Latest / Tom's Hirschsprung's Podcast / Episode 22 - With Amy Green @godsbestjpouch

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Episode 22 - With Amy Green @godsbestjpouch · Tom's Hirschsprung's Podcast

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You are listening to Tom's Hirshprung's Podcast, where our 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 twenty two of Tom's Hirshbrong's podcast. My guest today is a
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very special guest and we share something very special in common that we will talk
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about later on. But my and my guest today is Amy Green. Welcome
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to the podcast. Amy, Thanks so much, Tom, I'm so excited
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to be here. And yeah, I just support your motion of rereading our
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stories to help other people on this journey. Thank you very much, and
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thank you very much for coming along. Now we'll take a die a sort
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of a deep dive into your story, which is phenomenal, and we'll talk
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about that later on. But we'll start, as we usually do, from
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the very beginning, and I'd like if you can to take me back to
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two thousand and eight or just slightly before two thousand and eight, and we'll
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go from there, definitely. So in two thousand and eight, I was
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a senior in high school. I was eighteen, I was kind of reckless
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and just you know, not really aware of the world, aware of my
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body. I didn't have a higher power. It was just kind of existing,
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and there wasn't much substance. I didn't have a lot of feelings,
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or if I did, I was probably numbing them with drugs and alcohol.
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And yeah, I had I had never heard of ulcor of colitis. And
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so the story goes is that when I was the morning after my senior prom,
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I woke up, went to the bathroom, and all I saw was
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blood in the toilet, and I was pretty much like, oh my gosh,
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like, hopefully this is going to go away. I don't want to
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tell my parents, but it definitely did not go away, and I had
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to get my parents involved because the blood didn't stop. And what's funny is
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that I don't remember ever seeing just like a couple drops of blood leading up
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to that. It was all just like that's all you saw. There was
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no substance in the in the in the toilet, and so just kind of
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just kind of came out of nowhere. And even if I feel like even
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if it had given me any clues along the way leading up to that moment,
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I wouldn't have known, likely because being that young, you're not really
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in tune with your body. You're not listening to it or noticing like,
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oh this hurts, or we should look at this. And so that summer
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after I graduated, I was in and out of the hospital. I was
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diagnosed with the ultra of colitis. And even just hearing the words l sort
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of colitis was you know, it's kind of there's kind of scary words when
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you first hear them for the very first time, and you know, we're
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we're kind of immune to them now in this community. But my family didn't
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know what it was, my community didn't know what it was. And in
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two thousand and eight, it was just it was just a different world,
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right, Technology and communication social media just wasn't how it is now. There
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weren't podcasts like this to talk about it. And yeah, it was just
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it was scary to get the diagnosis. But that summer I was in and
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out of the hospital for dehydration and anemia. I was having terrible, terrible
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stomach pain and using the restroom I don't know, thirty times a day or
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something fifty times a day. And eventually that fall I actually to back up.
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They'd sure they tried me out a bunch of drugs like ace of Call
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and some premisone, but that didn't make it better. It only made my
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UC worse. And then that fall, I finally, you know, went
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into the hospital for just another like dehydration issue. And I didn't come out
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of the hospital for six weeks at that time. And that chunk of time
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of being in the hospital was you know, really the life changing part,
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because you know when I left then I came out of the hospital, I
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was seventy nine pounds and I had an osteme bag. I had a wound
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infection you know the size of a soft ball, and I was just really
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riddled with trauma and seer and anxiety and pain. But for those six weeks
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in the hospital, I was on blood transfusions, I was on ivy food
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through a pick line. They tried me on the rimickaide and just kept you
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know, throwing drugs at it and just trying to keep my little body alive.
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And I remember when it kind of maybe at about four weeks in,
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I got really sick. I was having just infections, I know, sea
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diiff was one of them, and I had a fever of about one hundred
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and four degrees and where surgeon came in and was like, we've got to
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go in and you know, take your colon owt. They came in and
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they put the little dot on your stomach or the stoma you bow and I
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was just I was just like along for the ride, and I didn't I
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didn't know if I could speak up. We didn't know about any I was
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so sick. I mean, I almost dying tom And thankfully I don't have
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too many memories of how thin and feeble I was, but just the fact
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and the of knowing that I was seventy nine pounds when I got out after
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all of that on my like five ten frame is the kind of sobering thought.
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But so they go in, they take the colon out, and the
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so they take the colon out, and then twenty four hours later, after
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you know they've sewed me back up, I'm vomiting. I have the the
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ngtube going on, and what's happening is that I have a bowel obstruction.
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And I now know that bowel obstructions are really fairly common after you've had a
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total collectomy, and didn't know that at the time, of course, but
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they so I had to go back in opened me back up, untangled my
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intestines, and close me back up. But because of the ostome, you
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know, the oscar is brand new. Also, It's like on one side
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and then you've got this decision on the other side. They were like,
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I don't know, half an inch apart. They were so close together.
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And somehow, I would say, the fecal matter from the stoma and the
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ostom got into the wound or the incision, which then caused the wound,
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and I don't know, it just sort of like growing. And it was
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this whole thing. You have to have a whole different team of nurses when
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you have a you know, a giant infection on your stomach. You know,
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that's four inches four by four really, And I was extremely traumatous,
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traumatized just by having to have my bandages changed. I wouldn't look at this
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thing, and I was so scared and I had so much anxiety. And
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I remember that one particular at least one particular memory, but I'm sure it
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happened plenty where you know, the nurses would come in to change my bandage
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and I would just start freaking out, you know, like kind of just
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crying and being emotional, and you know, they would have to medicate me
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with some kind of anti anxiety medicine that would just knock me out, and
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the next thing I knew, I would wake up and oh, my bandage
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is clean and I have new bandages, and I don't know. That's just
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like a sad part I feel like, because it had to get to that
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point to get those bandages changed. So I get out of the hospital,
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I have the at home nurses, and I pretty much just stay on like
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the second story of our home for quite some time. I can't go up
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and down the stairs. I have to relearn how to walk again, and
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you know, getting out in and out about is extreme challenge and being so
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weak, and I still didn't look at my wound infection for a very long
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time until it was really really small, I remember, and yeah, somehow
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miraculously I recovered from all of that, and I had the awsome bag.
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I was nineteen and ended up living at the ostme bag for two years.
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And I was told that the ostome bag was the first surgery and the first
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step, and then the second surgery, and the second step would be the
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jpouch creation, and then the third step would be the takedown of the astome
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bag. This took about roughly two years, and so I go back in
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to have the j pouch made by my same surgeon. Kind of an uneventful
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surgery from what I recall, but after that I was always kind of having
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issues. Still wasn't really quite healthy. It wasn't gaining weight. I still
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I had a lot of output from the austome bag. And then once the
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Oscome bag was taken down after that for that third surgery, it was doing
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a decent job, but I still had chronic diarrhea. I wasn't gaining weight,
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I had pain. It was just kind of like this mess that I
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was still in. And then jeepouch wasn't really helping. Sure, I wasn't
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having blood in my school anymore, but something was wrong and I didn't really
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know what was wrong until just a couple of years ago. And yeah,
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what was wrong is that? Just to fast forward to now a little bit,
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is that the jeepouch was laid incorrectly and it had been left with almost
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double the amount of length for the rectal cuff. And I just want to
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pause there for a second. You want to like to see Yeah, no,
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no, that's that's a fascinating start, and I'm just doing the conversions.
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When you talked about your story and you said you were seventy nine pounds,
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in my own head, I was thinking, what's that? And it's
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about five and a half stone, which is like absolutely nothing. So you
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having to relearned to walk again and feeling very weak, very feeble, would
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make absolute sense being being five and a half stoke. What was that like,
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having to having to relearn to walk again. It's like you just have
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to go so slow, and it's sad, and it's sad. You're like
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sad for yourself because you're like, what has just happened to me? You
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know? I was just this like you know, young teenager running around and
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all of a sudden, now I'm like in a wheelchair and I need help
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with everything. And it felt like it really felt like your body was like
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against you and that you don't have any control of your body, and it
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was it was very scary and and just you get so exhausted so easily being
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that then, and like right now I'm one hundred and thirty pounds and I
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love being this weight, but yes, seventy nine pounds is like you're just
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like bones mostly, Yeah, there's not there's not a lot to you.
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The seventy died beout. And then and then when you had the J pouch
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something. To be honest, I didn't know before why it was called a
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J pouch because the intestines are made into the shape of a J, which
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makes absolute sense. Yeah, just like it sounds. Yeah. Yeah,
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No, I hadn't. I hadn't come. I hadn't really figured the two
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before. Yeah. So they used your small intestine, they take, you
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know, the last couple inches of it, and they just create a little
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pouch in the shape of a J, and that acts as the reservoir as
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your large intestine. It's really double duty, so it's doing the small intestine
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duty and then it's also in this newly formed J pouch doing the large intestine
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duty. So all of this happened sort of around sort of two thousand and
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eight or so, and then a little bit sort of later on, and
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you said it was made incorrectly. When did they then start to think,
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oh, something might be a mess here, you know. I think that's
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the funny part. I think that doctors didn't know what was wrong, and
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they also kind of pushed me to the side and I would, you know,
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call and complain and they would just treat me with like antibiotics, or
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they couldn't find anything through all these scopes, and it was just kind of
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convoluted, and I'm mysterious for some time, and you know, it's kind
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of just like my health just kept coming back up. I was like,
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why am I so sick? Why do I feel so bad? And so
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I kept finding different doctors, right, searching whose expertise can help me to
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heal and help me to understand this like better. But the thing is is
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that, yeah, I mean it's my it's supposed to be this way.
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But all the doctors I went to, the many different surgeries that I had
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along the way, they weren't helping anything. They were only making things worse.
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And you know when that happens to somebody, you develop even more anxiety
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and you develop even more fear through all this trauma. I mean, pain
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in itself is just that pain of self is traumatic, right. You know
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when every little step or movement you take, I mean every single you know,
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healed a toe hurts, then you're wondering, like why did I have
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this surgery? You know, if I recovered, now, why am I
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still having reptil pain. Why am I still having chronic diarrhea? And so
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I guess in twenty or by the time I was twenty four, which was
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ten years ago, so that would be twenty fourteen something like that. I
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had had fifteen surger just in the six years since I was eighteen, and
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and that's you know, reptively, abdominally, vagually. Like there was just
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a lot going on, and I finally just swore doctors off. Actually I
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was like, these guys don't know anything. It's not worksh it out for
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us. And I just started treating at home. And so I got into
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like supplements, I got into herbs and just trying to understand diet a little
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bit. And anytime I did go into a doctor appointment, I brought,
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you know, this huge stack of medical papers with me, like thinking that's
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gonna help me somehow. But I didn't know how to. I don't know
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how to go into these appointments. I was if anybody had said anything to
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me, And these appointments that just like irritated me. They weren't nice or
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they just ticked me off. But I was just irate after it, and
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I just I wasn't very calm. It was a really difficult pati, you
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know. Yeah, I mean I I think I earned the badge to be
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a difficult patient after all of all of what I had been through. And
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but yeah, I mean there was a point where, like I even bought
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pain pills off the street actually because I was in so much pain, and
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my doctors, you know, wouldn't give it to me because for whatever reasons.
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And yeah, I would just use sits bass at home. And my
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my point in doing all that was because I didn't want to be cut on
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again. And just the fact of having being cut on is like you have
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to recover from that. There's the emotional compound of it, and I just
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didn't want to go through that anymore. But but I knew that kind of
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on the back burner, you know, just of any's life, like you
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got to deal with this like something, you got to figure it out.
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And I would say that, you know, it didn't really go I had
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to get worse right before it got better. And so in twenty eighteen,
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I finally was like, all right, I'm gonna try another doctor and found
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this guy in the Atlanta area and he gave me about I don't know seven
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different options for surgery of what he thought he could do, and I was
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like, Okay, you know, let's you know, have the pachoscopy because
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that's the preliminary step. And after that pauchoscopy he or I learned that they
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pretty much spread my anal sphincter way more than it should have been and it
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left me incontinent for months and I had to wear diapers. I don't even
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I can't believe that I held a job down during my time, and but
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it led me to being suicidal because there was no there's no way to keep
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living your life like this in the amount of suffering pain, fear, anxiety
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and honestly just poop right that I was having to deal with. I always
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say that the trying that I lived was you know, the bathroom and my
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bed for just back and forth, back and forth. And yeah, then
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I would say in twenty and twenty, we had the pandemic and I had
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been traveling for a really long time with my job, I mean, all
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over the country. It's amazing that I even did it with these health issues.
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But so so finally, you know, you have to stay home because
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of the pandemic, and I'm like, yes, I get to stay home.
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And the diet that I really wanted to try called the Specific Specific Carbohydrate
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Diet or the SCD diet, and I swear by this diet. I had
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such amazing results with that. It was really hard to do, but it
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was so worth the result, and it was pretty much just it's an e
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lamentation diet. I don't even part of it, but it's you have to
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eat like chicken broth for a week and then you cut out alls all grains,
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so all potatoes and quinoa and rice, any like gluten free goodies that
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are made out of rice. Really and it for a couple of days that
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felt like I had the flu because my body was detoxing from all these grains.
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And it's just it's a revolutionary There's a whole book on this diet of
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called the Breaking the Vicious Cycle is the name of the book. And this
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diet is specifically for people with UCY we're chroned and even help secure autism and
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I think divertokulitis, probably a couple others. But after you get through the
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chicken broth phase, you know, then you can add one item, you
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know, so it's like, all right, let's that chicken or carrots,
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and you are journaling and you are really just devoted to this diet and you
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know, monitoring your symptoms is what you're doing. And to this day,
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I still don't eat grains. I'm never gonna eat grains again. And I
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think that that diet in particular was a huge game changer. I was able
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to feel better, right, So then, oh, when you feel better,
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you're not suicidal, right, And it just makes you happier to feel
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better. I was able to gain weight, and it just seemed like life
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was really just looking up with this diet and I'm so grateful for it.
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And so was this something you decided this is what I'm going to do myself
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and did the research on it, or was this something that was recommended to
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you? Yeah? It was myself. Absolutely. No doctor is never going
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to recommend me to try a special holistic diet. But I was always just
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like searching online, like what are people doing out there? How can I
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feel better? And somehow I've stumbled across the SDD diet. But what was
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so imperative to start this diet with that I was at home, not traveling
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and cooking my meals myself and having that extra space, you know, to
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journal about your food every single day. You are. It's grueling to write
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down, all right, everything that I put in my body. And I
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did that for two years, and it was. It was even tough on
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my family because you know, I'd have to bring my food to go visit
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them, or they couldn't feed me, or they could only feed me like
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you know, bananas. It good, It was, it was. It
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was definitely extremely hard. But I will I'll never eat greens again. Yeah,
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after being gluten free for ten years, you know, gluten freed and
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helped me. Like I still had inflammation. I still felt bad, and
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being on the SCD diet extremely decrease my inflammation. That's that's an interesting point.
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I'll go back to something you said a moment ago about sort of emotional
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and mental well being from surgery, because I did. I was chatting to
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somebody about this a couple of weeks ago, and they were saying, well,
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this, this type of thing's not talked about often enough, and I
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don't think it is. I think a lot of the surgeries that are that
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are done are very much about physical well being. So right, what can
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we put Ian what can we take out, what can we change, what
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can we do to fix this person physically? And actually the emotional side of
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it, the mental side of especially sixteen surgeries, I haven't had quite as
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many. I'm in double figures, but not quite as many. But the
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emotional side of that, the mental side of that really really can take its
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toll if it's not it's not management sort of talked about and things like that.
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So did did you find obviously when when you had those surgeries, the
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emotionally that was really really difficult? Oh, one hundred p Yeah. Even
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just having the thought of like, I'm so sick right now, I need
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to go to the er, is like I need help, but I can't
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go there because I'm so afraid of what's going to happen. And you know,
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it's not it's not like when you're in the hospital and you're going through
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all this stuff that that they have, you know, emotional support people really
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like coming in to be with you. And just to go back to that
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story where I had to have my bandages changed, you know, it would
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have been nice if there was some kind of position or some kind of role
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for somebody that was in the hospital be there and be like, you know
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what, Amy's really having a lot of anxiety about this right now, can
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you please come back. Let's let her settle down and get this control,
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this emotion controlled, rather than just pushing forward. And you're gonna do what
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you need to do. And I mean that was such a big learning for
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me because now, well, I'm not going back to the hospital now,
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but in my recent past, you know, I have learned that if I'm
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having a like a hard time emotionally and somebody's coming in, like we're gonna
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come in and get your blood, I'm like, I'm able to say no,
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and I'm able to stand up for myself and say no, not now.
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It's not a good time for me. And you know, they will
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still press you and be like, no, you've got to do it right
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now. And the fact is that no, I don't have to have my
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blood drawn or whatever you're doing right now. I can have that autonomy to
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be able to stand up for myself. Yeah, definitely, if we move
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on sort of from from sort of pandemic in twenty twenty to twenty twenty one,
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you discover something called breath work that I was doing a little bit of
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a little bit of research or see, you can know a lot more about
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this than my sort of half an hour research that I did. Do you
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just want to sort of give a brief overview of what breath work is and
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how it helped you. Definitely, First I would just say I am not
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a breathwork facilitator. I am just a breathwork enjoyer. But breathwork is really
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the practice of connecting to your breath. It's kind of similar to a meditation,
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but you're always just connecting to the inbreath the outbreath, and there are
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different variations of breath where you can make sure that you're breathing it really quickly
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or really slowly. But it's not having extra thoughts. It's just you are
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focused on the inbreath and the outbreath. And there's certain you know, musics
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and playlists or drums that you could listen to while you're having these having this
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conscious focus on your breath. And the thing is that the breath is a
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vehicle. It's going to take you somewhere once you get over that hump of
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Oh this is really hard to focus on, But if you just do the
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work and focus on the breath, then you go somewhere, and that somewhere
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is really like you're subconscious and you're able. I think, what do they
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call it, your parasympathetic nervous system, I believe is what it's called.
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Where you find like it really relaxed and you're not so much in your body,
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but you're just kind of like above it, and that's where that's where
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magic happens. And you sure, you can go in with an intention or
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you can just I always think it's better to just whatever for my highest and
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greatest good. But yeah, I went on a retreat in Sedona in twenty
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twenty one, and I didn't have a clue what brave work was. I
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was just like, yeah, let's do it. And you know, I
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lay down with my little blind fold and they're playing this like loud tribal music
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and they just I had a practitioner who was right next to me, and
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she kind of just helped to monitor like my stomach to make sure I would
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like breathe in correctly from my diaphragm and just keeping me focused on my breath.
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And yeah, I was able to I was able to forgive myself from
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having those suicidal thoughts and to know that it's okay that I had those thoughts
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and just to be grat just to be thankful that I didn't give up my
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life. And I mean everybody can have any kind of experience. I mean
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people that go into breath work sometimes sometimes I have a past life experience.
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Sometimes they go to the future. Sometimes they just learn about there now that
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they need to know about. But I mean it was it was revolutionary.
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I mean, just just like the SCD die. It was revolutionary for me
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to learn about breath work most definitely, and when I was doing the coming
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across the research obviously that there's there's places in the US where you are.
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There are also there's Breathwork UK where I am, and they do do various
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retreats and there's a really good website where you can can find out lots of
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information. So if you are interested in in breathwork, there is there are
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UK the UK bases as as well as as US. It's not just a
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not just a US thing, universal thing, right because I mean breath is
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universal, I would say. And you can do raugh work at home,
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you know, you can learn about it at home. You don't have to
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you know, pay to go and do it. In a class. But
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it's definitely an experience to have it. Want to be in a class with
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other people laying on our little mats and having an obstructor being like keep reading,
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keep breathing, and you know people around you are like crying or screaming,
28:03
And I mean there's a lot that gets transmuted and it comes up for
28:06
people, and I mean it's a whole experience and itself. Just to do
28:10
breath work in a group, I would I would recommend that if anyone wants
28:12
to experience that. But the thing is that we're all there, We're all
28:17
trying to heal something, right, we all know we've got shit that's coming
28:18
up that needs attention. Most definitely, most definitely say yeah if you are
28:25
interested by all means to do research and seek it out. If we move
28:30
to sort of midway into twenty twenty two, so the three surgeries are sort
28:38
of scheduled and then sort of may tie your problems tended to worsen. How
28:45
did that manifest itself? I would say that in twenty twenty two, I
28:53
just started having increased bowel movements, increased urgency, rectal pain, not so
29:00
much stomach pain. Maybe I had a little bit of blood, but like
29:03
the rectal pain that I would have was really the most significant. You just
29:08
you're walking along and it's like, oh, like you like you just have
29:11
to like crumble and just be in this pain or I would have to with
29:15
you know, I can't even say it's a yoga position, but it would
29:18
be similar to a downward dog that I would have to do just to get
29:22
that pressure out of my butt or just to squat down. And in two
29:30
thousand and one, I also got sober, and that was a really big
29:34
thing. It's I promised that it's no coincidence that within the one year of
29:40
me getting sober I also committed to getting my jpoch fixed and really addressing these
29:47
health issues. I was a completely different person than I was back in two
29:51
thousand and eight and two the nine and ten and so I was so I
29:57
was really sick and I had to get the Osman bag again. I had
30:00
to wait a month to get it and it was just like this ex scrup
30:03
sheating one month of just feeling terrible, I'm just like I can't wait to
30:07
get the bag again. And and so I mean, these oscme bags are
30:12
amazing. They save your life when they when you need them to. And
30:17
I'm so grateful that I got it. And so that was I guess April
30:23
twenty two. Yeah, I lost thirty pounds during that time. It was
30:29
just a really hard time. My brother had died. And then I would
30:33
say that the recovery of that surgery, they gave me oxy codone. I've
30:37
never been given oxycodone before, and that's just not a good drug and it
30:45
made recovery even more challenging. And what's interesting is that oxy codone actually increases
30:51
your pain, and it's like that's a catch twenty two when really you are
30:56
trying to get out of pain, but you can't because it's increasing your pain.
31:00
And so anyways, once I were once I decreased and stopped the oxy
31:03
coda, and on that my recovery just skyrocketed. And then I was able
31:08
to recover. And I mean I I interviewed I don't know, maybe eight
31:15
different doctors looking for the right J pouch doctor, just because the emergency Austrian
31:21
bag that I had gotten was just from this local doctor in Atlanta. I
31:23
was like, I need somebody, you know, Like it's just an oustar
31:26
start. It's really relatively simple and so I really, yeah, interviewed people
31:33
in New York. I interviewed people in uh in North Carolina, in Ohio,
31:40
you know, all the main medical campuses here in the US. And
31:45
I found I found my doctor, and she did a scope and MRI and
31:52
we learned that the japouch was like one hundred and eighty degrees turned and twisted,
31:56
and that the tissue just really wasn't looking well, and that the retal
32:01
cuff was double the length of what it should be, and that's really what
32:06
was causing all of these complications that I had been having. And I mean,
32:09
just getting that news that somebody knew, somebody had an answer, like
32:14
a true answer, was such a blessing. But to get the jape out
32:21
surgery, the only way that she would do it was if I started the
32:23
drug Stelera. And I really didn't want to start selera, but I came
32:30
to terms with it within myself, and I was so desperate to get out
32:32
of my current situation that I would do anything. And I had always opted
32:37
out as long as I could of the biologics because I just didn't want to
32:39
be on drugs. And sure, maybe that's why I had more surgeries because
32:45
they chose surgery over drugs. But what do you do? And so so
32:52
I just worked out a lot, ate really good, kept doing my healing
32:55
work to prepare for my jape out surgery. And I went into that surgery
33:01
just like so on cloud nine, and I was so healthy. I was
33:07
really just a clear channel emotionally, and I was like one hundred and thirty
33:14
five pounds, like I was really fit, and I was in a good
33:16
place. I was in a loving relationship that helped, and it felt like
33:22
I was really just in the flow honestly with the universe, and that everything
33:24
was really going my way. I was understanding how to listen to myself more,
33:30
how to pick the right doctor, and how just small things like if
33:37
I'm interviewing somebody for being my doctor, why am I so angry? Like
33:42
why am I angry at their staff for some reason? I've never really met
33:45
them, And but listening to that inner voice of like why am I angry
33:50
they or why did they lose my appointment for the third time? You know,
33:53
maybe that's not the doctor for me if they keep losing my appointment.
33:58
And so, yeah, I had had the jpouch surgery in June of last
34:06
year twenty twenty three, it went phenomenal. It was a ten hour surgery,
34:10
so very very long, and they took out the old J pouch.
34:17
At the time, she was my doctor was like, you know, we
34:21
don't know what's gonna happen if you're gonna keep the Jay pouch or you're gonna
34:23
get a new one, or we're gonna revise it. But once she'd got
34:27
in there, and I've even seen the photos of it, like that thing
34:30
looked as terrible as I felt, and it just it wasn't a healthy looking
34:35
fake organ. And but in that in that surgery, I mean, she
34:38
cleaned up so much scar tissue that had like just been in my lower pelvis,
34:44
especially on my fallopian tubes. And I had some fistulas that she fixed,
34:49
she shortened the reptal cuff, and you know, created this beautiful little
34:53
J pouch and then you know, I was left with a new stoma at
34:57
that time, and that was like the one of the best stmas I've had.
35:02
And it was just like it was like a chimney. If anybody that
35:06
has a stoma note, I mean, I was like it was upright,
35:08
it was strong and yeah. So oh and she gave me plastic surgery on
35:16
my stomach and that was That was another huge blessing because after having that wound
35:22
infection from when I was younger, it it really rucked my stomach up.
35:28
Fantastic. That's one of the best quotes I've ever heard. One of the
35:30
best stonas I've ever had. That's a fantastic quote. I love that.
35:36
Yeah, that stoma, that second flom had so much high output. It
35:44
was a whole different animal. When you were having empty your bag, you
35:45
know, ten to fifteen times a day, like that's a lot. But
35:52
it was still it was still the best one for sure because it wasn't you
35:54
know what do they call it pro lapse when it goes into your skin,
35:58
and I didn't have any skinish you. So, yeah, fantastic. And
36:04
also another point I want to touch on before we go into the third surgery,
36:09
fitness and health. I've talked to quite a few people about fitness and
36:15
health. Obviously it's my sort of bag, my speciality. Being in sport
36:20
for the last sort of decade and a half. I've seen the benefits with
36:24
lots of people, both with crime conditions and without. And I think we
36:30
all sort of know in the back of our minds that yes, fitness and
36:32
health is important, and eating well and exercising, and but one thing that
36:38
I've really seen interviewing people with Crian conditions is just how much fitness, gym
36:45
work, running, whatever it might be, has has really really helped.
36:50
Are you more gym work running, Do you do a mixture of the two.
36:53
How does it work for you right now? I'm definitely more focused on
36:58
on weight training because that's how you gain the muscle to gain the weight.
37:02
But in my heart, I'm a runner. I want to run more and
37:06
on my to do lifts early, to start integrating more more running because I
37:10
know my body loves it and it feels good doing it, and I love
37:15
working out. I wouldn't. I wouldn't have this body to be who I
37:19
am now, to have healed through all these surgeries without working out. Definitely,
37:24
Definitely. One thing that I have sound has helped my running is to
37:28
get a dog. It's very much helped. Yeah, I have a dog,
37:31
but she's slow, she's a little older. We used to run when
37:36
she was young, but now I chann't take her it's too low. Fantastic
37:42
if we evolved then to surgery three, which is the part that we we
37:49
actually have in comment, the stonma reversal. You are the first person I've
37:53
ever met with a stonma reversal, so talk us through that. That's the
38:00
surgery. Yeah, So I had my stima reversal on the Awestome takedown just
38:05
two months ago, back in March, and I had been preparing for that
38:12
surgery, you know, with working out, eating, ry, emotional work,
38:15
just to make sure I was ready for surgery. And yeah, I'm
38:22
just I'm so thrilled at how I recovered from that surgery and just having it
38:25
and that it was successful, and it ended up being my eighteenth surgery and
38:32
it will be my last surgery. And it was like just a super simple
38:37
procedure. They kind of just take your intestine. They just kind of a
38:42
I just like connect them back or stick them back together and tuck it back
38:45
in your abdomen wall. And they left me with like a large opening on
38:52
my stomach. I thought I was just gonna be like, oh, closed
38:54
up completely, but I guess because it's a considered a dirty wound area because
38:59
of the intestine, they have to leave it open so it can close and
39:01
rise and it was the easiest surgery recovery I have ever had physically, emotionally,
39:09
spiritually. It was I wish they were all like that. I wish
39:14
everybody's surgery recovery was this easy. And I was in the hospital for about
39:19
four or five days, and they actually wanted to send me home after like
39:22
two days, but I was like, no, I please, I'd like
39:23
to just keep can you just keep an eye on me a little longer?
39:25
And you know, I had my first bowel movement in the hospital and that
39:30
was exciting and and I so I was in the hospital for yeah, four
39:36
fiveth days, and I was hauling for a week, and my family stayed
39:38
with me and they helped me for one week. And then after that I
39:43
was like, all right, I'm I'm ready to to take this recovery on
39:46
my own and make my own food and just it was odd to do just
39:50
like clean my bandage area for like once a day, which was really no
39:54
big deal. But the key of my recovery was really walking. And they
40:00
always say, you know the house, you gotta get and walk, And
40:02
nobody ever wants to get up in a walk, but that is the key
40:06
to recovering, is that the more you walk, the faster you're gonna heal.
40:09
And I just kept pushing myself through these walks. You know, I
40:13
would walk like I don't know point two, but then you know, by
40:15
the end of the week, I was walking you know, a mile and
40:17
a half and or two miles, and just it just felt so good to
40:24
get to that place of knowing that I'm in control of it right now,
40:29
like I can. I'm the one that's like guiding this ship of recovery.
40:32
And my doctor even said that I've recovered quicker than most of her patience she's
40:37
ever seen, especially with the visuals of my wound. And and I was
40:44
written out of work for six weeks, but I went back early and went
40:45
back at like four weeks because I was feeling so great and just kind of
40:50
wanted to wanted to get get the show all the road. Yeah, I
40:52
was done. And the feeling of being done with all of these surgeries and
41:00
all of these endeavors is it's something that it's pretty much impossible to put into
41:06
words, but it's a really nice place to be fasting that's brilliant and just
41:13
very lastly, we've had all these surgeries, all of these these medical procedures.
41:19
What does the future look like for you said, there's no no more
41:22
surgeries, bland and things across, no more surgeries. Where what do you
41:27
see for you being the teacher? Oh, I think for asking I love
41:30
that question so honestly, in the future, I see a lot of travel
41:37
happening. And one of the things I really want to do is go to
41:40
the seven Chakras of the world. That's going to be like in the US,
41:46
Mount Shasta, Lake Titti, Kaka and Peru, the Stonehenge, Egypt,
41:53
et cetera. There's Aluru in Australia. And I have been so confined
41:59
to being home and to being near a bathroom or near a doctor's office that
42:05
and also like I literally had to or because of fear that I was afraid
42:08
to go out and do that type of travel. And and now it's like
42:12
now I just feet looe like I've been like reborn, honestly, and that
42:15
I have this new lease online that's just been constantly like slowly building in the
42:20
background. And so that's what I wanted to I want to take my jape
42:22
out and have her with traveling with me around the world and and just really
42:29
bringing my light to different parts of the world. That's fantastic and very very
42:35
good luck with that, just very just lastly as well, you have an
42:39
Instagram, you have a YouTube channel where can people find you to find more
42:44
on your story surfing. I share my story on Instagram and the name of
42:49
it is called God's Excuse Me, God's Best Japeout, and I have a
42:55
video on there if you want to just see me talking about my story and
43:00
some photos and footage in the profile on my Instagram. You can see that
43:07
link there, but also on YouTube. It's just one video of the same
43:12
video that's linked through my Instagram is I See the Universe one one one one
43:21
and yeah, okay, that's it and yeah, you're yeah, welcome to
43:24
see it. I created a GoFundMe for these most recent free surgeries, and
43:30
that's the video that we use to help just share share what people would be
43:35
donating towards. And yeah, it's it's a phenomenal video. And I would
43:38
encourage anybody that's just curious about hearing somebody's story and seeing a visual of it
43:44
to check it out. Definitely, I can concur it's a it's a fascinating
43:47
video, absolutely fascinating video which is from me. Thank you ever so much,
43:52
Aid for sharing your story and I wish you the best of luck with
43:57
your traveling and everything you're doing in the teacher. Thanks so much. And
44:01
I just want to say I guess to the listeners is that you know I
44:07
just was healing for every single person I can hear this and to love and
44:12
acceptance and that you are on the right path and that everything does happen for
44:16
a reason. It's brilliant message to finished. Thank you very much. Thank
44:23
you for listening to the podcast. Find us on Instagram Tom's Underscore Hirshbrun's Underscore
44:30
podcast. Listen to previous episodes on Spotify by searching Tom's Hirshbrung's Podcast