Latest / Hurdle with Emily Abbate / 253. Steph Catudal, Author

Transcript

253. Steph Catudal, Author · Hurdle with Emily Abbate

0:00
Speaker 1: Just go with it. You have no control in this life,
0:02
Speaker 1: and all you can control is the way that you
0:04
Speaker 1: feel sometimes, and sometimes you can't even control that, So
0:08
Speaker 1: just let go.
0:23
Speaker 2: What's going on Hurdler's Emily a body Here. You are
0:27
Speaker 2: listening to episode two hundred and fifty three of Hurdle,
0:31
Speaker 2: a wellness focused podcast to reconnect with everyone from your
0:34
Speaker 2: favorite athletes to top experts and industry CEOs about their
0:37
Speaker 2: highest highs, toughest moments, and everything in between. We all
0:42
Speaker 2: go through hurdles in life, and my goal through these
0:44
Speaker 2: discussions is to empower you to better navigate yours and
0:48
Speaker 2: move with intention so that you can stride towards your
0:51
Speaker 2: own big potential and of course have some fun along
0:56
Speaker 2: the way. For today's episode, I am on to bring
1:01
Speaker 2: you my conversation with Steph Catch It All. She is
1:05
Speaker 2: the author of the new book Everything All at Once,
1:09
Speaker 2: So this episode comes out on pub day of the book,
1:11
Speaker 2: which I will link in the show notes. And it's
1:13
Speaker 2: an intimate, evocative memoir. Evocative seems like an understatement. It
1:19
Speaker 2: is truly such a phenomenal read, and in it she
1:22
Speaker 2: tells the story of her experience navigating anger and grief
1:25
Speaker 2: over the loss of her father and her faith, as
1:28
Speaker 2: well as the hurdles that went along with her husband
1:30
Speaker 2: and durance athlete Tommy ribbs eighty four day battle with
1:35
Speaker 2: lung cancer. In today's episode, Stuff talks about what it
1:39
Speaker 2: was like when Ribs became ill and was put into
1:41
Speaker 2: a coma at the height of the pandemic, as well
1:44
Speaker 2: as what happened as a result of that. Her words,
1:47
Speaker 2: again remarkable, also feels like an understatement. It's hard for
1:51
Speaker 2: me to find the right words to talk about how
1:54
Speaker 2: profound they are. I have been so drawn to her
1:58
Speaker 2: writing since I started following her back in twenty twenty
2:02
Speaker 2: during the pandemic, and not just because she puts you
2:08
Speaker 2: where she is.
2:09
Speaker 3: She puts you right inside of her mind.
2:12
Speaker 2: You get a snippet, you get a taste of how
2:15
Speaker 2: it feels to be in her shoes, and that is
2:17
Speaker 2: truly such a remarkable skill.
2:20
Speaker 3: But beyond that.
2:21
Speaker 2: The words are drenched in strength and resilience, and that
2:26
Speaker 2: is so admirable. During today's episode, I ask Stuff about
2:31
Speaker 2: how she has managed the influx of attention, what it
2:34
Speaker 2: was like to mother There are Three Girls, when she
2:37
Speaker 2: felt as though she was at her lowest point, as
2:39
Speaker 2: well as how she takes care of her and her
2:41
Speaker 2: feelings on hope when life feels grim and like she
2:45
Speaker 2: says today, it really really did not to spoil it, though,
2:49
Speaker 2: there is a silver lining here for those of you
2:51
Speaker 2: that may be unfamiliar with Rivs's story. He is now
2:56
Speaker 2: two years into your remission, which is just true July miraculous.
3:01
Speaker 3: After the most hard fought battle.
3:04
Speaker 2: It is so good to see him back out there,
3:06
Speaker 2: back on the road, back on the trails, doing what
3:10
Speaker 2: he loves, honor to have some of Stuff's time and
3:12
Speaker 2: during this important time for her again. I will link
3:16
Speaker 2: the book in the show notes. Please do yourself a
3:19
Speaker 2: favor go check it out. Also make sure you're following
3:22
Speaker 2: along with Hurdle over on social It's at Hurdle podcast.
3:25
Speaker 2: I am over at Emily a body and with that,
3:29
Speaker 2: let's get to it. Let's get to hurdling.
3:44
Speaker 3: Today.
3:44
Speaker 2: I am sitting down with Steph catch it all. She
3:47
Speaker 2: is the author of the new book everything all at once.
3:51
Speaker 3: How are you doing stuff?
3:52
Speaker 1: I'm good, Thank you, glad to be here today.
3:55
Speaker 3: I'm so happy to have you here today.
3:57
Speaker 2: Honestly, I have been following writing for a really long time,
4:02
Speaker 2: so I was so so so amped to get my
4:06
Speaker 2: hands on your book, which I literally finished this morning.
4:10
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, oh you finished it.
4:12
Speaker 2: I felt appropriate, like leading into our convo that I
4:15
Speaker 2: should have the knowledge.
4:18
Speaker 1: You should know everything about my life, everything I want
4:22
Speaker 1: to know it all.
4:22
Speaker 2: Is it weird for you as you're starting to talk
4:25
Speaker 2: to people who have finally read this.
4:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, because, honestly, it's so funny. But I actually wrote
4:31
Speaker 1: the book well, not really thinking that people were going
4:35
Speaker 1: to read it. Of course, I had a book deal,
4:36
Speaker 1: so I knew people were going to read it, but
4:38
Speaker 1: I wrote it from such like an intense place that
4:41
Speaker 1: I didn't really have any forethought about other people reading.
4:45
Speaker 1: And so now that it's out in the world and
4:46
Speaker 1: people are actually talking about me and my life and everything,
4:50
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh wow, I really shared a lot. It's
4:52
Speaker 1: I really got deep and personal, and but you know,
4:55
Speaker 1: I'm really happy with it.
4:56
Speaker 2: So you actually started writing this, as you wrote on
5:00
Speaker 2: Instagram the other day, nine years ago, which is bizarre,
5:05
Speaker 2: knowing what I've read that you never expected that the
5:09
Speaker 2: book that you and I are both holding right now,
5:11
Speaker 2: that is what would have been the final product.
5:14
Speaker 1: Right. Well, Okay, so as you now that you've read
5:16
Speaker 1: the book, you know that it's back and forth, so
5:19
Speaker 1: chapter to chapter, going back and forth in time. And
5:22
Speaker 1: so basically that whole first section of my life was
5:25
Speaker 1: my original book. And that's kind of more or less
5:29
Speaker 1: the book that I wrote nine years will started writing
5:32
Speaker 1: nine years ago, but it always felt unfinished. I finished
5:35
Speaker 1: the book. I even was searching for agents and everything,
5:39
Speaker 1: but I kind of knew that the story wasn't finished,
5:42
Speaker 1: and I didn't really know why. And now I'm like, oh,
5:44
Speaker 1: it's because I was still learning about myself and I
5:47
Speaker 1: was still healing, and I hadn't really gone through the
5:50
Speaker 1: full circle process yet. And obviously, once you know, my
5:56
Speaker 1: husband got sick, that's kind of when everything came around
5:59
Speaker 1: and I in some way found my ending, which was
6:02
Speaker 1: really just like an open ending beginning, as you you know.
6:05
Speaker 1: But yeah, so it is crazy though that I just
6:09
Speaker 1: it's like it's almost like I knew all along that
6:11
Speaker 1: I was going to write a book. I just didn't
6:12
Speaker 1: really know what I was going to say.
6:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And I mean the writing, like I said itself,
6:17
Speaker 2: is so so beautiful.
6:19
Speaker 3: Two things to touch on. One.
6:21
Speaker 2: I kind of giggle a little bit because this idea like,
6:24
Speaker 2: I knew the healing wasn't done, but is the healing
6:26
Speaker 2: ever really done?
6:28
Speaker 1: Exactly well, And that's what I'm saying, it's not. And
6:30
Speaker 1: that's what I had to learn. I think that I
6:33
Speaker 1: thought when I was writing my first version of this book,
6:36
Speaker 1: I thought I was quote unquote healed. I thought I
6:38
Speaker 1: had figured it out. I thought, you know, I had
6:41
Speaker 1: healed from this grief that I had carried my whole life.
6:44
Speaker 1: And then when my husband got sick, when Ribs got sick,
6:47
Speaker 1: everything just kind of cracked wide open. And what I
6:50
Speaker 1: learned was you're never done healing, and just to accept
6:53
Speaker 1: it and to continue on in the journey. And that
6:56
Speaker 1: was such a beautiful realization for me. And that's why
7:00
Speaker 1: my whole book is basically the journey to healing is never,
7:06
Speaker 1: never ending, but it's also you continue to grow through
7:08
Speaker 1: all of it. And so I needed to learn that
7:11
Speaker 1: in order to finish my book right.
7:14
Speaker 2: And now we've kind of referenced this twice now, so
7:17
Speaker 2: we'll just like give a little foundation here. Steph is
7:20
Speaker 2: married to Tommy Rivs Rivs during the COVID nineteen pandemic
7:25
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty. Fell Ill originally assumed to be COVID nineteen,
7:29
Speaker 2: but instead he was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive
7:33
Speaker 2: form of lymphoma. The saying that still hearing that back
7:38
Speaker 2: give you chills, it does.
7:41
Speaker 1: It feels for two real. It feels so surreal in
7:44
Speaker 1: that it was a different life, you know, coming out
7:47
Speaker 1: of it. Now we're two and a half years out
7:49
Speaker 1: of in remission for him, and it really feels like
7:53
Speaker 1: a different life. We're both such different people now, you know,
7:56
Speaker 1: in good ways and also in more kind of broken ways,
7:59
Speaker 1: as you know people usually are after they go through
8:02
Speaker 1: traumatic events. And it just feels like a lifetime ago.
8:06
Speaker 1: And at the same time, it's still so close to me,
8:09
Speaker 1: because I don't think you ever distanced yourself too much
8:12
Speaker 1: from something like that. But now when I see him
8:15
Speaker 1: and you know, he looks so strong and so healthy.
8:17
Speaker 1: You would look at him and he's running down the
8:19
Speaker 1: road and I'm like, how did that human go through
8:23
Speaker 1: so much? And now here he is again you would
8:25
Speaker 1: never of course, he has internal you know, issues, lung
8:28
Speaker 1: issues and everything, but from the outside he looks like
8:31
Speaker 1: like the archetypal healthy human. So it's all pretty the real.
8:35
Speaker 2: Isn't that kind of surreal within itself, though not just
8:38
Speaker 2: within this situation, but that we don't necessarily think about
8:43
Speaker 2: that when we come into contact with any human right
8:46
Speaker 2: and knowing that there is so much that has happened
8:49
Speaker 2: that on any given day we have no intel, no
8:53
Speaker 2: background on and to be able to come into contact
8:55
Speaker 2: with someone who has been through so much it happens
8:59
Speaker 2: more than we even reckons.
9:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, really, it's cool that you brought it up.
9:03
Speaker 1: It's such a metaphor, like him himself is a metaphor.
9:06
Speaker 1: I mean on the outside, people just assume he's a
9:08
Speaker 1: pro athlete still and that he's competing. I think people
9:12
Speaker 1: are surprised when they see him running down the street
9:15
Speaker 1: at probably, you know, like a twelve minute mile pace
9:17
Speaker 1: because his lungs just can't support anything more than that,
9:21
Speaker 1: and anything faster when he used to be you know,
9:23
Speaker 1: like a five minute mile marathon her. But it's it's
9:26
Speaker 1: so true. It's like everyone that we pass is holding
9:29
Speaker 1: and carrying something inside them and we have no idea
9:32
Speaker 1: what that is. And so for any if anything, it's
9:35
Speaker 1: just made me be more compassionate and empathetic to people,
9:38
Speaker 1: because yeah, it's just everyone has their I don't know.
9:42
Speaker 1: Can I swear on this.
9:43
Speaker 3: We can market exploit it.
9:46
Speaker 1: Everyone has their crap.
9:48
Speaker 3: Everyone does have their crap.
9:49
Speaker 2: And I think that also when it comes to your story,
9:52
Speaker 2: in particular, growing up and having to deal with your
9:56
Speaker 2: father's diagnosis taught you from a very young e that
10:00
Speaker 2: there was going to be some difficult moments ahead.
10:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, and it's really interesting. One of the
10:06
Speaker 1: things that I've learned in the past few years is
10:10
Speaker 1: I don't think that everything happens for a reason. Like
10:12
Speaker 1: I don't. I'm not one of those, you know. I
10:14
Speaker 1: think it's fine if people believe that. I personally don't.
10:17
Speaker 1: But I think you can look back on the hard
10:19
Speaker 1: things that have happened to you and kind of assign
10:22
Speaker 1: meaning to it for your own growth and your own
10:26
Speaker 1: you know self, And looking back, I could see, you know,
10:29
Speaker 1: I don't think my dad got sick for a reason,
10:31
Speaker 1: but I see the lesson that I learned from it,
10:33
Speaker 1: and I think those lessons better equip me to deal with,
10:38
Speaker 1: you know, riv's illness. And in some twisted way, I
10:42
Speaker 1: guess I'm grateful for that lesson that I learned through
10:45
Speaker 1: my father's illness, because I think it kind of it
10:48
Speaker 1: just kind of prepared me for what was to come
10:50
Speaker 1: later on in my life. And so, yeah, I guess
10:53
Speaker 1: it's this. It's just like this sad, sweet gratitude that
10:58
Speaker 1: I have for that time in my life when I
11:00
Speaker 1: was a teenager.
11:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, so talk to us a little bit about that
11:03
Speaker 2: time in your life. Not only you said you had
11:06
Speaker 2: lessons that you learned from your father's illness, maybe more
11:09
Speaker 2: so now even looking back on it, but how did
11:13
Speaker 2: you navigate the decline of your father?
11:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was rough. I was still a kid. So
11:19
Speaker 1: I was thirteen when my dad was diagnosed with terminal
11:22
Speaker 1: lung cancer, which again is like this cruel irony that
11:26
Speaker 1: it's not the same cancer but the same location. You
11:28
Speaker 1: know that Rivs twenty years later was diagnosed with a
11:32
Speaker 1: different form of lung cancer. I grew up in the
11:34
Speaker 1: LDS religion, So I grew up Mormon, and my dad
11:38
Speaker 1: wasn't Mormon, but my mom was, and so they had
11:40
Speaker 1: a really beautiful relationship and he allowed her to practice,
11:43
Speaker 1: you know, her faith and bring us up in the
11:45
Speaker 1: church freely. So I was led to believe in miracles
11:49
Speaker 1: and faith in prayer. And as my dad started to decline,
11:54
Speaker 1: so did my faith because I had this idea that,
11:56
Speaker 1: you know, if I pray and if I'm really faithful,
11:58
Speaker 1: then my dad will be healed. Though it's like this
12:00
Speaker 1: linear equation, and so I dealt with it. I felt
12:06
Speaker 1: like betrayed, I guess in some sense when my dad
12:08
Speaker 1: finally did pass away, and because of that, I totally
12:12
Speaker 1: rebelled against the church, against my mom, against my family
12:16
Speaker 1: because I felt I mean, looking back, I could say
12:19
Speaker 1: I obviously I wasn't betrayed. It's just life, you know,
12:21
Speaker 1: Crappy things happened to people, and my dad was just
12:26
Speaker 1: unfortunately one of those people. And uh, but I rebelled.
12:30
Speaker 1: I started drinking heavily at the age of fourteen. You know,
12:33
Speaker 1: I dated some very questionable people, as I'm sure you
12:37
Speaker 1: read about in my book, lived in a van for
12:41
Speaker 1: a week with this you know, older man. Anyways, I
12:43
Speaker 1: did all these things out of anger because I wasn't
12:47
Speaker 1: ready to confront my sadness.
12:49
Speaker 2: So relatable and also understandable, right because you were in
12:53
Speaker 2: a place where the things that you wanted or the
12:56
Speaker 2: things that you were after felt at least all completely
12:59
Speaker 2: out of your can.
13:01
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, and in an interesting way, I'm sure you
13:05
Speaker 1: could therapize this, you know, all you but in being
13:09
Speaker 1: in feeling out of control, I spiraled more and more
13:11
Speaker 1: out of control. My life by the age of nineteen
13:14
Speaker 1: is just my life is a total mess. And it's
13:17
Speaker 1: because I wasn't again ready to confront the grief that
13:22
Speaker 1: I was carrying. And yeah, I think that that happens
13:25
Speaker 1: with a lot of people, whether you're thirteen or thirty.
13:28
Speaker 1: You know, it's really really hard to know how to
13:30
Speaker 1: deal with grief. I don't think there's a writer or
13:32
Speaker 1: a wrong way, but that's just the way that I
13:35
Speaker 1: chose to deal with it as a teenager.
13:37
Speaker 2: What I really appreciated about your story as you were
13:42
Speaker 2: navigating your grief and figuring out your path is that
13:45
Speaker 2: when you decided that you wanted to go off to
13:49
Speaker 2: college in Hawaii and you had to do I believe
13:52
Speaker 2: it was an interview with someone from the church. You
13:55
Speaker 2: walked into that interview and instead of completely lying to
13:58
Speaker 2: them and telling them exactly what you thought that they
14:01
Speaker 2: wanted to hear, you told them everything that you had
14:04
Speaker 2: done that made you such a quote unquote fuck up.
14:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you, there we go, there.
14:10
Speaker 3: We did it.
14:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was a really thinking back and writing that
14:18
Speaker 1: part of the story was really like comical to me
14:22
Speaker 1: because I still don't exactly know what was going through
14:25
Speaker 1: my head, you know, as a I think I was eighteen,
14:27
Speaker 1: as an eighteen year old going in to talk to
14:29
Speaker 1: my bishop and could have easily lied and said, you know,
14:33
Speaker 1: I've been following all the rules and everything. And I
14:36
Speaker 1: don't know if there was it was the kindness in
14:38
Speaker 1: him that invited me into honesty, or if it was
14:41
Speaker 1: just me. Maybe I had the sense of shame that
14:44
Speaker 1: I wanted to like unload all of my quote unquote
14:46
Speaker 1: sins and unburden myself. Or again, like I said in
14:49
Speaker 1: my book, maybe I was just like fuck it, I
14:51
Speaker 1: don't care, you know. And in some way it was
14:53
Speaker 1: like an f you to God, you know, for killing
14:57
Speaker 1: my Father's what I kind of felt as a teenager.
15:00
Speaker 1: And again, the interesting thing was I was met with
15:04
Speaker 1: so much love from that bishop. He was just like,
15:07
Speaker 1: you know what, I see your heart and it's good
15:09
Speaker 1: and I don't really care about all those things you did.
15:12
Speaker 1: And that was a really humanizing moment within the church
15:15
Speaker 1: for me, because I think I had written off every
15:19
Speaker 1: member of the church, of the Mormon churches, you know,
15:21
Speaker 1: these self righteous people that had led me astray, But
15:26
Speaker 1: along the way, I've met a lot, a lot of
15:29
Speaker 1: kind hearted, well meaning members of my faith at the time.
15:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so have there been other instances in your
15:38
Speaker 2: life where telling the truth or being honest has ultimately
15:42
Speaker 2: led you astray?
15:43
Speaker 3: Or have you found this to be a pattern that
15:46
Speaker 3: serves you.
15:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's such a good point, and I think writing
15:50
Speaker 1: this book is an example of that. Like I laid
15:55
Speaker 1: it all out there in this book. I was completely honest,
15:58
Speaker 1: and it was painfully on it. Sometimes with myself, I
16:01
Speaker 1: had to do a lot of introspection about the relationships
16:04
Speaker 1: I'd had in my life and how I had, you know,
16:08
Speaker 1: been destructive in some of them. And being that painfully honest,
16:12
Speaker 1: I feel only helps you connect to other people. It
16:16
Speaker 1: only makes you more relatable. It makes you more vulnerable.
16:20
Speaker 1: But I think that vulnerability invites other people to be like, hey,
16:24
Speaker 1: I've been there before, or I see myself in that honesty,
16:28
Speaker 1: in that vulnerability, and it's only ever served me, even
16:32
Speaker 1: though it's often the more difficult route to take. I've
16:35
Speaker 1: written a few versions of my story, and in some
16:38
Speaker 1: of them, I'm not as authentic to myself, and there's
16:42
Speaker 1: something always pushing me in the back of you know, myself,
16:45
Speaker 1: where whatever that place is to just push me into honesty, authenticity,
16:49
Speaker 1: And again, like you said, it's never led me astray.
16:52
Speaker 3: Yeah.
16:52
Speaker 2: And did you feel when writing this that you were
16:58
Speaker 2: ready to write this, that you ready to put this
17:01
Speaker 2: into the world or was there a necessary waiting period
17:07
Speaker 2: for you?
17:09
Speaker 1: I feel like there was. I had to do it
17:12
Speaker 1: right away. It was something because I've been asked that before,
17:16
Speaker 1: like you. Basically, I started writing this book kind of
17:20
Speaker 1: when Ribs was still sick. Part of it is because
17:23
Speaker 1: writing has always been my way of understanding my own
17:28
Speaker 1: emotions and understanding the world. Since a young kid, I've
17:31
Speaker 1: been writing, and I think I needed to write to
17:35
Speaker 1: understand what it is I went through and to kind
17:38
Speaker 1: of be a catalyst for the onward process of healing.
17:43
Speaker 1: And I knew if if I waited too long, I
17:46
Speaker 1: might forget some of the kind of lessons that I
17:50
Speaker 1: had learned from his illness and from that whole process.
17:53
Speaker 1: Because even now, you know, two years later, I finished
17:56
Speaker 1: writing the book about a year ago, and even now
17:59
Speaker 1: I can't access those same emotions and I can't with
18:03
Speaker 1: you know, absolute confidence say that, oh yeah, that really
18:06
Speaker 1: did happen in that spiritual way or so. I feel
18:10
Speaker 1: like the farther we distance ourselves from the pain of something,
18:15
Speaker 1: the easier it is to forget what it really meant
18:16
Speaker 1: to us. And so I wanted to just do it
18:19
Speaker 1: right away.
18:20
Speaker 2: So then let's bring it back to the beginning of
18:25
Speaker 2: this journey. Then let's bring it back to you. At
18:29
Speaker 2: the top part of the pandemic, Ribs goes out on
18:32
Speaker 2: a run, just another run to the Grand Canyon, and
18:35
Speaker 2: you don't think anything of it, but it doesn't end
18:38
Speaker 2: like all of the other runs typically do what happens
18:41
Speaker 2: to rivs.
18:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, he had been He had done the exact same run,
18:46
Speaker 1: which is Rim to Rim, which is I don't know,
18:48
Speaker 1: maybe forty something miles across the Grand Canyon and back.
18:52
Speaker 1: He had done that same run three days earlier, maybe
18:54
Speaker 1: four days earlier, and it was pretty routine for him,
18:57
Speaker 1: super fit guy. He was trying to get in shape
18:59
Speaker 1: for the Olympic trials. But that night he got to
19:02
Speaker 1: the bottom of the canyon and he had felt off
19:06
Speaker 1: the whole way down. But he thought he was just like,
19:08
Speaker 1: you know, electrolytes were off or whatever. He got to
19:11
Speaker 1: the bottom and he started to be completely out of
19:14
Speaker 1: breath and his heart started to race, and so he
19:17
Speaker 1: started to think maybe he had heat stroke or something,
19:20
Speaker 1: and so he tried to continue on and finally he
19:22
Speaker 1: just had to stop. And he was with his friend,
19:24
Speaker 1: a videographer, guy videographer, Derek Lytel, and he was like, man,
19:29
Speaker 1: I got to stop. So he laid on a picnic
19:31
Speaker 1: bench and he thought he was going to die. He
19:33
Speaker 1: said he had never felt so out of breath, his
19:36
Speaker 1: heart had never raced so much, and he was dizzy,
19:39
Speaker 1: and he just couldn't get control of his body, which
19:41
Speaker 1: for someone like him, who was always in control of
19:44
Speaker 1: his body, you know, it was a really scary feeling.
19:47
Speaker 1: And I had never really ever seen him panic before.
19:50
Speaker 1: And so I think after a couple hours laying on
19:52
Speaker 1: that picnic bench, he knew if he didn't get himself
19:55
Speaker 1: up and out of the canyon, he probably would die
19:57
Speaker 1: because it was about one hundred degrees, and so he
19:59
Speaker 1: did it. I think it took him ten hours to
20:01
Speaker 1: get out, and it usually takes them, you know, like
20:03
Speaker 1: less than two to run out of the canyon. And
20:06
Speaker 1: that was the beginning of his sickness. And that's when
20:09
Speaker 1: we thought he had got COVID.
20:12
Speaker 2: There needs to be a note in here that, like
20:14
Speaker 2: you said, this man training for the Olympic Trials, super athletic,
20:18
Speaker 2: like this is his career, right is being as doing
20:21
Speaker 2: these quote unquote crazy things to others anyway, And so
20:25
Speaker 2: for him to come back and see him in this way,
20:28
Speaker 2: how did that make you feel?
20:31
Speaker 1: It was scary. It was rattling. Not so much his
20:34
Speaker 1: physical state, because I had seen him pass out at
20:37
Speaker 1: finish lines before I'd see him, do you know, But
20:40
Speaker 1: it was more the way that he was talking about
20:44
Speaker 1: the experience, like he actually was shaken. I could tell
20:46
Speaker 1: he actually was scared, and that he had never I'd
20:49
Speaker 1: never really, I've never seen him afraid before, even in
20:52
Speaker 1: really sketchy situations, And so that unsettled me because he
20:57
Speaker 1: was always kind of like I mean, this sounds really sad,
21:00
Speaker 1: but he was always the strong one, I guess. I
21:01
Speaker 1: always deferred to him for strength and for you know,
21:04
Speaker 1: is this okay? Are we are we safe? You know,
21:06
Speaker 1: We've been caught in like lightning storms in Japan, We've
21:09
Speaker 1: been caught all around the world in sketchy situations, and
21:12
Speaker 1: he's always like no, we're fine, it's cool. But I
21:14
Speaker 1: could tell that he was scared, and that really that
21:16
Speaker 1: scared me a lot.
21:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so in that place of being scared, how
21:24
Speaker 2: did you show up for him?
21:29
Speaker 1: Interestingly, I and surprising to myself, I kind of grew
21:36
Speaker 1: within me the strength that I didn't know I had
21:38
Speaker 1: in that, like, I had to step up and I
21:41
Speaker 1: had to be the one that was going to call
21:42
Speaker 1: the shots for him medically but also for him and
21:45
Speaker 1: the kids. And it was a scary time, but it
21:48
Speaker 1: was also a really empowering time for me to kind
21:50
Speaker 1: of step into this role that I think I had
21:53
Speaker 1: always been able to have and that was always offered
21:57
Speaker 1: to me, but I just never took it upon myself
21:59
Speaker 1: to be in that. It was a very I think
22:02
Speaker 1: part of this whole healing journey that I'm on is
22:05
Speaker 1: just kind of finding myself in my voice, and that
22:08
Speaker 1: was that was the beginning of it for me.
22:11
Speaker 3: Yeah.
22:11
Speaker 2: And it's like flexing a muscle or working a muscle
22:14
Speaker 2: that you forget even exists until you have to do
22:17
Speaker 2: it right. And then the next day you wake up
22:19
Speaker 2: and just like your body is so sore from moving
22:22
Speaker 2: in a way that you hadn't. You're emotionally so sore, right,
22:26
Speaker 2: and so to deal with that and then realize that
22:30
Speaker 2: it's not just a one time thing. Of these are
22:32
Speaker 2: not one momentary decisions that you have to make, but
22:35
Speaker 2: then we'll be ongoing.
22:36
Speaker 3: How did that make you feel?
22:38
Speaker 1: Yeah? I mean, and I'm still doing that today, of course.
22:41
Speaker 1: You know, I wrote this whole book about self empowerment
22:44
Speaker 1: and I still, you know, have often moments and days
22:47
Speaker 1: where I question myself and question my intuition and my strength,
22:51
Speaker 1: and it is just like healing, Like you said, it's
22:54
Speaker 1: never finished. We never find ourselves, we never find our voice.
22:57
Speaker 1: It's a daily choice and daily thing that we choose
23:02
Speaker 1: to do. And I'm just more aware of it now
23:04
Speaker 1: and more proactive in doing those things that just kind
23:08
Speaker 1: of speak to me and who I want to be
23:10
Speaker 1: and who I want to become.
23:13
Speaker 2: Tell me about the day that you ultimately brought Ribs
23:16
Speaker 2: to the hospital.
23:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was an intense day. I had my sister
23:24
Speaker 1: in law coming down with her three kids. We were
23:27
Speaker 1: going to quarantine together for a month. She was living
23:30
Speaker 1: in LA she needed to get out of there. So
23:33
Speaker 1: the six of us were on our way to this
23:35
Speaker 1: picnic in the woods, and we we drove down separately,
23:39
Speaker 1: and Ribs was staying in the basement at the time
23:40
Speaker 1: because we thought he had COVID, so we thought he
23:43
Speaker 1: was quarantining from us, and I left him. I had
23:46
Speaker 1: this feeling, you know, probably shouldn't leave him, but I
23:49
Speaker 1: did anyway, and we were about thirty minutes into our
23:52
Speaker 1: drive and I pulled into a gas station. I had
23:55
Speaker 1: this overwhelming feeling, knowing a voice whatever that just said
23:59
Speaker 1: go home now, check on Ribs. And I'd never been
24:02
Speaker 1: an intuitive person because my dad had died. I didn't
24:06
Speaker 1: believe in anything intuition wise, spiritual wise, anything like that.
24:11
Speaker 1: But the feeling was so it's almost like it shook me.
24:15
Speaker 1: And so I told my sister in law, you know,
24:17
Speaker 1: can you take the kids. I got to go home
24:19
Speaker 1: right now, and she's like, of course, go home. So
24:22
Speaker 1: I got home and found him passed out. His lips
24:25
Speaker 1: were blue, blood around his mouth, he had coughed up
24:28
Speaker 1: a bunch of blood and he was just like gasping
24:31
Speaker 1: for air basically. So I shook him. He finally came
24:34
Speaker 1: to and I was like, Ribs, you need to go
24:37
Speaker 1: to the hospital, and he was still adamant that he
24:39
Speaker 1: didn't need to go to the hospital. I learned later
24:41
Speaker 1: that he was super hypoxic, so basically so much carbon
24:45
Speaker 1: dioxide build up in his blood that it was making
24:47
Speaker 1: him irrational. But I eventually, after a few hours, got
24:52
Speaker 1: him into the car and dropped him off at the hospital,
24:54
Speaker 1: thinking it would be you know, maybe a few days that,
24:57
Speaker 1: you know, until I'd see him again. But that was
24:59
Speaker 1: not the case.
25:00
Speaker 2: And what you realized pretty quickly is that after a
25:03
Speaker 2: few different tests, so this isn't COVID.
25:07
Speaker 1: Yeah. What was interesting was I think he had five
25:10
Speaker 1: in hospital COVID tests that all came back negative. But
25:13
Speaker 1: they kept testing him because the doctors, the specialists, everyone
25:18
Speaker 1: was like, if it's not COVID, we don't have answers
25:21
Speaker 1: because nothing else makes sense. They they thought maybe the
25:24
Speaker 1: bubonic plague, from stepping on a gopher, maybe in the
25:28
Speaker 1: Grand Canyon. They were coming up with all of these,
25:31
Speaker 1: you know, out there possibilities, because nothing made sense, especially
25:35
Speaker 1: someone as healthy as him, and so they kept coming
25:38
Speaker 1: back to COVID. That's what they really, like, really thought
25:42
Speaker 1: it was. And so did we.
25:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so when you were told, okay, this isn't COVID,
25:49
Speaker 2: how did that make you feel. Knowing that there were
25:52
Speaker 2: absolutely no answers on the horizon.
25:56
Speaker 1: That was probably the most terrifying part of all of it, because,
26:00
Speaker 1: I mean, it's one thing to know that you have
26:03
Speaker 1: a really serious illness and that's devastating itself, but the
26:06
Speaker 1: thought of him possibly dying from an unknown cause, it
26:11
Speaker 1: didn't I just couldn't accept that, Like, I couldn't accept
26:14
Speaker 1: that he would die and there would be no there's
26:18
Speaker 1: no way to save him because we don't know what
26:20
Speaker 1: he's struggling with. It was terrifying. That was like the
26:23
Speaker 1: most out of control, you know, feeling ever.
26:27
Speaker 2: And you even write in the book when you get
26:29
Speaker 2: the final diagnosis from the Mayo Clinic that it's cancer,
26:32
Speaker 2: that you felt like you could breathe a little bit again.
26:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, so strange. I felt almost a sense of relief.
26:38
Speaker 1: One because we had the answer and at least, even
26:41
Speaker 1: if it was terminal is what they were telling me,
26:43
Speaker 1: at least there was some way forward we could try something.
26:47
Speaker 1: And then the other was the relief came from it's
26:50
Speaker 1: like I've done this before. My dad, you know, had cancer,
26:53
Speaker 1: My little brother had cancer when I was a kid.
26:56
Speaker 1: Cancer was something that was sadly familiar to me, and
26:59
Speaker 1: so in some way it felt it felt comfortable, as
27:04
Speaker 1: scary and sad as it was to hear those words.
27:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, I want to read an excerpt from the book,
27:10
Speaker 2: and I'm going to skip around a little bit. Two
27:13
Speaker 2: weeks after my brief hospital visit to RIVS, I experienced
27:16
Speaker 2: depression for the first time. It started with a hollow,
27:18
Speaker 2: whisper and ominous feeling of emptiness that lingered in my chest.
27:22
Speaker 2: I went to bed each night begging for the feeling
27:24
Speaker 2: to pass. I called out to the God of my childhood,
27:27
Speaker 2: as though I could leverage omnipotence, as though life was
27:30
Speaker 2: a bottle that could be filled with a limited amount
27:32
Speaker 2: of sorrow, the rest benevolently absorbed by a deity or
27:36
Speaker 2: absolved by good works. Eventually, the emptiness was a pair
27:39
Speaker 2: of hands moving from my chest to my throat. I
27:42
Speaker 2: was choked by it, but there was no way to
27:44
Speaker 2: loosen its grip, Like an unspoken truth, the more I
27:48
Speaker 2: tried to push it away, the tighter it held me.
27:51
Speaker 2: It was debilitating, a total consuming of my being, extinguishing
27:55
Speaker 2: any sense of self I might have held onto over
27:58
Speaker 2: the years. Wow, Yeah, that depiction of your experience and
28:06
Speaker 2: feeling of depression. The way that you articulated it is
28:13
Speaker 2: like many of the other words in this book, so powerful.
28:18
Speaker 1: Thank you. Yeah, that was I debated whether or not
28:21
Speaker 1: to write about depression, not because I was embarrassed by
28:23
Speaker 1: it at all, but just because it's it's a personal
28:26
Speaker 1: thing that even if you've gone through it, it's hard
28:30
Speaker 1: to explain to other people how it feels. And I
28:32
Speaker 1: didn't want to not do it justice because it was
28:35
Speaker 1: the most difficult thing I'd ever been through in my
28:37
Speaker 1: whole life.
28:39
Speaker 3: But I did.
28:40
Speaker 1: I ended up so thank you for saying that it
28:42
Speaker 1: was moving or powerful, because it was hard for me
28:44
Speaker 1: to write that and know exactly how to describe it.
28:48
Speaker 1: Hearing you read it back is like, oh man, that
28:50
Speaker 1: was intense.
28:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it was intense, and it's understandable, you know,
28:56
Speaker 2: wanting to bring that sensitivity to something that's so many
28:59
Speaker 2: individual Juwal's experience and really beautiful and powerful awareness that
29:04
Speaker 2: you have, wanting to quote unquote do it justice for you.
29:07
Speaker 2: You said, truly, it was just such a difficult time.
29:10
Speaker 2: Beyond the feelings that you were experiencing, what else made
29:15
Speaker 2: going through depression at this particular time in your life
29:19
Speaker 2: feels so challenging.
29:20
Speaker 1: I feel like the first time I ever felt depression,
29:23
Speaker 1: I was nineteen years old, and I felt really lonely.
29:27
Speaker 1: I felt as though I was a student in Hawaii
29:31
Speaker 1: at the time, surrounded by a lot of members of
29:34
Speaker 1: the LDS religion, and a lot of them were telling
29:36
Speaker 1: me that the reason for my depression was because of
29:39
Speaker 1: the path of sin. I had chosen the path of rebelliousness.
29:43
Speaker 1: And I even went to a school counselor and she
29:46
Speaker 1: basically told me that it's because I've been, you know,
29:49
Speaker 1: denying Christ. And that's fine to believe that, but it's
29:53
Speaker 1: also really damaging to tell someone going through true depression
29:56
Speaker 1: that they brought it on themselves through their choice, you know,
30:00
Speaker 1: And because that only compounds the feelings of guilt and
30:03
Speaker 1: shame that you already inevitably feel from being depressed, and
30:07
Speaker 1: you feel even more like a burden. And so that
30:10
Speaker 1: I felt very, very lonely at that time in my life.
30:14
Speaker 1: But again, like I said earlier, with my dad's sickness,
30:17
Speaker 1: what it did was equip me for being able to
30:21
Speaker 1: deal with those deep, hard feelings later in life when
30:26
Speaker 1: I had more people depending on me. So when I
30:29
Speaker 1: went through depression later in life, when I had kids,
30:32
Speaker 1: and after Ribs was sick, and this was just a
30:34
Speaker 1: couple of years ago, I went through another bout of
30:36
Speaker 1: depression after Ribs was in remission. I knew how better
30:42
Speaker 1: how to deal with it because I had done it before,
30:44
Speaker 1: and it again, like cancer, it felt familiar to me.
30:48
Speaker 1: It felt like this sad old friend that I was like, oh, hey,
30:51
Speaker 1: you know again, Okay, let's do this, you know. And
30:54
Speaker 1: it was difficult, but a little less so because I
30:57
Speaker 1: had done it before.
30:58
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it's this through line of knowing that the
31:01
Speaker 2: difficult moments can be our teachers, but that doesn't necessarily
31:05
Speaker 2: mean that they are any less difficult, and the execution
31:07
Speaker 2: or the experience.
31:09
Speaker 1: Of them, no, not at all. And I think for me,
31:11
Speaker 1: the only way it was a little easier was I
31:14
Speaker 1: remember the first time I went through depression feeling like
31:17
Speaker 1: this is never going to end. This is my life now,
31:20
Speaker 1: and I will never feel okay again. And it took
31:24
Speaker 1: a long time, but eventually I did, and I lived
31:26
Speaker 1: the best years of my life after depression. I was
31:29
Speaker 1: the happiest I'd ever been for years and years and
31:32
Speaker 1: years and years and so when I went into depression again,
31:36
Speaker 1: I knew that even though the really powerful voices in
31:40
Speaker 1: my mind telling me that this was forever thing, I
31:43
Speaker 1: knew that I was going to come out of it eventually,
31:46
Speaker 1: and that was what made it easier, knowing that my
31:49
Speaker 1: best years are again ahead of me like they were before.
31:52
Speaker 1: So I think that for me was like, Okay, all right,
31:55
Speaker 1: you know I can do this. Let's just accept and
31:57
Speaker 1: allow and go with it.
31:59
Speaker 2: You know, Yeah, I'm hearing you say, which is truly beautiful.
32:05
Speaker 2: Considering everything that you have been through that you have
32:09
Speaker 2: learned how to befriend hope. How do you hold on
32:14
Speaker 2: to hope when at times it feels like hope is fleeting?
32:19
Speaker 1: Yeah? Good, good question. I've struggled with hope, I mean
32:23
Speaker 1: since my dad died again because I felt betrayed by
32:26
Speaker 1: this idea of hope. I never liked the idea of it,
32:29
Speaker 1: but hope was what got me through Rib's illness. And
32:33
Speaker 1: I see hope a little differently now. I used to
32:36
Speaker 1: think that it was hope for an expected outcome, and
32:40
Speaker 1: you know, you put all of your energy and hoping
32:42
Speaker 1: and just expecting these good things to happen or the
32:45
Speaker 1: best outcome to happen. And now I realized that hope
32:49
Speaker 1: is just a feeling of love and being carried in
32:53
Speaker 1: love without expectations, almost as though no matter what I know,
32:57
Speaker 1: I'll be okay and no matter or the outcome. And
33:01
Speaker 1: that's the only way that I can reconcile this idea,
33:04
Speaker 1: because Ribs could have easily died, and then what would
33:07
Speaker 1: that have meant that the hope that I had felt
33:09
Speaker 1: that whole time was obsolete or wrong? And the answer
33:14
Speaker 1: is no, is because it carried me through. And just
33:18
Speaker 1: because it was a positive outcome doesn't change the nature
33:20
Speaker 1: of hope itself. And so I look at hope now,
33:24
Speaker 1: is just this just kind of like current of love
33:27
Speaker 1: that you can follow no matter no matter what the
33:30
Speaker 1: outcome is, without expectation.
33:32
Speaker 2: It brings me to that concept of energy attracting energy, right,
33:37
Speaker 2: And when you have hope, then it is more likely
33:42
Speaker 2: that you will act in a way that gets you
33:45
Speaker 2: whatever you are after.
33:47
Speaker 3: At least that's what I will argue, right.
33:49
Speaker 2: So arguably, the hope that you had encouraged you to
33:54
Speaker 2: go out of your way to advocate for Ribs in
33:58
Speaker 2: a way that no one had been doing, and ultimately
34:02
Speaker 2: got him to transfer hospitals, find a different medical team,
34:08
Speaker 2: and get on a machine that arguably, over time, helps
34:12
Speaker 2: save his life.
34:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's another good point, is like hope is
34:16
Speaker 1: also actionable. You can do things. You can't just hope
34:20
Speaker 1: for things and just sit around and be passive about it.
34:23
Speaker 1: And I think that's a really great point. It's like
34:25
Speaker 1: I didn't just hope. I worked my ass off to
34:27
Speaker 1: get him the best medical care, to get him transferred
34:31
Speaker 1: to a hospital with a team doctors that we had
34:34
Speaker 1: hope for him. Again this word hope that the flag
34:37
Speaker 1: Staff doctors unfortunately were at their max capacity. They didn't
34:42
Speaker 1: have the necessary medical intervention tools to save his life.
34:46
Speaker 1: So they had no more hope for him. That's what
34:48
Speaker 1: the nurses told me. They've given up on him. And
34:51
Speaker 1: so I had to get him out of that hospital
34:54
Speaker 1: and to a hospital where hope still existed, you know.
34:58
Speaker 1: And so that was a lot of work, and again
35:01
Speaker 1: that was kind of encompassed in this hope that I
35:04
Speaker 1: had too. It's just it was action that I took.
35:08
Speaker 2: I know, I know money can be a weird thing
35:10
Speaker 2: to talk about, but during all of this, was that
35:12
Speaker 2: something that scared you and searching out possibilities.
35:16
Speaker 1: It definitely did, because what people were telling me was,
35:21
Speaker 1: I think Echmo is something like fifteen thousand dollars a day,
35:25
Speaker 1: and then the ventilator's five thousand dollars a day, and
35:27
Speaker 1: that's just to run those those machines. That doesn't take
35:30
Speaker 1: into account the actual hospital room. So in my mind,
35:33
Speaker 1: that obviously scared me. But luckily, at the same time,
35:37
Speaker 1: there was this GoFundMe going on for Rivs, and the
35:41
Speaker 1: online community just rallied together in a way that I
35:45
Speaker 1: had never seen before to help our family, not only
35:49
Speaker 1: with medical expenses, but we had to move our whole
35:52
Speaker 1: family to Phoenix, two hours away because that's where Ribs
35:56
Speaker 1: was being hospitalized, and so we had to leave our
35:58
Speaker 1: house fine housing. Obviously no one was working, and the
36:03
Speaker 1: donations that people were contributing basically kept all of us alive,
36:08
Speaker 1: very literally for Ribs and you know, for me too,
36:11
Speaker 1: because how else would I have been able to survive
36:13
Speaker 1: those that year and a half. And that was just
36:15
Speaker 1: such a beautiful display of love for our family, but
36:20
Speaker 1: for Ribs too, And I remember thinking, I want you
36:23
Speaker 1: to wake up, because I want you to see how
36:25
Speaker 1: much people love you. I don't think he ever realized
36:28
Speaker 1: how much he'd impacted people's lives through his running career,
36:31
Speaker 1: but also through just his kindness. He would always respond
36:35
Speaker 1: to people who were in need online or in person,
36:39
Speaker 1: but he did it so so not thoughtlessly, but just
36:43
Speaker 1: it wasn't a burden to him, and so he never
36:45
Speaker 1: realized what a big impact he had had on other people.
36:49
Speaker 1: And so I just I remember, just I've told my sister,
36:52
Speaker 1: if he could just wake up and see how much
36:54
Speaker 1: the world loves him, that's all I want. And you know,
36:57
Speaker 1: eventually he did and was able to just see how
37:00
Speaker 1: the world basically came together for our family.
37:04
Speaker 3: Where were you when he woke up?
37:06
Speaker 1: Well, okay, so this is waking up is not what
37:10
Speaker 1: people expect. And I've said this a few times on
37:13
Speaker 1: different podcasts, because I think in my mind, waking up
37:17
Speaker 1: was just you're in a coma and then you open
37:18
Speaker 1: your eyes and you're like, oh, where have I been
37:20
Speaker 1: the past? And there's this beautiful knowing and reunion and
37:24
Speaker 1: everyone's so happy and really yeah, exactly, yeah, And I
37:28
Speaker 1: was not prepared for the waking up process, which if
37:31
Speaker 1: you've seen it, you know it's a long, tortuous terrifying
37:37
Speaker 1: process because he was super delirious, didn't understand what was happening,
37:42
Speaker 1: didn't recognize me. On a lot of days, thought we
37:45
Speaker 1: were on a boat, thought we were in California. He
37:48
Speaker 1: it was really really a sad, scary feeling.
37:51
Speaker 3: But we were.
37:51
Speaker 1: In the Phoenix Hospital in Scottsdale when he first quote
37:56
Speaker 1: unquote woke up and started to respond to outside stimulus.
38:01
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, wow.
38:02
Speaker 2: And so that was, if I'm not mistaken, a total
38:06
Speaker 2: of eighty four days in a medically induced coma. During
38:11
Speaker 2: those eighty four days, how did you take care of you?
38:19
Speaker 1: Good question. I probably have a lot of unpopular answers
38:25
Speaker 1: to this one.
38:27
Speaker 2: I don't expect you to say that, like I'd go
38:29
Speaker 2: for casual runs, or i would meditate in the morning,
38:32
Speaker 2: like actually.
38:33
Speaker 3: I'm not affecting that.
38:34
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, I mean, I'm sure there's an expected, like,
38:38
Speaker 1: you know, really healthy answer to that. But well, a
38:40
Speaker 1: few things. So I'll preface that by saying, my mom
38:43
Speaker 1: and Rib's mom flew out to Phoenix and lived with
38:47
Speaker 1: me the entire ten months of his intense treatment to
38:51
Speaker 1: take care of our three daughters, who were at the
38:54
Speaker 1: time homeschooled. Had to quarantine, couldn't be with friends the
38:57
Speaker 1: entire time, so it's not like we could just, you know,
39:01
Speaker 1: bring them to friends houses or drop them off at school.
39:03
Speaker 1: They were home twenty four to seven, and I knew
39:06
Speaker 1: I needed to be with Ribs throughout the day because
39:10
Speaker 1: I was almost like his lifeline to the outside world.
39:13
Speaker 1: And even the doctors told me having someone physically in
39:16
Speaker 1: the room with someone critically ill dramatically changes the outcome,
39:19
Speaker 1: whether they live or die. And I was fortunate enough
39:22
Speaker 1: to be granted that access to the hospital during COVID
39:26
Speaker 1: when no one else was, and that was a privilege
39:29
Speaker 1: that I do not take for granted. But how did
39:32
Speaker 1: I take care of me? I drank a lot of alcohol.
39:37
Speaker 1: I did, and I'm not saying that was what was
39:39
Speaker 1: taking care of me, and I don't advocate for doing that,
39:43
Speaker 1: but it was the only way. Having a couple big
39:46
Speaker 1: glasses of wine at the end of the day was
39:47
Speaker 1: the only way that at the time I knew how
39:50
Speaker 1: to turn off my mind because every day was so
39:53
Speaker 1: highly intense in the ICU alarms beefing, and I'm sure
39:58
Speaker 1: every therapist is going to say this is the wrong
39:59
Speaker 1: Dame advice again, not giving advice, but that's what I did.
40:03
Speaker 1: I did, And I would also take myself out to dinner.
40:07
Speaker 1: I had to sit alone. I had to be super
40:08
Speaker 1: careful to not be around people because if I brought
40:11
Speaker 1: anything in to the hospital, you know, that would be detrimental.
40:16
Speaker 1: But I would take myself out for dinners and then
40:18
Speaker 1: I would write. And those are the three things that
40:21
Speaker 1: helped me stay sane during that time. And things that
40:28
Speaker 1: don't serve me anymore, like, you know, in a normal circumstance,
40:32
Speaker 1: like drinking is not I mean I do it casually,
40:34
Speaker 1: but it's not you know, a normal daily thing. But
40:37
Speaker 1: at that time, Yeah, it really helped me just kind
40:40
Speaker 1: of like bring me.
40:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting to hear that, knowing that you had
40:45
Speaker 2: a past of dealing with like arguably, let's say substance
40:50
Speaker 2: abuse went to AA at one point. So now to
40:54
Speaker 2: be able to have this different relationship with alcohol where
40:57
Speaker 2: you actually feel like it's serving you, I think that's
41:00
Speaker 2: a I don't want to say like a plot line
41:02
Speaker 2: because it makes it sound like it's not legitimate, But
41:06
Speaker 2: like a plot line you don't hear very often.
41:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I remember talking to my sister about it
41:11
Speaker 1: a lot. She was my lifeline through all of this.
41:13
Speaker 1: We were just saying that, you know, it's not the
41:16
Speaker 1: it's maybe not the right thing to do. It's not
41:18
Speaker 1: the right answer. And especially because I had, you know,
41:22
Speaker 1: relied on alcohol before, it felt different. When I was
41:26
Speaker 1: a teenager, alcohol was a means of rebellion and a
41:29
Speaker 1: means of it was an angry thing, it was a
41:33
Speaker 1: rage thing. It was a destructive thing and a reckless thing,
41:36
Speaker 1: and I put myself in a lot of dangerous situations.
41:39
Speaker 1: When Ribs was sick, it was My sister has a
41:42
Speaker 1: picture of my bedside table with like three bags of
41:46
Speaker 1: chips and like four empty glasses of wine, just like, Oh,
41:49
Speaker 1: I was a mess. I mean I think I put
41:51
Speaker 1: on I think that I put on this you know,
41:55
Speaker 1: stoic kind of like I don't know, grace or something
41:59
Speaker 1: to the community. And I felt that way a lot
42:01
Speaker 1: of times. But I also I was a mess behind
42:04
Speaker 1: the scenes, and I also don't I'm not ashamed of that.
42:08
Speaker 1: I mean, anyone who's been through really difficult things knows
42:11
Speaker 1: that you just can't keep it together all the time.
42:14
Speaker 1: And so you know, drinking a glasses of wine in
42:18
Speaker 1: my bed felt a lot less reckless than it had
42:21
Speaker 1: twenty years ago, you know.
42:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, And you know, on that note of putting on
42:27
Speaker 2: a little bit of a stoic face, I actually found
42:30
Speaker 2: it just really beautiful and also humanizing to read about
42:34
Speaker 2: your honesty when it came to your girls, being able
42:37
Speaker 2: to allow both to be strong but also to cry,
42:43
Speaker 2: and knowing that for you, that was the right way
42:47
Speaker 2: to process the grief that you were living with during
42:50
Speaker 2: this time, navigating something that was truly unfathomable.
42:55
Speaker 1: Yeah. I look back and I question a lot. Did
42:58
Speaker 1: I do the right thing? Did I show them too much?
43:00
Speaker 1: Or did I hide too much from them? Was I
43:03
Speaker 1: not honest enough with them? Was I too honest? And
43:05
Speaker 1: I think that the answer is there is no right answer,
43:10
Speaker 1: and there's no there's no right way to deal with grief,
43:14
Speaker 1: and there's no right way to talk to your kids
43:17
Speaker 1: about grief. I think there's probably a lot of books
43:19
Speaker 1: written on it, and I'm sure there are a lot
43:22
Speaker 1: of things that people say you should do, But until
43:25
Speaker 1: you're in the midst of it, I think that it's
43:27
Speaker 1: impossible to know and to say and give advice about
43:31
Speaker 1: what to do, you know. I try to be as
43:34
Speaker 1: open now with my kids as possible about do you
43:37
Speaker 1: want to talk about it that hard time, that was
43:39
Speaker 1: really hard seeing dad so sick, or having Dad in
43:42
Speaker 1: the hospital, And they usually don't really care to talk
43:45
Speaker 1: about it much. But if they do, then I'm open
43:47
Speaker 1: to talking about it. But at the time, it's something
43:53
Speaker 1: else to grieve yourself and then to also carry the
43:56
Speaker 1: grief of your children along with that. It compounds, and
44:01
Speaker 1: it is it's suffocating, and it's almost like, in order
44:04
Speaker 1: to save yourself, you want to save your kids from
44:09
Speaker 1: the pain that you're experiencing. And I tried to balance
44:13
Speaker 1: the two. But I don't know if I did it right,
44:15
Speaker 1: and I don't think anyone does it right.
44:18
Speaker 2: I mean, the reality of it is like it is
44:21
Speaker 2: how it is, like that's done and all there is
44:24
Speaker 2: now is moving forward. So before we talk about what
44:28
Speaker 2: moving forward has looked like for you and your family,
44:30
Speaker 2: tell us a little bit about what it was like
44:32
Speaker 2: when Rivs finally came home.
44:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was it was really hard. He came home
44:38
Speaker 1: ninety five pounds. He is six foot one, you know,
44:41
Speaker 1: normally one hundred and seventy if he's not in marathon shape,
44:45
Speaker 1: and one hundred and fifty five if he's in marathon shape,
44:47
Speaker 1: so he'd lost I don't know, what's that like a lot,
44:50
Speaker 1: and he looked skeletal. He had no hair, he had
44:55
Speaker 1: no eyelashes. He looked really, really scary. And the interesting
44:58
Speaker 1: thing was, like I remember Ribs while wheeling him into
45:01
Speaker 1: our bedroom where he would be you know, I was
45:03
Speaker 1: his basically his home nurse. I had to feed him
45:06
Speaker 1: through a tube in his stomach. He couldn't eat yet
45:08
Speaker 1: by you know, mouth, and I remember being so worried
45:12
Speaker 1: about what the kids were going to do or how
45:14
Speaker 1: they were going to react. And he got in bed
45:16
Speaker 1: and they ran right into bed with him, snuggled right
45:19
Speaker 1: up next to him, and without any It's like it's
45:24
Speaker 1: almost like they were able to see him better than
45:27
Speaker 1: anyone else could. It's like, that's still my dad. It
45:29
Speaker 1: doesn't matter what your flesh sack looks like, like you
45:33
Speaker 1: are in there, you know, like that's you. And they
45:36
Speaker 1: saw that better than anyone, I think, and it was
45:38
Speaker 1: a beautiful thing. Actually, when Ribs was still in the
45:41
Speaker 1: rehab hospital, he he hadn't yet come home, they gave Harper,
45:47
Speaker 1: who was at the time was eleven, they let her
45:49
Speaker 1: visit him, and again I was so nervous. I knew
45:54
Speaker 1: what it looked like, what it felt like to have
45:55
Speaker 1: a sick dad and to see him not look like himself,
45:58
Speaker 1: and so I was really protive of her, and she
46:01
Speaker 1: did the same thing. She went right up to him,
46:03
Speaker 1: got in his tiny little hospital bed and snuggled next
46:06
Speaker 1: to him, and it was just it was just so
46:09
Speaker 1: beautiful to see that, Like, kids are so much stronger
46:13
Speaker 1: and so much more open than I think we give
46:16
Speaker 1: them credit for. And I was just so proud of
46:19
Speaker 1: my kids for just being you know, just being so brave,
46:22
Speaker 1: but also acknowledging that it was a really sad time
46:26
Speaker 1: at the same time.
46:27
Speaker 3: What if we were all like that?
46:29
Speaker 1: I know, right, I thought that over and over, like, man,
46:31
Speaker 1: what can all the things I learned from my kids
46:34
Speaker 1: during that time? And it was just it was it
46:39
Speaker 1: was the hardest time of our lives, but it was
46:40
Speaker 1: also probably one of the most beautiful times of our lives.
46:43
Speaker 1: Ribs probably wouldn't say that, I know he's going to
46:45
Speaker 1: be like that was not a beautiful time of my
46:46
Speaker 1: life to feel that way. I know it wasn't. But
46:48
Speaker 1: there was this sweet piece that came with him being home,
46:54
Speaker 1: all of us being together, we have to quarantine. He
46:57
Speaker 1: was at least for the time being, he was in
46:59
Speaker 1: room and just celebrating that and being in that moment.
47:04
Speaker 1: It was a really beautiful thing, at least in the
47:07
Speaker 1: time being. Does that allude that it came back. No,
47:10
Speaker 1: So that was maybe a misspeak. But at the time
47:13
Speaker 1: when he came back, they told us that it was
47:15
Speaker 1: a ninety percent chance that he would relapse within a
47:19
Speaker 1: few months.
47:19
Speaker 3: Wow.
47:20
Speaker 1: So during that time that he came back in late
47:22
Speaker 1: November and he was in remission in January, and so
47:28
Speaker 1: we were really just holding our breath and so I
47:30
Speaker 1: remember just really wanting to soak in each and every
47:33
Speaker 1: moment that we had him home because they told us
47:36
Speaker 1: that more, I mean more than likely he would be
47:40
Speaker 1: back in the hospital soon.
47:42
Speaker 2: What a crazy, crazy thing to like not only get
47:46
Speaker 2: this miracle that you got this time back, but then
47:49
Speaker 2: to not have to go back into what you had
47:53
Speaker 2: just experienced. Like it's hard to even fathom or put
47:57
Speaker 2: into words, like to give that a label of how
48:00
Speaker 2: beautiful that truly is.
48:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, it truly is. And even to this day, I mean,
48:05
Speaker 1: we're two and a half years out and he still
48:07
Speaker 1: hasn't relapsed. With which in itself is a medical miracle.
48:10
Speaker 1: I mean, the relapse rate for nkt sellomphoma is astronomical.
48:14
Speaker 1: It's i mean almost a sure thing. And so we're
48:17
Speaker 1: still in this holding pattern. But at the same time,
48:20
Speaker 1: each day that goes by, we're just a little bit
48:22
Speaker 1: more and more in the clear. But all it does,
48:27
Speaker 1: it's terrifying, But it also just makes us appreciate every
48:30
Speaker 1: day and every moment that much more, you know, and
48:33
Speaker 1: like all the little mundane things that used to be trivial,
48:36
Speaker 1: you know, just like coffee in the morning, where you know,
48:39
Speaker 1: going on walks or runs. It's just everything is just
48:42
Speaker 1: that much more meaningful and it's a beautiful way to live.
48:44
Speaker 1: I hope no matter what happens, I get to live
48:46
Speaker 1: like that, you know, the rest of my life.
48:49
Speaker 3: How are you different now?
48:53
Speaker 1: So I'm Rips would say I'm super different. I feel different,
48:59
Speaker 1: but I feel more like me than I've ever been,
49:01
Speaker 1: and so I feel I feel stronger in some ways
49:07
Speaker 1: for sure, like I feel like I was. I'm in
49:09
Speaker 1: that mode of like choosing to step into my power
49:12
Speaker 1: every day and like using my voice, even though I'm
49:15
Speaker 1: generally a shy, introverted person. And kind of pushing myself
49:21
Speaker 1: to do things that I wouldn't normally do, which yeah,
49:23
Speaker 1: I mean even in podcast interview would have terrified me
49:26
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago. It still does. But you know,
49:28
Speaker 1: and then in some ways I'm a little more broke.
49:30
Speaker 1: I mean, I am more broken in some ways. I
49:34
Speaker 1: definitely think a lot more about mortality, about I worry
49:38
Speaker 1: about my kids getting sick, probably more than is healthy.
49:42
Speaker 1: I think about worst case situations a lot, but I
49:46
Speaker 1: kind of just I try to just allow. My mantra
49:50
Speaker 1: is lately is just allow, just allow whatever feelings or
49:53
Speaker 1: thoughts are coming my way because I can't control them,
49:57
Speaker 1: and just allow and then just kind of let them
49:59
Speaker 1: go because I don't have control over pretty much anything.
50:03
Speaker 1: And that's okay. You know. I think I spent so
50:06
Speaker 1: much of my life trying to like be in control
50:09
Speaker 1: or trying to navigate like an outcome, a given expected outcome,
50:14
Speaker 1: and try to push for that thing. And now I'm
50:15
Speaker 1: just about just allow and see what each day brings,
50:19
Speaker 1: because that's the way of life. There's no other way,
50:22
Speaker 1: So why not just give into that.
50:24
Speaker 3: You know, how has your family is life changed?
50:29
Speaker 1: It's changed in that I think that we appreciate each
50:34
Speaker 1: other more, and then we appreciate the time that we
50:38
Speaker 1: have more. Not every day. The kids still fight like crazy,
50:42
Speaker 1: you know, we still have our normal bickers and everything.
50:45
Speaker 1: But just to be acutely aware of the fragility of life,
50:50
Speaker 1: I think brings a gratitude, and I think that we
50:54
Speaker 1: all live with that gratitude and try to make the
50:57
Speaker 1: most of each day and again. And that's been a really,
51:00
Speaker 1: really beautiful thing.
51:03
Speaker 3: For someone who says.
51:04
Speaker 2: That a couple of years ago a podcast interview would
51:06
Speaker 2: have frightened her or made her feel intimidated or scared,
51:10
Speaker 2: I'm curious to know how it felt. Once more and
51:14
Speaker 2: more people started following along with your journey, and then
51:18
Speaker 2: in turn, via social media, following along with you.
51:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, such a weird thing, because again, I am a
51:25
Speaker 1: really shy, introverted, private person more or less, and so
51:29
Speaker 1: is Rivs if you really know him. And I think
51:33
Speaker 1: I started sharing online because at the time I was
51:37
Speaker 1: really lonely. It's really a lonely thing to go through
51:41
Speaker 1: a tragedy, but to do it during COVID when you
51:44
Speaker 1: can't be close to your friends is really really hard.
51:48
Speaker 1: And I started writing because I was going to write
51:52
Speaker 1: either way, and so I started sharing that online and
51:55
Speaker 1: what happened was so many people reached out and said, I,
52:00
Speaker 1: I haven't been through what you've been through, but I've
52:03
Speaker 1: felt the way that you felt, or I feel the
52:05
Speaker 1: way that you feel. And having that human connection, even
52:09
Speaker 1: though it was virtual, it just made me feel understood
52:13
Speaker 1: and heard and so loved in a time where I
52:17
Speaker 1: was really isolated. Of course I had my mom and
52:19
Speaker 1: Riv's mom and my sister who would come out often,
52:21
Speaker 1: but I was really disconnected from the world and that
52:26
Speaker 1: was like a lifeline to me. To It was almost
52:29
Speaker 1: like I was throwing out this like booie, being like,
52:32
Speaker 1: do you guys understand you guys see me? And then everyone,
52:35
Speaker 1: not everyone, but people would and it felt so comforting
52:39
Speaker 1: to do that at the time. Now that we're a
52:43
Speaker 1: couple of years out, I feel myself retreating more, you know,
52:47
Speaker 1: posting less online just because again it's I am, like
52:52
Speaker 1: by nature, an introverted, private person, and so I feel
52:55
Speaker 1: myself wanting to pull back. Also knowing that my book
52:59
Speaker 1: is about to be out in the world and that's
53:01
Speaker 1: tmi for everyone as it is, so they probably don't
53:03
Speaker 1: need more of my life out there, but yeah, it was.
53:07
Speaker 1: It could have been scary, but it was actually a
53:09
Speaker 1: really beautiful experience for me.
53:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, as a writer myself, having been a
53:16
Speaker 2: career journalist, to read your words there just bring such
53:20
Speaker 2: like a sense of authenticity and just like there's so
53:25
Speaker 2: much depth to the way that you write. And so
53:28
Speaker 2: I see and hear you saying like, I don't really
53:33
Speaker 2: know if this is for me anymore, and I respect
53:37
Speaker 2: and encourage you to follow the path that feels right,
53:39
Speaker 2: but I will also be happy to be one of
53:43
Speaker 2: the many people I'm sure that tells you that your
53:45
Speaker 2: words are just truly so profound and so helpful to
53:48
Speaker 2: so many. So I do hope that, in whatever capacity
53:51
Speaker 2: feels right for you, you continue to write, not just because
53:54
Speaker 2: you feel like you've overshared in your book.
53:58
Speaker 1: Thank you for saying that. I'm sure I will. I
54:00
Speaker 1: can't not write. I mean, I will. That's what I've
54:02
Speaker 1: that's all I've ever done. But I guess I'm like,
54:05
Speaker 1: maybe I'm taking a little breather, you know, from that,
54:08
Speaker 1: And I'm sure I'll breather.
54:13
Speaker 2: So as we start to wind down here, staff, we're
54:15
Speaker 2: talking about social media. Some of these people they come
54:18
Speaker 2: to your page, they see this woman that many have
54:21
Speaker 2: just simply identified as Tommy Riv's wife. Now they also
54:24
Speaker 2: see a woman who is a new author, vulnerable beyond
54:29
Speaker 2: compare at points when you look in the mirror, what
54:32
Speaker 2: is it that you see looking back at you?
54:35
Speaker 1: Good question? I see. I think I just see someone
54:39
Speaker 1: who's still growing up. And that's okay, Like I see,
54:43
Speaker 1: I see this woman who has this whole life, these kids,
54:47
Speaker 1: you know, now, this book, and I'm still just growing
54:50
Speaker 1: up and learning to love and accept exactly where I'm
54:54
Speaker 1: at is what I'm striving for. I think I spent
54:58
Speaker 1: a lot of years of my life kind of ashamed
55:01
Speaker 1: of the choices I had made, or just kind of
55:04
Speaker 1: angry at myself for being so reckless, and now I'm
55:08
Speaker 1: just accepting all of me and accepting that the crazy
55:11
Speaker 1: parts of me are also equally valid parts of me,
55:16
Speaker 1: and they make me who I am and that's a
55:19
Speaker 1: beautiful thing. And so yeah, I think I just see
55:23
Speaker 1: a whole woman who's still growing.
55:24
Speaker 3: Up, A whole woman.
55:26
Speaker 2: What would you say the best thing was that someone
55:29
Speaker 2: did for you over those ten months, and the worst
55:32
Speaker 2: thing that someone either did for you or toward you.
55:36
Speaker 1: During those time months, I had so much love. I'm
55:41
Speaker 1: so I'm so so lucky. I feel like I had
55:45
Speaker 1: it hard, but I also had it really easy in
55:47
Speaker 1: terms of what could have been. And so the best
55:52
Speaker 1: thing that someone did was, I mean, just my close
55:56
Speaker 1: friends and my family, my sister and my mom just
56:00
Speaker 1: showing up for me and allowing me to be exactly
56:03
Speaker 1: what I needed to be in the moment. Even my
56:06
Speaker 1: sweet LDS mom was like totally open with me drinking
56:10
Speaker 1: a bottle champagne in the morning. She was like, good
56:12
Speaker 1: morning stuff. And just her accepting me exactly the way
56:17
Speaker 1: I was and how I needed to show up. That
56:19
Speaker 1: was the best thing that anyone could have done for me.
56:21
Speaker 1: The worst was the advice givers to say that, oh man,
56:28
Speaker 1: and especially advice givers with respect to ribs, and I
56:33
Speaker 1: know that they came from a good place and that's
56:35
Speaker 1: why it's hard to say that, but people who would say,
56:39
Speaker 1: you know, I'm Thanksgiving. I posted a photo and there
56:42
Speaker 1: was like a bunch of meat and cheese and someone
56:43
Speaker 1: was like, well, that's probably why you got cancer because
56:45
Speaker 1: you're eating carcinogens and dairy just those things that just
56:49
Speaker 1: are not helpful. Even if they are true, scientifically whatever,
56:53
Speaker 1: you don't need to hear those things at such a
56:56
Speaker 1: really critical time in your life. And so I've learned
57:01
Speaker 1: through that, you know, not to give advice and solicited
57:05
Speaker 1: advice to people who are going through difficult times. All
57:08
Speaker 1: people need is someone to just accept them exactly where
57:11
Speaker 1: they're at. And yeah, well, oh my gosh.
57:16
Speaker 2: I haven't mentioned this until now, but as we really
57:18
Speaker 2: wind down, I find it now is a good time
57:21
Speaker 2: to tell you that after Boston, not this year, but
57:24
Speaker 2: last year, I actually had breakfast with your husband. It
57:27
Speaker 2: was me and Tommy and Lisa at a Tata and
57:32
Speaker 2: it was after that like crazy experience that he had
57:35
Speaker 2: and he literally just walked in and was like he
57:38
Speaker 2: just woke up and it was another day. And in
57:39
Speaker 2: my head, I'm like, I'm a mess normally after running
57:43
Speaker 2: a marathon.
57:43
Speaker 3: Like hobbling, not well whatever.
57:46
Speaker 2: Nevertheless, conquering a twenty six point two mile race after
57:50
Speaker 2: everything else he had conquered over the last you know,
57:53
Speaker 2: at that point year and a half, So just a special,
57:56
Speaker 2: special soul. And it goes without saying that the two
57:59
Speaker 2: of you certainly share this like common beautiful energy. And
58:04
Speaker 2: I can see from talking to you over the last hour,
58:08
Speaker 2: why it's such a good fit and how great it
58:11
Speaker 2: is that you fought for him.
58:12
Speaker 1: Oh, thank you for saying that we're so different and
58:15
Speaker 1: it works. That's all. I like Yin and Yang to
58:17
Speaker 1: the tea. Our joke is and I have a tattoo
58:20
Speaker 1: it says one hundred percent, And the joke is, you know,
58:24
Speaker 1: he and most people in my life live at one
58:25
Speaker 1: hundred percent and I live at fifty percent, and that.
58:28
Speaker 3: Works for me.
58:31
Speaker 2: Oh man, Well, right now, my friend, do you have
58:34
Speaker 2: an opportunity to offer yourself a piece of advice?
58:38
Speaker 3: Let's go back to the thick of it, back.
58:40
Speaker 2: In the hurdle moment when you find out that not
58:43
Speaker 2: only does ribs Of has cancer, but we're gonna have
58:46
Speaker 2: to put him into this medically induced coma. You have
58:49
Speaker 2: an opportunity to offer yourself a piece of advice. Looking
58:51
Speaker 2: back on that hurdle moment, knowing what you know, now,
58:54
Speaker 2: what do you tell yourself who probably that you should just.
59:03
Speaker 1: Learn to let go? That's it. Learn to let go.
59:08
Speaker 1: That was probably the biggest lesson I had to learn,
59:11
Speaker 1: learn to let go and just be water. That's I mean,
59:14
Speaker 1: I think Bruce Lee said that, but just go with it.
59:17
Speaker 1: You have no control in this life, and all you
59:19
Speaker 1: can control is the way that you feel sometimes, and
59:22
Speaker 1: sometimes you can't even control that, So just let go.
59:26
Speaker 2: Staph, thank you so much for your time today. This
59:29
Speaker 2: has been something that I've been looking forward to for
59:31
Speaker 2: a really long time. How do the hurdlars follow along
59:34
Speaker 2: with you? How can they get your book? Give us
59:37
Speaker 2: the deats?
59:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, so book will be out May thirtieth, so you
59:40
Speaker 1: can order Amazon anywhere books are sold, indie bookstores preferably,
59:46
Speaker 1: and you can follow me at steph Underscore outside on Instagram.
59:50
Speaker 1: I will start posting more. I've taken a little breather
59:54
Speaker 1: as we know, and yeah, thank you so much, thank you.
59:58
Speaker 2: I'm over at Emlabody an at Hurdle podcast. Another Hurdle Conquered.
1:00:03
Speaker 2: Catch you guys next time.