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One Leg Up On Esophageal Atresia and More! · OneLegUpAlex Media

• 0:08
  Here's yours, Alex Garrett. Well, to start out this podcast, what
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  did I tell you guys? I told you I wanted a little balance and
• 0:22
  maybe, just maybe with Hunter Biden now facing federal charges, plea deal or
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  not. Let me tell you, I just think there's some balance here.
• 0:35
  But I can go on and on about that whole thing. We'll probably talk
• 0:38
  with Richard Battle about that tomorrow. But here's my oral essay for tonight here
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  on one leg up with Alex Garrett, and it revolves around the routine or
• 0:56
  what I thought would be routine and escopy procedure for my esophagus. Now,
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  if it was so routine, I probably wouldn't talk about this, right,
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  but there was some cause for alarm. The great doctor, the dedicated doctor
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  David Lee, Home Columbia Presbyterian, wrote in his post procedure notes that when
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  I walked into that operating room for the endoscopy, which of course is the
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  upper endoscope, they look inside your upper GI tract, your esophagus, your
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  chest, and if they have to dilate, they will dilate. Well,
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  Doctor Lee did the thing I think he's been trying to do for a while,
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  to take a look inside of that esophagus, and sure enough that had
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  to be dilated to fifteen millimeters after being one to two millimeters. And see
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  why this is so alarming is because I was treating this as sort of a
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  I'll get to a moment when all along doctor Lee and others were like,
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  no, you've got to keep an annual or a semi annual eye on your
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  esophagus. And I thought, well, until I get food stuck. I
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  don't think I actually thought this, but maybe self consciously I did. I
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  didn't think it was as necessary as I was being told. And I'm talking
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  about this because it was alarming at how small the esophagus was. It was
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  a blessing from God that we got in the O R too and the under
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  the scope to do this when we did, as I had have trouble eating
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  the last couple of weeks and um. And more importantly, it's because while
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  I talk about one leg up, I quite frankly don't feel I had a
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  one leg up on the situation the entire time. And so what I have
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  to say tonight is, so what if you have to miss a day of
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  work every six months every year, It's worth it. It's worth it to
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  do self care, to do self love, and to do self health.
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  As you can have all the adventures you want, but at the end of
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  the day, you only get one chance to do it. But why I
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  found this even more profound As I was writing notes for this podcast tonight,
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  I was thinking, Man, I talked about having one leg up on everything,
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  and what if there are those like me that I feel like we already
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  have one leg up on health when in reality we could do a hell of
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  a lot better, a hell of a lot better. And having this procedure
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  and having these post procedure notes which I have behind me, that's say that
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  the esophagus was so small. A little background. I have had esophageal problems
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  my whole life, and maybe you have two. Maybe I'm touching a chord
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  in this conversation tonight on the Alex Gare podcast network. That's why I want
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  to do it too. If you have these esophageal issues and you're into taking
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  great care of it, bravo, you are doing great. But if you're
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  like me and think that these things can come every couple of years, I
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  think we got to shape up. I think we got to do a lot
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  of differences here. So we're not walking into an operating room with one or
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  two millimeters of an esophagus opening. Hell, so we're not walking around the
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  entire earth with enesophagus that is near closed, which is just daunting thinking of
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  it that way, but that's the reality here. In three years since my
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  last endoscopy, my esophagus shrank and I've already had a sensitive esophageal But if
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  you're having the same esophageal issues and aren't on top of it, get that
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  semi annual endoscopy right now. Schedule it now. Schedule it now, so
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  you're not walking around with a one to two millimeter You know, there's a
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  lot of stats out on this at a website called we Are Eat, we
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  dash our dash eat dot org, which is a very helpful website. It's
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  an international website, by the way, it's called the Federation of Esophageal a
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  Trigia and Tracheo a Trijiaola. You want to know more about this, this
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  is, this is there are There's a lot to unpack and they have doctor
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  and doctor and doctor writing on this website. We dash dash eat dot org.
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  It's a community which I think you should be involved on. They have
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  conferences and workshops, and they do help those with adults. They do help
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  those with adults, and they have this incredible guide I wanted to get to
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  because I had an immediate surgical correction at birth for this esophagela treesia, And
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  somehow it took me till age thirty one and a half to realize, Hey,
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  you know what, maybe doing this biannually or a semi annually or annually
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  is much better, especially if those with Barret's esophagus are a little more at
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  risk for I don't know, those things called cancer, esophageal cancer, that's
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  a scary word. Now that my dad has passed away from cancer, that's
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  a scarier word than I I walked into twenty twenty three thinking about but here
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  we go. It was scary to me in twenty nineteen, and yet that
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  connection I made with the family of Terry Warning, who actually, at age
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  thirty two died of esophageal cancer, and they honor him every year at City
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  Field, and we got the chance to reconnect with them at City Field this
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  last weekend, did Gabby and I. You know, my dad used to
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  go to those events too, but unfortunately he couldn't he wasn't here for it
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  this year, so Gabby and I went continued the tradition. Saw the guys
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  Mike Zidlowski and Terry and the family of Terry Warning as well, who had
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  one leg starting at age six and lived a very full life till age thirty
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  two when he could not when his body could not handle the esophageal cancer.
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  But I'm sure he worked as hell as he could to fight off whatever he
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  had to. So are those biopsies coming in next week? A little nerve
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  racking to me? Am, I a little nervous, Yes, But I'm
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  gonna think positive and think that this intervention yesterday and the intervention of the spirit
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  of Terry Warning four years ago, is not by accident. It's by God's
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  design. It's by God's design. It's always been to me, just chewing
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  my food will get the food down. Well apparently not apparently. For adults
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  who have possible long term esavagil complications, endoscopies are are really recommended annually,
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  not just once in a while when you feel like it, but annually.
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  And yes, it's worth the funny feeling in the back of your throat after
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  you wake up from the anaesthesia. It's worth going under four. It's worth
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  when you're a kid and having your kid have these barium swallows as a little
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  kid, and beyond for a better picture, because you don't want that C
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  word to be thrown out there, even involved when it comes to the seriousness
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  of this. In a digest, a science digest of nineteen eighty seven,
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  from zero to ten years old, esophago dilations happened more than thirty times.
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  It looks like twenty one to thirty. It was reduced. How about this
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  one. I also have had a habit of getting food stuck in the esophagus,
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  which in dealing with this, if you got food stuck in the esophagus,
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  that's only eight percent of the cases. Twelve percent have aspiration and recurrent
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  pneumonia in twelve percent of cases, and eighty percent ultimately are not interested in
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  eating. So maybe stumbling onto this was also supposed to happen tonight, because
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  there's a lot that say, well, these complications can reduce quality of life,
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  but do we have to let it. I've always said voter, I
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  may have voter, but I don't believe voter has me. I will never
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  want to believe that But but the more I don't deal with this, and
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  the more time I don't take on this, the more voter will have this
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  body and I wouldn't say ravage it, but definitely decline it at a fast
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  rate than I like it too. I mean, one of them two millimeters
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  is not a joke here, This is this is what we have to have
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  one leg up on our health. The Biden stuff, the Trump stuff,
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  the nonsense in Washington can wait. But if you don't have your body in
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  shape, your body ready to go, if you don't have your health ready
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  to go, then you can't even debate Trump versus Biden out of the twenty
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  twenty four election. You can't. You can't. This also affects the spine.
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  Did you know that? I was blown away with the stat that studies
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  have shown twenty percent of people with esophagilatreesia have some degree of deformity of the
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  chest wall, and between one quarter and one half people have a mid or
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  greater curve of the spine, also called scoliosis. So maybe I'm touching the
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  nerve of the They say regular endoscopies should be are recommended throughout adulthood, not
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  every three years. Whenever you feel like it. But now now I'm going
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  to say every year. Now I have a goal, and that's something I'll
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  bring this to podcast to tonight is the goal. I have to keep this.
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  I have a challenge, and maybe we thrive better if our health is
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  needing to if we need to fight a challenge with our body to keep our
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  body where we're at. We know what the inevitable is, but can't we
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  just delay the inevitable a few years longer, a few years more? This
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  was, as I write, As I laid down on the operating table,
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  I felt like a very routine procedure beginning with beginning to happen for someone with
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  asophatsia. Endoscopies are quite normal. I got used to having those endoscopies every
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  so often. When it became when it became less routine and more alarming,
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  was when I woke up from the anesthesia and I read the doctor's post procedure
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  notes. Read those notes, people, It might change your perspective on a
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  lot. To read that myosophagis was one to two millimeters open. There seemed
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  to be like an emergency way to happen. But we avoided that by going
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  in while I avoid that by going in when I did. But don't put
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  it off. Have one leg up on your health. Don't put off your
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  health. I'm projecting because I'm talking to myself. Also, I've actually got
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  a battery of things coming up this upcoming week which should be interesting, and
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  so stay tuned for that. But I'm I don't care. I'm packing my
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  schedule with health appointments to get things right, to feel better, to not
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  feel lagging or dragging or tired, but to feel myself. And after I
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  do this, I'm gonna take a piss so I can empty my bladder.
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  Because of course, your ology is another thing I have to keep an eye
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  on on and have one leg up on. But visit this website we dash
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  dat dot org. They have events to look up, they have studies to
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  look up. They have resources for health professionals, publications, articles, they
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  have innovative care management. They have a bunch of tabs on how to deal
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  with this. Yes it's international, but you know it could help, It
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  could help. I was looking up my old gastro doctor, Leif Holgersson.
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  He had studies on this from nineteen eighty one and he dealt with me as
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  an infant ten years later. So beyond just chewing your food and really being
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  mindful on how you eat when you eat, it's also about finding out the
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  science, finding out, hey, we won't have a condition, but how
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  do we make sure that condition doesn't have me? And this is a strong
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  reminder a disability is not inability. The only inability I could see because I've
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  gone through it, I've done it, is the inability to stay on top
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  of it, to have one leg up on it. But thank God,
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  even through the haziness that was post sedated life, yesterday after procedure, I
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  said, let me see those notes, and this was a shocker. And
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  I know it's because I'm not doing these as a twenty one year older,
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  even fifteen year old or eleven year old. I'm doing this is thirty one.
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  And that's scaring me too, that this aging process is happening. But
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  now it's about extending life and not letting it crumble and not having one leg
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  up on it. So all I can breathe, while I can talk,
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  while I can podcast, while I can engineer a radio board. I'm gonna
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  do it, but I'm also going to step aside and say, look the
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  days I need to take my health seriously. I will. If I need
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  a whole ass stay to take it off, I will. Because what did
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  I write here? What did I write here that I basically wrote, It's
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  so worth missing work if it may it means self care, which gives you
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  another day on this amazing planet. Let's have many more days on this amazing
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  planet, will we? It's the people who have gone before us. Today's
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  the five year anniversary of my grandmother's passing at age one hundred. The people
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  have gone before us want us to stay alive and keep living, us to
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  do our part for what they taught us in that in that lesson of keeping
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  living. So let me say it one more time, it is so worth
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  missing work if it means self care, which gives you another day on this
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  amazing planet. And that's a rap on the Alex Garrett podcast network links below
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  to the different things I mentioned tonight, and we will talk to you soon.