Latest / Adventure Sports Podcast / Ep. 1200: Climbing to Overcome with Melissa Strong

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Ep. 1200: Climbing to Overcome with Melissa Strong · Adventure Sports Podcast

0:06
[SPEAKER_02]: You're listening to the Adventure Sports podcast.
0:08
[SPEAKER_02]: We talk with adventurers from around the globe to bring you the inspiration and motivation you need to get started in the outdoors or to keep you moving if you're already there.
0:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Now here's your host, Kurt Lindville.
0:19
[SPEAKER_03]: Hello everyone, and happy Monday.
0:21
[SPEAKER_03]: Also, I hope your Easter was fantastic.
0:23
[SPEAKER_03]: I know that mine was, matter of fact, it's still Easter when I'm recording this, just by a little bit.
0:30
[SPEAKER_03]: We went to church this morning, which was amazing, and then we skied this afternoon, which was amazing.
0:37
[SPEAKER_03]: And then we had Piaia, which we cooked on the grill on the front deck, which was amazing, just such a beautiful, beautiful day.
0:46
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm so thankful for it.
0:48
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, Easter is about a lot more than bunny rabbits and candy eggs.
0:55
[SPEAKER_03]: Never really got that connection anyway.
0:57
[SPEAKER_03]: Easter is about deaf.
1:00
[SPEAKER_03]: It's about coming back.
1:02
[SPEAKER_03]: It's about second chances and new hope and new life.
1:08
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's interesting because Melissa Strong is our guest and in this episode she actually shares a near-death experience that she had.
1:18
[SPEAKER_03]: And Melissa has written a book about what her old life was like and what her new life now is like and it's amazing about rock climbing.
1:26
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a comeback story.
1:28
[SPEAKER_03]: And Melissa launched her book right, meaning she has a publisher, her book is everywhere, you can get it anywhere you want to get it, and she has all the right types of promotions to make sure that people know the book exists.
1:42
[SPEAKER_03]: I, on the other hand, when I wrote my book a year and a half ago, did none of that.
1:46
[SPEAKER_03]: So I just put it on Amazon so people get a hold of it, and I need to get the word out.
1:52
[SPEAKER_03]: So I have a special request.
1:58
[SPEAKER_03]: Could you jump on Amazon and just leave a little review?
2:01
[SPEAKER_03]: Talk about how that book may have or may not have impacted you.
2:05
[SPEAKER_03]: It would be fantastic.
2:06
[SPEAKER_03]: It would help me at times to help get the word out.
2:09
[SPEAKER_03]: My book is about helping other people.
2:11
[SPEAKER_03]: Melissa's book is too.
2:13
[SPEAKER_03]: It's about sharing her experience so that others could be encouraged by it.
2:18
[SPEAKER_03]: So please leave a book review for 99 words, my book.
2:23
[SPEAKER_03]: But while you're there, leave a review for Melissa's book as well.
2:27
[SPEAKER_03]: It's called Climbing Through and this is going to be a fantastic episode.
2:31
[SPEAKER_03]: You're going to love it.
2:32
[SPEAKER_03]: Let's just dive right in.
2:35
[SPEAKER_03]: I have returning guests, Melissa Strong with us, and Melissa was originally on visiting with Mason, and I have not had the chance to visit with Melissa yet, so I'm excited to learn no more about her amazing life.
2:50
[SPEAKER_03]: Melissa is a rock climber, and in 2017 she suffered an accident that cost her several of her fingers, and
2:57
[SPEAKER_03]: She remains a rock climber, she's lived a life of adventure exploring different climbing venues that are a little less well-known, a little bit more off the beaten path, and I'm excited to visit with her about these venues and what climbing is like there, as well as about her book, which is called Climbing Through.
3:16
[SPEAKER_03]: Melissa, welcome to the Adventure Sports podcast.
3:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Hi, thanks for having me.
3:22
[SPEAKER_03]: Well Melissa, just to kind of orient us, I know a lot of our listeners probably heard your episode back from 2020.
3:29
[SPEAKER_03]: And we were just talking about how that was not our favorite year.
3:32
[SPEAKER_03]: And so we're hopeful that this year is a lot better than 2020 for everyone.
3:39
[SPEAKER_03]: But can you just give us a brief overview of what your book climbing through is about?
3:46
[SPEAKER_03]: Because I think that's going to be a lot of what we discussed today.
3:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, the climbing through is about, obviously, my accident opening the restaurants, so I suffered a severe electric accident where I was connected to the electric chain for about 20 seconds and super lucky to be alive.
4:06
[SPEAKER_00]: I died a little bit and came back seeing the tunnel in the forest and you name it and I got a chance to come back and try, but before I got to try, I...
4:17
[SPEAKER_00]: saw burnt bones sticking out of my hands and I needed to get help so we covered my medical journey which included some innovative procedures like sewing my arms together and was in the hospital for a bit.
4:36
[SPEAKER_00]: And once I got out of the hospital, the surgeries were not over, but I had a restaurant to open.
4:41
[SPEAKER_00]: And I also, the entire time, hoped, and, you know, can I get back to rock climbing?
4:47
[SPEAKER_00]: And when they first woke me up in the hospital and told me I'd only have four fingers.
4:51
[SPEAKER_00]: My index fingers and my pinkies.
4:53
[SPEAKER_00]: I still thought about climbing, but I kind of had to slam the lid on that and put it in a closet in my mind for a little bit, because when you hear that you're only going to have four fingers,
5:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, climbing was always a part of me.
5:06
[SPEAKER_00]: I was a sponsored climber at that point, but obviously four fingers makes you think, well, can I even turn a door knob and get into the restaurant that is under construction right now that I need to open?
5:20
[SPEAKER_00]: So it talks about my medical journey.
5:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, the mental tools that I needed to dig deep within myself to get through that journey and open the restaurant and get back into climbing eventually.
5:37
[SPEAKER_03]: Wow, it's amazing to me when I meet someone like you who's been through a serious setback, a hardship, a huge loss, and then to hear the rest of the story how life goes on, and how you can restore your life to the new normal.
5:55
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't want to sound right, but
5:57
[SPEAKER_03]: It's encouraging Melissa to hear about the way that you did Persevere and I'm really interested in hearing more of your story.
6:06
[SPEAKER_03]: When did you start climbing?
6:08
[SPEAKER_00]: I started climbing in 2000, I moved to Estes Park in 1996 and met a lot of rock climbers and I just thought they were crazy, they were silly, okay, I have fun doing that, you never catch me doing it, I've actually always been slightly afraid of heights as well, so I've never that interested in it, and then in
6:32
[SPEAKER_00]: 2000, I share the story in the book that I was living a pretty carefree life, kind of continuing college, closing the bars down, waiting tables, taking my money to the local bars and just
6:47
[SPEAKER_00]: having a good time with my friends, having dance parties until dawn and not really caring much about what was around me in Colorado.
6:57
[SPEAKER_00]: As you've been as this park you see how beautiful it is there.
7:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe every once in a while I'd go on a very short hike, but that was about it.
7:06
[SPEAKER_00]: One day, I tried to run around Lake Estes, and I couldn't, and I was 26 years old.
7:12
[SPEAKER_00]: I couldn't even run a half mile without thinking I was going to die or something but I was going to happen to me.
7:19
[SPEAKER_00]: I was just so, I was such a different person, and at that point, I just said, you know, hey, you've got to do something to change your life.
7:28
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't continue on in this fashion.
7:31
[SPEAKER_00]: This is not healthy and not good for you overall and in general, so that day I swore that I would do something to change things up and I had friends that are always asked me to go rock climbing.
7:45
[SPEAKER_00]: So when I got home,
7:47
[SPEAKER_00]: I called up my great friend Bronson and I said, hey, when are you climbing again?
7:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Can I go climbing with you?
7:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And she said, yeah, you know, a group of us gals are getting out on Wednesday.
7:56
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, great, I'll be there.
7:59
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I hung up and made golf lessons for the same day.
8:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I was still I'm sure about whether climbing was going to click for me or not, you know, and I just wanted to do something that was outside of physical.
8:10
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I gave myself a few choices with this, you know, monumental decision.
8:16
[SPEAKER_03]: Wow.
8:17
[SPEAKER_03]: So I find that fascinating.
8:19
[SPEAKER_03]: I have heard a lot of stories over the years about people who were kind of had their aha moment, you know, their light bulb moment, and that's what got them into the adventure sport that they eventually, you know, focused on for years to come.
8:32
[SPEAKER_03]: But yours sounds really, really quick.
8:35
[SPEAKER_03]: Was it a longer decision before you said no, life's got to change or was it?
8:41
[SPEAKER_03]: I tried to run and couldn't.
8:42
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it really was that moment.
8:44
[SPEAKER_00]: That moment I decided this is all gonna change.
8:47
[SPEAKER_00]: You beforehand, I did try climbing, you know, because I'm in bars hanging out after work and one of the summer guides would come through and I mean, I, you know, maybe little,
9:01
[SPEAKER_00]: hit on me scenario or it's like oh you should come out climbing with me tomorrow and I would I think I said yes once or twice and then you're hungover on lumpy ridge baking on a slab saying what the heck am I doing like why am I doing this so I mean I had kind of dip my toes in the water a tiny bit but I never I never had that urge that hey things have to change
9:31
[SPEAKER_03]: Wow.
9:32
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, get on you.
9:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it's nice that I listened, right?
9:35
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, a lot of people think I'm not listening.
9:37
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
9:37
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm excited that I listened because I wouldn't want to see, I always look at life as those choose your own adventure books.
9:46
[SPEAKER_00]: If you remember that from when you were kid, I'm dating myself for sure here.
9:49
[SPEAKER_00]: And you could turn to page 135 to follow the vampire.
9:54
[SPEAKER_00]: So I wouldn't want to see what my life was like
10:00
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, screw it.
10:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Mmm.
10:03
[SPEAKER_03]: Wow.
10:04
[SPEAKER_03]: So you tried climbing with the gals, and is that when you actually fell in love with it?
10:10
[SPEAKER_03]: Or was it kind of a gale try this again?
10:13
[SPEAKER_03]: I'll try it again, and how that turned out?
10:15
[SPEAKER_00]: It was that moment.
10:16
[SPEAKER_00]: It was that day climbing with the gals.
10:18
[SPEAKER_00]: It was, they put up a top rope.
10:20
[SPEAKER_00]: We went to a crowd called the monastery, which is part way down, highway 34, leaving us this park heading to Lubland outside of Drake.
10:30
[SPEAKER_00]: and some bolted roots and so a small sport climb and one of them had put up a top rope and I was on the top rope and didn't have a lot of faith in what I was doing.
10:43
[SPEAKER_00]: It was completely terrified and I couldn't even keep up with everyone on the hike in carrying a gear so you know I had a lot of trepidation building up to this point and then you know had the climbing shoes on and approached the rock and
10:58
[SPEAKER_00]: All of a sudden I started to climb and also I didn't have the muscles to do what I was doing.
11:03
[SPEAKER_00]: So my legs start shaking and your hands are sweating and you can't hold on and my friend Broughtson who's bullying me said just sit back on the road but take a break rest.
11:15
[SPEAKER_00]: and of course I didn't really have any faith in that but I did because I had no choice because I couldn't hold on to the rock anymore.
11:24
[SPEAKER_00]: And as I just hung on that rope and stared at the top of the climb, something in me
11:31
[SPEAKER_00]: was so determined to get to the top of that climb.
11:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, I wasn't doing it with any style or grace, or any fashion that you really want to remember.
11:40
[SPEAKER_00]: But I knew I wanted to get up there.
11:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Eventually, I pulled back on the rock and I got to the top of the climb.
11:47
[SPEAKER_00]: And right then, I knew I would be climbing, probably, as long as I could.
11:53
[SPEAKER_03]: So that's another light bulb moment.
11:55
[SPEAKER_03]: I've just backed it back.
11:57
[SPEAKER_03]: It sounds like this is a turning point for your whole life.
11:59
[SPEAKER_00]: 100 percent definitely.
12:01
[SPEAKER_00]: How are you different now like I said I wouldn't want to know who I'd be if I turned a page 25 and just continued to smoke cigarettes and drink I have no idea maybe maybe at some point there would have been another catalyst or moment but I'm happy that my life changed that day.
12:21
[SPEAKER_00]: and I feel like I'm a better person for it, for the obvious, I mean for health reasons, I'm now a bit older and I'm still climbing, and I still push myself, I'm still an athlete, and I think that is only going to help benefit me as I continue to age.
12:42
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think just health wise is feeling good, feeling good in your body, feeling strong, feeling fit,
12:49
[SPEAKER_00]: feeling mentally good as well, because climbing is a big escape from a lot of things, a lot of stress, a lot of things in life, you know, just getting out into the outdoors and enjoying what you love to do.
13:04
[SPEAKER_00]: It really helps change and shape you and get you away from all of the other horrible things that are happening around you.
13:11
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think it's made me a better person overall.
13:14
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I couldn't agree more with that.
13:16
[SPEAKER_03]: I used to use climbing quite a lot just to blow off steam.
13:21
[SPEAKER_03]: To reset, recent or refocus, you know, and to get the, I guess the internal fortitude to go back and to the grind and grind some more.
13:32
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, it really has been a beautiful, beautiful part of, especially what I did as a younger man, and it's not that I quit, but I just took on other things, and so climbing hasn't always been my primary focus, but I used to climb a lot in the lumpy ridge.
13:50
[SPEAKER_03]: I loved it back in there, and we would boulder around without ropes.
13:53
[SPEAKER_03]: Can you describe climbing around Estus Park just so people get to feel for it?
13:57
[SPEAKER_00]: You have a little bit of everything around Estes.
14:00
[SPEAKER_00]: You mention lumpy ridge and lumpy ridge is actually older than the Rocky Mountains.
14:06
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a beautiful ridge that's behind, that kind of a backdrop behind Estes Park to the north.
14:15
[SPEAKER_00]: And then to the west are the Rocky Mountains.
14:18
[SPEAKER_00]: So you have this really cool kind of backbone ridge.
14:22
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really crystaly, sharp.
14:25
[SPEAKER_00]: kind of pinkish brownish granite with some really beautiful likened green.
14:30
[SPEAKER_00]: It's got a lot of nice green, like bright green likened here and there.
14:34
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is mostly trad climbing and it is mostly, um, I guess if you're familiar with trad climbing to me I never it never it was one of the things I didn't love the most and it was painful because you're jamming your hands in your fingers and your feet into cracks, you know, into the feature
14:53
[SPEAKER_00]: of the rocks to haul yourself up at.
14:57
[SPEAKER_00]: I did lots of roots on lumpy when I first started, and yes, there's Boulder scattered beneath this ridge, which, you know, I just didn't focus on it all.
15:06
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I was a rock climber, I was a rope climber, and that's what I focused on.
15:12
[SPEAKER_00]: In the park, you get a lot of alpine climbs, you know, so you can do anything from, you know, summoning longs peak, whether you're hiking or on a rope.
15:21
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you also have some of the best bouldering in the world in Rocky Mountain National Park as well, because all these mountains and big cliffs of exfoliate, so then you get these massive tallest fields and rocks all around that you can boulder on.
15:36
[SPEAKER_00]: And eventually I did go from rope climbing to bouldering, and mostly that was just simply because
15:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I worked in restaurants.
15:44
[SPEAKER_00]: I wasn't a weekend warrior.
15:45
[SPEAKER_00]: I couldn't find a lot of partners all the time.
15:48
[SPEAKER_00]: On the days I had off during the weekdays, and I just loved climbing so much that I wanted to climb on my days off.
15:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Eventually, a friend of mine introduced me to bouldering.
15:58
[SPEAKER_00]: And once I found bouldering, I realized, you know, I can find problems that are reasonable for me to climb on my own.
16:05
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was that my focus kind of changed to bouldering pretty quickly in my climbing career.
16:12
[SPEAKER_03]: So there are different scales that are used for bouldering versus rock climbing.
16:16
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, you know, people hear about 5, 12, 5, 13, 5, 14.
16:19
[SPEAKER_03]: That's the rock climbing scale.
16:21
[SPEAKER_03]: But bouldering uses the V-scale.
16:22
[SPEAKER_03]: Can you explain that one?
16:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, the V-scale was actually created in Waco tanks.
16:27
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's another place that we go and climb in the winter.
16:30
[SPEAKER_00]: So John Sherman, his nickname was the firm.
16:35
[SPEAKER_00]: starting with a V and he did a lot of the bouldering developing in wakeo tanks and V for Burm came up was the precursor to V0 V1 V2 and that is a different grade because when you're
16:54
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of climbing you do before you get to the crux of the problem.
16:58
[SPEAKER_00]: And the crux of the problem is the hard part, and that's usually what earns it.
17:02
[SPEAKER_00]: It's great, and sometimes there's multiple cruxes.
17:06
[SPEAKER_00]: But bouldering is kind of like taking that crux of a rock climb that you've climbed 20 feet to get to that crux.
17:14
[SPEAKER_00]: It takes that crux, and it's right off the ground right there on that boulder in front of you.
17:19
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not using ropes, you're using the foam mats.
17:21
[SPEAKER_00]: you fall on, and what I liked about it, I think you just fit my personality as well, is that I could just sit there with the rock, I could stare at the rock, I could stare at the footholds, the handholds, and figure out what was gonna work for me, because not every sequence works for every person, we're all different shapes, sizes, lengths, reaches, you name it, and obviously the beta, that my husband would use being five, 10
17:51
[SPEAKER_00]: It's completely different than what I'm going to use, and so I just really enjoyed the fact that I was I could just be alone with the rock and face the bolder problem, so face the problem, and figure the puzzle out, it was fantastic, which I think it's kind of sad today with all the videos of bolder problems that
18:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Most people go right to videos of beta and they're not having that experience of just kind of that one-on-one with the rock and that figuring process.
18:22
[SPEAKER_03]: I agree.
18:23
[SPEAKER_03]: I hadn't thought of that, though, Melissa, until you just mentioned it.
18:27
[SPEAKER_03]: It is something else I want to point out is you immediately start talking about problem-solving with rock climbing.
18:33
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that people that have never tried rock climbing often think they're using ropes to go up a cliff,
18:42
[SPEAKER_03]: And that is that something that you can't climb at first, you solve.
18:47
[SPEAKER_03]: You solve it by doing what you just said, almost meditating on the problem, until you learn how to get your body and the right position, your balance and the right place to succeed at something that's very, very difficult that
19:01
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, people think about what you just have a rope, right?
19:04
[SPEAKER_03]: But you're saying, no, I'm bouldering without a rope, and I'm solving very difficult problems.
19:09
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that's part of what makes the sport so exciting, but I think a lot of people don't know about it.
19:14
[SPEAKER_00]: I agree, 100%, and I think if it was kind of just remote, like just robotic, like pulling and going, I don't think half of the people would be as in love with it as they are, but it is, it's that cerebral part of it.
19:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Which sounds really strange, but golf and climbing kind of translate in that way because you, you know, everything has to be so Precise and everything has to be just right to execute even one move That it's it's more cerebral than people give a credit for people.
19:51
[SPEAKER_00]: I think just
19:53
[SPEAKER_00]: would look at someone and say, no, you have to, I'm not strong enough, and it's a muscle thing.
19:59
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, muscles, of course, come and play.
20:01
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, if you don't have the muscles, it's going to be hard, and you can build those over time.
20:07
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think the figuring and the cerebral part of it really grabbed me.
20:14
[SPEAKER_03]: Let's shift gears just a little bit.
20:16
[SPEAKER_03]: You mentioned Waco, and this is a climbing place that I didn't know about, and that's my bad for not being caught up, but tell us about Waco.
20:26
[SPEAKER_03]: What's going on there?
20:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I do talk a lot about Waco tanks in the book, climbing through, because it was such a huge part of,
20:35
[SPEAKER_00]: are climbing lives.
20:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I say are because, you know, chapter eight, I believe Adam comes in the book.
20:42
[SPEAKER_00]: So I was climbing before I met my husband and we, it's funny, I had never gone to wakeo tanks.
20:49
[SPEAKER_00]: I intentionally avoided going to wakeo tanks and I would pass it up to go climbing and bishop in the winter because wakeo tanks is a historic state park.
21:00
[SPEAKER_00]: and the historic piece of it makes it real tricky.
21:04
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's 860 acres of some of the best bouldering in the world.
21:10
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of boulders would say like top three bouldering places in the world would be the Rocklands and South Africa.
21:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Fontam blue France and Waco tanks and you kind of put it in order of I guess your style and what you enjoy Mostly but about you know the type of climbing because they're all very different they'll produce very different type of climbing but Waco is Historic site first and foremost so Native American rock art and artifacts are all over Waco tanks
21:42
[SPEAKER_00]: People have been visiting there for over 10,000 years and living there and making homes there and finding dwelling there and grinding food.
21:52
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's gigantic mortar holes along with pottery shards, along with rock art.
21:58
[SPEAKER_00]: all throughout Waco Tanks.
22:00
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it's protected by the state of Texas, Texas Park and Wildlife owns it, and there is a lot of hoops to jump through if you want to climb there.
22:10
[SPEAKER_00]: There's four mountains, and north mountain is self-guided access, so you can go there without a guide.
22:18
[SPEAKER_00]: You go to Waco Tanks, you have to have a reservation to climb there, because there's only 70 people
22:28
[SPEAKER_00]: and you watch a video and then you're able to climb there on your own.
22:33
[SPEAKER_00]: But the rest of the areas east mountain, west mountain, and east spur are all guided access only so you have to have a climbing guide with you.
22:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Now this climbing guide, some of them, you know, act like actual climbing guides, like I'm going to teach you how to climb.
22:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure, you can get that experience if you want, but the most,
22:53
[SPEAKER_00]: The number one aspect of going through guide training and wakeo tanks is you are a protector of the resource.
22:59
[SPEAKER_00]: So, as a guide, I'm there.
23:01
[SPEAKER_00]: I can take out only 10 people at once.
23:05
[SPEAKER_00]: And I would talk to them before we leave the parking lot and explain what a wakeo is.
23:09
[SPEAKER_00]: H-U-E-C-O is a depression in the rock that holds water, which is why people
23:16
[SPEAKER_00]: along with all the other features, the shelter, the shade, but why Native Americans gathered there is because there's water in the middle of the desert.
23:25
[SPEAKER_00]: So obviously that was a huge, huge feature which brought game as well.
23:31
[SPEAKER_00]: So I would explain to you what a wake-o is.
23:33
[SPEAKER_00]: I would tell you not to step in them because these tiny little creatures live in them and lay their eggs that lay dormant And then when the water comes there are these like kind of little fairy shrimp that live in there So you definitely don't want to step in a wake-o and then we also talk about you know the importance of the fact that we're allowed to have access to climb in such a
23:53
[SPEAKER_00]: archeological, significant site and we talk about the desert, the fragile desert environment and crash paths and how to place them and not to drag them.
24:04
[SPEAKER_00]: The list goes on of the things that you tell someone before you take them out in the backcountry climbing.
24:09
[SPEAKER_00]: But then you guide them around for an enjoyable day.
24:12
[SPEAKER_00]: So we've had a rock climbing guiding concession there for 20 years, this year called Wagon Wheel.
24:19
[SPEAKER_00]: It's where my husband went before I met him.
24:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Every winter he would spend his winter and wake out takes.
24:26
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was one of the things when we met, he said, just so you know, this is,
24:29
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what I do in the winter, and hopefully we can do this together, and because of all of those rules with the reservations and the limited access and the guiding, like I said, I had historically avoided it.
24:43
[SPEAKER_00]: So once we got married, we had our first season in Waco tanks, and I fell in love with it.
24:50
[SPEAKER_00]: and we bought some land and applied to have our own guiding concession, also, of course, going through guide training ourselves.
24:58
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's a really special place.
24:59
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a gift that we have access to be able to climb in such a special place.
25:10
[SPEAKER_03]: It sounds fascinating to me that you can connect, not just with a rock, not just with a desert, but you're connecting with kind of deeper human history.
25:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Huge layer there.
25:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Hugely.
25:22
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, it's important we look at it as very important as guides to share that with people.
25:29
[SPEAKER_03]: Hmm, and we have to talk about Northwest Arkansas, which is where you are today, right?
25:35
[SPEAKER_03]: You said you're in Eureka, Eureka Springs.
25:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, I'm Beaver Lake and Eureka Springs, so that's this is new.
25:41
[SPEAKER_00]: We only just came here a few months ago.
25:45
[SPEAKER_00]: And as much as we love Waco and as much as we love Rocky, we have been climbing in both of those places for a really long time.
25:54
[SPEAKER_00]: And just wanted to change things up and explore the sandstone of Northwest Arkansas.
25:59
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're really excited to be here.
26:01
[SPEAKER_00]: We've been getting out as much as we can.
26:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously the book coming out in March has given me a little sidewalk to do.
26:09
[SPEAKER_00]: But we've been really enjoying it.
26:12
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I love Northwest Arkansas, and those are my old stomping grounds because I grew up in Northeastern Oklahoma.
26:18
[SPEAKER_03]: And so I would jump in my car and head east into the Ozarks every chance I got.
26:24
[SPEAKER_03]: And I just have so many great memories, such a beautiful place.
26:28
[SPEAKER_03]: A friend of mine that actually grew up in the Ozarks.
26:32
[SPEAKER_03]: Tell me if this is fitting.
26:34
[SPEAKER_03]: But he used to say, well, the Rockies are huge and jagged and fierce, almost masculine, and he says, but the Ozarks, they're like a warm hug.
26:44
[SPEAKER_03]: They wrap around you.
26:46
[SPEAKER_03]: And there's a feminine quality to them.
26:49
[SPEAKER_03]: They've found really appealing.
26:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's funny.
26:52
[SPEAKER_00]: I like that.
26:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Definitely.
26:55
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, when you get into the Rockies, you're
26:58
[SPEAKER_00]: it's it's it's it's real deal you know it's it's it's it's high altitude you get a lot of exposure where what we've found around here are gentle rolling hills with amazing sandstone everywhere so I can see that
27:15
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I used to climb around Steel Creek and the Buffalo River in places like that and also do a little cliff jumping in, you know, in those areas.
27:24
[SPEAKER_03]: And I just loved it.
27:26
[SPEAKER_03]: Such a beautiful part of the United States.
27:29
[SPEAKER_03]: And people say it's the oldest mountain range in the U.S.
27:33
[SPEAKER_03]: I would say it's at least the oldest large mountain range in the U.S.
27:37
[SPEAKER_03]: There are some remnants of older mountain ranges, I'm sure.
27:40
[SPEAKER_03]: But those arcs are ancient, much, much, much older than the Rockies.
27:44
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's also kind of cool to realize the depth of deep, deep history, natural history there.
27:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, super cool.
27:53
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm excited to learn more about it and in the history and general here.
27:57
[SPEAKER_00]: So far, it's been awesome.
27:58
[SPEAKER_00]: The rock is great.
28:01
[SPEAKER_00]: You have Southern Sandstone, and you have some limestone as well.
28:05
[SPEAKER_00]: We've been finding some nice limestone bands closer to Eureka.
28:10
[SPEAKER_00]: That have been fun to kind of develop and climb on, as well as going out to the stuff in the Ozark center a little further away, like in Jasper and Kaule.
28:20
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, we're just getting to know the lay of the land and seeing how my hands work with Southern stands own because because I've lost fingers, because I have different size thumbs, because I don't have flexor tendons in my thumbs, so they don't bend anymore.
28:35
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't just walk up and climb on anything.
28:38
[SPEAKER_00]: I've got to figure it out.
28:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I could have figured out if my hands can even hold these holds.
28:44
[SPEAKER_00]: So initially, like after the accident, there was
28:48
[SPEAKER_00]: a lot of days of hiking places and being like, whoa, Melissa can't climb this, Melissa can't grab this and you know, I tried to keep the best attitude possible, but it was challenging and beyond challenging, you know, you're going out there with all your friends who used to climb with, who used to excel with or, you know, even climb better than.
29:12
[SPEAKER_00]: And now here you are like,
29:15
[SPEAKER_00]: So that was a hard lesson to learn and to swallow and to take and to take in and to not internalize as I was getting back into climbing.
29:26
[SPEAKER_00]: And then over the years as my brain body connection started to rewire, climbing...
29:35
[SPEAKER_00]: opened up further and then I could grab sloppers and things that I never thought I could hold on to before.
29:42
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's funny it's coming to a new area climbing on New Rock is in a way taking me back to some of those old struggles but so far we have found a handful of things you know that I can climb on so I'm excited.
29:56
[SPEAKER_03]: That's very interesting.
29:57
[SPEAKER_03]: It was one of the questions I wanted to ask was, how long did it take you to get strong at climbing again?
30:04
[SPEAKER_03]: The new normal, right?
30:06
[SPEAKER_03]: And then, where would you put your climbing level now as you've developed the new way of doing it?
30:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it took years, and like I said, the mind body connection was the first battle because your body is just sending out warning signals, and you have...
30:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Nubs that have skin grafts on them, they're gonna be painful, don't climb on the rocks, don't, don't do that, don't grab that, and then, you know, so there was a lot of pushing through that, and of course there was a lot of pushing through pain in general, because anyone who has lost a finger tip, so there was a lot of, of pushing through pain, and then it was understanding my new,
30:55
[SPEAKER_00]: my new grip because my shortest finger is my middle finger on the right hand and the thumbs just really kind of don't get involved.
31:06
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it's like how am I going to hold onto these holds again?
31:09
[SPEAKER_00]: So that was another part of it.
31:11
[SPEAKER_00]: And then
31:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Also my reach was shorter.
31:14
[SPEAKER_00]: I lost both of my the length on both of my middle fingers and ring fingers, so you would try to climb a problem that you've climbed before and reach out and you're like, oh wait, the holds further away now.
31:29
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh no.
31:30
[SPEAKER_00]: There is a lot of things and honestly, I would say that took a good solid three years of making my brain and my body wrap around these things.
31:42
[SPEAKER_00]: And skin grafts don't toughen up like regular skin, your skin has DNA and it belongs to a certain part of your body.
31:51
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, groin skin doesn't toughen up like the skin on your finger tip does, and it's in charge of what it does by its DNA.
32:01
[SPEAKER_00]: So even if you do get it a little tough, it goes back to what it knows how to do to it's basically chemical makeup.
32:09
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was that's very challenging.
32:12
[SPEAKER_00]: I still to this day climb with a lot of tape on my fingers, not as much as I was using when I first got into it.
32:20
[SPEAKER_00]: So it took years to understand and overcome a lot of those things, and then eventually I started just surprising myself and my husband and were like, wow, you just did this kind of notoriously hard V5 that I never even did beforehand.
32:36
[SPEAKER_00]: So you know beforehand I had climbed like V10, V11,
32:40
[SPEAKER_00]: And now, the hardest I've climbed is V8, and I've fallen off the end of my V10 project at Waco.
32:47
[SPEAKER_00]: This year it was so sad that we left.
32:52
[SPEAKER_00]: A little bit of me sending it, but I'll get another chance next year.
32:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Good Lord Willin, you know?
32:57
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm not getting any younger, you know?
32:59
[SPEAKER_00]: So I will, I guess, tell the world that's listening that I'm now 52.
33:04
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's not easy, it's just you need to give yourself a lot of grace in a lot of rest, more rest than you want to give yourself.
33:12
[SPEAKER_00]: yet you still have to keep going enough that you're maintaining everything as far as muscle mass goes.
33:20
[SPEAKER_00]: So I wind up training more now after the accident and to this day than I ever trained beforehand.
33:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Cause you're just young and you kind of have it.
33:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Now you have to work to keep it.
33:34
[SPEAKER_00]: And I knew that after the accident as well.
33:37
[SPEAKER_00]: I knew that
33:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, it's going to be way harder for my fingers without fingertips to be able to hold on to rocks.
33:44
[SPEAKER_00]: So I knew every other part of my body needed to be ten times stronger than it ever was.
33:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Just to pull this off.
33:51
[SPEAKER_00]: So I've been pushing really hard for the past.
33:55
[SPEAKER_00]: It's going on nine years now.
33:57
[SPEAKER_03]: I think many people would have just said, okay, time for a new sport, you know, this is hard.
34:02
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not, I'm not optimized for this right now, maybe it's time to do something else.
34:09
[SPEAKER_03]: But you kept climbing.
34:11
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you remember having those internal dialogues?
34:14
[SPEAKER_00]: I never did, I never did, even with the four fingers and I was like, how will I be able to clap like this?
34:21
[SPEAKER_00]: So I, for some reason, never thought about giving up instead, I always thought about, will I get the chance to try this again.
34:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, the first few times that we went out, it was hard, it was painful, and obviously some of my first climbs were done on plastic, on our climbing wall, and our garage, and then eventually one week shy of a year anniversary, I did my first outdoor climb, and it was one of the hardest things I ever faced and did in my life, and it just made me want to try harder.
34:58
[UNKNOWN]: Wow.
34:58
[SPEAKER_03]: You are a very determined, tenacious woman, I can tell that is so impressive, Melissa.
35:07
[SPEAKER_03]: But I also think it's fun that you found your thing with rock climbing, it was so much a thing that you're like, no, I am willing to work my butt off to make sure that this is what I continue to do.
35:20
[SPEAKER_03]: What was it about rock climbing that grabbed hold of you like that?
35:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it's just going back to that 26-year-old that couldn't run around the lake, you know.
35:28
[SPEAKER_00]: I needed that light.
35:31
[SPEAKER_00]: I needed that fire.
35:32
[SPEAKER_00]: There was an a fire, you know, it was dim by an out by alcohol and a smokey bar, you know.
35:39
[SPEAKER_00]: And I needed that fire.
35:41
[SPEAKER_00]: And once I had that fire, I didn't want to let it dim again.
35:44
[SPEAKER_00]: I do agree that, well, you didn't quite say this.
35:48
[SPEAKER_00]: It is pretty ridiculous that I have, uh,
35:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Not, you know, give it myself a little bit of a break and said, well, you know, you're gonna open a restaurant.
35:57
[SPEAKER_00]: You're gonna do all these other things after six months after the accident.
36:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you should pump the brakes on climbing and give yourself a break, but I've just never been one to take that path.
36:08
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I'm just happy that I had the tools, I had the support, I had the tenacity, I had the drive.
36:16
[SPEAKER_00]: to go on.
36:17
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was humbling.
36:18
[SPEAKER_00]: It was sad.
36:19
[SPEAKER_00]: There were plenty of tears.
36:21
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I just, you know, I felt like maybe people looked at me at the boulders and said that maybe this girl needs to stop climbing.
36:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Why are she out here trying to climb when she's bleeding and she has nobs?
36:34
[SPEAKER_00]: But no one ever thought that, you know, that I know of most everyone said, wow, this is amazing.
36:39
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't believe it.
36:41
[SPEAKER_00]: A big part of it was that I got the chance to try.
36:44
[SPEAKER_00]: I write about this in the book that I remember the electricity coming in me and grabbing hold of me so vividly and I died a little bit and I saw the tunnel in the forest and I came back.
36:59
[SPEAKER_00]: So I had no doubt that I died, that I was dying.
37:05
[SPEAKER_00]: There was nothing I could do to save myself and when I got that chance to come back, it gave
37:15
[SPEAKER_00]: gratitude, the fact that I got to live and that I got to try.
37:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And I feel like that fueled me to continue to push on with everything else.
37:26
[SPEAKER_00]: a lot of people don't get that chance.
37:28
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what I heard in the hospital over and over again.
37:30
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't see burns as bad from electricity because most people just die.
37:34
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I was extremely lucky to not die and to get the chance.
37:40
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I would come full circle.
37:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I would go out rock climbing.
37:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I would be super, you know,
37:51
[SPEAKER_00]: intimidated, even before I started climbing crushed.
37:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Then I would start climbing and you do just get this like
38:01
[SPEAKER_00]: The vibration, this kind of something that completes me a little more when I get to try to climb.
38:07
[SPEAKER_00]: And I would get to feel that sensation again.
38:10
[SPEAKER_00]: And to me that was the biggest gift.
38:13
[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe that was just doing a warm-up.
38:16
[SPEAKER_00]: But it was a huge gift that I got to try.
38:18
[SPEAKER_00]: So I wasn't going to give up on myself if I got that for some reason.
38:24
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know what the reason is, why I got to come back and try.
38:26
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure it's not rock climbing.
38:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it's the book, you know, maybe it's sharing, you know, how to get through a bad time with people.
38:36
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know yet.
38:38
[SPEAKER_03]: That's amazing.
38:39
[SPEAKER_03]: Twice you've mentioned now, I saw the tunnel.
38:41
[SPEAKER_03]: I saw the trees.
38:42
[SPEAKER_03]: I saw the forest.
38:43
[SPEAKER_03]: I think it was the, the quote, de-mind explaining a little bit more of what you experience there.
38:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, connected to the electricity for anyone who doesn't know when you're connected to the electricity, you are frozen.
38:56
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't move, you can't do anything.
38:59
[SPEAKER_00]: So, but my mind was aware of what was happening.
39:02
[SPEAKER_00]: I knew I made a mistake, I knew I couldn't move, I couldn't, I thought about screaming, I thought about shaking my hands and maybe dropping one of the clips I was desperately clenching onto now, whether I wanted to or not, I thought about falling over, maybe one of them would get dislodged, but I couldn't do anything, and so my last thought was,
39:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I'm gonna die.
39:25
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm dying.
39:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Like this really sucks.
39:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I mean, before I get to open my restaurant, which ironically was what I thought of.
39:33
[SPEAKER_00]: And then everything went black.
39:35
[SPEAKER_00]: And then all of a sudden I was in this beautiful forest.
39:40
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm a very vivid dreamer.
39:42
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I, I mean, I looked around.
39:45
[SPEAKER_00]: I was just captivated by the forest.
39:47
[SPEAKER_00]: It was just gorgeous.
39:48
[SPEAKER_00]: It was these really...
39:49
[SPEAKER_00]: high trees with dappled sunlight coming through, you know, hitting these ferns on the forest floor, lighting everything up, and it was just gorgeous, and I was kind of like just in such a peaceful, happy place in this forest, and then I turned, and I saw a tunnel hanging in the middle of the forest in front of me, and the tunnel was dark, and there were these inky figures in between me and the tunnel, and I said to myself,
40:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Is this a dream or is this real?
40:18
[SPEAKER_00]: And I answered myself and I said, I'm here, the dreamer, but I'm pretty sure this is really happening.
40:25
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's when I just said, well, if I can get out of here and get back to help, I think I could be okay.
40:33
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want to get out of here.
40:35
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was that.
40:36
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the tunnel on the forest disappeared.
40:38
[SPEAKER_00]: And I opened my eyes, and it took me a while to kind of figure out where I had landed.
40:44
[SPEAKER_00]: But I was faced down on my driveway next to the machine.
40:49
[SPEAKER_00]: So I definitely died a little bit and got to witness all of that.
40:54
[SPEAKER_00]: And I got to come back.
40:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I said, that just knowing that and seeing that and feeling that desperation and seeing the what I think is the other side, yet having the chance to come back, left me shockingly grateful.
41:12
[SPEAKER_03]: I pause there for just a moment, just kind of let that soak.
41:15
[SPEAKER_03]: I have heard from other people who have been to the other side and back again, and they have a variety of experiences, but they all are very similar, they overlap a lot.
41:24
[SPEAKER_03]: It's kind of like we have a variety of places on our planet right, we can experience.
41:29
[SPEAKER_03]: The thing that I've heard in common is what you just said gratitude, living life with a sense of gratitude.
41:36
[SPEAKER_03]: There's also an element of, I'm not going to take this life as seriously.
41:41
[SPEAKER_03]: Instead, I'm just going to celebrate it more, make sure that love is a big part of my existence.
41:47
[SPEAKER_03]: How do you think that you were changed by that experience?
41:51
[SPEAKER_00]: But it changed my whole life, obviously, I was altered physically from it, but it gave me this strength of what I needed to climb through.
42:01
[SPEAKER_03]: Which is the name of your book.
42:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
42:10
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay Melissa, so this book just published.
42:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
42:14
[SPEAKER_03]: How exciting.
42:15
[SPEAKER_03]: How long did you work on the book?
42:17
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I started writing it pretty much from the day of the accident on in a way, well, maybe not the day of the accident, but in the hospital on, so when I first got my hands for the first time, when I saw my hands for the first time in about a month and a half of being in the hospital and going through a ton of medical procedures,
42:41
[SPEAKER_00]: The doctor said, you can start using your hands now, and the first thing I said was, to my husband, can I please have a piece of paper and a pen?
42:50
[SPEAKER_00]: So the first thing I did was write, and my first words are in the book.
42:56
[SPEAKER_00]: So in a way it started then.
42:58
[SPEAKER_00]: I couldn't necessarily continue the writing at that time.
43:01
[SPEAKER_00]: I did, but it was very distant, it was super cold, it was, you know, I left the hospital this happened to me.
43:09
[SPEAKER_00]: But before this, I wrote all the time, you know, being a sponsored athlete, I had a blog.
43:14
[SPEAKER_00]: So I thought that was really interesting, like when I was writing the book, it helped me go back to certain, really powerful things in my life.
43:23
[SPEAKER_00]: that I could refer to.
43:25
[SPEAKER_00]: I talk about how my husband and I don't have children in the book.
43:29
[SPEAKER_00]: So I talk about our infertility in IVF journey and I was able to go back to my blog and pick that out because that's like six years later, right?
43:40
[SPEAKER_00]: So you don't remember exactly how
43:42
[SPEAKER_00]: How horrible you felt or how all of those like impactful emotions you felt at that time when you're going through them But because I wrote about them in the blog.
43:52
[SPEAKER_00]: I had I had those emotions that I could tap back into So in a odd way I wrote the book even before the accident and then starting in the hospital and then coming home from the hospital
44:06
[SPEAKER_00]: In 2019, a data sent me to a writing clinic at Rock and Ice where I went and I told them that thanks for having me.
44:15
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm really excited to be here.
44:16
[SPEAKER_00]: You're going to help me write an article, but I'm writing a book and they said, well, no, you're really here to write an article and I'm like, yeah, I know, but I'm writing a book and they're like, okay, so do you know that into the
44:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Worked on an article, and it did get published in Rock and Ice, that was back in 2019, and so that definitely was a catalyst that, yes, I, this story needs to be shared with people, if I can help people, kind of like what I said, you know, why did I get a chance to come back for rock climbing to open a restaurant?
44:56
[SPEAKER_00]: So I felt like maybe sharing my story I could, could help people.
45:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Then I had to stop, who could write, who could write during a pandemic, who could be creative and thoughtful and introspective when you're just sitting there scared to death every day of, you know, I sacrificed my life for this restaurant.
45:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Now am I going to be able to bake this restaurant?
45:20
[SPEAKER_00]: come through the pandemic.
45:22
[SPEAKER_00]: I talk a lot in the book about, I share about how my family helped me open the restaurant financially, and my family's finances are tied up in this restaurant.
45:31
[SPEAKER_00]: So I had to like everyone else, kind of put life on hold to a degree and just get through the pandemic.
45:40
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I picked writing back up again in
45:44
[SPEAKER_00]: is probably towards the end of 2021, 2022, and I was able to get a literary agent in 2023 who found me a publisher with Falcon.
45:54
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, and wonderful.
45:56
[SPEAKER_03]: And where can people find the book now?
45:58
[SPEAKER_00]: It's it's everywhere.
46:00
[SPEAKER_00]: I like to tell people to ask their local bookstore for a copy, so you're
46:06
[SPEAKER_00]: but it's also on Amazon, it's on Walmart, it's on Target, it's on Barnes and Noble, booksellers, and bam, online.
46:15
[SPEAKER_03]: Congratulations, how exciting.
46:17
[SPEAKER_00]: It's exciting.
46:20
[SPEAKER_03]: What do you anticipate?
46:22
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm just curious.
46:23
[SPEAKER_03]: How do you feel about it?
46:24
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, it's just releasing.
46:25
[SPEAKER_03]: So it's cool about that.
46:28
[SPEAKER_00]: It's scary, because not only, you know, I'm putting my whole life out there because I can't just,
46:34
[SPEAKER_00]: start with my accident, and I'm in a hospital, people have to understand who I am.
46:39
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, why this is impactful, it's using the hospital.
46:41
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's my entire life, and I tried not to prolong it for people in about 260 words, I mean pages.
46:51
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's scary.
46:53
[SPEAKER_00]: It's truly scary putting your whole life out there, including your writing, and your writing skills and talent.
47:00
[SPEAKER_00]: So, but it's been really well received.
47:02
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's fantastic and people seem to love it and I've gotten a lot of reachouts and comments and
47:09
[SPEAKER_00]: questions, and I have a whole website that goes along with it, so if people really want to see the gory pictures, if you want to see me writing a stationary bike with my arms sewn together, if you want to learn about all the crazy medical journey that I went through, it's all in the website, and I was really excited to that Falcon kept, I had my surgery notes in there and Falcon kept them in the appendix.
47:33
[SPEAKER_00]: So
47:34
[SPEAKER_00]: I believe it's eight surgeries in total or all in the public's book straight from the surgeons.
47:42
[SPEAKER_03]: Amazing.
47:43
[SPEAKER_03]: It's quite the comeback story.
47:45
[SPEAKER_03]: It really is.
47:46
[SPEAKER_03]: Like I said, I think so many people may have just said, I'm going to have to find another sport.
47:51
[SPEAKER_03]: But instead, you're rocking it literally.
47:54
[SPEAKER_03]: It's so cool.
47:55
[SPEAKER_00]: I love it, and I'll go down with the ship, you know, I mean, I know one day, age will win hopefully, right?
48:02
[SPEAKER_00]: If I look long enough, that age will win, but I'm okay with it.
48:07
[SPEAKER_00]: I think at this point, you know, whenever it's time to hang up my hat, I will be able to do it, gracefully now.
48:15
[SPEAKER_03]: Well Melissa, that's a beautiful place, I think to wrap it up, you're such an example to us.
48:23
[SPEAKER_03]: Life dishes out some really nasty things sometimes, but your tenacity to continue on, you know, to do the thing you love, to keep life rolling, and then to share it, to share it with the rest of us so that we can find encouragement from your struggles and your successes.
48:40
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you.
48:42
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you for doing that.
48:44
[SPEAKER_00]: It's my pleasure.
48:45
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm glad I got a chance to be here and share the story.
48:47
[SPEAKER_03]: Some of us we talked about your book, but how can people get in touch with you otherwise?
48:52
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm sure you have a website and social media, so tell us about that.
48:56
[SPEAKER_00]: I have to admit, I'm not a TikToker, so Instagram is probably the best way and it's Melissa I strong, but my website is also another avenue and on my website you can see all about the restaurant transformations.
49:09
[SPEAKER_00]: You can see the Melissa before during and after.
49:13
[SPEAKER_00]: So, more ink, you can see all of the gory hospital pictures and the burnt bones and all of that.
49:21
[SPEAKER_00]: And you can follow the journey of now publishing a book.
49:25
[SPEAKER_00]: So, it's MelissaIStrong.com.
49:29
[SPEAKER_03]: Melissa, IStrong.com.
49:33
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, thank you.
49:34
[SPEAKER_03]: I say this at the end of every show, it almost seems right, but I think that Melissa would agree that it was about getting out there, doing the thing you love, right?
49:44
[SPEAKER_03]: So, until the next show, make sure you do, get out there and have some fun.