Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Kayla here. And welcome back to imperfectly honest.
What if one of the hardest moments of your life also became one of your greatest teachers?
Of course, none of us hopes for a health crisis, or any crisis for that matter. But when our bodies force us to slow down, they often reveal things we've been too busy to notice about. Our priorities, our relationships, our resilience, our and what it really means to be alive.
In this episode, Elizabeth is joined by longtime friend, mentor, and returning imperfectly honest guest Jimmy Colano for an honest conversation about navigating cancer and the profound perspective shifts that can come from facing our own mortality.
Together, they explore why it's so important to listen to your body, to advocate for your health, embrace the unexpected silver linings and discover that healing isn't always about returning to who you were.
Sometimes it's about becoming someone new. Whether you've faced a health challenge yourself or supported someone who has, I hope this conversation leaves you feeling a little more present, a little more grateful, and a little less alone. So thanks for listening and enjoy the episode.
[00:01:18] Speaker B: This isn't imperfectly honest.
I'm Elizabeth and after about four decades, I'm shifting from the person I always thought I should be to the person I really want to be. In part because I've learned to be honest both with myself and just about everybody I encounter. It's not always perfect. Sometimes it's a rocky road. But I'm learning a lot by being imperfectly honest and thought you might learn something too.
Hey listeners, we have a guest back for a second time today. His name is Jimmy Colano and Jimmy has been a longtime friend and mentor and investor. And Jimmy, thank you so much for coming back for a second time.
[00:02:04] Speaker C: Good to be back.
[00:02:06] Speaker B: Jimmy and I have had similar experiences over the past couple of years because we have both been battling some health issues and I invited Jimmy to come and have an imperfectly honest conversation about it. And Jimmy, just to give our listeners some context, can you just give a brief introduction of who Jimmy colano is?
[00:02:32] Speaker C: Sure.
Company founder, CEO for 20 years, had a global training firm which I sold in the mid-90s. Then a professional board member for a decade, for the past 15 years, private investor, running my own small family office and also facilitating a thousand member national investment club. And on top of all that, father, sibling, spouse, significant other, friend, associate and all those other important roles.
[00:03:01] Speaker B: And Jimmy, tell us a little bit about your health experience to give us some context on why I invited you here today.
[00:03:11] Speaker C: Well, I had a life threatening disease a few years ago, followed up with two other health crises which forced me to really zero in focus on the health aspect of my life, which candidly, I'd taken for granted most of it.
And, you know, I developed some experiences and some stories and some learnings and some precepts to share with others. And maybe that's why you're tapping me for my perspective here.
[00:03:47] Speaker B: You are correct.
And just to give you listeners some context for myself, I had a perfect storm of health issues about four years ago.
And the catalyst for most of them was that I had a large cancerous tumor that curved my spine. And the tumor was actually pretty easy to deal with. That was just a very simple surgery to get that. But the curved spine really was a doozy. It attacked my nerves running through different parts of my body and wow, that was quite a recovery process. So Jimmy and I have been commiserating a bit on the challenges associated with health issues like this. And Jimmy, I'm curious, what do you think is the biggest challenge that you face through this experience?
[00:04:45] Speaker C: Let me approach that with an overarching comment.
It's a mindset shift when something in my body seems off. I take it a whole lot more seriously now. And I've moved from a thought process of of course I'll get better to, well, maybe this time I won't. And when we were talking a couple weeks ago in anticipation in advance of this recording, I remember commenting to you, Elizabeth, that when I was your age, mid-40s, my reaction to illness or injury was just, you know, a bit of a groan of when am I going to feel better again?
But now at 69, I wonder, is this the ailment that could kill me?
And just to elaborate a bit more in this particular point, my sister, four years my senior, is a consummate chronic hypochondriac and I've teased her mercilessly about it for decades.
Now I'm veering into a.
How do I pronounce this?
Valetudinarian realm myself, occasionally overreacting emotionally and illogically not apologizing and actually believing I'm wiser for frankly being a bit of a hypochondriac.
[00:06:09] Speaker B: Now that's so funny. Also a great word that we just learned there. Thank you for that.
I also had the experience that sometimes things can lead to mortality.
I didn't face a life threatening problem, not really. Anyway, I mean, my tumor was cancerous and it could come back really at any time and could be more serious, but it was relatively treatable and there's a good prognosis, but it did kind of give me the eye opening experience to make me realize that I'm not in control and things can come my way at any time. And you did mention that because you're 69, you're wondering, is this the thing that will kill me? But also, I started asking that too, because just because I'm 45 doesn't mean that I'm invincible. And really something could come along at any time.
And so it just, for me, gave me more appreciation of life. And also similar to you, I don't hesitate to get things checked out when something feels off. Because I had that tumor for I don't even know how long. I mean, it was huge by the time that they took it out. And when I looked back on it, there were all these. These minor symptoms that I just attributed to normal aches and pains. And yep, it made so much sense, but I was just too busy to pay attention to those things.
[00:07:46] Speaker C: Can I carry this on into the more into the realm of action and in being proactive?
Because one of my main points that I wanted to share with listeners is taking action more readily versus putting off making that doctor's appointment. And I probably shared this with you a couple of years ago. But when I was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia back in 2023, I'd had a headache, medium grade headache for 10 days.
And I'm a person who doesn't get headaches. And I kept thinking, oh, it'll get tomorrow, tomorrow it'll be better, it'll go away.
And finally bit the bullet went, saw my doctor, who had me do some blood labs and revealed within hours that I had acute leukemia and was literally five days from certain death. My white blood cell count was 176,000. Normal is about four to nine. It was growing 25,000 count per day. And at 300,000 white blood cell count, they can't save you. And you die an ugly, gruesome death. You literally bleed from every orifice. And it was supposed to be. This was Thursday I got diagnosed, was supposed to be on a plane on Friday. And multiple doctors subsequently told me, if you'd gotten on that plane, you were never coming back alive. So that was my wake up call to quit thinking I was invincible.
Can you relate?
[00:09:20] Speaker B: Yeah, I can relate. I didn't have as dramatic of an experience, but when they found my tumor, they felt certain that it was benign. And it was during COVID when they were trying to limit the number of elective surgeries. And I was also just busy with other things. And So I waited a long time to get that tumor out and then found out it was indeed cancerous.
And that was sort of a wake up call for me that putting things off is just not the best path.
[00:09:58] Speaker C: Let me pose a $64,000 question to you. And the question is, is it better to know or not to know? And I have a thoughts on this, but I'm talking specifically about thorough testing to literally know. Is there something going on in your body that you don't know about, or are you just fine?
But most importantly, do you want to know? Should you want to know?
What do you think?
[00:10:23] Speaker B: For me, I like to know. So as an example, I've done a full body MRI somewh and they found that I had a lesion on my pancreas. And that is something that could be nothing or it could be something. And you have an MRI in six months to see if it's grown at all. And if it hasn't grown, then it's likely nothing.
And for me, I'm glad that I know that so I can track it.
And for whatever reason, stuff like that does not cause me a lot of stress.
I tend to get stress about much more insignificant things like whether I have all the groceries I need for a weekend trip and things like that.
I don't know why my brain operates like that, but when I feel like there's a big risk that I am not in control of, it's not stressful.
So for me, knowing feels right. But one of the most important things that I learned from this experience is that stress can be as detrimental as something like a tumor. And so I do have some friends who have a lot of anxiety about health issues and I'm not sure how they should answer that question. How do you answer that question?
[00:11:50] Speaker C: Well, this question comes up a lot in my forum group and from a practicality standpoint, if you don't know there's something going on, you can shorten your Runway to a cure.
I was more lazy about it in the past than sort of frightened, stressed out or unwilling. And I've kind of come to the conclusion this is a little rough, but my attitude now is don't be stupid. Spend the money, devote the time, get the blood draw, endure the uncomfortable scans, take the tests, pay attention to the results, and then take action.
[00:12:27] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's good advice. I think that's good advice.
[00:12:31] Speaker C: Yeah. I told you at the beginning, I'd had a series of crises.
Broken clavicle a year ago from a fluke ski accident, and more recently as in less than three months ago, diagnosed with a subdural hematoma, which is a brain bleed between my skull and my brain. Came out of nowhere. No concussion.
Some clues, but no consensus on what triggered it. Started out with about an 8 out of a 10 headache pain level.
And because the headache is what triggered the leukemia diagnosis, my first thought, of course, was, oh, boy, leukemia's come back. But this time I gave myself 10 hours to get to the hospital, not 10 days.
And fortunately, the CAT scan, while it revealed a 4 millimeter brain bleed on the entire left side of my head, it was not active. The neurosurgeon was not terribly troubled. And it's coming down to Tylenol and months of healing and it'll hopefully go away.
[00:13:41] Speaker B: Well, I'm glad to hear that. And also glad that you recovered from your collarbone, which you happened to do after I left you skiing. We did our final run together, and then you broke that. Yeah. Yeah.
I often find that opportunity can come from adversity. And I'm curious whether any silver linings have come out of this experience for you.
[00:14:11] Speaker C: One that comes to mind.
Friends and family have asked me, wow, when you got diagnosed with that leukemia, what was your reaction?
And it surprised me. I mean, I'm a pessimist at heart. I'm a proud pessimist. And yet my first reaction was gratitude. I was so grateful. I was almost 66 and it was like, whoa, if it ends here, hell of a life I've lived. I would have never imagined that that's what would have populated in my brain, gratitude, as opposed to, you know, resentment and hate the world. Angry, bitter, nasty behavior or whatever.
So I look back and I'm that that was a silver lining. That I learned something about myself that I would have never imagined. I would have had the opposite reaction.
How about you? Silver linings when you know you've discovered something not so great going on.
[00:15:10] Speaker B: Yeah. I think for me, it forced me to rethink all of my assumptions about health.
So I have always been very dedicated to a health routine.
As just one example, I swam Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 6:30am for decades, because that's when I could get in the pool during a master swim class and then get to work.
And when you are sick, sometimes you just cannot get up and do something like that. And what I found from the experience was that my body doesn't actually like to swim at 6:30am If I swim at 7, 7:30am My body feels so much better. And my body doesn't actually like to swim three days a week. I do a lot better when I swim two days a week. And that is a very small example. But essentially being forced to just question all of my practices and start from scratch created a lot of innovation for me.
[00:16:13] Speaker C: It's good to learn that about your routines and your, your body's reaction to frequency and that sort of thing.
In, in our prep discussion, you had tossed out the question about healing can be a slow process and sometimes taking feeling like it's taking two steps forward and one step back.
And I, I related very much to that and you asked me if I had any words of wisdom to share about how to deal with this sort of frustration and is it okay to go in that direction?
[00:16:47] Speaker B: That sounds great.
[00:16:48] Speaker C: Yeah.
Well, I've got about a half dozen thoughts on this. I'll. I'll toss out a couple and then here, here yours it for me. It, it starts with an attitude check and it's about adopting a this too shall pass mantra, which I think was my mother's favorite expression.
And I'm not being a hypocrite and suddenly talking about being in denial when I just a minute ago talked about how important it is to know and to, you know, be responsive quickly and all. But it's about keeping a positive mindset as much so as possible.
That's not easy for, for a proud pessimist like myself, but I use positive self deception to will myself back to normaly. I, you know, I, I tell myself I'll heal, I'll beat it, I'll recover from this. I always have.
And it's time. Time to dawn the optimist mindset regarding my physical status.
I'll. I'll share one more. I look for and acknowledge small wins.
I remember I spent the first month in the hospital woken up at 4am every morning to have from a deep sleep to have a needle plunged into my arm to get my blood labs and then the oncologist would come in a couple hours later and review them with me. And some days the labs were not great.
But I might say to myself but oddly I feel better today.
And certain blood components on any given day worsened, but some did improve.
And I would tend to focus on what stayed static or normal or at least didn't deteriorate.
And I kept telling myself this is no time for a pity party. And what some of the nurses would tell me about other patients being treated for cancer and how they had a much different outlook kind of made me feel good about how I was, I was dealing with it all what about you? When you're in the one step back
[00:18:55] Speaker B: phase, that can be tough.
I had this moment. So the hardest thing for me was that a lot of my social life revolves around physical activity. Running, hiking, skiing. I couldn't do a lot of that stuff.
And so not only was I losing my coping mechanism of physical activity to relieve stress and get that dopamine in my body, but I was also feeling more isolated, and I was living in Big Sky, Montana at the time, and there's just not a lot to do there. And if you can't do outdoor activities, there's really not a lot to do there.
So I was finally back to the point that I could start hiking and running. And I had this moment where I went running with this running group, and I was having this lovely conversation, and we climbed up to this peak and came down and it was this iconic moment with this beautiful view of Lone Peak, the iconic big peak and Big Sky. And I just thought, oh, my gosh, I have made it. I got through the darkness and to the other side.
And then about 10 minutes later, my ankle started to hurt.
[00:20:15] Speaker C: Oh, boy.
[00:20:17] Speaker B: And I had a stress fracture in my fibula.
And I wasn't able to run or do anything for eight weeks. And it was in the middle of summer, and oh, my gosh, that was so hard for me to take.
And again, sometimes there's silver linings in those moments because that's when I decided I gotta start spending time outside of Big Sky. There just isn't enough here when I can't do physical things.
[00:20:48] Speaker C: Yeah, that must have been deflating.
[00:20:50] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. It was really hard.
So I go from such a high
[00:20:55] Speaker C: to such a low, like, instantaneously.
[00:20:58] Speaker B: I know, I know.
So I decided to start spending a lot of time in Bozeman, where there's more than just outdoor activities. And I have really created a community for myself here and ended up finding a two year project opportunity the week that I started spending more time at Bozeman. And it did feel like one door closes and then another one opens.
And I just have to remind myself above that every time that I have that one step back.
And admittedly, it is hard.
Okay, it is hard.
[00:21:41] Speaker C: Yep.
This might be the most important thing I have to share with listeners. It's when I look back, and in answer to the question, what got you through it? I'm talking about the leukemia, and it's one word, distraction. I worked every day from diagnosis to full recovery. I became one with my devices. I was so caught up. I was Literally waiting for emails to come in to clear and respond to. Never knew how productive I could be lying in a hospital bed.
And retrospect, it was one of the most creative, high output periods of my life. The six months that I, you know, I battled and defeated cancer. And I didn't, just did not, I refused to allow myself to obsess even a little bit about mortality or even how awful I was feeling on, you know, any given day.
So distraction was so paramount to my recovery and my actually it was to my just getting through it.
Do you ever use that?
[00:22:46] Speaker B: Yes. I often say that I create my best art from adversity because as painful as those one step back moments can be, they almost always spark creativity for me. I do my best writing. I try things I've never tried before. All of those things.
[00:23:06] Speaker C: One of the more emotional thoughts I have on this and because you have to acknowledge there are going to be some really bad days. And what I think I learned to do was to make the most of those bad days.
And I, I use music to some extent to get through it. And my favorite band from where you're near where you're from, Lord Huron, has one in their earlier catalog. There's a song called the man who lived forever. And here I am, you know, in the first two weeks of my diagnosis, not knowing if I'm going to be alive in a month. And I remember at 2 o' clock in the morning cranking that song through my headset. And the lyric that was kind of haunting me in a good way was, they said we're all going to die, but I'll never believe it. I love this world and I don't want to leave it.
And I let that sort of ring through my head and it led to a mental catharsis that was restorative, both literally and figuratively. And of course there's, you know, you get through one bad day and there's going to be another one after it at some point. And those are humbling, but staying productive, connecting with others, following your quotidian routines the best you can.
We both know that cliche health is everything or you have nothing without your health. And it's a cliche because it's true. And I think I needed to experience my health being in danger to really embrace the wisdom of, of the saying,
[00:24:45] Speaker B: wow, that's really powerful. Thank you so much for sharing that story.
[00:24:50] Speaker C: Is there an emotional place you go when you're at your wit's end on dealing with health issues?
[00:24:59] Speaker B: You know, sometimes I just allow myself to cry.
Interestingly, I turn on Spotify and just let things play. And I often find that it feels like it's playing the soundtrack to my life in an almost supernatural way, in which a song that I've never heard before or that I've heard a million times but have never listened to the lyrics closely comes on, and it's. It's almost like it's a message showing me the way.
And that is another thing that has really come up for me in this experience, which is I was not religious. I spent very little time thinking about whether there was some sort of a higher power. And I have had so many moments through this experience that felt impossible for them to be coincidences.
And I think just knowing that there might be something else out there that is in more control than I am is actually really comforting.
[00:26:13] Speaker C: Okay.
That.
That's not where my head went, but I did find myself being open to the possibility more so, you know, when I was on the. The precipice of death. So maybe I can relate a little bit there. How closely have you been willing to respect restrictions placed on you by medical professionals when you're going through tough times?
[00:26:42] Speaker B: Oh, that is hard for me. Wow.
Yeah. As a driven, ambitious person, the worst sentence that I can think of is to. To be told to rest and not gonna happen.
Yeah.
I think that sometimes I've had to balance listening to doctors and knowing myself.
I've made the mistake before of just flat out not listening to my doctors and then slowing my recovery. And I've also made the mistake of underestimating the power of my mental health through this. As an example, that stress fracture that I got, I got to six weeks, and my doctor said, you know, if you allow yourself to rest for six to eight more weeks, you're really gonna speed your recovery. And I was just on the struggle bus and decided I would rather have a slower recovery with better mental health. And I think that that was the right choice for me.
But I think that it's important to just continue to second guess your assumptions and beliefs, because nine times out of 10, rest does really help.
[00:28:10] Speaker C: Yeah.
My response is I don't rest during the day. I sleep at night, but I don't do rest during the day.
I don't do naps and whatnot. And I, I can share just one example from my perspective.
I, I, I like to joke that I do six lame workouts a week that add up to two decent ones.
Fifteen minutes of lifting, about 40 minutes on the life cycle. But while I was, for six months I had a pick line from my heart, you know, coming out my, my shoulder. And there was no lifting with a pick line.
It's like a port. And then with the clavicle break, no lifting.
Couldn't lift my arm above my shoulder. And then when I had the, the subdural hematoma, got diagnosed with that three months ago, was like, we don't want you putting any stress or pressure on your brain. And you know, it bummed me out because at my worst during my leukemia, going through all the chemotherapies and the, the infusions and whatnot, I lost 25 pounds. And I would look in the mirror, I would laugh and I would say, who is this? I don't even recognize myself physically.
And I got so frail. And you know, when I came back was like, oh, I never want to let myself go to that point, but I've had to in, you know, the last two years.
And so the, the net. Net became, well, now I can do guilt free non lifting workouts. I can do the bike, but not the lifting.
So, you know, that, that, that's how I responded.
[00:29:47] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think also for me, I kept saying to myself, you'll get back to your normal self.
You'll come back just as strong as you were before. And that's not always true. I think there's a pretty good chance that I'm never going to be able to do certain things because that curved spine just did a fair amount of damage to my body.
And so accepting that can sometimes be liberating and reframing things to the best that you can be for the future and also accepting that there might be some unexpected opportunities in that. So for instance, I was really into endurance sports before this and I'm probably never going to run a marathon again.
And I'm okay with that because I've learned that I enjoy things like going to the gym and then my body, body actually feels much better if I strength train more than I do endurance training and that I don't need to spend six hours in an endurance race to have a nice conversation with friends and to feel like I've accomplished something.
So I think the theme that sort of weaves throughout this is that there's often unexpected silver linings and opportunities and just allowing yourself to accept that something else is coming.
Either it's a learning experience from something that is unpleasant, or it's joy that you never knew you could experience. Change is not always bad.
[00:31:24] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Wise words. Yes. Do we have time to just talk about meds? For a minute. Can you start? I don't even know if you take them or not, but I certainly do.
What are your thoughts there?
[00:31:37] Speaker B: Well, I am really sensitive to medication, and so when they list side effects that 0.01% of the population gets, I'm often in that segment.
[00:31:51] Speaker C: Me too. Me too.
[00:31:54] Speaker B: So I really resist medication in general.
And I have learned that sometimes that makes my life harder than it needs to be. Yep.
[00:32:03] Speaker C: Yep.
I. I took nothing for 60 years. Now I'm on a minimum of six pills a day. High blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes, cancer, other maladies, and daily meds are my way of life. Now I accept it, embrace it.
Billions have been spent on the. To manufacture the drugs that, that I'm on. And they can, they can and will make me healthier. So I'm, you know, I'm not religious about dosing them out, never missing being consistent and just accepting them that. Accepting that at this phase of my life, I need to be grateful that these drugs just even exist.
[00:32:44] Speaker B: I agree. And be more harm in having anxiety about taking the medication than just trying the medication. I often find that I am in this decision cycle trying to figure out if I should start the medication or not. And sometimes that cycle causes more stress than simply just trying it for two weeks and seeing what happens.
[00:33:11] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:33:12] Speaker B: So, in the spirit of our theme of this podcast, I find that things like getting sick can spark a lot of conversations with family members and friends that you would not otherwise have. Has this experience sparked any imperfectly honest conversations for you?
[00:33:36] Speaker C: Indubitably.
I'm in a forum group, and all the guys are in their late 60s, early 70s, and it's almost embarrassing how much time we're spending talking about all the issues we're dealing with. But it's honesty.
We're encouraging one another, and we're paying attention to what we should be at this point. You know, these twilight years, if you will. I mean, we. We all hope we've got another 20 plus years of Runway, but we also acknowledge that we may not.
[00:34:11] Speaker B: What came to light for me was less tolerance for things that weren't working.
So relationships that felt really hard or relationships in which I felt like I was giving 10 times as much as I was receiving.
I just didn't have a tolerance level for those anymore. And I am glad that I have shed some of those relationships and deprioritized some of those relationships, because every yes is a no to something else.
And so I've just sort of been forced to say yes to things that light me up and forced to say no to things that don't.
[00:34:56] Speaker C: Yeah. A health crisis will sort of get you to clear up your relationship status and. And prioritize who's going to get chunks of your time.
[00:35:08] Speaker B: Yes.
So I believe that everything happens for a reason. If you believe that, or at least allow yourself to hypothetically believe that, too, what do you think the reason might be that you were chosen to have this experience?
[00:35:28] Speaker C: I've asked myself that question because here I was, 65, never smoked, never drank, no recreational drugs, like I said, worked out multiple days per week. I was a healthy guy. And out of nowhere, I get this, and I've scratched my head, I've wondered, and I just, you know, I tried to blame it on vaccines, and I had to, you know, throw in the towel on that. It just happened, Elizabeth.
[00:35:58] Speaker B: It just happened for me.
I think it showed me changes that I needed to make in my life.
I think it showed me things, places where I could make a difference.
So it gave me an alarming view of the challenges in our healthcare system and also the cost of failing to have honest conversations that you need to have. That's actually what sparked this entire podcast. And imperfectly honest, right?
And I've had, you know, a series of experiences through this broader experience. And I had an experience last 4th of July, just about a year ago, in which I was misdiagnosed, and I was given some medication that made my condition worse because I was misdiagnosed.
And there were just a number of failings from the health care system and a few failings on my part and things. And long story short, I ended up in the hospital over Fourth of July weekend.
And I actually view that as a blessing because it brought all these things to life. The challenges in our healthcare system, some of the things that weren't working with my relationships, some of the blind spots that I have, all those things came to light. And then this Fourth of July, I was really excited to have a reset, and I had really fun plans that the universe foiled at the last minute.
Almost in a comical way. It was just, yes, definitely foiled. And I found myself alone on 4th of July unexpectedly. And I now believe that I was given that experience to see how far I had come from the previous year.
And also, I think sometimes people are given these experiences because a higher being determines that they're strong enough to take it.
I remember telling a friend after one of my worst experiences that it was the best and worst week of my life because I create art from adversity, and I love Seeing patterns that I didn't see previously. And I actually really had fun in one of the worst weeks of my life because it made me so creative.
And I don't know, I just. I guess I like to believe that there's something out there that knows that I'm going to be able to handle it that way.
[00:38:51] Speaker C: There's something heartwarming in what you just shared there. I like it.
[00:38:56] Speaker B: Thanks.
[00:38:57] Speaker C: I like it.
[00:38:57] Speaker B: Thanks.
[00:38:59] Speaker C: While I was listening to you and ending up in the hospital a year ago, fourth of July, one of my takeaways from my experience, particularly in the hospital, was that it's really more about the nurses and not so much about the doctors. You get very little of their time. You know, a lot of them are standing literally with one doctors with one foot pointed towards the door, trying to get onto their next patient. And the nurses are who you see every hour on the hour, sometimes every 15 minutes. And I'll never forget a moment. It was. It was 3:45 in the morning, and I was on my fifth infusion, my. My fifth transfusion that day. And these blood products were keeping me alive until my body could start, you know, making good white blood cells.
And there were six health practitioners, they were nurses and practitioners, and they were in a half circle around the monitor and me, you know, making sure I was going to get through this fifth transfusion. And I thought, oh, my God, is this dedication? I mean, these.
I don't know if I said. There were six of them, actually. And, you know, pretty moving and touching moment for me to recall, so a good memory.
[00:40:30] Speaker B: That's really nice. Yeah.
It helped me appreciate how hard the jobs of our healthcare professionals are, especially within the bureaucracy that they have to operate.
Yeah, yeah, I'm very appreciative of that.
Well, Jimmy, do you have any final wisdom that you want to share with our listeners?
[00:40:56] Speaker C: Oh, I'll just. I'll just throw out a couple. Touch on a couple things. Use distraction, take your meds. You know, even if you're a pessimist, stay as positive as you're capable of.
Of course, take action more readily. Don't just assume that you're going to be fine again this time. And I think better to know than to not know. So those are. Those are my final summary points.
[00:41:24] Speaker B: I would underscore all of that and just say that sometimes things happen for a reason.
There are almost always silver linings.
And sometimes it's okay to just cry because when you try to fight that sadness, it can make it even worse.
[00:41:47] Speaker C: Yeah, tears can be cathartic I know.
[00:41:53] Speaker B: Well, Jimmy, thank you for all the words of wisdom that you've shared today and for a multi decade friendship and mentorship.
And thank you.
[00:42:04] Speaker C: You're most welcome.
And I thank you, Elizabeth, for perpetuating the podcast. You're hitting topics that very few others are, and I'm a listener and a devotee, so again, thrilled to be on as a guest.
[00:42:21] Speaker B: Well, with that, we will sign off. Bye, Jimmy. Bye.
[00:42:25] Speaker C: Bye, Elizabeth.
[00:42:27] Speaker B: Sam.
