Latest / Tom's Hirschsprung's Podcast / Episode 16 - With Patrick Belton @theostomyathlete

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Episode 16 - With Patrick Belton @theostomyathlete · Tom's Hirschsprung's Podcast

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You are listening to Tom's Hirshprung's Podcast, where I provide a look into the
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remarkable experiences of the most inspiring people around Hirshprung's disease and sports. Hello and
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welcome to episode sixteen of Tom's Hirshprung's Podcast. Now, this podcast is all
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about inspirational stories with people who have Hirshbrungs disease IBD the lights, and today
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I have with me Patrick Belt, who is one of those inspirational people.
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We are going to talk about Patrick's and the fact that he now leads a
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mountaineering team of men and women from Canada, the US, and the UK,
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all without All people within that team are without a large intestine and also
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have ostomes, and together they climb many of the world's fallest mountains. Patrock,
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Welcome to the podcast. Yeah, Jarl and everybody, thank you so
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much for coming off. As I said, we'll start with your story and
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then we'll move on to how and why the team was formed and how it's
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going at the moment. So if we take back right to I think when
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you were around sort of nineteen years old at the university, what happened at
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that particular point whereas nineteen I was healthy up a twent eighteen, had no
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signs of inflammatory about all disease or call and kits or anything like that.
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When there's nineteen I was living in Quebecca University and I noticed just that it
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was for initial his dietary things foods that were like alcohol became trouble my body.
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I know, it's a real issue. Drinking alcohol university, it's a
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big deal. And you know, having foods that were fatty or fried you'd
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give French fries or something like that, or pizza, my body started reacting.
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Those were the initial things, but it was quite overt and then and
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then as I progressed through my first couple of years of the university, the
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symptoms became worse and worse. I came back to that was in Quebec.
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So when I came back to Ontario where I lived in the summertime, i'd
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get appointments or Christmas, I'd get the doctor. I was in the medical
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system having to check this, and they thought it was parasites or you know,
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there's I took them two and a half years to figure out what was
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wrong with me. And part of that's just because you're waiting to get appointments
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of specialists in tests because the system, yes, it's not too different from
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your country. There's a long way time with certain things anyway. So when
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I was twenty one, I was diagnosed, but by time then that last
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several months before I got the diagnosis and started treated for it had to be
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clitis diagnosed with. But my white dropped over forty pounds. One pounds call
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correctly be the exact amount by time I was twenty one, and I went
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ghostly white, you know, because you're malnursed and all these other things like
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you know, s thin. It's funny because nobody noticed. In my life.
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I remember going to high school reunion things and family things, and no
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one noticed how physically different that lookd maybe because it's gradual over two years to
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drop weight. And I don't know anyway, but once I was diagnosed with
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clitis, I was put on a very common drug used to treat it.
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I changed my modified my diets. I knew things that were trigger foods,
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and I skated through my twenties. I had literally no issue. And so
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that was in the nineties. So I skated right through the nineties with that
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was no problem, and then in two thousand and four, two thousand and
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three, actually right around that era, my former wife and I split and
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that was a very stressful event. We had a two year old daughter,
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and so there's all kinds of you know, motions that things go around that
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coming out of that, I found that was a high stress event that was
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kind of acted as the base trigger for for inflabbatory disease to pay a return.
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And I was also doing a lot of aggressive entrepreneurial business endeavors the same
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time, which were high stress, high leverage, a high wire act.
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So the two things collectively, it was just a high stress environment. Then
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you're single parent with a daughter who's a cod where you're dubbling all those things.
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So that ended up. The symptoms came back by two thousand and five
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and four. You could see a creep in it, just a gradual creep.
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And the time I hit the start of two thousand and six, my
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symptoms of inflammatory bell disease were really overt And then I started and I did
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called Oscar's every year from the age of twenty one anyways, so they you
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know, they rediagnosed me with crones in two thousand and six and then and
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then but you know, it was incapacitating me then where I need so much
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rest? You go to work and then you're sleeping in the out your bed
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of the time. You said nothing left. So and that led to two
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thousand and seven. I got a called Oscar be in at a sort of
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like a primate clinic area in Toronto in Canada, and he just said,
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oh, however, I was awake when he was doing a cold hospit It
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was I only haven't partially druged me, so I could see the imagery.
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And he says, oh, I knew right away. I said. He
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says, ah, you have to go to the hospital. You got to
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see you have to get this dealt with that surgery. So anyway, so
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it took. But so I had the surgery done in January two thousand and
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nine. They took out my turre large intestine, half of a small intestine,
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installed at Iliel Paucio or j pouch, put in a stoma. Then
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May two thousand and nine, twelve weeks after the first surgery, actually my
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birthday that that year, I had it reversed. That's very soon to do
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reversal, I get it. But I did a rehesal, and I did
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it because I was going on a business trip to Europe, to Malta and
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Germany in Austria. Then I knew it was going to be on the beach
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and I didn't want to have a friend in Oustar. I mean, it
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was stupid and shallow. It is what it is, whine is. I
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had that surgery in May two thousand and nine. I spent most of that
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summer twousand and nine in hospital in and out, in anut out because the
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pouch would work. Jay pouch didn't function, and so I was having my
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first night I had remembers just over forty bowel movements, second night sixty bowel
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movements. In Austril. This is after the May reversal. And then after
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that it was having one hundred plus bowel movements whether there are false movements or
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real movements, every twenty four hours. And I dropped weight. That's when
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I dropped out, like one hundred nine pounds. Doctors couldn't feel what's wrong
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with me. Imaging's not comming back anything. It's touch and go. You
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know, you a's a question whether it'd liver not that summer the finally they
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had to go old school in July twenty twenty and nine, the doctor asked
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permission, says, look, we can't figure this out. He says,
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kind of just go old school with you. We're going to cut you back
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over the optomen and we're just gonna look. There must be something that we
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can't see. Because imaging and testing is not perfect, right, the light
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of work gets things get missed. So that's what they did. And July
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twos and nine we had a plan to just take a look at but I
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said to him, I said, if you don't find anything, every load's
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normal, then and just reinstall the stole right. Let me just so that
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that's what they they are doing. They found nothing wrong. They kept me
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open for I had five or six hours actually looking you bring all the special
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stup ands, thinking are we look they're looking at my caviar. Am I
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missing something? And they didn't find an things? So I had to still
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have put back in with the plan that two or three years later. Eventually
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I tried to a rehearsal once my life had settled down and all this type
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of thing. So twenty eleven I did a rehearsal again. Again. I
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had right up to twenty eighteen I'd make continual issues with the japeouch belt working.
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The crones got worse and worse and worse. I got sicker and sycre
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and sicker through that decade up until twenty eighteen. They're really impacted career.
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There's all those ongoing manifestations of inflammatory ballel disease. You know, they affect
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your vision, your teeth, your energy, your immune systems weeks, so
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you're then you're catching all kinds of other things flash eating disease. I contracted
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that when as an hospital, Like there's all these other infections get which conspire.
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So it was just a brutal decade and it literally destroyed all facets of
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my life from oh nine to twenty eighteen, Like nothing was left out in
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touch, do I say destroying a big very little that went from being,
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you know, a successful entrepreneur two thousand and nine. I'll walk in January
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twenty night, So I was a nine. I walked in the hospital.
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I own a firm insurance organization in Toronto. You know that would be valued
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at the time around sixteen to twenty million dollars, sixty two employees. We'll
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go in that surgery January thirtieth. You walk out February first, or now
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you'll walk out February first, but you wake up February first, after after
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the surgery, you realize life is different after that, you just and when
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you walk out of hospital. I was just physically never the same after that.
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And and uh, you know those types of big surgeries, especially cause
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I had four, So I had to three that year and in two thousand
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and eight, year before, I had a surgery in my throat lift down
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to the upper part of my throat. So I had four surgeries in twelve
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months. That's a lot of people I take. And when you're entrepreneur owning
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business. So I sold my company. There's a whole story behind that that
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did that, so I'm not going to go into that. But I ended
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up ultimately selling it because the doctor said I was in litigation and I had
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one last litigation piece to execute. We didn't think I could survive, my
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body would survive going through the stress of that litigation after I met with my
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team, so I just sold it didn't effectively what end up being that loss.
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So and then twenty eighteen, I went in I was on the emergency
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surgery list at a hospital in Toronto, and Canada. I was in there
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for five weeks in the hospital, my tests and stopped working that year.
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Could eat or drink or consume anything. Everything. As soon as you put
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something in it would just come back out. So I was dropping substantial weight.
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That was a tough year. I had my Stollma reinstalled, you know,
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and all that, so I still a Japowach sitting in me. It's
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inactive. I didn't have it removed then. They didn't want to do that
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extra surgery to remove it then because I was so weak into my body.
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Didn't think I could only survive so much trauma from so much surgery at that
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time, so we agreed we'll defer that for some years down the road.
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I still have it in me today, it's just dormant and once that's a
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permanent ilioscopy. I have gotten now and I've never looked back. I was
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so excited to get the iliostomy in twenty eighteen, and then the second part
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of that that stabilized our bowels. And then I went on a new biologic
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drug which had been planned out eighteen months before. It was a new one
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introduced to Canadian market at the time, which was looked very promising, and
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I've been on that since my disease went into our mission. But months after
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six or seven months after going to that biologic still odd today, and that
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drugs response from literally saving my life and helping me restore my life and living
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and do the mountaineering I'm doing now. So if you fought fast forward all
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of that with my career being affected in financial services, you go through a
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decade of my realness. And I all said to myself that if i can
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get predictable body back, yeah, I mean your athletics, you understand this.
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If you can just have predictable body function, you can deal with a
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crowd of guiltless, if you have a better idea of what to expect week
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to weak, day to day, months to months. I didn't have it.
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So having the iliosity, having myostines restored, the biologic causing the drug
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to go and remission, and then I liver relatively normal life again, go
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back into normal career work and not have to look over my shoulder fearing I'm
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going to get sick again or in the back in the hospital for another two
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weeks, or another surgery, or whatever the case might be. But I've
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also said to myself. If I can get stable health, I want to
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become more integrated into the ostomy inflammatory ballot disease and let's just call the Teslo
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track community cancer community pertaining to different colon cancers and things like that. Try
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and make a difference in it, get involve charity wise, advocate advocacy wise.
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But also knowing what I had gone through, I thought there's a story
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there where people who are really sick right now, because you and I have
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met a lot of people with the intestinal issues over a number of years who
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are really ill. And then I call it sausage grinder're you're marred in multiple
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years of this serious owner's disease. You see no ended sight. Well,
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sometimes you do come out the other end, right, you do end up
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at the end of the rainbow in a sense. So it's up. My
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body's perfect, but I can live normal life. So that's that led to
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the whole osteme athlete thing, and there's different components to that. And then
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yeah, so I'll shut up there, but that's kind of the basic genesis
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of it. So age nineteen, got sick twenty one, diagnosed with colitis,
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was flying for a decade plus, go through a couple of stressful events
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in life acts a bit of an acts as a trigger for sure. And
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once they I've gone through all these surgeries that you know, we go through
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a lot of surgeries over the course of our lifetime. So I've got two
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more in froight of me. I have to have the jape houch removed at
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some point because that's such an elevated cancer risk and also biol sings just get
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perforated at some point, but I'm not going to do that to lose an
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issue come up in that my stomachs prolapse and my stomar sticks out like four
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inches or ten centimeters. It's just permanently like that, which is fine,
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it's just ecstatically. So they go on in to go my g pouch dove
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shove that back in a bit. But yeah, anyway, so yeah,
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and now I live in Alberta. I moved from Central Canada to the Rocky
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Mountains in Alberta so I can prepare and training in being a mountain environment all
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the time for the ask tome athlete mountain climbing. Fantastic. That's a that's
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an incredible story. Thank you so much for sharing. I've just got a
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couple of things. Just picked up on one thing that you said, which
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was which kind of resonated with me when I had my stomer. So I
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had mine from an age of nine till twenty three and I'm thirty two now,
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so I've had that sort of gone nine years or so. But when
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you said that stress, and it makes absolute sense, but stress really sort
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of activated your Steiner. Again, That's something that really hit with me because
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if I did exercise or something else, I had to really be sort of
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careful of it, or I was in a sort of a stressful situation.
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How you said, Obviously you sort of moved and to try and sort of
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get out of that stressful situation. But once you would in that situation,
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was there any were there any sort of techniques or anything that helped you whilst
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you were in those stressful situations? Yeah. Look, so if you're focusing
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on if the question pertains to say that twentousand and six to twenty eighteen period
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when I was really sick going through the surgeries, you do, Look,
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I got I spent a lot of time isolated in bed or couch at home.
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I just did during that period, Like it was that like it was
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you know people you know eto this. So once those nine surgeries happened,
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you spent so much because I couldn't like I would have to stay at home
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for twenty one twenty two hours a day just build up energy in the strength
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to go over for an hour or two. I was whether I have to
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go to say a business meeting or you know, go see my daughter's track
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and field meat or whatever it like. Be Yeah, by the wise,
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I had to be at rest because I was so weak and I was so
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sick and my bowels like you know. So in terms of the stress,
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I was living in a big city, Toronto. You know it's population today
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around that that region is around eight million, so the greater Toronto area.
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So it's a metropolis. There's no escape. So in terms of your sensory
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environment, I had no escape from city life and I was so sick.
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All my healthcare was there. So the only way I did as immersed myself
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in books. I removed. My strategy was I found that if I read
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books or could get physically get out for walks into seeing trees and some kind
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of nature that was close to home, that helped be. I cut myself
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off from I found that what I call electronic things, so TV, computers,
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phones, my body reacted negatively to those, like interacting with them.
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So I minimized by use about anything electronic. But look other than that,
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I was being blood down screwed. I knew that I had. I knew
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instinctively I had to get to a rural environment where a small living set,
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to a small town environment where I was closer to nature and immersed in nature,
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like real nature, right, not urban suburban nature. So that's what
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I did in twenty eighteen, and after I had that surgery and finally I
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had blood cloths and my lungs were when I had mainly also restored twenty eighteen
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my lungs and the months later being full of blood cloths, so that delayed
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me be able to leave Ontario. But the moment my doctor gave me clear
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stopping a plane, I'd moved the White from Middle Canada to the Atlantic maritime
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coast, right on the ocean in Halifax, Nova Scotia. And I moved
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there because you're right on nature. There's all kinds of hiking trails nearby.
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So that helped me recover from all these surgeries this decade plus, I had
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Nature at my doorstep. It wasn't mountains, but I couldn't do mountains.
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Then I was not fiscal kid, so look I was. I was out
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of Toronto right away, and i've since twenty December twenty eighteen. I've lived
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in other than but maybe eight to ten months, but I had to return
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to Toronto to live just after the pandemic. I'd been living in smaller living
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centers right near nature, and then a year ago I moved to the mountains
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here for obvious reasons, for so I can prepare train to the mountains slimbing.
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I've got to be worsed in this all the time. And where I
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live in the city called Canmore, it's down the street from Bamford Lake Louise,
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but the're we're all famous. They're like baff Is twenty kilometers for me.
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So it's this like fifteen thousand people live here, so I'm not exposed
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to viruses and colds and flues the same way you would be living in a
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larger living center like Save London, England Assault Light. So it's a safer
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environment that way. It's comber because I'm looking literally out the window to hell
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mountains and bal trees, you just can't see them if it y're in the
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camera, so you know, terms of the visual environment. So what I
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did is I trans I took my life in an urban area, but when
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it's wired in the middle of illness, I was stuck living in a city.
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There was my treatment, my daughter's there. I couldn't get out,
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so and I couldn't afford to get out anyways because my work career being so
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interrupted that I didn't have enough income to even move in anyways. So yeah,
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no, So did you go? So when you went back to work,
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did you go back to the same career that you had before? Yeah?
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I had to because yeah, like I didn't want to, but I
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went back into the shirt property, property casually insurance industry in twenty nineteen because
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I'd spent so many years in that career. At some point you become defined
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by working in a certain industry once you're inl long enough, and it was
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the path of least resistance and the easiest way for me to get back to
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a normal career corporate work. So that's why I went to work on it.
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And also I could do consulting in that area too, because I had
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relationship you know, a lot of relationships in the industries. I could do
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different consulting projects as things came out. So it just made sense. If
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I had my brother, I would not choose to have done that. But
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you have to be practical life at some time, at some point. Yeah,
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So that's that's what I did in twenty nineteen. So it was great.
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I was so excited just to go back working in an office Akain in
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twenty nineteen, to be a regular blog, going to work, getting up
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in the morning, you know, seeing colleagues at work, and so being
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isolated a bed and home mere around in office of forty fifty people. I
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mean that was amazing. Yeah, so it's very undifferent. Yeah, yeah,
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yeah, very underrated. Sometimes I think we we we all take that
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for granted, and we all kind of think, you know, sometimes just
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getting up and going to work, going out for a walk, whatever,
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and sometimes we really do tell that for granted. But if we sort of
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move on from that sort of twenty twenty nineteen euro Were you always sort of
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involved within sports? Yeah, like I was, I think, not in
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you. I like I was me. I was born naturally athletic. Yeah,
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I played sports all my life, competitive sports, and think, you
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know, physical activity for fun, and it was my belly do physical activity
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came encumbered by the inflammatory BALLT disease. The closer crones right if whenever that
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was acting up, and it makes it difficult. So you know, I
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love biking. For several years I couldn't bike because I'd sit on a bike
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seat. It's hard. It caused me, you know, to suddenly have
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diarrhea come out, that type of thing, you know. So I remember
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even playing with my daughter, we'd have to every time we try and play
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just full ball arouse as a little kid, or frow a frisbee or something
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like that. But go biking. I always have to stop it not long
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after we started it because my bowels were starting to explode. Right even if
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you were diaper, the diaper can't hold it all. That mean it was
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that bad by bowels of that unstable. So your equality lies tomatously impacted.
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So yeah, I like I'm a very athletic, a multi sport person growing
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up the way from sailing, tennis, track field, across country, rugby,
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hockey, volleyball, basketball, on and on and on and on eight
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thing. Yeah, when there was organized or you know, just me and
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friends playing baseball or whatever, that type of thing. So I was so
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excited with my twenty eighteen surgery restoration and that biologic drug goingals. I knew
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I could reserve them. I was called it. I was going to be
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able to resume a physical life again. So and that the mountaineering is just
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the most extreme manifestation of me doing that. Yeah, I'll stop because I'm
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not eighteen anymore. And also because of what that body is cam through,
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just the amount of trauma. Right, it's setting It's like setting the bar
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as high as you could, like if you and guy were tracking the fields
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athletes, you want to win a gold medal of the Games, let's say
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in the eight hundred meters. It's that, you know. That's why I
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just set the goal coming out of twenty eighteen nineteen. Okay, now when
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I wanted to, I kept it quiet all my life, the whole mountain
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airy thing, because I lived in the middle of Canada. There's no mountains,
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so I always had I you know, a decade ago, I'd been
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looking at relocating for part of the year Alberta Bridge, Columbia, where the
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mountains are in Canada. Anyways, what I still I thought I was die,
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So it was inevitable that I ended up out here at some point.
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So I did live in British Columbia during the pandemic. I lived there for
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a year at Vancouver, so I had access to mountains every day, so
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I spent three days a week in the mountains. Then it's just now this
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is a little bit better environment. I think from me here excellent. And
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so if we move on there to the ustome athlete and the team that you
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have of all people, Yeah, how did that all come about? Yeah?
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Like, okay, in a nutshell, when I was going through my
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own physical recovery and i'll say emotional, psychological caboclet team and decade long saying
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I was on hiking trail in Nova Scotia, because that's right, every weekend
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that's where I was. And this is on along the ocean coast. I
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remember. It was a beautiful sunny day. Ways of crashing in there,
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seals playing in the water there, big rocky coast, I mean, and
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I felt really good. And then I started doing this. I thought,
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God, my body, I finally I finally feel good, like I felt
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like my normal physical self again. And I thought, this is like almost
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a couple of years after the surgery. A year and a half after,
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and then this woman passed me. She was a trail runner the opposite direction.
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I looked at her. I thought, damn, I feel pretty good.
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I can do that too. So this is a ten k hiking trail.
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So I ran the last day k or so of it. And then
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I thought, I don't have to worry about my body anymore. And I
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don't because I also had fear something else going wrong. From six to twenty
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eighteen, you're also pop up of your shoulder, another thing to break down.
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Oh why am I going to go to the hospital now? So this,
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this psychology overtakes you, and then you have no belief in your body
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right to do anything competently without it falling apart. And so finally, on
23:48
this Nova Scotia trail, I thought I'm back. I didn't. I realized
23:51
I can look forward today. I don't have to worry living fear about my
23:55
body anymore. Breaking down, I realized it was sulid again, you know,
24:00
so that the Austin he was working and I had stable bowel, the
24:03
drums were working, and my body was coming back, and and so that
24:07
once you have that realization a trigger, then the emotional psychological recovery takes place
24:14
thereafter, right in terms of self belief and all this type of thing.
24:18
So they and what happened though in fa Scotia is like that. This is
24:21
where they ask me actually was born because that same day ran the last day
24:25
K I thought, okay, now, I thought this is an amazing I
24:29
said, what my body. I'm taking myself what my body's gone through.
24:32
I can't believe I'm running this journal like that. I can't believe I can
24:34
actually look forward to start doing mountaineering down the road. And I thought,
24:38
there's a compelling story there that can set an example for others who have gone
24:41
through and are going through our horrific health journey involving their intestinal track in some
24:48
way its cancer, laboratory ballencies, or some other disease in the track,
24:52
and see that there's hope that we can come out at the other end of
24:53
it if I went through it. So and then I thought, okay,
24:57
let's say it side to go do the seven not just the seventh summits,
25:00
but you know Clouse from the world's tallest mountains best, and I want a
25:03
team to do it. If they ever can find it. Others with my
25:07
body. So something in testial related who have perhaps having oust to be or
25:11
had IBD or colon cancer led to the ostome some combination in that and look
25:17
around and not have the mulby Canadian look around the world, find somebody from
25:19
your US that type of thing. So I just start looking online. So
25:23
the whole idea of the ostume athlete. I actually came up with the name
25:26
that day because I've tried. When I was doing the run, I'm coming
25:29
up with the name. You couldn't. You can't hybrid the knee between IBD
25:33
and all the different diseases. You have to get something short enough. I
25:34
thought, well, that seems catchy, so let's just go with that.
25:37
And then that's how I found online. It's social media, Instagram, TikTok,
25:41
you too, you know, just researching people. Rock Hill was easy
25:45
to find. Who's the king in British Columbia because he's the only guy in
25:48
the world with an ost to be and inflammatory BOUD disease and and it was
25:52
ever client in the Seven Summits, including Everest and some other big mountains around
25:56
the Earth. He's a real mountaineer and that's incredible. There's no one else
26:00
ever done that. And then I found Jessica in England and then Charlotte in
26:03
the UK and in the United States, like it's I just saw them on
26:07
Instagram. They both have images of them doing things in the outdoors, in
26:11
back country nature and you know, cycling everything that. So I just contacted
26:15
them say hey, look, we all do our own thing in the community
26:18
terms advocacy and work within the say the IBD colon cancer ousteman community. But
26:25
I said, if we can come together as even if it's a loose team
26:29
with coherity, and do these mountains together, we can actually do more with
26:33
messaging and advocacy. We can raise more money, will help a bigger we
26:37
can generate a larger platform to do more while we're still doing our own thing.
26:41
So that's how that came about. So I just reached out to them
26:44
and I said, hey, I laid out basically a sketch of what we
26:45
could try and do. Now. The only the most difficult challenging part of
26:49
the team is is uh is you know mountaineering is expensive. There's basically essentially
26:56
cheap people do it in the world. You're early wealthy, independently wealthy and
27:00
you can pay to do all the guys these, or you've got sponsors,
27:03
company sponsors, gear sponsors, corporate sponsors, whatever the case may be.
27:07
We're just private benefactors who are wealthy. So you know, I spend most
27:11
of so much time hustly after trying to lie up sponsorship for us. Yeah,
27:17
you know, it's to do the Seventh Summits, to ski to the
27:21
South Pole, the North Pole, because there's basically that there's a list of
27:26
ten, which is for marketing purposes and branding. I mean there's mountains I
27:32
want to climb all around the world that are not on the list. Right,
27:33
That's why I go to Epward or South America in the eighties all the
27:36
time because they're easily accessible from where I am. Then those great mountains down
27:40
there to go do train on. But that being said, the Seventh Summits
27:42
is aim blessed and has got everest on it. It's got to Naley,
27:45
North America. You know Antarctica, full skis are at South Poles. In
27:51
the North Pole ski are because that's called the Explores Grand Slam. iFund climb
27:55
the Seven Summits and do the Explores Grand Slam, which is skiing to both
27:59
poles plus seven Summits. That's nine things in the list. And the tenth
28:03
thing on the list is I want to do with Rob and hear a cats.
28:07
We want to do one one hundred and thirty eight klaber ski in the
28:08
South Pole, so to the Giograxi. It's that's fifty to sixty days.
28:14
It's the hardest thing we'll ever do. It's the most extreme thing. I
28:15
mean, it's minus fifty minus sixty. You have one hundred and fifty k
28:18
wins and you're just out there like there's no support, there's no guys.
28:23
You're pulling one hundred and fifty pound sleds like it's crazy right even navigating it.
28:30
So that's the number ten thing. So so the team came about simply
28:33
because that no Scotia trail. I knew I was back physically. To summarize
28:37
all this, I wanted to get involved in our community advocacy, raising money
28:41
and directly trying to help people. Now here's the thing that's important. Rob
28:45
had gone when he climbed the seven Summits with our body tight back in two
28:48
to twenty ten. He set up a registered charity called Ideas so and then
28:55
that had a pro had different programs. One of the programs was idd Adventures,
29:00
so he would take people with variety of intestinal related health issues, could
29:06
be different diseases in there doesn't have to be politest or crows do. You
29:08
have to have anoscy and they go around the world to different exotic places,
29:12
hiking and trekking mountains or climbs. But this would be part of their recovery
29:18
psychologically, emotionally, physically from their health journey they've gone through. Yeah,
29:23
it's not like they're just going out of vacation. It's not that. So.
29:27
So the Ideas is an intestinal Disease Education and Awareness and Research Society.
29:33
It's a registered charity and so he would find raised for that and then he
29:37
could help send youth, children and youth to camps for people of ostomese.
29:42
You know, so it's acceptance aroundy peers. You see, you're not just
29:45
the white person like this in there's deriding ways. He applied the funds directly.
29:48
It's amazing when he set up the whole architecture, and but the pandemic
29:55
interfered with that, like a lot of things in the world. You know,
29:57
you can't go travel to climbate mountains in the pandemic. So and that's
30:02
what he used to raise funds for to help the youth. You get the
30:07
idea. So I, you know, once I met Rob and saw this
30:10
architecture, I thought, well, here's we can We can organize our charity
30:12
aims it together and individually, like there's Crones and Clitis UK Clothes Claus Foundation
30:19
in the USA, Canadas quotes Place Canada. There's the AUSPE Society Canada equivalent
30:23
of the year country. You know, there's the UOAA the US. So
30:27
I approached all those big organizations that represent us our different communities, let's say,
30:34
but they have conventional corporate ways of how they operate and raise money.
30:41
They do their walks and things like this, and there's no saying, look,
30:44
can we partnership, have some kind of strategic relationship or partnership with you
30:48
and you leverage what we're doing to raise more money, but we'll direct it
30:52
in certain areas. They couldn't find anything that would work or where they even
30:56
had an interest. So I just went back to Rob. I said,
30:59
look, let's send up our own charity. But then because his white dormant,
31:03
because of the pandemic. But then looking at it was said, no,
31:07
let's just let's let's I want to help reinvigorate his charity. To agree,
31:11
I can because it was already operating effectively for two decades. They're both
31:15
knowing programs and entities and we can apply them in the We can have IBD
31:19
adventures work the Kingdom, the USA and Canada. Right so, and then
31:26
the whole teammate thing was there's other people of our body issues obviously in Europe
31:30
and other continents. But I was being practical by limiting it to the UK,
31:34
USA, the team in Canada because when we speak the same language,
31:38
we're relatively integrated business markets. It's a population and close to half billion people.
31:44
So I thought, from a sponsored point of view, it's going to
31:47
work easier. It'd be easier to find sponsors. Once you start incorporating somebody
31:51
from Italy or France or whatever in it's just gonna be harder in terms of
31:55
the whole operation, you know, terms of the business side of what we're
31:57
doing. You catch it. M So, so if you if you met
32:02
this out, where we sit today is we have not done as a team
32:07
a mountain together. Number One that won't happen until we have sponsors lined up.
32:13
So what I did in terms of sponsors is being practical. If you
32:15
look at my life, So I have an aust to me at crone disease,
32:17
okay, fine, pharmaceutical cut me. It's obvious one to go to
32:22
host the appliance manufacturers. Another one hydration that's huge, electrolytes, vitamins and
32:28
things like that. So you're right, that's a huge part of our life.
32:31
So because I because we suffer from male nutrition and all, well,
32:37
the whole you know. So for me, I've got a seventy five percent
32:40
of my TESTLA track has gone. So what I eat, I time it.
32:44
It's ninety minutes when it comes out by body. What I eat iNeST
32:47
anything drink or fluid's ninety minutes before it exits. My body would have a
32:52
cold or flu or virus that goes down to twenty four minutes to twenty six
32:54
to twenty eight minutes. So so your boys, Billy, my boy's billion
32:59
of or things is in cuveras. So my point is if you think of
33:02
companies electrolyte drinks or vitamin drinks that are say sugar free, but ideally that's
33:10
that's the easy way for me to get my vitamins and electrolytes than taking you
33:14
know up till will break down my body, and getting through food sometimes is
33:16
not doesn't always work either because the speed it's moving through me. So,
33:22
you know, some terms of strategic targets that our population with our body identifiers
33:29
utilizes, that's where I first targeted. There's traditional mountaineering sponsors like you know,
33:32
it's like the North Face lest Bertiva as things like that. There's red
33:36
for all and all that, but that's ultimately a different audience. So what
33:39
I'm getting at is a lot of work twin light sponsors. So I've DOT
33:45
one which I you know, contracted with there there should be a second one
33:49
and contracted with personally coming up in the next couple of months. It's a
33:53
huge conglomerate. But that's taken a couple of years, right yep. So
34:00
mean I loft my corporate job a year a year ago. I love corporate
34:04
life. Last year once I moved out here and so to so I could
34:09
do the mountaineering and prepare and train and so it's not like I can go,
34:13
you know, make a half million dollars a year and fly over and
34:15
you know, do you spend seveal five thousand dollars of a guide for you
34:19
the Everest? You know it's not like that anymore. So you did the
34:22
business side of it in terms of line of the sponsors. That it's a
34:24
part I'm focused on now. In the meantime, I keep preparing my barne
34:28
out here every day. You know. That's the truns out that mountaineerer preparer.
34:34
Yeah, definitely, And that that kind of folds into because I was
34:37
having a look at your your website, the ostome Athlete, right, and
34:42
you've got your your missions and your and what what you want kind of out
34:46
of this and two of those four well objectives are to inspire and to educate,
34:52
which is what you detailed really and then you your other two too raised
35:00
billions of dollars. And also to partner with with research and development teams.
35:07
Yeah, let's be tricky. Yeah, the research. You know what I
35:09
found here's the thing in Rob Hill, because Rob went through the same thing
35:13
I'm trying to do now as an individual. He did that twenty years ago,
35:15
literally start back in two thousand and two when he did the seven Summits.
35:19
Because he was doing the same approach that I try to do now.
35:22
The research is a difficult one because that's basically looking at research institutes attached to
35:28
either large hospitals or universities. In effect, there's some private areas too,
35:30
right, but not just I don't and I'm not. This is not limited
35:34
Canada. I mean I'd be looking at Canada, UK, USA. So
35:37
I reached out to all kinds of organizations doing that, notable ones and less
35:40
notable. And you know, you know, because they use us in clinical
35:45
trials? Did this or that or can they? Is there a way that
35:49
we can work together strategically, partnership. I had no idea what that would
35:52
look like. No interest of discussions. He found the same thing twenty years
35:57
ago. We can't. There's no way to practically so far find willing parties
36:05
in our free nations to help move research along. Doesn't mean they're using our
36:09
bodies per se. It's even do they need funds or suthing. There's been
36:14
no willingness to engage in conversations with any of those possible university teams bodies that
36:20
pertain to IBD cancer, other different types of intestinal diseases and things like that.
36:27
Nothing so I Robic had its exact same experience two decades ago and a
36:30
decade ago, so I don't see that changing. So I don't think we're
36:35
going to be able to do successfully anything on the research front unless something new
36:38
comes out of the blue. So I did have like a pharmaceutical firm mentioned
36:44
to me a couple of weeks, three or four weeks ago that there might
36:46
be some opportunities there, but I'm not counting on that. It's stuffing.
36:51
I can disclose the moment anyway. So and then in terms of it,
36:53
so yeah, So the inspired thing is simple because we have our own personal
36:58
juries and stories. The fact that we could be the tallest mountain Antarctica or
37:01
North America or South America or Everest or you know, you could be at
37:06
Everest or Asia where it might be. I mean that for people coming through
37:09
our with our body journeys, just seeing us visually the visuals, it's a
37:15
powerful statement in itself right in the amount of training we have to do,
37:17
Like, it's incredible when I gotta do with my body, like I get
37:21
a trade full time, right, I guess this is melane. You know,
37:25
the high altitude mountaineering, like the mountains around me. Here, I'm
37:29
looking at her point two thousand, five hundred meters three thousand meters like ten
37:32
thousand feet nine thousand feet. It's like, now they're technically they're rare hards.
37:37
They're rock faces, that's different, but they're not altitude. So once
37:40
you get the high altitude environment, what your body goes through is extraordinary,
37:45
you know, especially on ones like the feet thousand meter peaks in apall like
37:47
Everest is just one of them, has chou and there's lots of face all
37:51
that. I mean, once you go in the death cell and your body
37:52
shuts down, it's literally dying. So because so you do know, I'm
37:59
preparing my body for this, Now what can it tolerate? Because once you
38:02
go on the large peaks, like once you get about six thousand meters so
38:06
above eighteen thousand feet on any mountain, your body's ability as you add you
38:09
increase your altitude, your body's ability just anybody, not my body, anybody's
38:14
body to eat or drink. You're not hungry, and you become less and
38:17
less hungry. It's harder to drink food. You just don't want drink food.
38:21
Your body starts to close down as you increase your altitude, so it
38:24
doesn't want food or drink. Well, that's a real problem because when you're
38:28
at high altitude, you actually dehydrate at a much more rapid level than you
38:31
do at sea level, and you burn calories at a much higher rate.
38:36
So you're burning ten thousand calories a day at an altitude like during your climb
38:42
and altitude and then so you can't replace your calorie loss. You're losing weight
38:46
as you send the mountain and you're becoming dehydrated as you send them mountain.
38:51
Well, look, I mess every year. Last year was the first year
38:54
and I seventeen years. I wasn't hosipalized for dehydration living at sea level,
39:00
you know normally, I mean for two or three times a year, going
39:02
for a week, two weeks at tilt. It's like, I'm so badly
39:06
dehydrated, it's affecting my kidneys and all this kind of stuff. So you
39:09
know, so this is something to deal with in the mountain. So the
39:12
fact, you know, so in terms of the whole inspiring piece of it,
39:15
there's angles like this, how do we manage our body like at altitude.
39:17
I was hoping we could tie that back into the research, but there's
39:21
been no willingness for it, so I don't think we'll ever be successful in
39:23
that goal. And then in terms of climbing as a team, that's resulting
39:28
on the sponsorship, and that's just that will play out over time. We
39:30
will get them eventually, and then we in some mountains like we also have
39:35
to do mountains where we're all physically ready. Like two people the team have
39:38
undergone surgery the last year, so they can't climb anyway. Rob just hides
39:44
intestinal surgery done December, so that knocks him out basically for a year.
39:49
You know, Charlotte had hers dead last April or May of last year,
39:52
should or jape out removed. That's a big surgery. So she has a
39:58
blog, she's disclosing all that stuff. Her blog the year in is removed
40:00
too, right, so that not herup for basically a year and a half.
40:05
So you know, we still have our bodies to deal whether as we
40:07
go through this. But the good thing is for Charlotte, like she's much
40:09
yoga than I am, so she's got many more years in front of her
40:13
to execute the clients. Right. So my goal is to try and get
40:16
us all to the team to ACT in Collagua. Kilimanjars is tracking mountain,
40:22
you know of the Seventh Summits, and that's that's easy to do. Like
40:25
for me, it's easy to do. So it get us to Kilimanjaro,
40:29
act in Coguas and Argentina. It's the tallest mount South America. It's the
40:31
tallest bone in the world outside of Hivalas. It's a seven thousand meter peak.
40:36
Get us there the UH and then those will be the first two and
40:42
then I'm hoping next year I can do Denale. I want to do Denale
40:45
North America. So it's a big surmount in North America. So now is
40:49
hard, very hard, so it's extreme weather. But that's that I expect
40:55
to do Denale. Of In terms of me, I think I'll do Denale
40:59
made in July next year. I can caug with December this year in Argentina.
41:04
That's the goal. I'm hoping I can get to Indonesia to do Carsten's
41:08
Pyramid or Protect China in September, but that's depending on sponsor. And that's
41:15
that's a fifteen thousand and sixteen thousand foot rock climb that's pure. There's a
41:19
little of snow on it an when you show up, there can be some
41:22
snow, but that's essentially a rock face claim. Yeah. Anyway, so
41:25
you see the whole thing. The whole Ostami athlete is to play out over
41:30
a handful of years. It gives us plenty of time to range corporate sponsors,
41:36
line up the mountains and prepare a train and every mountain you choose to
41:38
do, it's different training, right, So for Everest, I need full
41:40
twelve commit months committed training for that. The training I do for Everest is
41:45
different than the training I do for Denale, which is different than the training
41:47
I do for a Cancagua. So you know I need, say, Forrack
41:52
and Cogua, I need six months notice that I'm going to go because I'm
41:54
going to now target my training plant. It's very specific Denale, you know,
41:59
like I and Honesty, I got to pull one hundred and twenty five
42:01
pounds sledded Denale for a couple of weeks when you're on there, and then
42:05
Andy, you're carrying a forty pounds back back and you're pulling on a hundred
42:08
twenty pounds sled, So you had trained for that, right, and now
42:12
I can figure out how it has that worked with my ostome. You know
42:14
that the belt, all these little things you work out because a lot and
42:17
equipment geary needs extraordinary. Yeah, I don't lead a lot of equipment gear
42:22
too, So anyway, so I think I rounded, I would give you
42:24
brought a pictures a lot of moving pieces. In term ofly objectives and goals,
42:29
there's a charity and advocacy part. Yeah, there's the inspired piece,
42:31
which is key. That's that's inward. The advocacy of awareness is because there's
42:37
such a silence around these different test of diseases. And look, I'm guilty
42:39
of that. I was trying to protect my global queer from nine to twenty
42:43
eighteen. But I didn't talk to people about because because who like you think
42:47
about me? In two thousand and eight, eat, I bought a company.
42:52
I had millions of dollars loans. What bak or capital investor is going
42:55
to back somebody who had cancer inflammatory bow all this year, has gone through
43:00
fourteen surgeries in his life. You know what I mean? You can't talk
43:04
about it in a corporate life. You can't. So I decided after twenty
43:08
eighteen, once I could get free and clear that I'm not gonna be silent
43:12
about it anymore. And that's part of the oesome athlete thing is to not
43:15
be silent. Part of that involves you and I being telling intimate stories about
43:20
what we experienced in our lives. Bury to things. How does it affect
43:22
you sexual relations, with sexual activity? How's it like? I've got six
43:28
fractured teeth literally in my mouth? Is good that I are talking right now?
43:30
Like heavily fractured? Not my ear they're all going to fall out.
43:34
I get im plants, Well, that's all from that's from crows dishes and
43:37
the drugs I took which harm my teeth. You know, my hair going
43:42
right? You know, all these types of things that we go through.
43:45
How does it to change your identity coming out of the surgery? You know
43:47
how your test is impacts your nervous system, and then how that affects your
43:52
your literally your identity and how you act and interact with people in life.
43:55
We can out change people after intestinal surgeries. We just come out different now
44:00
for timic degrees. But you know, so talking about these things which are
44:05
very personal. So the Ostian athlete, the whole point of this was to
44:08
expose ourselves very publicly. In traditional media and modern online media and make us
44:16
relatable to people within our community, but have people outside of our communities of
44:21
cancer intestinal ostomey also understand what we experience and golls through to try and break
44:27
through that ignorance and then be bold telling our stories so that there's less silence
44:30
within our community. And then here it's a striking that you and I are
44:35
both guys reduced talking today about this. You're online just like me. The
44:39
vast majority of people from are broader communities of ome colon cancers and in different
44:46
TESTL diseases. It's female probably even send out there, and the ones who
44:52
are most aggressively being open are women. Are female to be an eight year
44:57
old female or sixty five year old female. So it's important also that men
45:02
more men won't belly communicate. And let me just tell you one day,
45:08
one thing that shocked me. There's no age bias in our community, which
45:13
is amazing. I have both genders interact with me from all over the world,
45:15
very personal messages. By the way, all ages I have an eight
45:20
year old child, female child or a male child in some other country,
45:23
call attact mate. I see a photo of beyond, I take to be
45:28
an equador wherever it might be or ask, you know, and then a
45:30
sixteen year old female, a twenty four year old female. It's not like
45:35
your normal community that way, the engagement where it's eight. There's an age
45:39
selectiveness that which is great, right, And I'd learn as much who at
45:45
honestly from a fifteen year old female going through what she's going through, which
45:47
I can apply or take from it as I do from somebody who's forty five
45:52
or whatever it might be. Male Like, It's just so it's kind of
45:54
cool that way. So the part of this was to advance that and use
46:00
our media college tracts. And we have to use the mountains to do that,
46:02
right, So we got to get on the big mountains of Seventh Summits.
46:05
Once we're on that, we can propagate our messages a lot more easily,
46:08
both within our community outside our community. And then there's a documentary film
46:14
I'm in. There's a whole part of that that's part of the larger picture
46:16
too, you know, where we have a documentary film films made of the
46:21
different clients. I'm in one now that will decline to do the next year
46:25
and a half or so, you know, those will be built into that
46:29
film. So that's Canadian project. That's not my project. Something has asked
46:34
to be in. I think Rob will end up being that one too,
46:37
But then we'd like to create our own films of some of the bigger CLIENTSY
46:42
are Forever Straight. So yeah, so so there's a lot of meeting pieces.
46:47
Yeah. No, I think you're absolutely right, and especially I'll tell
46:52
you about slightly to the community, and I think you're absolutely right when you
46:57
say a lot of people do do hide they have, which is why I
47:00
have all the respects in the world for for anybody who publicly says what they
47:07
have and is absolutely fine with it. And all the guests I've had,
47:10
I have all the respects in the world for them because they've come out they
47:15
they've said, right, I have this, that I'm thriving because of it,
47:17
and that's sort of why I wanted to set up the podcast as well
47:21
as to speak to people like yourself and the people at the interview just say,
47:23
look, okay, yeah I had this, I didn't choose to have
47:27
it, but I'm thriving as well with this, and that's that's really the
47:32
message I want to get across and I think we're very much on the same
47:36
the same waveley that the film you just mentioned. Yep. Is it out
47:43
already or is it coming out? No, they have a started filming.
47:46
The noise thing they've done is created or real, which is basically promotional real
47:50
for it. It's called above the Clouds the filmmakers in care in charge of
47:55
so they haven't there's other individuals are in it. I'm not the only one.
48:01
So future lines that I do or that they do will build part it
48:08
will build the film. So they started filming. They filled up just the
48:12
promo pieces off. They flowed here for a couple of days and do things
48:14
like that to create the sizzle wheel. But I wouldn't expect that project to
48:19
start getting off until autumn this year for them. And really what that is,
48:23
I mean that's me being on a mountain wherever I am and you're filming
48:27
it both for the JI take right and then also having a camera person there
48:30
too. So that'll that you know where we are now already in April,
48:35
so that'll be really a twenty twenty five thing, and that takes about eighteen
48:37
months anyways, Right, you have to accumulate the material because the stories are
48:43
being written in the mountains and the lead up to the mountains in the aftermath,
48:47
and then yeah, so that that's exciting though, I mean that's that's
48:52
so, that's an opportunity where in that film will be just about the I
48:57
call the sex and Candy of club be on some epically mounted and dangerous situations,
49:00
which is a sex and cannedy. But it's an opportunity to talk about
49:05
all the things you and I are talkuluate today all around the subject matter and
49:07
expose that. And it's just a different vehicle. It's a different method of
49:09
doing it, but things will come out of that too. So it's yeah,
49:16
it's we'll see. Look, there's a lot you can see, there's
49:19
a lot of different living pieces. It's ambitious at the end of the day,
49:22
if you dial it all back, advocacy, awareness, inspire people.
49:27
The charity stuff's important because we want to directly impact individualizes. So that's where
49:31
the research thing became eso character. We realize there's a lot of money going
49:35
to research already in different countries and at the end of the day, the
49:38
research if you're not put five million dollars in research today, you want see
49:42
the benefits of that for thirty years, forty years. So we thought,
49:45
hey, there's a lot of people are community or suffering whose careers are impacted.
49:49
It will become impoverished. Can't afford to buy the ostomy appliance, can't
49:52
afford to buy them of the drunk they need to take, can't afford to
49:55
buy food that they need better whatever it makes. So let's help those touch
50:00
an individual life, even if it will affect one life, help that one.
50:04
So it's less lesoteric. So that's party of kind of where this is
50:07
evolved. And that's what Rob's, Jerry's they set up. Did he practically
50:09
touched an individual life so he can go to better that knowing this person benefited
50:15
from it instead of waiting for thirty years down the road. So we'll leave
50:17
that to others. And that's what the say. Crones of Class UK,
50:21
Chrones, class Foundation in US. They're good at the type of thing galbinats
50:23
in larger capital resources and how do you go into future projects you could call
50:28
it. So we figured let's and there's a whole psychological emotional piece of what
50:31
we go through which doesn't get talked a lot. And I'm trying to talk
50:35
about it more along the posts I do. I'm experimenting with subject matter on
50:37
social media now where you you know, this gets into the identity, nervous
50:42
system impacts and all these other types of things that started to go down that
50:45
have more public conversations and those just how it impacts how we think. You
50:49
know, my interest changed after the Austin we surgery, after INTESTL surgeries,
50:52
right, my lights and dislikes like how one when life changed, who I
50:55
wanted to be around changed, And I'm not the one when saying that,
51:00
yes, you want to have that be seen and be heard. So this
51:04
is the just to be a vehicle like that. It's kind of liberating blue
51:07
liberating in a way. I guess you could say it's nice to have to
51:12
be corporate working or pure corporate work. We're have to be silent about it.
51:15
Yeah, no, no, absolutely, And I'm sure we could talk
51:20
for hours and hours and now is about about your experiences. But I would
51:25
love to know just one particular if there's one particular experience whilst you've been climbing
51:31
that stands out in your mind. There is, Yeah, there's one,
51:37
you know. It was part of my Yeah, no, it it was
51:39
on the third. At the end of my three years after recovery, I
51:42
was in British Columbia after twenty eighteenth surgery, so they've almost fears. Some
51:45
day later I went on a forty four kilometer hike and I was gonna go
51:52
up to mountains summitside out, nothing big deal. They were had twenty meter
51:55
mountains, although one had a climbing chimney on it. It was actually an
52:00
Asian volcanoes. I don't seend maw thousand years old people and can I don't
52:02
know whay volcanoes an yere. So I just remember going on those thinking by
52:08
along my health journey. That was kind of like I was sitting on the
52:12
summit with a volcano, looking down a beautiful glacier lake and and I'm looking
52:17
around this beautiful paraanbua of snow cap peaks, you know, and just saying,
52:22
God, this my life is amazing. Now, Like physically I could
52:25
I couldn't believe I could actually do this after where I was just five years
52:29
before, like almost dead, you know, color we have conversations with death,
52:32
and here I am on this and then and I thought, I can
52:36
really do this now, I can really what Number one I knew the ambition
52:40
of of doing some of the biggest mountains in the world was realistic because when
52:45
I did that day and then and then using that as a vehicle to help
52:49
people, it all kind of coalesced that moment in terms of sitting on them.
52:52
I sat up there for a couple hours that day, and looking down
52:54
it was a stunting day. By the way it is July, it was
52:58
just like it was unbelievable, and and I just remember thinking how how blessed
53:02
I was to be alive, to be able to do what I was doing,
53:05
and now be in the position to try and help some people and make
53:08
a difference in our broader testal disease community. And I thought, that's game
53:15
on. After that, I thought, that's it. I got to completely
53:17
rupture my life. So all my old life I've walked away from. My
53:22
entire life. Every day I wake up is built around mountaineer. You have
53:24
no idea my diet, everything I do, the discipline I have of waking
53:28
up at four point thirty in the morning, getting out of bed every day,
53:30
going to bed at eight pm, lights out, what I eat,
53:35
when I eat, the timing I like, so it all galvanized that day
53:38
Whetish Columbia sitting on that on that mountain. So that's an every autastic,
53:45
fantastic story to wrap up with, just very very lasting for me. Just
53:51
thank you ever so much for being very candid talking about thoughts about various things,
53:55
and and just also where and being talked about your website, But where
54:00
would be the best place for people to find you and find your story and
54:05
what you're doing. Yeah, the website is not static. I updated periodically.
54:09
There's a lot of information on it, but I don't update it every
54:12
week. It's Instagram is my primary. I'm on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook,
54:15
and whatnot. Instagram is the most ideal that that's the intestinal disease community
54:20
on Instagram worldwide is really I think the most afftive compared to the other sites.
54:24
So Instagram is the osteme athlete on Instagram, that's my moniker there.
54:30
But I'm also on Facebook, the ostme athletes on Facebook, TikTok, the
54:35
oustume athletes there post is saying content at all the platforms. So you throw
54:37
on on Instagram, they can find identical content on Facebook. I do the
54:42
asume athlete, but Instagram's my primary go to one. I put up YouTube
54:45
videos as well, less often, but I do put up stuff there as
54:50
well. But the Instagram's a primary vehicle for now, and I just kind
54:54
of cross post to the other I guess you could say, right, so
54:58
I would go there. And the website is basically it's a change it monthly.
55:04
Yeah, it's it's not meant to be a go to or a frequency
55:07
So in terms of day to day stories, I post a ton on Instagram
55:10
and check talk like it's almost every day pretty much. And I don't do
55:14
short videos by the way, I'm not doing those two second clips. I
55:17
tend to do five minutes to ten minute videos, which is different. I
55:21
know it's not ideal for social media, but to explore a subject matter like
55:25
say ibd in ostome and sexual relationships or ibd in ost tome and identity,
55:30
you can't do that in thirty seconds, you can, so I do longer
55:35
type things so they can find fantastic. Thank you ever so much for you
55:40
all. I mean, I wish you the very best. We do next
55:44
and thanks the next mountain climb. Yeah, thanks, Well it should be
55:46
appen. Cogwin, Argentina that December fantastic. We'll look out for it.
55:51
Thank you ever so much. Okay, thankstick care. Thank you for listening
55:59
to the podcast. Find us on Instagram and Tom's Underscore Hirshbrun's Underscore podcast.
56:05
Listen to previous episodes on Spotify by searching Tom's Hirshbrung's podcast