 1:33:59
  SPEAKER_05: Sometimes, but then sometimes I'm like, you know what?
• 1:34:02
  SPEAKER_05: Uh look at all the cool stuff that we do.
• 1:34:05
  SPEAKER_05: Look at all the the amazing things that I do, that our family does, that we do that that normal people I would have no idea about.
• 1:34:13
  SPEAKER_05: And it's like, it's a risk every time you get off the road.
• 1:34:17
  SPEAKER_05: It's a risk, you know, and and for me, I'd rather take the risk out there boating or hunting or fishing than walking across the street street in New York.
• 1:34:26
  SPEAKER_05: You know, like I just I don't know.
• 1:34:29
  SPEAKER_05: Does it make me a little more like slow down?
• 1:34:32
  SPEAKER_05: Probably not.
• 1:34:33
  SPEAKER_05: Should it?
• 1:34:34
  SPEAKER_05: Maybe.
• 1:34:34
  SPEAKER_05: Um I don't know.
• 1:34:37
  SPEAKER_05: I just I've never really been like okay, well, why me?
• 1:34:41
  SPEAKER_05: Or or why that why why'd this happen to me?
• 1:34:44
  SPEAKER_05: Why why am I the one that got this?
• 1:34:45
  SPEAKER_05: Why am I the one?
• 1:34:46
  SPEAKER_05: It's like it is what it is.
• 1:34:48
  SPEAKER_05: And I mean, I don't know, like, I had strong role models.
• 1:34:54
  SPEAKER_05: I had, you know, parents when I grew up and stuff that it was never you can't do that.
• 1:34:59
  SPEAKER_05: Why would you want to do that?
• 1:35:00
  SPEAKER_05: It was more like, you know, I drew I learned how to drive a stick because I was the one driving dad's tractor when I was little, and it's pretty hard to screw it up when you got the shifter between your knees.
• 1:35:10
  SPEAKER_05: It's like boom, boom, okay.
• 1:35:12
  SPEAKER_05: Um, you know, we launched boats, we pulled trailers, we you know, we did all of that stuff, and it was never weird that we did it.
• 1:35:20
  SPEAKER_05: It was like, yeah, that's part of life.
• 1:35:22
  SPEAKER_05: This is just part of life.
• 1:35:23
  SPEAKER_01: That's what you do.
• 1:35:24
  SPEAKER_05: And so in doing all of that, it was like, yeah, that sucked.
• 1:35:29
  SPEAKER_05: And that was that was a you know, sure, you wanna have a bad day or a a bad hour, and you want to cry about it, and you wanna woe is me, that's fine.
• 1:35:38
  SPEAKER_05: Like, that's fine, you can have it, and then get your ass up.
• 1:35:42
  SPEAKER_05: There's you got more to do.
• 1:35:43
  SPEAKER_05: There's there's things to be done, there's there's life to be lived, and it's like I've never um I don't know, you don't you don't get a credit back when you when you end your life that says, Oh, I didn't do anything dangerous, dumb or stupid, so here give me give me more years.
• 1:35:58
  SPEAKER_05: It's like you don't get that back.
• 1:36:01
  SPEAKER_05: Life's meant to be lived, not just endured, so go do it.
• 1:36:04
  Douglas: Like Well, and none of these really came out of you doing anything.
• 1:36:07
  SPEAKER_05: No, I wasn't being reckless.
• 1:36:09
  Douglas: You weren't being reckless, it was just kind of No, it was just flutes.
• 1:36:12
  Douglas: Stuff happens.
• 1:36:13
  Douglas: Yeah, stuff happens.
• 1:36:14
  SPEAKER_05: It just Yeah, and I mean I don't do really crazy like skydiving, zero inclination to do that.
• 1:36:21
  SPEAKER_05: No, no, no.
• 1:36:22
  SPEAKER_05: Bungee jumping, no.
• 1:36:23
  SPEAKER_05: I don't want to no.
• 1:36:24
  SPEAKER_05: So I don't do like reckless crazy stuff.
• 1:36:27
  SPEAKER_05: I just I don't know.
• 1:36:29
  SPEAKER_05: You live in Alaska and those are the things that you do, and I don't know.
• 1:36:34
  SPEAKER_05: Just kind of keep keep chugging and keep doing.
• 1:36:37
  Douglas: And the testament to you is you've survived it all.
• 1:36:39
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:36:40
  SPEAKER_05: You keep you're keep one day I'll write it all down and make it into a book.
• 1:36:43
  Douglas: Keep keep keep going out there and doing it.
• 1:36:45
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:36:46
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, we're already we're like, oh, moose season.
• 1:36:48
  SPEAKER_01: Moose season getting close.
• 1:36:50
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it's the 13th.
• 1:36:52
  SPEAKER_05: It's getting close.
• 1:36:52
  SPEAKER_01: Getting close.
• 1:36:55
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, no, no, I mean that's like that's like the best place ever.
• 1:36:59
  SPEAKER_05: The phones don't work.
• 1:37:00
  Douglas: You're just something magical about being up in the valley in the fall, isn't it?
• 1:37:04
  SPEAKER_05: It's so yeah.
• 1:37:05
  SPEAKER_05: Or even, you know, like when you're out there and um it's it's clear and the wolves are out howling.
• 1:37:12
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, make the hair on the back of your neck stand up.
• 1:37:15
  SPEAKER_05: Like you realize real quick you're not the apex predator when you hear those guys out there or you know, uh stuff like that, or on foggy overcast days when the mist just hangs right off the river.
• 1:37:26
  SPEAKER_05: It's yeah, it's like this is amazing.
• 1:37:28
  SPEAKER_05: It's awesome.
• 1:37:30
  Douglas: We can't we can't tell all the secrets, everybody will want to be up there.
• 1:37:33
  SPEAKER_05: I know.
• 1:37:34
  Douglas: Yeah.
• 1:37:34
  Douglas: I know it's it's a special place.
• 1:37:36
  Douglas: It is, it absolutely is, and it's like like you're saying, if you don't get if you don't go out there, you don't get that experience.
• 1:37:44
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 1:37:44
  Douglas: Yeah, is there some danger involved with it?
• 1:37:47
  Douglas: Sure.
• 1:37:47
  Douglas: Yeah.
• 1:37:48
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:37:48
  Douglas: Yeah.
• 1:37:49
  unknown: Yeah.
• 1:37:49
  SPEAKER_05: Absolutely.
• 1:37:50
  Douglas: But the reward is worth it.
• 1:37:52
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I mean, the stories that we have that to to pass down to the next generation are the stories that like when all of our family gets together and and you know starts to oh man, did you remember this and and this and that?
• 1:38:04
  SPEAKER_05: And I mean you just laugh and you you know you have a good time and it's like these are this is why.
• 1:38:10
  SPEAKER_05: This is this is why you can you can live this life and you can do these things and heck yeah, sign me up, I'll do it.
• 1:38:18
  SPEAKER_05: So and I mean like I'm not that old.
• 1:38:22
  SPEAKER_05: I got lots of things left to do, but like I spent because of the things that I did and Tim being in the military and going active and I went and did the the vet tech stuff, I was on Oakley's show.
• 1:38:35
  SPEAKER_05: Like I still have people that come out of the woodwork and they're like, Did I just see you on TV?
• 1:38:40
  SPEAKER_05: I'm like, yeah.
• 1:38:41
  SPEAKER_05: Like, were you watching Oakley?
• 1:38:43
  SPEAKER_05: And they're like, uh huh.
• 1:38:44
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, yes, then you saw me on TV.
• 1:38:47
  SPEAKER_05: I'm like, am I making millions off of it?
• 1:38:48
  SPEAKER_05: No, but is it just one of those things that you're like, yeah, I was on a national TV show?
• 1:38:53
  SPEAKER_05: Like, how weird.
• 1:38:55
  SPEAKER_05: So, yeah.
• 1:38:56
  SPEAKER_05: No, there's just there's just part of it.
• 1:39:01
  Douglas: So what's next?
• 1:39:04
  SPEAKER_05: Um, well, right now I am trying to uh uh get through dealing with the military.
• 1:39:12
  SPEAKER_05: Um so Dawson is in Texas, he just graduated.
• 1:39:16
  SPEAKER_05: Um, his combat medic.
• 1:39:18
  SPEAKER_05: He's in Texas waiting on his orders to Korea for three years.
• 1:39:22
  Douglas: Three years in Korea.
• 1:39:23
  SPEAKER_05: Yep.
• 1:39:23
  SPEAKER_05: Um Caleb is deployed to somewhere.
• 1:39:26
  Douglas: Somewhere mom doesn't know.
• 1:39:27
  SPEAKER_05: Yep.
• 1:39:28
  Douglas: Um branch is he in?
• 1:39:29
  SPEAKER_05: He's in the Air Force.
• 1:39:30
  Douglas: Air Force.
• 1:39:31
  SPEAKER_05: Uh Tim is currently in Fairbanks doing training, and he deploys in early October.
• 1:39:37
  SPEAKER_05: So right now I'm Oh trying to just keep my my even keel and not go completely crazy.
• 1:39:47
  SPEAKER_05: As a military wife is one thing, but doing it as a model.
• 1:39:50
  SPEAKER_05: That's what I was gonna say.
• 1:39:51
  Douglas: You're gonna have it's different.
• 1:39:53
  SPEAKER_05: It's different.
• 1:39:54
  Douglas: Two boys and your husband all overseas at the same time.
• 1:39:58
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:40:00
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:40:01
  Douglas: What what have you thought ahead of how what your coping mechanisms are gonna be for that?
• 1:40:06
  SPEAKER_05: No.
• 1:40:07
  SPEAKER_05: No.
• 1:40:08
  SPEAKER_05: Well, I mean, last time Tim was gone for a really long time, I got two golden retrievers.
• 1:40:12
  SPEAKER_05: So I did tell him if he wasn't here to complain, I might get more dogs.
• 1:40:16
  SPEAKER_02: There might be more dogs.
• 1:40:18
  SPEAKER_02: Dogs have been there isn't room for you in the house anymore.
• 1:40:21
  SPEAKER_05: It's all mini horses, like who knows?
• 1:40:25
  SPEAKER_05: No, I'm I don't know.
• 1:40:28
  Douglas: Um Is it is it easier now with technology?
• 1:40:31
  Douglas: Can you keep it or are there some places that you don't get a lot you you can't keep in contact with?
• 1:40:37
  SPEAKER_05: I think there are still those places where my guys are right now are not those places.
• 1:40:42
  SPEAKER_05: I can communicate with them, um, which is nice.
• 1:40:45
  SPEAKER_05: Um Caleb works on what does he call them?
• 1:40:49
  SPEAKER_05: The heavies, anything airplanes big enough that you can park a Jeep in, anything bigger than that.
• 1:40:53
  SPEAKER_05: Um and he does the avionics, so he's pretty much on the ground.
• 1:40:56
  SPEAKER_05: Um and so I mean I don't I don't worry about him too much.
• 1:41:00
  SPEAKER_05: Um but yeah, combat medic though.
• 1:41:04
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah, the kid who was afraid of needles and doesn't like needles is now a combat medic.
• 1:41:08
  SPEAKER_05: Make it make sense.
• 1:41:09
  SPEAKER_05: Um he loves it.
• 1:41:10
  SPEAKER_05: He loves it.
• 1:41:11
  SPEAKER_05: He thinks it's yeah, it's fantastic.
• 1:41:13
  SPEAKER_05: He when he told me he was going in as a combat medic, I was like, What?
• 1:41:16
  Douglas: You can do what?
• 1:41:18
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, but no.
• 1:41:19
  SPEAKER_05: Kind of follows with mom and dad, though.
• 1:41:21
  SPEAKER_05: I know, but we asked he's like, I'm never doing anything in medicine.
• 1:41:24
  SPEAKER_05: No, he hated it.
• 1:41:25
  Douglas: What age did he say that?
• 1:41:26
  SPEAKER_05: All through high school.
• 1:41:27
  Douglas: All through high school?
• 1:41:28
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, he hated it.
• 1:41:29
  Douglas: Where where did the turn come?
• 1:41:30
  Douglas: When he was in boot camp or something?
• 1:41:32
  SPEAKER_05: No, it was before boot camp.
• 1:41:33
  SPEAKER_05: Before boot camp.
• 1:41:34
  SPEAKER_05: Had actually signed up or had was about to sign up and he wanted to go be a canine dog handler.
• 1:41:39
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:41:39
  SPEAKER_05: And they were like, we don't have any slots right now.
• 1:41:41
  SPEAKER_05: We don't have any spots in the school.
• 1:41:43
  SPEAKER_05: I would have said, That's cool, here's my phone number.
• 1:41:45
  SPEAKER_05: Call me when you do it.
• 1:41:46
  Douglas: Call me when you got one.
• 1:41:47
  SPEAKER_05: Um Dawson was like, Okay, I'm gonna go see what else there is, and came home and he called.
• 1:41:51
  SPEAKER_05: He goes, I signed up to be a combat medic.
• 1:41:53
  SPEAKER_05: And Tim and I both went, What?
• 1:41:55
  Douglas: What?
• 1:41:55
  SPEAKER_05: He goes, Yeah.
• 1:41:56
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, with needles and things that you I was like, honey, in nursing school we practice on dummies, but in the army, you are the dummy.
• 1:42:04
  SPEAKER_02: You are the dummy.
• 1:42:05
  SPEAKER_05: You are they let you practice on each other, like NG tubes down your nose while you're awake, and and he goes, Yeah, it'll be fine.
• 1:42:13
  SPEAKER_05: He that it did it all, and he goes, Yeah, I'm not really he goes, needles don't bother me anymore.
• 1:42:17
  SPEAKER_02: Like, okay.
• 1:42:18
  SPEAKER_02: There you go.
• 1:42:19
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 1:42:20
  SPEAKER_05: So, yeah.
• 1:42:21
  SPEAKER_05: So that's yeah, my my winter is not I don't know.
• 1:42:25
  Douglas: Let's see what I think are all the deployments?
• 1:42:28
  Douglas: How long is it?
• 1:42:28
  SPEAKER_05: Air Force usually does them about six months, usually.
• 1:42:31
  SPEAKER_05: Depending on what's popping off over there and what's doing what.
• 1:42:35
  SPEAKER_05: So yeah, we'll see.
• 1:42:37
  SPEAKER_05: Going down to my sister's for Thanksgiving this year and um yeah, moose camp first and then uh go down there for a little while and see what else, yeah, what I what else I do.
• 1:42:51
  SPEAKER_05: We'll see.
• 1:42:52
  SPEAKER_05: Might be the winner to write the book.
• 1:42:54
  SPEAKER_02: Could be.
• 1:42:54
  SPEAKER_02: Might be the time to write a book.
• 1:42:56
  SPEAKER_02: Start your journaling.
• 1:42:58
  Douglas: Yeah.
• 1:42:58
  Douglas: Put all these things together and a little bit of the angst of having the three men away.
• 1:43:02
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, yes, yes.
• 1:43:04
  SPEAKER_05: So yeah.
• 1:43:06
  Douglas: So what what part of the Nicole story have we missed?
• 1:43:10
  SPEAKER_05: I don't know.
• 1:43:11
  Douglas: Um what should what what are the questions I should have asked you?
• 1:43:16
  SPEAKER_05: I don't know.
• 1:43:18
  SPEAKER_05: That's pretty much everything.
• 1:43:19
  SPEAKER_05: Got shot, wrecked boats, broke legs.
• 1:43:25
  Douglas: Had three kids.
• 1:43:26
  SPEAKER_05: Had three kids.
• 1:43:27
  Douglas: Yeah.
• 1:43:28
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:43:29
  SPEAKER_05: Raised them all up and they're all off doing.
• 1:43:32
  SPEAKER_05: Corbin's been hanging out at his uh house all all this week because he's on the off side of where the uh flood zone is in Juneau.
• 1:43:41
  unknown: Oh.
• 1:43:41
  SPEAKER_05: And so if he leaves his house, he could he'll get stuck on the wrong side.
• 1:43:46
  SPEAKER_05: And his uh he's working uh for a construction company driving big dump trucks and side dumps and stuff, and and where all of their equipment is is also at the bottom part of the the river.
• 1:43:56
  SPEAKER_05: And so they're like, we're on a holding pattern until I did see it peaked and it's now receding.
• 1:44:01
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:44:01
  SPEAKER_05: So so yeah, they're yeah, no, they're all off doing things, which is I mean, you want them to go be successful humans, but I also am like you could come back.
• 1:44:11
  Douglas: He could come back and spend some time with mom.
• 1:44:14
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah, which is like as much as Haynes is amazing and I love it and it's beautiful, it's like could we get an economy going so that we could get more people to come back and stay and thrive and all that stuff.
• 1:44:27
  SPEAKER_05: Like, I don't think people realize like in the 90s when we had ships all the time, like kids were making money.
• 1:44:34
  SPEAKER_05: I think all my girlfriends all worked for my parents out at the lake.
• 1:44:37
  SPEAKER_05: Like, we were all making a crap ton of money out there doing tours and stuff, and we were busy.
• 1:44:43
  SPEAKER_05: And it was like, they're just you know, I mean, our classes, our our high school classes were huge.
• 1:44:48
  SPEAKER_05: Not huge, they were bigger.
• 1:44:49
  SPEAKER_05: I don't know how many you graduated with.
• 1:44:51
  Douglas: I think we had 21.
• 1:44:52
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I think we had 22.
• 1:44:53
  SPEAKER_05: And the boys graduated with 11, 9, and I think eight.
• 1:44:58
  SPEAKER_05: And it's like uh gotta get people to stay here, and but they can't stay here if you can't survive, and if you can't, you know, gotta have jobs and industry and all that stuff, so I don't know.
• 1:45:11
  SPEAKER_05: I mean that's kind of the thing.
• 1:45:13
  SPEAKER_05: You don't want Haynes to turn into this big metropolis, which I don't think it ever will, but you know, it used to have mines and trying to figure out that balance.
• 1:45:20
  SPEAKER_05: You know, like you can talk to mom when she was a kid and she's like, there was multiple mills and um, you know, stuff going on all the time, and she goes, and it was thriving, you know, everything was thriving, thriving.
• 1:45:34
  SPEAKER_05: So I don't know.
• 1:45:35
  SPEAKER_05: I keep chugging along and try not to break anything else.
• 1:45:40
  SPEAKER_01: Please.
• 1:45:41
  SPEAKER_01: The hood.
• 1:45:41
  SPEAKER_01: Please.
• 1:45:42
  SPEAKER_05: Kind of over it.
• 1:45:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I can see why.
• 1:45:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:45:46
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:45:47
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, if it was me or somebody else, like I'd I'll I'll take it.
• 1:45:51
  SPEAKER_05: That was the deal when I had cancer.
• 1:45:52
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, if I have to, you know, if that keeps my sister from having it or my mom from having it or something, I'll take I'll take the hits, that's fine.
• 1:45:59
  SPEAKER_05: But I'm kind of at the point now where I'm like, dude.
• 1:46:02
  Douglas: Somebody else can't.
• 1:46:02
  Douglas: Somebody else could take the hit.
• 1:46:04
  SPEAKER_02: But nobody else has volunteered to take a hit from me.
• 1:46:06
  SPEAKER_04: Man.
• 1:46:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, listen, I've been sacrificing for you guys this whole time.
• 1:46:14
  SPEAKER_05: Somebody else like like like little brother has never broke a bone in his body.
• 1:46:17
  Douglas: I was like, Or or maybe just like just take a break.
• 1:46:21
  Douglas: Pass it on to somebody else.
• 1:46:22
  Douglas: Nobody has to get hurt.
• 1:46:23
  SPEAKER_05: Nobody has to get hurt.
• 1:46:24
  SPEAKER_05: Nobody has to get hurt.
• 1:46:25
  Douglas: Yeah, just yeah.
• 1:46:26
  Douglas: Wouldn't that be nice to just have like a day at the clinic where you didn't have any patients?
• 1:46:29
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:46:29
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:46:30
  SPEAKER_05: All we did is like like uh physicals for high school students and stuff.
• 1:46:34
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:46:34
  Douglas: Yeah.
• 1:46:36
  SPEAKER_05: That'd be alright.
• 1:46:36
  SPEAKER_05: That'd be sick.
• 1:46:38
  Douglas: Nobody's sick, nobody hurt.
• 1:46:40
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:46:41
  Douglas: I don't think it's gonna happen, but it's no, otherwise we wouldn't be building that new hospital.
• 1:46:45
  Douglas: We wouldn't be building a new hospital.
• 1:46:46
  Douglas: Yeah.
• 1:46:47
  Douglas: We can hope.
• 1:46:48
  Douglas: We can hope.
• 1:46:49
  Douglas: We can hope.
• 1:46:50
  Douglas: Well, thanks for joining us, Nicole.
• 1:46:51
  SPEAKER_05: Absolutely.
• 1:46:52
  Douglas: I appreciate you sharing your story.
• 1:46:54
  Douglas: I think just the the strength and resilience you've shown through everything is very inspirational, and I'm glad you're willing to share this so more people can see that.
• 1:47:06
  Douglas: No, I think it's uh because it's really easy going through those things to go the other side.
• 1:47:11
  SPEAKER_05: Absolutely.
• 1:47:12
  SPEAKER_05: The other side.
• 1:47:13
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, for sure.
• 1:47:14
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I think it's uh I don't know.
• 1:47:16
  SPEAKER_05: I blame genetics.
• 1:47:17
  SPEAKER_05: Got a good good enough stubborn streak in it, then it's like no, I got it.
• 1:47:23
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I can't do that.
• 1:47:23
  SPEAKER_05: I can't.
• 1:47:24
  SPEAKER_05: I got life to live, I got things to do, I got stuff going on, I can't just waller in it and not get back up.
• 1:47:29
  SPEAKER_05: So get back up and I think most people are the same way, but um, yeah, for sure.
• 1:47:37
  Douglas: I I will agree, but like you said, there was times when you're like, oh my god, how am I gonna continue this?
• 1:47:43
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:47:44
  Douglas: And and I think for some it's easy to to stay on whatever pills that they gave you.
• 1:47:49
  Douglas: Yes.
• 1:47:50
  Douglas: Because it's like, man, they made these that made this better.
• 1:47:52
  SPEAKER_05: Made it go away.
• 1:47:53
  Douglas: They made that go away, so let me let me hang on to that feeling for a little bit longer.
• 1:47:57
  Douglas: Or there's there's a lot of factors that go through that that make it a little harder to move forward.
• 1:48:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:48:02
  Douglas: And depending on the support system you have, I know you had your family behind you supporting you and and loving on you the whole time on that, and encouraged and not just being there to comfort you, but also saying, get your ass out of bed.
• 1:48:15
  SPEAKER_05: Get up.
• 1:48:15
  SPEAKER_05: You need to get moving.
• 1:48:17
  Douglas: And so that's that's that fine line, too, of yeah, how much care is in pushing somebody to get moving again.
• 1:48:24
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:48:25
  SPEAKER_05: Well, that's like, you know, you go down and you do PT and stuff, and it's uh, you know, you haven't bent that leg in eight weeks, you haven't put any weight on it in eight weeks, and they're like, Okay, well, couldn't, you know, how far can you go?
• 1:48:35
  SPEAKER_05: And how how can you do that?
• 1:48:36
  SPEAKER_05: And I'm like, Do you want me to do it or do you want me to do it until it hurts?
• 1:48:41
  SPEAKER_05: Because those are not the same thing.
• 1:48:42
  SPEAKER_02: Those are those are two totally different and they want to do it until it hurts.
• 1:48:45
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 1:48:46
  SPEAKER_02: That's their they're not gonna say that usually.
• 1:48:48
  SPEAKER_05: No, no, sometimes sometimes they're like, Well, we're not here to hurt you, but you know, if a few tears fall, that's probably a good thing.
• 1:48:56
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:48:57
  SPEAKER_05: But I mean, you know, like, I don't know, you want I wanted my life back.
• 1:49:02
  SPEAKER_05: I wanted to be, I you know, I didn't want to have to have a brace on all the time.
• 1:49:06
  SPEAKER_05: I didn't want to have to like I want my life back.
• 1:49:08
  SPEAKER_05: I want I want stuff to go do, and um, so yeah, it was like, all right, if this is what I need to do to to get that back, okay, let's go.
• 1:49:15
  SPEAKER_05: Let's go do it.
• 1:49:16
  Douglas: So one day at a time.
• 1:49:19
  SPEAKER_05: One day at a time.
• 1:49:19
  SPEAKER_05: Every day, every day.
• 1:49:20
  SPEAKER_05: So yeah.
• 1:49:22
  SPEAKER_05: Keep chugging, keep doing, getting ready for moose camp.
• 1:49:26
  Douglas: Getting ready for moose camp.
• 1:49:27
  Douglas: Well, appreciate you.
• 1:49:28
  Douglas: Absolutely.
• 1:49:29
  Douglas: Thank you.
• 1:49:29
  Douglas: And good luck moose on in the show.
• 1:49:30
  SPEAKER_05: Thank you.
• 1:49:31
  SPEAKER_05: Thank you.
• 1:49:32
  SPEAKER_05: Free brow tines.
• 1:49:33
  SPEAKER_05: That's all I need.
• 1:49:33
  SPEAKER_05: Free brow tines.
• 1:49:34
  SPEAKER_05: Free brow tines.
• 1:49:34
  SPEAKER_05: I don't do the sponsor.
• 1:49:35
  SPEAKER_05: You don't do the spike fork?
• 1:49:36
  SPEAKER_05: The spike fork I'll do.
• 1:49:37
  SPEAKER_05: The last one I shot was a little fork fork, but I don't do that 50-inch straight.
• 1:49:40
  SPEAKER_05: 50-inch.
• 1:49:41
  SPEAKER_05: I even have the fancy the uh rangefinder.
• 1:49:45
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, the rig that has the and I'm like, 49 and 51 look really close.
• 1:49:50
  SPEAKER_05: So I'm like, eh, I'm not that brave.
• 1:49:52
  Douglas: I've had a couple times people told me, go ahead and shoot it.
• 1:49:54
  Douglas: It's up to 50.
• 1:49:57
  Douglas: You gotta permit, you go ahead and pull the trigger.
• 1:49:59
  Douglas: If they're not willing to pull the trigger, I'm not pulling the trigger.
• 1:50:01
  Douglas: That's why I don't moose on here anymore.
• 1:50:03
  SPEAKER_05: I I just the 50 inches is I I've never I've looked at some and I you know, they look huge.
• 1:50:08
  Douglas: Yeah.
• 1:50:08
  SPEAKER_05: They look ginormous.
• 1:50:10
  SPEAKER_05: They look huge when you're looking at them.
• 1:50:12
  SPEAKER_05: And then it's like, you know, bear hunting and stuff like that.
• 1:50:15
  SPEAKER_05: They shrink when you get up to them.
• 1:50:16
  SPEAKER_02: It's like they look massive, and then you walk up, he's like, ooh, wait a second.
• 1:50:21
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:50:21
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, we had a little a little bull last year that was playing with us that was literally putting his antlers on the sides of the ladder of our moose stand.
• 1:50:29
  SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.
• 1:50:30
  SPEAKER_05: And I and he was a 3-3, no palms, just a 3-3.
• 1:50:33
  SPEAKER_05: And I was like, dude, you know I can't shoot you.
• 1:50:36
  SPEAKER_05: And he wouldn't go away.
• 1:50:37
  SPEAKER_05: And it's like you're looking at him, and I finally banged on the thing, and he looked up, and you see the whites of their eyes and stuff, and it's like, oh, that might have been a bad idea.
• 1:50:46
  SPEAKER_05: It might have been a bad idea to and he f you know, he just kind of looks at you and he's like, Meh, he finally left.
• 1:50:51
  SPEAKER_05: But when they're that close, they look huge, and their antlers look huge, and then you get up there and you're like, 46.
• 1:50:59
  Douglas: That tape measure doesn't go nearly as far as I thought it was going to.
• 1:51:02
  SPEAKER_05: No, no.
• 1:51:02
  SPEAKER_05: I've always been too much of a chicken to shoot him on the 50-inch.
• 1:51:06
  SPEAKER_05: Just couldn't do it.
• 1:51:07
  Douglas: So better better to be cautious than going in front of the judge.
• 1:51:12
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, which I did once and one.
• 1:51:16
  Douglas: What'd you what'd you get on there for?
• 1:51:18
  Douglas: Was it on the configuration?
• 1:51:20
  SPEAKER_05: I shot him on three brow times, and uh they argued that it was a the midday time in midday.
• 1:51:25
  SPEAKER_05: And I said, no, it's not, and um they took it and they took all my meat, and it was a huge bowl.
• 1:51:31
  SPEAKER_05: Dad got one that year too, and mine was bigger than his.
• 1:51:35
  SPEAKER_05: And I took him to court and I won.
• 1:51:37
  SPEAKER_05: And I was so mad because I was like, You don't get the meat.
• 1:51:40
  SPEAKER_05: You don't get the meat.
• 1:51:41
  SPEAKER_05: And I asked him, I said, please, like, we'll cut it and wrap it.
• 1:51:45
  SPEAKER_05: Just hold it as evidence, hold it as whatever you want, and give me my moose my moose back.
• 1:51:50
  SPEAKER_05: And they're like, we don't have the space, we don't have the ability to do that.
• 1:51:53
  SPEAKER_05: And so it was actually so I did that in 2020, won it.
• 1:51:58
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and then in 2021, there were no subleagals, which is great typically, except I'm like, I'd like my moose.
• 1:52:05
  SPEAKER_05: Um, so in 2022, when I wrecked, I actually was the only one in the party that got a moose that year because I got the You got the I got the one, I got the one handed back to me that they owed me from somebody else's sublegal.
• 1:52:17
  SPEAKER_05: And so yeah, nobody else got a moose that year.
• 1:52:19
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, see, even in a wheelchair, I got a moose.
• 1:52:22
  Douglas: I got a moose.
• 1:52:23
  Douglas: You guys need to you guys need to up your game.
• 1:52:25
  Douglas: Up your game.
• 1:52:26
  Douglas: Come on, man.
• 1:52:27
  Douglas: I can't do all the work for it.
• 1:52:29
  Douglas: Yeah.
• 1:52:30
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I told Dad that this year.
• 1:52:31
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, I shot the last one too, it was a little fork fork.
• 1:52:34
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, Come on, man, tired of carrying you guys.
• 1:52:36
  Douglas: Somebody's gotta step up.
• 1:52:37
  SPEAKER_05: Gotta step up here.
• 1:52:39
  Douglas: Well, it's nice of you to provide for everybody, even from a wheelchair.
• 1:52:42
  SPEAKER_05: Do my do my due diligence, yeah.
• 1:52:44
  Douglas: They're lucky to have you.
• 1:52:47
  Douglas: Thanks, Nicole.
• 1:52:48
  SPEAKER_05: You're welcome.
• 1:52:49
  SPEAKER_05: Guys, have a good night.