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This episode is brought to you by Thorne and I have some incredible news for any of you

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To learn more about Thorn, go to episode 323 of the Behind the Shield podcast with Joel

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Titoro and Wes Barnett.

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Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast.

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As always, my name is James Gearing and this week it is my absolute honor to welcome on

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the show pathology assistant and the woman behind the gross room, Nicole and Jemmy.

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So in this conversation, we discuss a host of topics from becoming a single mother at

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a very young age, her journey into the world of medicine, finding pathology, the creation

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of the gross room, her perspective on obesity, cancer, the importance of underlying health,

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mental health, the firefighter family and so much more.

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Now before we get to this incredible conversation, as I say every week, please just take a moment.

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Go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe to the show, leave feedback and

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leave a rating.

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Every single five star rating truly does elevate this podcast, therefore making it easier for

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others to find.

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And this is a free library of almost 900 episodes now.

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So all I ask in return is that you help share these incredible men and women stories so

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I can get them to every single person on planet earth who needs to hear them.

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So with that being said, I introduce to you Nicole and Jemmy.

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Enjoy.

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Well Nicole, I want to start by saying firstly thank you to Amy Loughran who was on the show.

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The Good Nurse was the documentary about her life.

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And she was the one that turned me on to all of your work.

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So I want to thank her first.

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Then I also want to welcome you to the Behind the Shield podcast today.

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Hi, I love Amy.

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So thanks for recommending me, Amy.

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So where on planet earth are we finding you today?

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I am in New Jersey right outside of Philadelphia.

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So I would love to start at the very beginning of your actual timeline.

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So tell me where you were born and tell me a little bit about your family dynamic, what

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your parents did, how many siblings.

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Okay, so I was born in 1979 in New Jersey at a hospital in Woodbury, New Jersey actually.

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I have parents, Beth and Lou, who are awesome.

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I love them.

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And they're still married.

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They've been married almost 50 years.

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And I have two siblings.

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So I'm the oldest and then I have a sister who's younger than me.

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Her name's Annie.

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And then I have a brother who's a little bit significantly younger than me.

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I would say I was in third grade when he was born.

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So I'm really his bigger sister.

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And his name's Louie.

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And what about professions?

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What were your parents doing?

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So my mom was a stay at home mom for a majority of my life.

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And she did cool little jobs like sell Avon.

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And she always was like hustling to make some side money.

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And then she eventually went to college for dietary nutrition.

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And she was working in a nursing home, handling the nutrition for people there.

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And then she ended up, she just retired last year, but she ended up going to Children's

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Hospital and working in the diabetes division for the last years of her career.

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And my dad was a diesel truck mechanic.

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I literally was just talking to someone the other day who also works in pediatric diabetics.

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And I was asking them, have you seen an uptick in diabetes?

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And at first she was like, no, no, not really.

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And then I realized she was talking about type one diabetes.

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And I was like, what about type two?

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And she was like, oh my God, it has exploded.

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So what is your mom saying?

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Yeah, same thing.

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She retired last year, but she just couldn't, I mean, working in, she worked in Philadelphia

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at one of the biggest children's hospitals in the country.

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And yeah, she saw so many, cause she was the one that was scheduling the patients to meet

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with the dieticians and things like that.

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So she was talking to almost every single patient that was coming in there.

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And it was like, the waiting list was ridiculous and just the amount of patients and new patients

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every day, crazy.

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And this is probably a very obvious question, but through her perspective, what is she talking

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about as the reason for this swell in childhood type two diabetes?

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It's diet.

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Clearly, it's just like, everybody knows that.

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So, yeah, that's the sad fact.

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I saw, I mean, it went around the internet for a while, but it was, I forget now, but

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it was one of the soda companies and they were, if you bought their soda, then it would

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be a contribution to the American Diabetes Society.

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And I'm like, or you could just not buy the soda.

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Yeah.

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I really try, they always say that at the pediatrician's office when I bring my kids,

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what are the kids drinking?

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It's a big thing.

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And I'm always like, well, my one kid is obsessed with seltzer water, but it doesn't have sugar

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in it.

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It's just busy water, which I'm not sure if that's great to be drinking all day either,

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but the pediatrician seems to be okay with it.

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So.

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Good.

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Yeah.

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And he was a little, he didn't like soda because of the bubbles.

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He used to say it was spiky when he was young.

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And so to this day, he doesn't drink soda.

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He drinks juice, which we're aware of the sugar of some of that, but yeah, no soda,

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which is a blessing for a parent.

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Yeah.

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We let our kids drink soda.

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We say they could have it when we're on vacation and on their birthdays and holidays.

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And they do take us up on that.

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It'll be Christmas Eve and they'll say, can I have a can of Coke?

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And I'm like, sure, go ahead.

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Everything in moderation is fine.

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And I feel like with kids, if you tell them you can't have this, they're going to go over

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their friend's house and like shove it in their face all the time.

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So I try to give them a little bit of the bad stuff sometimes.

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I saw that same exact thing when I came to America, when it comes to alcohol in Europe,

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you know, more so in the Mediterranean, but in the UK as well, we're exposed to alcohol

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and we're little.

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Like I grew up having watered down wine, you know, on Sundays sometimes with meals and

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there wasn't a big stigma about it.

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Now it's alcohol is not great.

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We all know that, but you weren't held back.

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And so, yes, you see, you know, excessive drinking in UK pubs, but you don't see the,

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you know, keg stands and the beer pong and all the things because we've just always done

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it.

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It's not a novelty.

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Then you come here and we've held our kids back and try to stigmatize it.

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And then all of a sudden they get a college age and now they're just binge drinking and

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doing shots.

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And it's a very different culture than Europe.

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Yeah.

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My daughter went, my older daughter, she went to France as an exchange student and she was

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only 17 when she went and they drank, they were allowed, we had to give them permission

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to drink wine on the trip and all this stuff.

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And, or maybe she was 18, I don't know.

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But yeah, she said the culture over there was just like no big deal.

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Teenagers drink all the time, whatever.

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Yeah.

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Now, what about with your mom and the nursing home?

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Did you ever go with her to visit?

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Did that give you any sort of kind of introduction to the medical side that you ended up pursuing?

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I went there and visited her a bunch, but never, never really saw the medical side.

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Just went right into the kitchen area where she worked.

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Her office was outside of the kitchen there.

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And that was kind of, I really didn't get any interest until I started going to college.

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That's how I really got introduced to the whole world.

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Now what about, obviously you have a certain style, you and your husband are both head

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to toe in tattoos, which I love seeing a firefighter with tattoos.

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I can't stand the demonization of that, that someone's going to stop mid rescue and be

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like, you can't save me.

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You've got tattoos on your neck.

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Yeah, exactly.

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But what about that whole kind of vibe?

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Was that something that you found earlier or was that later in life?

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Oh no.

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I had the majority of my tattoos before the internet even came out.

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I started getting them when I was 15.

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And by the time I was 21, I had most of them that I have now.

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I haven't really gotten too many more since then.

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So what about career aspirations then?

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Were you thinking about the world that you found yourself in when you were in school

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age or was there something else?

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No.

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I was actually, I always examine this all the time because I was horrible in school.

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I hated school.

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I did poorly.

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I had bad grades.

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I was in what were called like special ed classes at the time.

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I never really thought that I was smart.

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And I just wasn't into school and I dropped out of school when I was 16 out of high school.

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And it wasn't until I had a daughter when I was in ninth grade and that was when I was

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like I have to go to school and get a career and get a job because I have a kid and I have

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to get health insurance for her.

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Because back then there was no such thing as like Obamacare or whatever.

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It was just like you're beat.

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You don't have health insurance.

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And so when I was younger, people ask me that all the time.

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Like did you want to be this when you grow up?

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I actually can't even think of saying anything when I was a kid that I thought that I was

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going to do when I grew up, which is weird.

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But I just don't know.

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But I started school and I thought like I'm going to go to school to be a nurse because

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a couple of my cousins were nurses and I knew that they went to school only to get an RN

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two or three years.

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And then they ended up graduating and getting a good job with benefits and stuff.

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So I said, well, I guess I'll just go do that.

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I didn't even know what a nurse did or anything.

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I just was like, I'm going to go to school and be a nurse and get a job.

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Because I hated school.

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So I thought what's the quickest path for me to go to college and get a decent paying

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job?

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That was my goal when I started school.

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But then that was how I got introduced into the lab.

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So what about becoming a mother at ninth grade?

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I just had a guest a couple of weeks ago now who became a father when he was 17.

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It's not something that we really think about.

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Obviously, now there are television programs, but again, I don't think they're doing a

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service to the moment that a child falls pregnant because I think most people put their hands

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on their heart.

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Many of us could have gotten many people pregnant and become pregnant many, many times when

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we were younger.

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It's just the luck of the draw and that moment in time.

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So now you're 16 and you're becoming a parent.

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Walk me through that.

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How were you able to stay a good mother during that age and what support system was around

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you at that moment?

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Well, luckily I had my mom and dad, obviously, and my sister and brother.

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We were all living in the same house and I had her and it was rough.

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What can I say?

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I know that they showed TV shows that are glamorizing it or something, but it was nothing

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of that.

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I mean, imagine being in ninth grade and having a baby and then trying to date.

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No mom is going to want their son to be dating someone that has a kid already.

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No guy is interested in being a kid's dad at that time.

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So it was rough.

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My mom and dad though, I lived at home with them and they took over the majority of all

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of it.

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I freaked out a little bit when I first had her and I just wanted to hang out with my

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friends and just be like a normal teenager.

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I was in and out of the house and my mom and my dad and my siblings were helping me out

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all the time and stuff, but I just wanted to do normal stuff and it was rough.

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But then eventually when I went to school, when I made the decision to go to school and

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then I started going to school when I was 19 when I started college, I started straightening

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my shit out and being like, okay, I have a kid, she's four years old or five years old,

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whatever she was at the time.

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I just have to get my life straight for her.

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When I was talking to this guest before, it was interesting because there's a lot of stigma

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about having a child at 16, for example.

237
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However, if you look at our more ancient cultures, that's when women were having children, 15,

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16, because that's obviously when we're most fertile, most reproducible up until our 20s.

239
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But when you look back, it was an entire village that helped raise that child.

240
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Now you look at our modern society in 2024, A, there's stigma around that and then B,

241
00:15:04,080 --> 00:15:06,440
there's not that community, there's not that it takes a village.

242
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A lot of these young mothers are on their own when they have these children.

243
00:15:10,800 --> 00:15:15,240
I think this is an interesting perspective is that, yes, you can have children if you're

244
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younger.

245
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Is it what you chose?

246
00:15:17,240 --> 00:15:18,240
Possibly not.

247
00:15:18,240 --> 00:15:19,640
But is it the end of the world?

248
00:15:19,640 --> 00:15:20,640
No.

249
00:15:20,640 --> 00:15:23,840
However, the missing piece is just like you illustrated, who is your village?

250
00:15:23,840 --> 00:15:28,080
Who are those people around you that can help raise that child just as we would have a thousand

251
00:15:28,080 --> 00:15:29,080
years ago?

252
00:15:29,080 --> 00:15:34,440
Yeah, I just don't know how that even would have went down, but it would have been ugly,

253
00:15:34,440 --> 00:15:38,880
I'll tell you that, if I didn't have any help.

254
00:15:38,880 --> 00:15:40,980
I think about that though sometimes.

255
00:15:40,980 --> 00:15:46,400
What about single moms that then their teenager has a kid and the single mom is already leaving

256
00:15:46,400 --> 00:15:52,800
the house all the time to try to work and support the family as it is?

257
00:15:52,800 --> 00:15:53,800
Think about this.

258
00:15:53,800 --> 00:15:55,720
I had my daughter when I was 15 years old.

259
00:15:55,720 --> 00:16:02,080
I didn't even have my driver's license until she was two or three years old.

260
00:16:02,080 --> 00:16:03,840
What do you do?

261
00:16:03,840 --> 00:16:04,840
I lived in the burbs.

262
00:16:04,840 --> 00:16:05,840
I didn't live in the city.

263
00:16:05,840 --> 00:16:08,240
There was no such thing as a bus.

264
00:16:08,240 --> 00:16:10,780
What do you do with your life?

265
00:16:10,780 --> 00:16:15,120
You have to depend on people and that's what I did.

266
00:16:15,120 --> 00:16:16,120
Yeah.

267
00:16:16,120 --> 00:16:18,960
Well, I mean, it's beautiful to hear that you had the people to depend on because again,

268
00:16:18,960 --> 00:16:24,200
I think there's a lot of things around where a lot of judgment cast when people put their

269
00:16:24,200 --> 00:16:25,540
child into adoption.

270
00:16:25,540 --> 00:16:32,200
But again, if it's a 15 year old girl with no support structure, that might be their

271
00:16:32,200 --> 00:16:36,880
only chance for making sure that that child remains healthy.

272
00:16:36,880 --> 00:16:41,000
This is the kind of bigger picture that a lot of people I think don't take into account

273
00:16:41,000 --> 00:16:44,200
when they are casting judgment in certain situations.

274
00:16:44,200 --> 00:16:46,640
Yeah.

275
00:16:46,640 --> 00:16:51,160
Since I've been in this situation, it's a no-win situation, I'll tell you because I

276
00:16:51,160 --> 00:16:57,400
actually got pregnant when I was in ninth grade and I was in Catholic school and they

277
00:16:57,400 --> 00:17:04,040
told my mom she can't get an abortion because of the Catholic church and she can't be at

278
00:17:04,040 --> 00:17:06,440
this school pregnant.

279
00:17:06,440 --> 00:17:08,520
These are the choices that you're given.

280
00:17:08,520 --> 00:17:13,480
I mean, this was almost 30 years ago, but now it's different.

281
00:17:13,480 --> 00:17:15,480
They probably have a daycare center in the high school.

282
00:17:15,480 --> 00:17:18,360
I don't know.

283
00:17:18,360 --> 00:17:22,200
It's always been like, and it's been shitty for me.

284
00:17:22,200 --> 00:17:27,000
The woman always gets the shitty end of the stick because the guy's just kind of sitting

285
00:17:27,000 --> 00:17:28,000
by like whatever.

286
00:17:28,000 --> 00:17:34,360
I'll just do whatever you decide, but you get the brunt of it being the woman.

287
00:17:34,360 --> 00:17:35,360
Absolutely.

288
00:17:35,360 --> 00:17:39,800
Well, fast forward a few years, now you're pursuing nursing.

289
00:17:39,800 --> 00:17:45,560
Walk me through that journey and how you ended up finding cyto technology instead.

290
00:17:45,560 --> 00:17:52,480
I start college and they say you have to take these prerequisite classes in order to get

291
00:17:52,480 --> 00:17:55,120
into nursing school.

292
00:17:55,120 --> 00:17:59,760
I had dropped out of high school when I was 16, so I barely even took classes.

293
00:17:59,760 --> 00:18:03,000
A year of the time I was in high school, I was out because I was pregnant.

294
00:18:03,000 --> 00:18:07,120
I basically didn't go to high school and take all of the normal classes.

295
00:18:07,120 --> 00:18:12,560
They said, you have to take this math class, this biology class, this psychology class,

296
00:18:12,560 --> 00:18:13,560
all this.

297
00:18:13,560 --> 00:18:18,280
The very first day I show up to biology and I don't even really know what it's going

298
00:18:18,280 --> 00:18:20,800
to be.

299
00:18:20,800 --> 00:18:22,800
We're in there and then we take a lab.

300
00:18:22,800 --> 00:18:29,120
The very first lab, we pull out microscopes and she has us cut a piece of an onion up

301
00:18:29,120 --> 00:18:34,840
and take the skin off the onion and look at it under the microscope.

302
00:18:34,840 --> 00:18:36,040
I don't even know what happened.

303
00:18:36,040 --> 00:18:40,120
It was like this moment, something hit me over the head and was like, this is the coolest

304
00:18:40,120 --> 00:18:43,480
thing in the world.

305
00:18:43,480 --> 00:18:48,040
Even I think the first week I went up to my teacher and said, is there a way I could get

306
00:18:48,040 --> 00:18:52,160
a job looking in the microscope?

307
00:18:52,160 --> 00:18:58,000
She so happened to be a lab scientist, like a hospital lab scientist.

308
00:18:58,000 --> 00:19:00,520
She was a microbiologist.

309
00:19:00,520 --> 00:19:05,400
She was like, oh yeah, and introduced me to that whole world that I didn't even know existed.

310
00:19:05,400 --> 00:19:10,240
Of course, this was in the late 90s or early 2000s.

311
00:19:10,240 --> 00:19:14,840
There might have been Google or the internet, but I didn't really know about it then.

312
00:19:14,840 --> 00:19:19,920
The internet was kind of like a joke when I was a teenager.

313
00:19:19,920 --> 00:19:24,280
We would make fun of people that said they went on the internet because you would hear

314
00:19:24,280 --> 00:19:28,240
these stories on like Jerry Springer Show or something about people meeting someone

315
00:19:28,240 --> 00:19:31,280
on the internet and something happening with them.

316
00:19:31,280 --> 00:19:37,320
We didn't really take it seriously as a tool that we could use to help our lives.

317
00:19:37,320 --> 00:19:42,360
I didn't know anything about the lab until that moment and then the next semester I was

318
00:19:42,360 --> 00:19:44,080
like, I'm out of nursing.

319
00:19:44,080 --> 00:19:45,760
I have no interest in being a nurse.

320
00:19:45,760 --> 00:19:46,920
I want to be a scientist.

321
00:19:46,920 --> 00:19:50,240
So then I moved forward from there.

322
00:19:50,240 --> 00:19:51,760
So where did that take you?

323
00:19:51,760 --> 00:19:54,920
Then I heard you talking about this on Dr. Drew.

324
00:19:54,920 --> 00:20:01,860
What was the moment that happened that turned you more towards the pathology side?

325
00:20:01,860 --> 00:20:09,520
From there, I decided first they had a program at the school called Medical Lab Technologist

326
00:20:09,520 --> 00:20:16,400
or MLT or Technician, which is when you get your blood taken, that's the person that does

327
00:20:16,400 --> 00:20:19,020
your blood work at the lab.

328
00:20:19,020 --> 00:20:24,280
I was first in that and then once I started getting towards two and three years, I was

329
00:20:24,280 --> 00:20:25,520
at Camden County College.

330
00:20:25,520 --> 00:20:28,200
It was just a local community college.

331
00:20:28,200 --> 00:20:30,320
I thought like I could do this more.

332
00:20:30,320 --> 00:20:33,080
I feel like I want more of this for some reason.

333
00:20:33,080 --> 00:20:36,120
I'm almost done and I could do more.

334
00:20:36,120 --> 00:20:40,320
So then I looked into Jefferson, which is where I went for cytotech.

335
00:20:40,320 --> 00:20:46,080
I went over there, graduated there and got my bachelor's as a cytotech, which is there.

336
00:20:46,080 --> 00:20:48,120
It was looking at cells under the microscope.

337
00:20:48,120 --> 00:20:50,120
So we would look at pap smears and stuff.

338
00:20:50,120 --> 00:20:54,360
It's a more specialized lab technician, so you got paid a little bit more too, which

339
00:20:54,360 --> 00:20:57,880
was a bonus being a single mom and everything.

340
00:20:57,880 --> 00:21:03,000
I got hired out of school at the hospital and worked there for a couple years.

341
00:21:03,000 --> 00:21:07,520
I would go in every day wearing nice clothes and a white coat and I would sit at a cubicle

342
00:21:07,520 --> 00:21:10,120
most of the day and just look at slides.

343
00:21:10,120 --> 00:21:15,440
Then once in a while, I would go up on the floor and do needle biopsies.

344
00:21:15,440 --> 00:21:19,600
Sometimes if someone has a mass or something in their thyroid, they'd stick a needle in

345
00:21:19,600 --> 00:21:24,000
it and pull out some cells to look at it just because it's like a less invasive procedure

346
00:21:24,000 --> 00:21:27,000
than getting surgery and getting cut open.

347
00:21:27,000 --> 00:21:29,880
I would assist with those procedures too.

348
00:21:29,880 --> 00:21:35,600
One day I was working sitting at my cubicle and I heard this huge commotion out in the

349
00:21:35,600 --> 00:21:37,800
hallway and all these people.

350
00:21:37,800 --> 00:21:42,200
We were all friends and I went out on the hallway and was like, what's up?

351
00:21:42,200 --> 00:21:46,000
Everybody was freaking out because there was this horrible smell in the hallway.

352
00:21:46,000 --> 00:21:52,040
I went out there and was investigating to see what it was because it just was the nasty,

353
00:21:52,040 --> 00:21:55,480
this funky smell that I never smelled before.

354
00:21:55,480 --> 00:21:59,320
It didn't smell like poop, it didn't smell like pee, it just was really nasty.

355
00:21:59,320 --> 00:22:02,640
I obviously was curious what it was.

356
00:22:02,640 --> 00:22:08,320
Went over around the block or around the wall to the pathology department and everyone said

357
00:22:08,320 --> 00:22:14,440
that the leg refrigerator was broken and it was leaking.

358
00:22:14,440 --> 00:22:17,800
I just said, what do you mean a leg refrigerator?

359
00:22:17,800 --> 00:22:19,800
What's a leg refrigerator?

360
00:22:19,800 --> 00:22:24,800
I look and it looks like a refrigerator that you would see at a pizza shop that would have

361
00:22:24,800 --> 00:22:30,840
the sodas lined up in it and everything, but instead it had a bunch of amputated legs wrapped

362
00:22:30,840 --> 00:22:33,640
up in biohazard bags.

363
00:22:33,640 --> 00:22:37,720
I was kind of mind blown by that because I was working at the hospital for a couple years

364
00:22:37,720 --> 00:22:43,800
already and had no idea that on the other side of my cubicle behind the wall was a refrigerator

365
00:22:43,800 --> 00:22:47,440
that had amputated body parts in it.

366
00:22:47,440 --> 00:22:52,680
That kind of was a little shocking to me and then I thought, well, what else is going on

367
00:22:52,680 --> 00:22:54,520
back here?

368
00:22:54,520 --> 00:22:58,720
I saw this whole world back there of just people sitting at stations with cutting boards

369
00:22:58,720 --> 00:23:01,560
that just had giant organs sitting on them.

370
00:23:01,560 --> 00:23:05,920
It looked like a kitchen, but not a kitchen.

371
00:23:05,920 --> 00:23:13,160
I got so curious about that and then all of a sudden I got kind of bored with the microscope

372
00:23:13,160 --> 00:23:18,360
stuff after going over there and seeing what was going on in that department.

373
00:23:18,360 --> 00:23:23,400
That room that I walked into was called the gross room, which is where you look at gross

374
00:23:23,400 --> 00:23:30,400
pathology, it's really called that actually, the gross room.

375
00:23:30,400 --> 00:23:34,000
Anytime you get anything removed from your body in the hospital, it goes to that lab

376
00:23:34,000 --> 00:23:35,520
to get examined.

377
00:23:35,520 --> 00:23:39,880
I thought, okay, I need to come work over here now.

378
00:23:39,880 --> 00:23:42,280
I laughed when I heard you telling that story.

379
00:23:42,280 --> 00:23:47,220
The reason being, I grew up on a farm, my dad was a veterinary surgeon and he would

380
00:23:47,220 --> 00:23:49,880
keep all kinds of things.

381
00:23:49,880 --> 00:23:54,480
He'd bury it and just dig it up and get the bones for skeletons to study.

382
00:23:54,480 --> 00:23:59,920
Other times it was pathology, but we had a fire in the horse hospital.

383
00:23:59,920 --> 00:24:03,400
The firefighters had put it out and they'd done what they call overhauls.

384
00:24:03,400 --> 00:24:07,200
They removed what they could salvage.

385
00:24:07,200 --> 00:24:12,600
My brother, it was in the summer, had two friends on the farm with him and the fridge

386
00:24:12,600 --> 00:24:17,900
was still sitting out unplugged outside this building for quite a long time.

387
00:24:17,900 --> 00:24:22,880
As he walked by, he pulled the fridge open and the two friends behind him threw up.

388
00:24:22,880 --> 00:24:31,360
When you were telling that story, I can envision everything, the smell and everything.

389
00:24:31,360 --> 00:24:35,880
It's crazy because yesterday on my podcast, Mother Knows Death, we were talking about

390
00:24:35,880 --> 00:24:41,000
a nursing home that... or not a nursing home, a funeral home that has recently been in the

391
00:24:41,000 --> 00:24:47,080
news because they were promising these green burials with no chemicals or anything like

392
00:24:47,080 --> 00:24:48,960
that, no embalming fluids.

393
00:24:48,960 --> 00:24:53,280
Here they were taking money from people and taking the bodies and just stacking them up

394
00:24:53,280 --> 00:24:57,160
in this warehouse type thing.

395
00:24:57,160 --> 00:25:02,400
One of the neighbors smelled the warehouse and called police.

396
00:25:02,400 --> 00:25:08,520
Police showed up and found 200 dead bodies stacked on top of each other, just decomposing.

397
00:25:08,520 --> 00:25:14,760
I was thinking about how horrible the smell must have been.

398
00:25:14,760 --> 00:25:17,720
You wouldn't have to be living right next door to smell that.

399
00:25:17,720 --> 00:25:21,160
It would just permeate the air for such a long distance.

400
00:25:21,160 --> 00:25:24,680
It's a very distinctive smell once you smelled it.

401
00:25:24,680 --> 00:25:25,680
Yeah.

402
00:25:25,680 --> 00:25:27,720
I actually wrote a book about three years ago.

403
00:25:27,720 --> 00:25:33,140
One of the chapters was the last day, my last shift in Orange County, Florida.

404
00:25:33,140 --> 00:25:34,360
This wasn't why I quit.

405
00:25:34,360 --> 00:25:37,000
I think the gods just was like, really?

406
00:25:37,000 --> 00:25:39,320
You're going to leave this department, all right?

407
00:25:39,320 --> 00:25:40,480
Here's a day from hell.

408
00:25:40,480 --> 00:25:43,960
The middle had multiple deaths, but one of the ones was a homeless woman that had been

409
00:25:43,960 --> 00:25:48,120
missing for a few days, again, in the Florida summer now.

410
00:25:48,120 --> 00:25:54,440
We got, I forget now how close, probably 200 meters towards where she was.

411
00:25:54,440 --> 00:25:56,640
I told the rest of the crew, look, I'll go.

412
00:25:56,640 --> 00:25:57,640
I was the medic that day.

413
00:25:57,640 --> 00:25:58,840
I'll go check it out.

414
00:25:58,840 --> 00:25:59,840
Yeah.

415
00:25:59,840 --> 00:26:02,480
That smell is, like you said, you'll never forget it.

416
00:26:02,480 --> 00:26:06,360
I got there and she was literally just, flesh was hanging on bone by that point.

417
00:26:06,360 --> 00:26:08,080
She was black and putrid.

418
00:26:08,080 --> 00:26:13,320
Again, no one needs to add that to their catalog, but yeah, it's something that sadly, I'm sure

419
00:26:13,320 --> 00:26:17,680
a lot of people listening to this do know, but few will really understand.

420
00:26:17,680 --> 00:26:23,000
But then to discover that your loved one was stacked in a warehouse and the emotional damage

421
00:26:23,000 --> 00:26:26,040
that that must have done to a lot of people is horrendous.

422
00:26:26,040 --> 00:26:27,100
Yeah.

423
00:26:27,100 --> 00:26:28,280
That was my first thought.

424
00:26:28,280 --> 00:26:31,600
I can't, especially because I know what that looks like.

425
00:26:31,600 --> 00:26:36,420
I never, well, I was just going to say to you too, that was one of my first thoughts

426
00:26:36,420 --> 00:26:41,240
when I went to the medical examiner's office and saw a really bad decomposed person with

427
00:26:41,240 --> 00:26:46,320
maggots and stuff like Jesus, imagine finding like one of your family members looking like

428
00:26:46,320 --> 00:26:47,320
this.

429
00:26:47,320 --> 00:26:52,360
I just, because it's so, they don't even look human anymore.

430
00:26:52,360 --> 00:26:53,360
It's just nuts.

431
00:26:53,360 --> 00:26:54,360
Yeah.

432
00:26:54,360 --> 00:26:55,360
Yeah.

433
00:26:55,360 --> 00:27:00,880
I was actually a student paramedic and it was funny of you talking about raising a child

434
00:27:00,880 --> 00:27:01,880
on your own.

435
00:27:01,880 --> 00:27:02,880
I went through a divorce.

436
00:27:02,880 --> 00:27:09,000
It was a single father, had no family in America whatsoever, working full time on a very, very

437
00:27:09,000 --> 00:27:14,780
busy rescue in Florida, paramedic classroom, and then riding along with a completely different

438
00:27:14,780 --> 00:27:17,000
fire department up here.

439
00:27:17,000 --> 00:27:21,160
Not obviously not supported by my fire department in any way, shape or form.

440
00:27:21,160 --> 00:27:23,880
But when I was riding with them, I was a full on black cloud.

441
00:27:23,880 --> 00:27:25,680
All kinds of people died.

442
00:27:25,680 --> 00:27:29,560
One of them was a guy that had been again, not heard from for a couple of days and it

443
00:27:29,560 --> 00:27:30,880
was a Florida, it was a trailer.

444
00:27:30,880 --> 00:27:35,880
There was no AC and yeah, I mean, just so swollen and bloated that if you just got a

445
00:27:35,880 --> 00:27:37,960
pin, he would probably exploded.

446
00:27:37,960 --> 00:27:42,400
And it's so sad, but I'm glad that we found them just like you said, that we found them

447
00:27:42,400 --> 00:27:45,400
not someone who actually was a family member.

448
00:27:45,400 --> 00:27:49,200
Because if that was their last memory of them, that would haunt them probably the rest of

449
00:27:49,200 --> 00:27:50,200
their life.

450
00:27:50,200 --> 00:27:51,200
Oh yeah.

451
00:27:51,200 --> 00:27:52,560
I can imagine that.

452
00:27:52,560 --> 00:27:56,520
So you find yourself going into the world of pathology.

453
00:27:56,520 --> 00:28:03,360
As you start progressing through the years, were there any kind of aha moments or realizations

454
00:28:03,360 --> 00:28:09,320
that you had as you were in that world now that you were kind of naive to before?

455
00:28:09,320 --> 00:28:10,560
Yeah.

456
00:28:10,560 --> 00:28:12,640
I mean, I had a lot of them.

457
00:28:12,640 --> 00:28:20,380
I remember when, so after I decided I wanted to work over there, I went up to the doctor

458
00:28:20,380 --> 00:28:26,040
who ran the entire pathology department and said, I want to leave this department and

459
00:28:26,040 --> 00:28:29,020
go to surgical pathology.

460
00:28:29,020 --> 00:28:33,840
And he tried to talk me out of it and said, you go to work every day and you wear a clean

461
00:28:33,840 --> 00:28:39,000
coat and if you go work in surgical pathology, you're going to have to touch poop and blood

462
00:28:39,000 --> 00:28:42,120
and it's really messy and you have to wear scrubs.

463
00:28:42,120 --> 00:28:43,560
And I was like, yeah, I'm okay.

464
00:28:43,560 --> 00:28:44,560
Sign me up.

465
00:28:44,560 --> 00:28:50,680
So he let me just, I did like a lateral transfer and was working over there before I went to

466
00:28:50,680 --> 00:28:52,280
PA school.

467
00:28:52,280 --> 00:28:55,040
I did it backwards than most people would do.

468
00:28:55,040 --> 00:29:00,040
And with the bachelor's degree, I was allowed to dissect certain organs with my level of

469
00:29:00,040 --> 00:29:01,040
education.

470
00:29:01,040 --> 00:29:09,680
And then while I was in PA school, I learned just a whole other level of anatomy and physiology

471
00:29:09,680 --> 00:29:11,740
and pathology.

472
00:29:11,740 --> 00:29:17,700
And I remember one day just sitting there, I was grossing an appendix and then everything

473
00:29:17,700 --> 00:29:24,360
just clicked for me because there's a lot to be said about on the job trained experience

474
00:29:24,360 --> 00:29:30,960
and this is something Gabe and I always talk about that you have to work in order to have

475
00:29:30,960 --> 00:29:37,440
experience but you also have to be educated to put it all together as a package.

476
00:29:37,440 --> 00:29:45,320
And once I got that formal extra education with anatomy and physiology, it just all of

477
00:29:45,320 --> 00:29:48,280
it came together full circle and just clicked.

478
00:29:48,280 --> 00:29:53,600
And I thought like, this is why I've been doing this this whole time.

479
00:29:53,600 --> 00:29:54,880
Oh, okay.

480
00:29:54,880 --> 00:29:55,880
This makes sense.

481
00:29:55,880 --> 00:30:00,960
And then it just was so silly, but it clicked for me and then everything I was like, I know

482
00:30:00,960 --> 00:30:01,960
everything now.

483
00:30:01,960 --> 00:30:06,840
I just know everything, which obviously I don't know everything, but I kind of got the

484
00:30:06,840 --> 00:30:13,880
full picture of why I was doing the job because prior to going to school, yeah, someone said

485
00:30:13,880 --> 00:30:18,300
cut this up and put these certain sections through to show the pathologist, but I didn't

486
00:30:18,300 --> 00:30:20,960
really know why I was doing it.

487
00:30:20,960 --> 00:30:26,160
And once you know why you're doing it, you could know how to do anything because you

488
00:30:26,160 --> 00:30:33,640
know the right questions to ask what the doctors are looking for when you're doing your dissections.

489
00:30:33,640 --> 00:30:37,800
Something that I found as I progressed on the EMS side and the fire service, at first

490
00:30:37,800 --> 00:30:40,440
you're learning the building blocks, the facts.

491
00:30:40,440 --> 00:30:44,080
This is A through Z of this disease or this injury.

492
00:30:44,080 --> 00:30:48,680
And then as you start getting more information, taking extra classes and then just seeing

493
00:30:48,680 --> 00:30:54,240
more and more calls, you start to shift into the critical thinking phase where yes, those

494
00:30:54,240 --> 00:31:00,520
are all in the back of your mind, but now you're actually being a lot more of a sleuth

495
00:31:00,520 --> 00:31:05,080
and rather than just what they call a cookbook medic where you're just following your protocol,

496
00:31:05,080 --> 00:31:07,720
you're actually able to critically think.

497
00:31:07,720 --> 00:31:14,500
I think that's the next step in our path, our journeyman path of trying to become a

498
00:31:14,500 --> 00:31:15,500
great paramedic.

499
00:31:15,500 --> 00:31:19,920
And I never got there, I was 14 years in the fire service and transitioned out.

500
00:31:19,920 --> 00:31:23,760
So I would not have the arrogance to say I ever reached any sort of pinnacle.

501
00:31:23,760 --> 00:31:27,960
But it was a real shift when just like you said, all that knowledge kind of went into

502
00:31:27,960 --> 00:31:32,100
a mixing bowl and your brain would just kind of spit out the right answers even without

503
00:31:32,100 --> 00:31:36,920
you thinking about it because now you'd had enough ingredients to make good decisions.

504
00:31:36,920 --> 00:31:37,920
Yeah.

505
00:31:37,920 --> 00:31:45,200
I mean, and I saw that because I taught residents for years there afterwards and you could see

506
00:31:45,200 --> 00:31:50,400
the difference between ones that got it and ones that didn't get it.

507
00:31:50,400 --> 00:31:55,160
People just didn't understand how to put what they were learning in school to practical

508
00:31:55,160 --> 00:31:56,480
work.

509
00:31:56,480 --> 00:32:03,840
And that's the key to life with anything, with medicine, with firefighting.

510
00:32:03,840 --> 00:32:06,040
It's the key is to put it all together.

511
00:32:06,040 --> 00:32:14,080
Well, I want to dive into the world of pathology, but before we do, when did you meet Gabe?

512
00:32:14,080 --> 00:32:19,320
I met Gabe when I was in PA school, my second year of PA school 2008.

513
00:32:19,320 --> 00:32:20,320
Okay.

514
00:32:20,320 --> 00:32:22,320
So now you have the world of pathology.

515
00:32:22,320 --> 00:32:23,320
At Wawa.

516
00:32:23,320 --> 00:32:24,320
Okay.

517
00:32:24,320 --> 00:32:25,320
I jumped in then.

518
00:32:25,320 --> 00:32:27,000
So please tell me more.

519
00:32:27,000 --> 00:32:29,680
How was romance sparked in Wawa?

520
00:32:29,680 --> 00:32:38,360
So I was on my way to the medical examiner's office actually in West Philly or one of my

521
00:32:38,360 --> 00:32:43,440
West Philly rotations that we did the medical examiner and children's hospital in Penn were

522
00:32:43,440 --> 00:32:44,440
all around there.

523
00:32:44,440 --> 00:32:51,080
So we, my classmates and I were over in West Philly for a while and I was on my way to

524
00:32:51,080 --> 00:32:55,280
pick up one of my classmates so we can go to West Philly.

525
00:32:55,280 --> 00:32:59,560
And I decided that I was going to stop in Wawa really quick and get a coffee on my way

526
00:32:59,560 --> 00:33:00,880
there.

527
00:33:00,880 --> 00:33:09,380
And I went in and I saw Gabe in there and I didn't talk to, I would never talk to someone.

528
00:33:09,380 --> 00:33:16,280
So I just acted cool and was getting my coffee and then he started talking to me and we ended

529
00:33:16,280 --> 00:33:22,680
up talking outside of the Wawa for like an hour and a half or something crazy.

530
00:33:22,680 --> 00:33:26,520
And the whole time my friend was like waiting for me to pick her up to bring her to school

531
00:33:26,520 --> 00:33:31,640
and I just totally blew her off and didn't even, and she was late that day too.

532
00:33:31,640 --> 00:33:36,280
So I didn't even tell her like, yo, I'm talking to this guy or whatever.

533
00:33:36,280 --> 00:33:41,880
And I got in the car and picked her up and I just was so happy.

534
00:33:41,880 --> 00:33:47,840
Like I just knew, I'm like the kind of person, I just knew that I was going to be with him

535
00:33:47,840 --> 00:33:51,640
and from the very first day and she was happy.

536
00:33:51,640 --> 00:33:53,800
She's like one of my best friends and she was happy for me.

537
00:33:53,800 --> 00:33:59,800
So she wasn't mad that I totally blew her off that day.

538
00:33:59,800 --> 00:34:00,800
That's so good to hear.

539
00:34:00,800 --> 00:34:02,000
I just did a post.

540
00:34:02,000 --> 00:34:07,920
My wife and I just hit 11 years of being together about a month ago.

541
00:34:07,920 --> 00:34:11,120
And the reason I put the post was just to kind of instill some hope.

542
00:34:11,120 --> 00:34:17,160
I was 38 when I met her, you know, and being, as I mentioned before, divorced, single dad,

543
00:34:17,160 --> 00:34:18,160
et cetera, et cetera.

544
00:34:18,160 --> 00:34:20,520
But when I met her, it was the same thing.

545
00:34:20,520 --> 00:34:22,920
And ironically, it's a funny story.

546
00:34:22,920 --> 00:34:26,120
We did them whole match.com thing and she said she was going to watch a band.

547
00:34:26,120 --> 00:34:29,800
So I brought a friend along with me thinking she was already going out with some friends.

548
00:34:29,800 --> 00:34:30,800
She wasn't.

549
00:34:30,800 --> 00:34:32,400
The three of us went on our first date.

550
00:34:32,400 --> 00:34:35,080
Oh my God, that's so funny.

551
00:34:35,080 --> 00:34:38,600
But it was, but you know, we were talking and then basically I never stopped seeing

552
00:34:38,600 --> 00:34:39,600
her after that.

553
00:34:39,600 --> 00:34:44,680
So I love hearing that kind of love at first sight, you know, story because it does happen.

554
00:34:44,680 --> 00:34:48,520
I think you just got to meet the right person at the right time in your life.

555
00:34:48,520 --> 00:34:49,520
Yeah.

556
00:34:49,520 --> 00:34:53,840
I mean, I don't know if he would say the same thing.

557
00:34:53,840 --> 00:34:54,840
It was rough.

558
00:34:54,840 --> 00:34:58,120
It was rough with him for a couple of years, I think.

559
00:34:58,120 --> 00:35:01,680
And that this is, this would be something that you would have to talk with him about.

560
00:35:01,680 --> 00:35:07,240
But I was always, I would say that I was always on board with, with saying that.

561
00:35:07,240 --> 00:35:12,760
And it took a while for us to get our groove, but it's, it's been just awesome.

562
00:35:12,760 --> 00:35:17,240
Our 10th wedding anniversary is actually this weekend.

563
00:35:17,240 --> 00:35:18,240
Beautiful.

564
00:35:18,240 --> 00:35:19,720
Well, congratulations.

565
00:35:19,720 --> 00:35:21,120
Thanks.

566
00:35:21,120 --> 00:35:23,160
So you have this pathology route.

567
00:35:23,160 --> 00:35:28,240
Gabe has obviously my route, first responder route, different kinds of trauma, different

568
00:35:28,240 --> 00:35:30,760
kinds of exposure.

569
00:35:30,760 --> 00:35:36,000
What have been your comparisons, not only just on the job, but also dealing with the

570
00:35:36,000 --> 00:35:39,080
things that you see for a living?

571
00:35:39,080 --> 00:35:47,400
I think, I think that we're able to understand each other on that respect because he sees

572
00:35:47,400 --> 00:35:53,600
a lot of work that would go to the medical examiner's office and especially working in

573
00:35:53,600 --> 00:35:55,960
the rescue company and the squad company.

574
00:35:55,960 --> 00:36:02,600
They go to all sorts of car accidents, people jumping off the bridge, decomposed bodies

575
00:36:02,600 --> 00:36:05,220
being found, people dying in fires.

576
00:36:05,220 --> 00:36:10,240
So he sees a lot of the similar stuff that I've seen.

577
00:36:10,240 --> 00:36:14,440
So we're able to talk about that all the time.

578
00:36:14,440 --> 00:36:19,120
But it's just, there's a, there's just a lot to talk about because you're working,

579
00:36:19,120 --> 00:36:24,080
you're all working at a place as a team to try to accomplish a task.

580
00:36:24,080 --> 00:36:30,720
So there's a lot of similarities between, between that and really the task getting done

581
00:36:30,720 --> 00:36:34,080
has to do with the people being trained well.

582
00:36:34,080 --> 00:36:40,680
And also there's all other factors too, like having good work ethic and good camaraderie

583
00:36:40,680 --> 00:36:45,440
between the people that work together and good morale at the institution that you're

584
00:36:45,440 --> 00:36:46,440
working at.

585
00:36:46,440 --> 00:36:51,740
So we, we talk about that kind of stuff all the time and we have a lot in common when

586
00:36:51,740 --> 00:36:53,680
it comes to that.

587
00:36:53,680 --> 00:36:55,940
And what about within your profession culturally?

588
00:36:55,940 --> 00:37:02,680
Is there, is there a discussion of mental health, emotional health in the world of pathology?

589
00:37:02,680 --> 00:37:07,480
No, I would say, I would say not, I mean, maybe there is now, I haven't worked at the

590
00:37:07,480 --> 00:37:12,320
hospital full time in a couple of years, but no, it's not.

591
00:37:12,320 --> 00:37:17,160
And especially I had a hard time dealing with that a little bit because when I was in PA

592
00:37:17,160 --> 00:37:23,520
school, I had to spend a summer at the medical examiner's office and not only did the school

593
00:37:23,520 --> 00:37:31,320
not really prepare me for what I was about to go see, but just being there, it, I couldn't

594
00:37:31,320 --> 00:37:37,960
even imagine really working there the rest of my life because I thought it was so, it

595
00:37:37,960 --> 00:37:41,600
was so sad and depressing.

596
00:37:41,600 --> 00:37:48,300
Working in the hospital, I do autopsies on people all the time and some of them are young,

597
00:37:48,300 --> 00:37:51,520
some of them are babies and some of them are a fetus.

598
00:37:51,520 --> 00:37:57,640
Mom had a miscarriage, horrible situations, but I feel like all the ones that you do in

599
00:37:57,640 --> 00:38:02,440
the hospital are medical and there's, that's kind of like a God, nothing you can do about

600
00:38:02,440 --> 00:38:04,000
it kind of thing.

601
00:38:04,000 --> 00:38:10,840
Whereas the medical examiner just, you just see like the most horrible parts of society

602
00:38:10,840 --> 00:38:15,720
and what people do to each other and what people do to themselves.

603
00:38:15,720 --> 00:38:24,360
And it, I could imagine that people that work in that particular field their whole life,

604
00:38:24,360 --> 00:38:30,680
that might be a lot to deal with, but even in the hospital, I saw horrible, horrible

605
00:38:30,680 --> 00:38:36,060
cases of just young people getting diagnosed with horrible cancer, like knowing that they're

606
00:38:36,060 --> 00:38:43,240
going to die from this cancer and the autopsies, like I said, you would get a father of three

607
00:38:43,240 --> 00:38:48,960
that was 40 years old that just died from some weird infection and he comes downstairs

608
00:38:48,960 --> 00:38:53,520
and open up the body bag and he's like still wearing his Eagles t-shirt and you think like,

609
00:38:53,520 --> 00:38:57,440
God, this guy could have been my husband or this guy could have been my brother or something,

610
00:38:57,440 --> 00:38:58,960
you know, that sort of thing.

611
00:38:58,960 --> 00:39:02,600
But we just kind of do it and block, block it all out.

612
00:39:02,600 --> 00:39:03,600
That's all we do.

613
00:39:03,600 --> 00:39:06,160
Well, we even do that within our profession.

614
00:39:06,160 --> 00:39:12,440
And it's sad because this last year, 2023, I saw a lot of people struggling.

615
00:39:12,440 --> 00:39:16,280
I think it's, you know, all the things, but also the ripple effects of the pandemic and

616
00:39:16,280 --> 00:39:19,060
all the shutdowns and isolation.

617
00:39:19,060 --> 00:39:23,100
But I swear to God, the theme of 2024 is back into firefighter cancer again.

618
00:39:23,100 --> 00:39:29,040
When I had the wife of a firefighter and one of his brothers in his department had been

619
00:39:29,040 --> 00:39:34,600
diagnosed with cancer and he was going to come on the show and, you know, we went back

620
00:39:34,600 --> 00:39:37,180
and forth and he's like, yeah, I'm not feeling so good today.

621
00:39:37,180 --> 00:39:42,060
And I just got a message the other day that he's in an induced coma and may or may not

622
00:39:42,060 --> 00:39:43,060
come out of it now.

623
00:39:43,060 --> 00:39:45,320
And this is probably someone younger than me, you know.

624
00:39:45,320 --> 00:39:50,400
And so, you know, when we talk about, oh, it's the work of God.

625
00:39:50,400 --> 00:39:52,300
There's nothing we can do about it.

626
00:39:52,300 --> 00:39:56,320
Because sometime in God, you know, these poor infants that die of leukemia and those kind

627
00:39:56,320 --> 00:40:00,300
of things, I think it's harder to find the origin and the cause.

628
00:40:00,300 --> 00:40:05,100
But when you look at my profession, it's glaring what is killing a lot of our men and women.

629
00:40:05,100 --> 00:40:10,100
We can't save them all, but the sleep deprivation and the carcinogens and all the other elements

630
00:40:10,100 --> 00:40:16,440
that contribute to our ill health does steal first responder lives way, way sooner than

631
00:40:16,440 --> 00:40:18,160
they should have gone.

632
00:40:18,160 --> 00:40:23,660
Yeah, that's, I mean, that's a huge fear I have with Gabe, obviously, just because I

633
00:40:23,660 --> 00:40:29,740
know a lot about especially burning things and how the chemicals change when things are

634
00:40:29,740 --> 00:40:35,780
burned and just them breathing it in all the time and hearing the horrible stories about

635
00:40:35,780 --> 00:40:38,420
the first responders from 9-11.

636
00:40:38,420 --> 00:40:46,340
And just I hear stories all the time about now their uniforms could be a problem and

637
00:40:46,340 --> 00:40:49,540
the extinguishing materials can be a problem.

638
00:40:49,540 --> 00:40:53,180
Anything can be a problem.

639
00:40:53,180 --> 00:40:59,180
It's something that you guys not only risk your life just on an acute level, I would

640
00:40:59,180 --> 00:41:04,700
say just going into a burning building, but also long term health effects that you don't

641
00:41:04,700 --> 00:41:07,860
even know might pop up in 20 years from now.

642
00:41:07,860 --> 00:41:09,460
Yeah, and even the shift work.

643
00:41:09,460 --> 00:41:15,380
I think the World Health Organization and other groups are identifying it as a carcinogen,

644
00:41:15,380 --> 00:41:17,900
you know, so this is the other side of the coin.

645
00:41:17,900 --> 00:41:20,980
You've got these exposures, but then we're breaking down their immune system.

646
00:41:20,980 --> 00:41:23,740
They're breaking down the ability to deal with these exposures as well.

647
00:41:23,740 --> 00:41:25,660
So it's like a double edged sword.

648
00:41:25,660 --> 00:41:26,660
Yeah.

649
00:41:26,660 --> 00:41:33,700
And I mean, my husband's department works on 24 hours on and then three days off 24

650
00:41:33,700 --> 00:41:39,660
hours on, but then they also have the opportunity for a 12 hour overtime shift in between that.

651
00:41:39,660 --> 00:41:44,120
And yeah, I mean, there's nights that he comes home.

652
00:41:44,120 --> 00:41:47,840
It's always the night before we're supposed to go on like a giant road trip where he's

653
00:41:47,840 --> 00:41:51,540
supposed to drive 10 hours or something.

654
00:41:51,540 --> 00:41:57,660
And he just comes home and he's like, I, you know, he wears that the whoop thing and he'll

655
00:41:57,660 --> 00:42:02,900
just be like, look, like it registered that he took a half hour nap in a 24 hour period.

656
00:42:02,900 --> 00:42:04,460
That's just, it's not good.

657
00:42:04,460 --> 00:42:05,980
No, no, it's not.

658
00:42:05,980 --> 00:42:11,140
And he's working the better schedule 24 72 is the what Northeast works.

659
00:42:11,140 --> 00:42:13,860
The rest of the country, a lot of them work 24 48.

660
00:42:13,860 --> 00:42:17,260
It's one less day between each of their shifts, which is insane.

661
00:42:17,260 --> 00:42:18,260
Absolutely insane.

662
00:42:18,260 --> 00:42:19,260
Yeah, it is.

663
00:42:19,260 --> 00:42:24,980
And we have a funny thing in our house because we say, you know, he has three days off in

664
00:42:24,980 --> 00:42:25,980
between his shifts.

665
00:42:25,980 --> 00:42:28,860
So we're like day one, we don't bother daddy.

666
00:42:28,860 --> 00:42:31,820
He's recovering from trying to catch up with sleep.

667
00:42:31,820 --> 00:42:34,960
And then day two, we say like, that's, that's the best daddy day.

668
00:42:34,960 --> 00:42:40,020
That's the best day to like, that's days I'll schedule us to do family events, dates, because

669
00:42:40,020 --> 00:42:43,640
I know that he's had the best sleep and that's a great day.

670
00:42:43,640 --> 00:42:47,740
And then day three is like, all right, daddy's got to go back to work tomorrow kind of, you

671
00:42:47,740 --> 00:42:53,980
know, so even though he's off those three days, he's really on the middle day just on

672
00:42:53,980 --> 00:42:56,660
a normal sleep schedule and everything like that.

673
00:42:56,660 --> 00:42:57,660
Absolutely.

674
00:42:57,660 --> 00:43:01,200
Well, as I've pointed out a lot recently, you know, each of each shift is three days

675
00:43:01,200 --> 00:43:03,780
crushed together, three eight hour days crammed together.

676
00:43:03,780 --> 00:43:08,300
So that day after the shift, we've actually worked from midnight through till whenever

677
00:43:08,300 --> 00:43:10,020
he gets off seven, eight in the morning.

678
00:43:10,020 --> 00:43:12,580
So it's not even a day off really.

679
00:43:12,580 --> 00:43:17,140
After that middle day, like you said, that's the that's the golden day where they woken

680
00:43:17,140 --> 00:43:20,380
up in their own bed and they don't have to get up early the next morning.

681
00:43:20,380 --> 00:43:25,500
So I think that's why that shift should be, in my opinion, the industry standard at least,

682
00:43:25,500 --> 00:43:27,580
if not give them even more time off.

683
00:43:27,580 --> 00:43:28,580
Yeah.

684
00:43:28,580 --> 00:43:33,260
And it's weird because people say like, oh, he only has to work two days a week.

685
00:43:33,260 --> 00:43:37,540
And it's just like, yeah, but and it's not I wouldn't even say it's a 24 hour shift because

686
00:43:37,540 --> 00:43:42,000
he goes in almost an hour early every day and then he stays late too.

687
00:43:42,000 --> 00:43:46,420
He always has to stay late for waiting for relief or whatever.

688
00:43:46,420 --> 00:43:51,940
So it's it sometimes ends up being even more than more than a 48 hour work week.

689
00:43:51,940 --> 00:43:52,940
You know, absolutely.

690
00:43:52,940 --> 00:43:54,940
Well, it's an interesting perspective.

691
00:43:54,940 --> 00:43:57,040
And thank you for that.

692
00:43:57,040 --> 00:44:00,620
When we talk about cancer, it's one of the things I wanted to kind of ask you about.

693
00:44:00,620 --> 00:44:05,860
Now we're exploring the inside the body more often than not after someone has passed.

694
00:44:05,860 --> 00:44:10,140
But it's such a unique perspective and something that I tried to glean as much knowledge when

695
00:44:10,140 --> 00:44:11,140
I was a medic.

696
00:44:11,140 --> 00:44:12,140
So did they make it?

697
00:44:12,140 --> 00:44:13,460
You know, what else did you find?

698
00:44:13,460 --> 00:44:15,980
What did the blood work show, you know, et cetera, et cetera.

699
00:44:15,980 --> 00:44:21,600
We never obviously got the pathology postmortem results, but at least, you know, the nurses

700
00:44:21,600 --> 00:44:22,680
and doctors after.

701
00:44:22,680 --> 00:44:26,020
But now we get to go one more step.

702
00:44:26,020 --> 00:44:33,880
One of the things that I really struggle to understand is the reliance or the only options

703
00:44:33,880 --> 00:44:36,500
for cancer to be radiation and chemotherapy.

704
00:44:36,500 --> 00:44:41,420
It seems to me that kind of Agent Orange, you know, just destroy everything and then

705
00:44:41,420 --> 00:44:46,140
fingers crossed the body restarts again.

706
00:44:46,140 --> 00:44:47,440
Blames a lot of lives.

707
00:44:47,440 --> 00:44:50,140
Some people may have passed anyway.

708
00:44:50,140 --> 00:44:53,540
Some people may have even, you know, changed the way they ate and did some other lifestyle

709
00:44:53,540 --> 00:44:56,820
changes and maybe reverse some of their diseases.

710
00:44:56,820 --> 00:44:59,460
What is your perspective seeing inside these bodies?

711
00:44:59,460 --> 00:45:01,900
You see, you know, you see cancers and tumors themselves.

712
00:45:01,900 --> 00:45:05,100
I'm sure you've done some of people that have chemo.

713
00:45:05,100 --> 00:45:09,780
Has it given you any kind of unique perspective on the treatments that we traditionally use

714
00:45:09,780 --> 00:45:10,780
for cancer?

715
00:45:10,780 --> 00:45:15,900
Yeah, I mean, I, there's certain if.

716
00:45:15,900 --> 00:45:23,160
So for example, my grandmom got diagnosed with gallbladder cancer and when she went

717
00:45:23,160 --> 00:45:27,420
in to get her surgery and everything like that, they determined that she had stage three

718
00:45:27,420 --> 00:45:31,620
gallbladder cancer and possibly even stage four.

719
00:45:31,620 --> 00:45:38,380
Like it was, it was bad and from my perspective, it was, she was going to die from that.

720
00:45:38,380 --> 00:45:40,320
And I was shocked when I went with her.

721
00:45:40,320 --> 00:45:44,260
She wanted me to go to the oncology appointments and I went with her and they were like, oh,

722
00:45:44,260 --> 00:45:48,820
we're going to try you on chemo and you're going to get, you're going to get really sick,

723
00:45:48,820 --> 00:45:52,140
but it's, it's going to do this and it's going to do that.

724
00:45:52,140 --> 00:45:58,980
And I remember going out to the car to my mom and saying, I don't think that she should

725
00:45:58,980 --> 00:45:59,980
do that.

726
00:45:59,980 --> 00:46:05,300
I think she should just be comfortable until she dies because I look at it like, I know

727
00:46:05,300 --> 00:46:07,180
how these biliary cancers work.

728
00:46:07,180 --> 00:46:08,780
They're very aggressive.

729
00:46:08,780 --> 00:46:10,620
You're not getting rid of this.

730
00:46:10,620 --> 00:46:14,860
And why do you want to feel like shit the last couple months of your life?

731
00:46:14,860 --> 00:46:19,780
And so, but I said, and I kind of explained this to my grandmom and said, you could, it's

732
00:46:19,780 --> 00:46:20,780
your life.

733
00:46:20,780 --> 00:46:21,780
You could do what you want to do.

734
00:46:21,780 --> 00:46:22,780
So she goes, well, how would I try it?

735
00:46:22,780 --> 00:46:24,580
And then if I don't like it, I won't do it.

736
00:46:24,580 --> 00:46:29,100
And she tried it and she was like deathly ill and was like, I will never put that into

737
00:46:29,100 --> 00:46:30,100
my body again.

738
00:46:30,100 --> 00:46:33,820
Like, let me just, let me just die in peace kind of, right.

739
00:46:33,820 --> 00:46:41,600
And so from my perspective, I, there's certain cancers that I would say like, hell no.

740
00:46:41,600 --> 00:46:45,980
Let me just, let me just, if you could surgically remove this or make me comfortable, give me

741
00:46:45,980 --> 00:46:47,160
a stent or whatever.

742
00:46:47,160 --> 00:46:52,380
So I'm not in acute pain, but let me just finish my life and go on with it.

743
00:46:52,380 --> 00:46:55,100
But then I've seen other positive effects of it.

744
00:46:55,100 --> 00:46:59,660
Like one of our, one of the coworkers at the hospital, her dad got diagnosed with stage

745
00:46:59,660 --> 00:47:01,320
three colon cancer.

746
00:47:01,320 --> 00:47:06,100
He had the tumor resected and then he got chemo and whatever chemo they gave him wasn't

747
00:47:06,100 --> 00:47:08,020
that bad.

748
00:47:08,020 --> 00:47:09,540
So he, he was able to go to work.

749
00:47:09,540 --> 00:47:12,740
He was a little tired, but he never like lost his hair and wasn't nauseous all the time

750
00:47:12,740 --> 00:47:13,740
and stuff.

751
00:47:13,740 --> 00:47:20,100
And I mean, he's still alive and this has been almost 20 years later and got to live

752
00:47:20,100 --> 00:47:23,420
a great life and see his grandkids grow and everything like that.

753
00:47:23,420 --> 00:47:30,340
So I definitely think like chemo is just in that big lump of like the pharmaceutical company.

754
00:47:30,340 --> 00:47:35,640
Let's just throw drugs on the problem instead of trying to just figure it out.

755
00:47:35,640 --> 00:47:41,820
Like with my grandma, I just was mind blown that they were even trying to give her hope.

756
00:47:41,820 --> 00:47:44,980
I guess at the same time though, if you're a person that has cancer, you don't want to

757
00:47:44,980 --> 00:47:46,700
be told like, Hey, this is it for you.

758
00:47:46,700 --> 00:47:49,280
You're dead, you know?

759
00:47:49,280 --> 00:47:52,000
But I thought that they were kind of giving her false hope.

760
00:47:52,000 --> 00:47:55,580
And my mom too, because my mom has two other sisters.

761
00:47:55,580 --> 00:48:00,420
So we all went out to the car and I was like, mom, she's going to die from this.

762
00:48:00,420 --> 00:48:03,220
Like you need to start being prepared for this.

763
00:48:03,220 --> 00:48:08,020
Whereas my aunts were like, no, the oncology doctor said she has a chance.

764
00:48:08,020 --> 00:48:12,980
And I'm like, she, no, she, I've never seen that, you know, what, what we see all the

765
00:48:12,980 --> 00:48:13,980
time.

766
00:48:13,980 --> 00:48:20,940
Um, so it's just for me, it's on like a case by case basis, according to what cancer you

767
00:48:20,940 --> 00:48:22,220
have, you know?

768
00:48:22,220 --> 00:48:26,380
Well, I believe, you know, again, like we were talking about children with diabetes,

769
00:48:26,380 --> 00:48:32,940
I think, you know, a lot of these adult cancers are accelerated, initiated by environmental

770
00:48:32,940 --> 00:48:33,940
elements.

771
00:48:33,940 --> 00:48:40,700
I mean, I think if you look back, um, at more ancient humans, you know, I doubt a lot of

772
00:48:40,700 --> 00:48:46,900
people 300 years ago were dropping dead of breast cancer, you know, women in their thirties

773
00:48:46,900 --> 00:48:47,900
and forties.

774
00:48:47,900 --> 00:48:53,940
So identifying whatever is, is increasing the likelihood of getting cancer is also an

775
00:48:53,940 --> 00:48:55,420
important part of this conversation.

776
00:48:55,420 --> 00:49:00,980
Yet it seems to be, you know, five Ks purple beads and you know, chemo.

777
00:49:00,980 --> 00:49:05,260
So trying to unpack what is it that's creating so much disease, the same as we do in the

778
00:49:05,260 --> 00:49:10,620
fire service, the carcinogens, asleep, et cetera, needs to be said as well with all

779
00:49:10,620 --> 00:49:15,780
of these, you know, um, post mortems and, and, and insights that you have now, have

780
00:49:15,780 --> 00:49:21,260
you noticed a correlation with a lot of the people that have cancer with other diseases

781
00:49:21,260 --> 00:49:25,780
within their body or obesity or any element like that?

782
00:49:25,780 --> 00:49:32,060
I will say that every single, every single time we would get an autopsy in the hospital,

783
00:49:32,060 --> 00:49:35,300
the resident will come up to me and say like, Hey, we have an autopsy today.

784
00:49:35,300 --> 00:49:38,300
And my first question is, are they obese?

785
00:49:38,300 --> 00:49:44,760
Because it just, when you hear of a 56 year old person dying, it's usually, that's one

786
00:49:44,760 --> 00:49:51,360
of the, that's one of the things that we would see all the time is obesity related stuff.

787
00:49:51,360 --> 00:49:57,720
Not to say that we didn't get the 96 pound 80 year old lady that, that I could pick up

788
00:49:57,720 --> 00:49:58,720
with my hands.

789
00:49:58,720 --> 00:50:01,620
Like that happens too.

790
00:50:01,620 --> 00:50:09,120
But the majority of people that I would see younger deaths, um, especially are, are due

791
00:50:09,120 --> 00:50:10,620
to obesity.

792
00:50:10,620 --> 00:50:17,420
Now believe it or not, we don't do a ton of autopsies on people that have cancer.

793
00:50:17,420 --> 00:50:23,340
Um, not that I haven't done a lot of them, but it's not as common as you would think

794
00:50:23,340 --> 00:50:30,620
because in most cases, if a person has stage four cancer and they're dying from that cancer,

795
00:50:30,620 --> 00:50:33,340
they'll ask the family like, Hey, do you want to get an autopsy?

796
00:50:33,340 --> 00:50:37,320
And the family says no, cause they know why they're, their family members dying.

797
00:50:37,320 --> 00:50:44,060
So luckily I got to work in a, in an ed, an academic institution where we would be able

798
00:50:44,060 --> 00:50:47,240
to sometimes ask the family if we could do the autopsy.

799
00:50:47,240 --> 00:50:52,540
Cause the person had like a weird cancer or they wanted to look at how the treatment worked.

800
00:50:52,540 --> 00:50:59,320
But, um, you just, you don't see a whole lot of it all the time because family members

801
00:50:59,320 --> 00:51:03,960
are the ones that drive the autopsies in the hospital and they usually know why their family

802
00:51:03,960 --> 00:51:06,140
members dead.

803
00:51:06,140 --> 00:51:09,300
What about during the time where COVID was at its height?

804
00:51:09,300 --> 00:51:11,380
Were you exposed to a lot of autopsies then?

805
00:51:11,380 --> 00:51:18,820
No, I only did a few cause I only do weekend, like a per day thing now with autopsies.

806
00:51:18,820 --> 00:51:27,300
I did a few when it was in that weird time period of, um, I would say after Christmas

807
00:51:27,300 --> 00:51:35,060
2019 to, to St. Patrick's day, 2020, when it was like something weird's going on in

808
00:51:35,060 --> 00:51:38,780
China, all these people, like the buzz happening.

809
00:51:38,780 --> 00:51:44,820
And um, one of my friends actually, who's also a PA is from China and she just said,

810
00:51:44,820 --> 00:51:49,940
like, I've been talking to my mom and my brother, like something's weird over there, you know,

811
00:51:49,940 --> 00:51:51,100
just heads up.

812
00:51:51,100 --> 00:51:56,300
And I did do an autopsy on someone right towards the, when the lockdowns were happening and

813
00:51:56,300 --> 00:51:59,380
stuff that had like crazy looking lungs and everything.

814
00:51:59,380 --> 00:52:01,180
And I was like, that's weird.

815
00:52:01,180 --> 00:52:04,780
Um, and just, you know, no extra precautions or anything.

816
00:52:04,780 --> 00:52:10,380
And then they shut down doing any autopsies like that for, for a while afterwards, unless

817
00:52:10,380 --> 00:52:17,140
it was absolutely necessary, but they weren't doing them for, for months afterwards.

818
00:52:17,140 --> 00:52:23,260
Cause that's another situation where even though it was kind of lauded as heresy, like

819
00:52:23,260 --> 00:52:28,540
how dare you suggest that the reality was through a medical profession's eyes, that

820
00:52:28,540 --> 00:52:32,660
it was an opportunistic disease that was killing people with preexisting medical conditions.

821
00:52:32,660 --> 00:52:37,820
So again, when you bring back in obesity, diabetes, hypertension, that was a massive

822
00:52:37,820 --> 00:52:42,300
precursor and arguably preventable element of human health.

823
00:52:42,300 --> 00:52:45,860
Then when you add in this virus was causing death rather than survival.

824
00:52:45,860 --> 00:52:46,860
Oh yeah.

825
00:52:46,860 --> 00:52:49,100
I, I a hundred percent believe that.

826
00:52:49,100 --> 00:52:54,940
I mean, I personally didn't see that doing autopsies just because like I said, they weren't,

827
00:52:54,940 --> 00:53:01,540
they weren't being performed during that time, but I, I know that that is, that was one of

828
00:53:01,540 --> 00:53:06,500
the things that you would say, okay, what are the comorbidities associated with this?

829
00:53:06,500 --> 00:53:12,220
And not to say that there's not the, the one-off person here or there that seem was seemingly

830
00:53:12,220 --> 00:53:19,100
like completely healthy, normal weight, prior awesome blood work, all that kind of stuff

831
00:53:19,100 --> 00:53:20,980
that died from that infection.

832
00:53:20,980 --> 00:53:22,860
But for the most part, yeah.

833
00:53:22,860 --> 00:53:28,940
I mean, and also one of my things too, is that it's not even obesity.

834
00:53:28,940 --> 00:53:35,740
Well obesity is definitely a comorbidity factor for COVID, but also cigarette smoking is too.

835
00:53:35,740 --> 00:53:40,860
And they don't even, I don't even hear them ever talk about that on the news, that that

836
00:53:40,860 --> 00:53:46,540
increases the risk of you having serious side effects of COVID so much.

837
00:53:46,540 --> 00:53:52,380
And so if you took away the obesity and you took away the cigarette smoking, it would

838
00:53:52,380 --> 00:53:58,620
be a nothing really, but nobody wants to address the real problems, you know?

839
00:53:58,620 --> 00:53:59,620
No.

840
00:53:59,620 --> 00:54:03,580
Well, I think what's so maddening and I've, when, when COVID here, I ended up putting

841
00:54:03,580 --> 00:54:08,500
an extra episode a week and bringing on all these great minds, everyone from doctors and

842
00:54:08,500 --> 00:54:12,780
nurses to strength and conditioning coaches and nutritionists, people that could give

843
00:54:12,780 --> 00:54:18,020
actionable information, what people were told to stay at home and, you know, get fast food

844
00:54:18,020 --> 00:54:20,820
delivered to their house and alcohol and watch Tiger King.

845
00:54:20,820 --> 00:54:22,580
And not go to the gym either.

846
00:54:22,580 --> 00:54:23,580
Exactly.

847
00:54:23,580 --> 00:54:26,300
Cause it was closed and the beaches were closed.

848
00:54:26,300 --> 00:54:32,400
And so now as we emerge, my thing has been, all right, you know, it was clearly never

849
00:54:32,400 --> 00:54:33,460
about health.

850
00:54:33,460 --> 00:54:37,940
And the reason I say that is not political because health of the nation is not politics.

851
00:54:37,940 --> 00:54:40,880
It's you know, compassion and community.

852
00:54:40,880 --> 00:54:46,500
We had a captive audience for two years where we could have put money back into PE programs,

853
00:54:46,500 --> 00:54:51,140
got good food, you know, real food being served in schools, just like they used to removing

854
00:54:51,140 --> 00:54:56,900
the soda machines, you know, pedestrianizing downtowns, giving incentives to local farmers

855
00:54:56,900 --> 00:55:00,100
to grow clean food and all the things.

856
00:55:00,100 --> 00:55:01,520
And none of that happened.

857
00:55:01,520 --> 00:55:06,380
And now here we are in 2024 and the obesity epidemic's growing.

858
00:55:06,380 --> 00:55:10,440
As you said, the, the diet, the childhood diabetes is increasing the mental health crisis,

859
00:55:10,440 --> 00:55:12,480
the opioid epidemic.

860
00:55:12,480 --> 00:55:18,660
And so one single disease gave us an opportunity to really address the health of the nation.

861
00:55:18,660 --> 00:55:24,220
And what happened is, is it was politicized and the actual health of the nation, you know,

862
00:55:24,220 --> 00:55:26,340
was secondary and nothing changed.

863
00:55:26,340 --> 00:55:30,460
And here we are even worse off now than two years, excuse me, three years ago, which I

864
00:55:30,460 --> 00:55:35,300
think is disgusting because we had the most amazing opportunity to really move the needle

865
00:55:35,300 --> 00:55:37,100
on the nation's health.

866
00:55:37,100 --> 00:55:38,100
Yeah.

867
00:55:38,100 --> 00:55:44,620
And when you sit there and you think about, okay, when, why are these things increasing?

868
00:55:44,620 --> 00:55:48,260
Diabetes, cancers in younger people, obesity.

869
00:55:48,260 --> 00:55:52,160
I mean, just think about when you went to school, when you were a little kid, how many,

870
00:55:52,160 --> 00:55:54,120
how many kids did you hear had diabetes?

871
00:55:54,120 --> 00:55:56,400
How many kids did were obese?

872
00:55:56,400 --> 00:55:57,400
Just think about that.

873
00:55:57,400 --> 00:55:58,400
It was a long time ago.

874
00:55:58,400 --> 00:55:59,400
So, exactly.

875
00:55:59,400 --> 00:56:03,980
But I sit there and think like, well, what was, what happened in my childhood that's

876
00:56:03,980 --> 00:56:08,400
different than, than my kid's childhood or what's their time period?

877
00:56:08,400 --> 00:56:12,340
And it's like, my mom cooked dinner every single night.

878
00:56:12,340 --> 00:56:18,300
And then once maybe twice a month on a Friday night, we would get either Chinese food or

879
00:56:18,300 --> 00:56:23,600
pizza, like one pizza for our entire family, you know?

880
00:56:23,600 --> 00:56:25,940
We drank water out of a faucet.

881
00:56:25,940 --> 00:56:30,100
There was no such thing as bottled water, which that needs to be addressed because the

882
00:56:30,100 --> 00:56:35,840
plastics with the food and with the drinks are an issue.

883
00:56:35,840 --> 00:56:40,420
No matter what anybody says, I think that that's a big contributing factor.

884
00:56:40,420 --> 00:56:43,140
And just the choices.

885
00:56:43,140 --> 00:56:48,840
And now it's like, I could go on DoorDash and order from 150 different restaurants just

886
00:56:48,840 --> 00:56:49,840
from my house.

887
00:56:49,840 --> 00:56:51,620
It's so insane.

888
00:56:51,620 --> 00:56:56,820
And I try to cook for, I cook for my family almost every single night of the week because

889
00:56:56,820 --> 00:57:02,200
I'm trying to like bring it back and not using even pre-packaged stuff like cooking from

890
00:57:02,200 --> 00:57:04,740
scratch and stuff for us.

891
00:57:04,740 --> 00:57:06,540
And I pack my kids lunch.

892
00:57:06,540 --> 00:57:13,980
So I like, fortunately I could do that every day, but it's just the over-processed foods

893
00:57:13,980 --> 00:57:17,980
and the way that it's kind of being pushed on you like that.

894
00:57:17,980 --> 00:57:18,980
It's nuts.

895
00:57:18,980 --> 00:57:19,980
Yeah.

896
00:57:19,980 --> 00:57:22,180
Well, and this is what I think we struggle with.

897
00:57:22,180 --> 00:57:26,220
I mean, you see the end stage, you know, your husband sees the end stage.

898
00:57:26,220 --> 00:57:31,940
I saw the end stage and I always remember comparing coaching in the gym, you know, where

899
00:57:31,940 --> 00:57:36,820
I teach and being a paramedic, you know, when I coach, I try and stop people from getting

900
00:57:36,820 --> 00:57:43,000
in the back of an ambulance, prolonging it at least when I'm in uniform, then you call

901
00:57:43,000 --> 00:57:46,860
me when you're having your worst day, when it's almost too late or mostly too late for

902
00:57:46,860 --> 00:57:47,860
people.

903
00:57:47,860 --> 00:57:51,480
So, you know, there are certain professions that we see behind the curtain.

904
00:57:51,480 --> 00:57:52,480
We see the reality.

905
00:57:52,480 --> 00:57:56,700
You know, you can tell me that big is beautiful and, you know, any conversation about weight

906
00:57:56,700 --> 00:57:57,700
loss is fat shaming.

907
00:57:57,700 --> 00:58:02,180
Well, there's nothing beautiful about me sticking a tube down your throat when you're 42 years

908
00:58:02,180 --> 00:58:07,020
old and trying to defibrillate you and then, you know, leaving you there for the coroner.

909
00:58:07,020 --> 00:58:10,720
It's horrendous and you should have lived twice as long as you did.

910
00:58:10,720 --> 00:58:16,380
So I think it's a powerful voice from your world, from my world to advocate like, you

911
00:58:16,380 --> 00:58:19,220
know, we are literally killing our people.

912
00:58:19,220 --> 00:58:24,460
You know, this I think 70% of Americans are either obese or overweight.

913
00:58:24,460 --> 00:58:25,460
And you know, yeah, it's disgusting.

914
00:58:25,460 --> 00:58:29,460
I was going to bring that up to the whole big is beautiful thing that pisses.

915
00:58:29,460 --> 00:58:31,340
It pisses me off so bad.

916
00:58:31,340 --> 00:58:37,460
And I'll never forget there was like this cover on the Cosmopolitan magazine and it

917
00:58:37,460 --> 00:58:43,380
was like health at any size with a severely obese woman on the cover.

918
00:58:43,380 --> 00:58:50,700
And I listen, I think there needs to be a different kind of view of just because a person

919
00:58:50,700 --> 00:58:59,380
is obese, that doesn't mean that we should like say that their body shape is not attractive.

920
00:58:59,380 --> 00:59:00,620
We're not talking about that.

921
00:59:00,620 --> 00:59:05,940
We're talking about healthy, like visceral fat, the fat that covers your organs.

922
00:59:05,940 --> 00:59:08,620
That's what I'm talking about is not healthy.

923
00:59:08,620 --> 00:59:12,780
When you're when you gain weight, the more and more weight you gain, you not only get

924
00:59:12,780 --> 00:59:18,460
fat on your belly, but when you cut someone open inside, if I could look at a person right

925
00:59:18,460 --> 00:59:22,820
away, just the inside of their body and tell you if they're obese or not, because their

926
00:59:22,820 --> 00:59:27,580
organs look more yellow because there's a lot more fat and think about your heart trying

927
00:59:27,580 --> 00:59:33,540
to beat and then you putting a giant fat sweater around it like it just doesn't move as much

928
00:59:33,540 --> 00:59:34,540
as it should.

929
00:59:34,540 --> 00:59:36,780
And it doesn't work as well as it should.

930
00:59:36,780 --> 00:59:41,700
And on top of that, you can get your your heart enlarges and there's just so many different

931
00:59:41,700 --> 00:59:45,620
things that could go wrong as a result of obesity.

932
00:59:45,620 --> 00:59:48,540
And I think it's completely irresponsible.

933
00:59:48,540 --> 00:59:53,780
I just saw some TikTok video the other day of some doctor saying that it was completely

934
00:59:53,780 --> 00:59:57,880
OK to be obese and people shouldn't say anything about it.

935
00:59:57,880 --> 01:00:01,100
And I'm like, you you're you're sick for saying that shit.

936
01:00:01,100 --> 01:00:03,060
You want to get these TikTok views and stuff.

937
01:00:03,060 --> 01:00:05,300
And I'm like, it's it's so messed up.

938
01:00:05,300 --> 01:00:11,580
And any person that works in EMS or in the hospital, pathology, whatever, you know that

939
01:00:11,580 --> 01:00:13,780
that's not true.

940
01:00:13,780 --> 01:00:20,060
It's and it's and it's crazy because so most of the morgues that I've either interned at

941
01:00:20,060 --> 01:00:24,260
or worked at have especially the one that I worked at for so many years, like an old

942
01:00:24,260 --> 01:00:29,860
school morgue made in the 1950s or whatever that had a gurney on it.

943
01:00:29,860 --> 01:00:34,380
The autopsy table was for an average sized person.

944
01:00:34,380 --> 01:00:40,700
Now every single new morgue that I've seen that's getting made has bariatric morgue tables

945
01:00:40,700 --> 01:00:43,380
because people are getting bigger.

946
01:00:43,380 --> 01:00:47,300
If you go into waiting rooms at doctor's offices, do you notice that they have these like extra

947
01:00:47,300 --> 01:00:49,820
large, weird, wide chairs now?

948
01:00:49,820 --> 01:00:53,100
They're not like normal chairs with the wheelchairs, too.

949
01:00:53,100 --> 01:00:56,060
I mean, I always remember that, you know, when I first came to America, but certainly

950
01:00:56,060 --> 01:01:00,660
as I progressed through my career, you put a normal person, I say normal.

951
01:01:00,660 --> 01:01:05,980
I mean, the the size that they would be if they ate well and they were active on the

952
01:01:05,980 --> 01:01:09,740
average hospital wheelchair almost looks like a comedy.

953
01:01:09,740 --> 01:01:12,540
Looks like, you know, when people go on a on a road trip and they take a picture in

954
01:01:12,540 --> 01:01:16,180
front of those those massive chairs, that's what it looks like.

955
01:01:16,180 --> 01:01:19,300
And that's what's so sad is that's almost a standard wheelchair now.

956
01:01:19,300 --> 01:01:23,100
And you know, I've had literally I've had patients that were basically a thousand pounds

957
01:01:23,100 --> 01:01:28,300
that with the pancake on the bed that people revel at and some of these documentaries.

958
01:01:28,300 --> 01:01:31,780
Now we a lot of us have had those over and over and over again.

959
01:01:31,780 --> 01:01:33,400
And that was my biggest one.

960
01:01:33,400 --> 01:01:37,460
But I've had, you know, multiple people that were five, six hundred pounds.

961
01:01:37,460 --> 01:01:41,620
And when you come from a place of kindness and compassion, you're never going to shame

962
01:01:41,620 --> 01:01:42,960
that person.

963
01:01:42,960 --> 01:01:47,900
But your heart breaks, especially if it's a child, because you know that their lifespan

964
01:01:47,900 --> 01:01:49,620
is being woefully shortened.

965
01:01:49,620 --> 01:01:54,680
And that's why we're advocating for nutrition, for exercise.

966
01:01:54,680 --> 01:01:55,940
You don't need to have a six pack.

967
01:01:55,940 --> 01:02:00,280
You don't need to look like some 1980s muscle and fitness cover model.

968
01:02:00,280 --> 01:02:04,180
You just simply need to be a healthy weight so that as you touched on your heart, your

969
01:02:04,180 --> 01:02:06,840
lungs, your kidneys, they can all function properly.

970
01:02:06,840 --> 01:02:12,060
And you can have whatever number of decades you were destined to have when you were firstborn.

971
01:02:12,060 --> 01:02:18,300
Yeah, we I mean, I've had situations that the person was so big that I couldn't even

972
01:02:18,300 --> 01:02:23,420
bring them into the autopsy room because the bed they were on wouldn't turn the corner.

973
01:02:23,420 --> 01:02:28,660
And I had to cut someone in the refrigerator once because I couldn't bring them into the

974
01:02:28,660 --> 01:02:29,760
autopsy room.

975
01:02:29,760 --> 01:02:36,300
It was and I'm sitting there like I do feel bad for the patients, but I'm like, why are

976
01:02:36,300 --> 01:02:40,380
they telling the patients it's OK that they're living like this?

977
01:02:40,380 --> 01:02:42,060
It's just it's terrible.

978
01:02:42,060 --> 01:02:46,000
I don't I mean, you could say this about a million other different things that's going

979
01:02:46,000 --> 01:02:47,180
on in the world right now.

980
01:02:47,180 --> 01:02:49,980
Like why is everything so goddamn backwards?

981
01:02:49,980 --> 01:02:51,980
But I don't really know.

982
01:02:51,980 --> 01:02:54,060
I don't really know what to what to say.

983
01:02:54,060 --> 01:02:56,380
I just could say what I see from my perspective.

984
01:02:56,380 --> 01:03:03,180
I mean, I get hate mail and nasty gram all the time saying that I don't I am idolizing

985
01:03:03,180 --> 01:03:09,340
thinness and all this these buzzwords these people use and whatever.

986
01:03:09,340 --> 01:03:13,340
Like I could just sit there and say, at least I know that that's what I see.

987
01:03:13,340 --> 01:03:15,300
And that's that's really what I believe.

988
01:03:15,300 --> 01:03:16,300
Yeah.

989
01:03:16,300 --> 01:03:19,700
Well, we've been so programmed.

990
01:03:19,700 --> 01:03:24,220
All of us in modern society, we have screens, you know, there are companies and I've talked

991
01:03:24,220 --> 01:03:25,220
about it recently.

992
01:03:25,220 --> 01:03:28,940
There are companies that I would argue are headed by sociopaths.

993
01:03:28,940 --> 01:03:33,420
And the reason I say that is the only way that you can sleep at night knowing that your

994
01:03:33,420 --> 01:03:39,960
cigarettes or your fast food or your soda or your pharmaceuticals, which are killing

995
01:03:39,960 --> 01:03:43,860
literally millions of people around the world.

996
01:03:43,860 --> 01:03:47,040
The only way you can sleep is you've got to be mentally unwell.

997
01:03:47,040 --> 01:03:48,040
That's it.

998
01:03:48,040 --> 01:03:50,340
You know, a normal person would not be able to see they'd be like, we can't sell these

999
01:03:50,340 --> 01:03:51,340
anymore.

1000
01:03:51,340 --> 01:03:52,340
They're killing people.

1001
01:03:52,340 --> 01:03:55,620
You know, our opioids, our cigarettes, et cetera, et cetera.

1002
01:03:55,620 --> 01:04:01,100
But people are being bombarded just simply so that some people can become millionaires.

1003
01:04:01,100 --> 01:04:02,100
That's it.

1004
01:04:02,100 --> 01:04:04,040
And so we are swimming upstream.

1005
01:04:04,040 --> 01:04:09,300
So it's not anything other than trying to go back to how we lived 100 years ago.

1006
01:04:09,300 --> 01:04:11,900
But for all this, there was no chemicals on our food.

1007
01:04:11,900 --> 01:04:14,680
There were no hormones, antibiotics in our animals.

1008
01:04:14,680 --> 01:04:21,140
You know, the the the medicine that had lasted literally millennia was somewhat holistic.

1009
01:04:21,140 --> 01:04:23,700
And that's why acupuncture works, why chiropractic works.

1010
01:04:23,700 --> 01:04:25,740
That's why herbal medicine works.

1011
01:04:25,740 --> 01:04:29,740
Now we're seeing, you know, plant medicine fixing a lot of the mental health problems

1012
01:04:29,740 --> 01:04:32,020
in military and first responders.

1013
01:04:32,020 --> 01:04:36,660
So we have to really push back and go back to pretty much just 100 years ago, how our

1014
01:04:36,660 --> 01:04:39,020
grandparents were raised.

1015
01:04:39,020 --> 01:04:41,340
And there's so much wellness in that.

1016
01:04:41,340 --> 01:04:47,980
But if we, you know, turn our backs because we haven't even questioned the way that we

1017
01:04:47,980 --> 01:04:52,860
have been programmed through our screens, that you need this stuff and you need this

1018
01:04:52,860 --> 01:04:58,300
fast food and you're going to be a dancing model if you drink this can of Coke, then

1019
01:04:58,300 --> 01:05:00,580
you know, understand that you're part of the problem.

1020
01:05:00,580 --> 01:05:03,900
You know, if you're pushing against something that simply is going to improve the health

1021
01:05:03,900 --> 01:05:06,700
of the nation, you are part of the problem.

1022
01:05:06,700 --> 01:05:08,440
Yeah, I agree.

1023
01:05:08,440 --> 01:05:15,300
It's it's really disturbing to me, like that where things are going and that they're that

1024
01:05:15,300 --> 01:05:18,020
we're just not admitting like clearly this is the problem.

1025
01:05:18,020 --> 01:05:20,100
And it's you could say the same things about that.

1026
01:05:20,100 --> 01:05:24,340
It was like everyone seemed to care so much about all the people dying from covid.

1027
01:05:24,340 --> 01:05:28,180
But what about all the people that have been dying from cigarettes for years and years

1028
01:05:28,180 --> 01:05:29,180
and years?

1029
01:05:29,180 --> 01:05:31,340
And it's not just like lung cancer.

1030
01:05:31,340 --> 01:05:35,900
It's all of the comorbidities associated with a cardiovascular disease.

1031
01:05:35,900 --> 01:05:44,120
And I mean, just that alone, we've lost way, way more people from tobacco alone than than

1032
01:05:44,120 --> 01:05:45,800
covid ever.

1033
01:05:45,800 --> 01:05:48,300
Same with opioids and everything like that.

1034
01:05:48,300 --> 01:05:54,100
And it's just like funny how they just want to address certain issues and not other issues.

1035
01:05:54,100 --> 01:05:55,100
Yeah.

1036
01:05:55,100 --> 01:05:58,860
Well, just to underline it, how many news stations have that death ticker in the bottom

1037
01:05:58,860 --> 01:06:02,940
corner that was just turning over, turning over with the covid deaths?

1038
01:06:02,940 --> 01:06:04,100
Where's that now?

1039
01:06:04,100 --> 01:06:06,340
Where's that with the deaths on the road?

1040
01:06:06,340 --> 01:06:07,340
Exactly.

1041
01:06:07,340 --> 01:06:12,540
And that always annoyed the shit out of me, too, because I think like you you work as

1042
01:06:12,540 --> 01:06:17,340
in the EMS field, so you see dead people every single day of your life, probably.

1043
01:06:17,340 --> 01:06:18,340
Right.

1044
01:06:18,340 --> 01:06:23,540
And working in the hospital and pathology and the morgue, you people die every single

1045
01:06:23,540 --> 01:06:25,300
day at the hospital.

1046
01:06:25,300 --> 01:06:29,140
And it just but nobody really knows about that.

1047
01:06:29,140 --> 01:06:34,420
Like if I came home every day and was like, Mom, I saw six dead people today.

1048
01:06:34,420 --> 01:06:37,820
Then she'd be like, oh, wow, six people died at the hospital today.

1049
01:06:37,820 --> 01:06:39,220
I wouldn't thought that much.

1050
01:06:39,220 --> 01:06:41,960
And, you know, people it's not on normal people's minds.

1051
01:06:41,960 --> 01:06:45,100
So when they see all these deaths coming in, it freaks them out.

1052
01:06:45,100 --> 01:06:47,740
And you're like, you are aware that people die every day, right?

1053
01:06:47,740 --> 01:06:50,700
Like millions of people every single day all over the place.

1054
01:06:50,700 --> 01:06:52,260
Like it's happening.

1055
01:06:52,260 --> 01:06:53,260
Yeah.

1056
01:06:53,260 --> 01:06:59,740
Well, one of the funniest things and again, not funny, haha, but just just complete.

1057
01:06:59,740 --> 01:07:04,340
Scare mongering really was all the footage of, oh, there are patients in the hallways

1058
01:07:04,340 --> 01:07:05,340
waiting for beds.

1059
01:07:05,340 --> 01:07:08,620
I'm like, that's every fucking day.

1060
01:07:08,620 --> 01:07:10,420
Like this is not now you're paying attention.

1061
01:07:10,420 --> 01:07:12,420
You never seem to give a shit before.

1062
01:07:12,420 --> 01:07:17,500
And now if you go back to all the urban cities, there will still be paramedics and EMTs holding

1063
01:07:17,500 --> 01:07:20,340
the wall with stretchers trying to get their patient a bed.

1064
01:07:20,340 --> 01:07:22,500
So it fitted that narrative for a moment.

1065
01:07:22,500 --> 01:07:26,100
And then the moment they changed to something else, they were like, ah, yeah, we're good

1066
01:07:26,100 --> 01:07:27,100
now.

1067
01:07:27,100 --> 01:07:28,100
Doctors and nurses don't care about them anymore.

1068
01:07:28,100 --> 01:07:31,180
You know, you know, they're not heroes anymore in this building.

1069
01:07:31,180 --> 01:07:32,180
Fuck them.

1070
01:07:32,180 --> 01:07:33,180
Yeah, exactly.

1071
01:07:33,180 --> 01:07:34,180
So pickle.

1072
01:07:34,180 --> 01:07:36,660
And we officially scared the shit out of everyone.

1073
01:07:36,660 --> 01:07:42,660
Like all of the the negative health effects that just will happen from that with people

1074
01:07:42,660 --> 01:07:46,340
just not going to the doctor anymore and and everything.

1075
01:07:46,340 --> 01:07:49,060
It's just it's just terrible.

1076
01:07:49,060 --> 01:07:50,060
Absolutely.

1077
01:07:50,060 --> 01:07:55,660
Well, you became part of the solution, obviously, even your work in itself, but also you just

1078
01:07:55,660 --> 01:08:00,380
decided to actually start putting some things out online, which I think is amazing because

1079
01:08:00,380 --> 01:08:05,020
again, you're educating people on all the things from from the mental health and suicide

1080
01:08:05,020 --> 01:08:08,000
through to the diseases that we've discussed.

1081
01:08:08,000 --> 01:08:12,660
So what made you start your Instagram platform and then kind of lead me through the creation

1082
01:08:12,660 --> 01:08:16,300
of your the the gross room as well?

1083
01:08:16,300 --> 01:08:24,220
So I started I just was seeing these autopsies and they were they were just so cool.

1084
01:08:24,220 --> 01:08:32,820
I wanted to share my findings with with other people that might be equally as interested.

1085
01:08:32,820 --> 01:08:36,420
And I started a website that was like I heart autopsy dot com.

1086
01:08:36,420 --> 01:08:41,500
It was a blog and I was doing that for a little while.

1087
01:08:41,500 --> 01:08:46,180
And a couple of people like I would tell the doctors at the hospital to look at it and

1088
01:08:46,180 --> 01:08:47,180
stuff.

1089
01:08:47,180 --> 01:08:50,220
But how was I going to get anybody to look at my blog?

1090
01:08:50,220 --> 01:08:51,900
Right.

1091
01:08:51,900 --> 01:08:57,520
So then my husband, he suggested that I start making the post a little bit smaller and putting

1092
01:08:57,520 --> 01:08:59,660
them on Instagram.

1093
01:08:59,660 --> 01:09:04,660
And I didn't even know what Instagram was because I'm just kind of like anti social

1094
01:09:04,660 --> 01:09:07,380
media kind of person, believe it or not.

1095
01:09:07,380 --> 01:09:10,220
And but at the time, my daughter was 18.

1096
01:09:10,220 --> 01:09:15,820
So she was all about Instagram and she set up the account for me and showed me how to

1097
01:09:15,820 --> 01:09:16,820
do it.

1098
01:09:16,820 --> 01:09:19,740
And and then it just kind of started from there.

1099
01:09:19,740 --> 01:09:25,820
I got it was when Instagram was good and you could organically gain people based on their

1100
01:09:25,820 --> 01:09:29,700
interest and and they weren't showing you stuff you didn't want to see.

1101
01:09:29,700 --> 01:09:36,220
And so it just blew up from there because I was putting like hashtags and people would

1102
01:09:36,220 --> 01:09:37,980
just search things they were interested in.

1103
01:09:37,980 --> 01:09:44,380
And also it would there was like the Explorer page was for accounts that it wasn't for any

1104
01:09:44,380 --> 01:09:45,380
account.

1105
01:09:45,380 --> 01:09:49,140
It was for like ones that they would showcase kind of and people would find me through there.

1106
01:09:49,140 --> 01:09:52,900
And it just kind of blew up from there.

1107
01:09:52,900 --> 01:09:57,220
As you start presenting all these cases to people, when you look back now, what were

1108
01:09:57,220 --> 01:10:01,260
some of the most interesting cases that you worked on?

1109
01:10:01,260 --> 01:10:08,240
I think some of the most interesting cases that I post were definitely that got a lot

1110
01:10:08,240 --> 01:10:10,620
of attention were like the miscarriages and stuff.

1111
01:10:10,620 --> 01:10:15,900
I think that people because that's a big thing with women, especially because a lot of a

1112
01:10:15,900 --> 01:10:19,740
lot more women than you think have them, but nobody really talks about it a lot.

1113
01:10:19,740 --> 01:10:24,420
It's kind of embarrassing and well, it shouldn't be embarrassing, but they feel embarrassed.

1114
01:10:24,420 --> 01:10:30,300
And I think a lot of people were shocked by the volume of stuff I was saying that I was

1115
01:10:30,300 --> 01:10:34,140
getting in the lab all the time, multiple miscarriages a day.

1116
01:10:34,140 --> 01:10:37,580
It's happening to people all the time.

1117
01:10:37,580 --> 01:10:43,060
I specifically have like more of an interest in natural pathology because that's just natural

1118
01:10:43,060 --> 01:10:45,480
disease and death.

1119
01:10:45,480 --> 01:10:51,780
So I was showing a lot of that stuff and also forensic stuff too.

1120
01:10:51,780 --> 01:10:56,880
I have an interest in the gross findings with certain kinds of forensic cases.

1121
01:10:56,880 --> 01:11:03,260
So I just showed a bunch of those different kinds of cases and people like how...

1122
01:11:03,260 --> 01:11:11,780
I think a lot of times in the news you'll read, for example, I just did a really good

1123
01:11:11,780 --> 01:11:16,220
article on this former NFL player named Mike Williams.

1124
01:11:16,220 --> 01:11:21,380
He died from a tooth abscess that eventually caused him to have a brain abscess and he

1125
01:11:21,380 --> 01:11:24,340
died and he was like 36 years old.

1126
01:11:24,340 --> 01:11:29,740
And people read it and they say, oh my God, how did that happen?

1127
01:11:29,740 --> 01:11:34,300
And I like to write an article like not only how did that happen and how that could happen

1128
01:11:34,300 --> 01:11:40,060
to you, but what that looks like when we do an autopsy of someone that has a brain abscess.

1129
01:11:40,060 --> 01:11:41,900
I like to do like this...

1130
01:11:41,900 --> 01:11:47,540
Because I think a lot of times people have these questions about visuals and they wouldn't

1131
01:11:47,540 --> 01:11:50,620
really know what we would be looking for.

1132
01:11:50,620 --> 01:11:55,700
So this is what we look for and this is how we give this diagnosis and say this person

1133
01:11:55,700 --> 01:11:56,700
died.

1134
01:11:56,700 --> 01:11:59,700
So someone else just died.

1135
01:11:59,700 --> 01:12:06,660
Oh, it was some weight loss influencer just died at 35 years old and it said, oh, her

1136
01:12:06,660 --> 01:12:11,420
cause of death is cardiac arrest and I just get so annoyed by that because it's like,

1137
01:12:11,420 --> 01:12:12,900
oh really her heart stopped?

1138
01:12:12,900 --> 01:12:16,220
Like yeah, everybody's cause of death is cardiac arrest.

1139
01:12:16,220 --> 01:12:20,380
So I like to just discuss those kinds of things about like...

1140
01:12:20,380 --> 01:12:25,980
Because when a person that's not educated in this particular area is writing an article,

1141
01:12:25,980 --> 01:12:33,500
they don't really understand how a person dies and why cardiac arrest isn't a cause

1142
01:12:33,500 --> 01:12:36,060
of death.

1143
01:12:36,060 --> 01:12:40,580
So anyway, getting back to your question, I was doing that on Instagram for a while.

1144
01:12:40,580 --> 01:12:43,460
It was awesome, but my account got deleted a lot.

1145
01:12:43,460 --> 01:12:51,480
It was getting reported as like graphic material and I was able to plea my case to Instagram

1146
01:12:51,480 --> 01:12:54,060
all the time to restore my account.

1147
01:12:54,060 --> 01:12:55,620
But it recent...

1148
01:12:55,620 --> 01:13:01,300
Like during COVID, just things changed a lot because of the censorship stuff.

1149
01:13:01,300 --> 01:13:08,020
And I always kind of like pretty much stay away from COVID because I don't think it's

1150
01:13:08,020 --> 01:13:12,220
like the only thing happening in the world and the only thing happening in medicine because

1151
01:13:12,220 --> 01:13:13,260
it's not.

1152
01:13:13,260 --> 01:13:16,500
So I just am like, I'll leave that up to other people.

1153
01:13:16,500 --> 01:13:17,500
I don't care.

1154
01:13:17,500 --> 01:13:22,640
There's like a million other things going on with people's health besides COVID.

1155
01:13:22,640 --> 01:13:25,820
But things just got censored during that time period.

1156
01:13:25,820 --> 01:13:30,700
And I decided that I was going to start my own website called The Gross Room.

1157
01:13:30,700 --> 01:13:33,300
So I didn't have to worry about...

1158
01:13:33,300 --> 01:13:35,580
Because on Instagram, I couldn't show nipples.

1159
01:13:35,580 --> 01:13:39,060
So I couldn't even show like what breast cancer looks like on a person.

1160
01:13:39,060 --> 01:13:40,300
It's ridiculous.

1161
01:13:40,300 --> 01:13:49,260
Can't show penis, anus, vulva, like just huge things that pathology occurs in these organs.

1162
01:13:49,260 --> 01:13:53,580
And just I was limited by how much text I could put in a post.

1163
01:13:53,580 --> 01:13:58,820
Now I could write an article as long as I want with as many pictures as I want, as graphic

1164
01:13:58,820 --> 01:13:59,940
pictures as I want.

1165
01:13:59,940 --> 01:14:06,540
And I don't have somebody threatening me that they're going to take down my account.

1166
01:14:06,540 --> 01:14:11,660
And now Instagram's got to the point where I can't post anything that has to do with

1167
01:14:11,660 --> 01:14:13,460
hurting anyone or homicide.

1168
01:14:13,460 --> 01:14:17,220
I can't post anything that has to do with self harm or suicide.

1169
01:14:17,220 --> 01:14:19,460
And it's like, why can't we talk about this stuff?

1170
01:14:19,460 --> 01:14:21,100
This stuff is happening.

1171
01:14:21,100 --> 01:14:27,180
I'm not showing people glamorized getting murdered, but I'm showing what happens when

1172
01:14:27,180 --> 01:14:32,460
someone does get murdered and how maybe you could avoid that happening to you.

1173
01:14:32,460 --> 01:14:34,420
It's education.

1174
01:14:34,420 --> 01:14:37,100
It's not a sensationalism of murder.

1175
01:14:37,100 --> 01:14:39,500
Well, especially with the self harm.

1176
01:14:39,500 --> 01:14:43,820
Like you said, murder, that's someone else coming into your world and you may or may

1177
01:14:43,820 --> 01:14:45,420
not be able to prevent that.

1178
01:14:45,420 --> 01:14:51,340
But when it comes to the conversations on, like you said, self harm, cutting, addiction,

1179
01:14:51,340 --> 01:14:57,980
suicide, I've noticed that you have to do like stupid little asterisks and exclamation

1180
01:14:57,980 --> 01:15:01,420
marks in the word suicide.

1181
01:15:01,420 --> 01:15:04,620
And it's like, this is the very thing that we're trying to get people to talk about.

1182
01:15:04,620 --> 01:15:08,300
And you've literally created an environment where you've canceled any conversation on

1183
01:15:08,300 --> 01:15:09,500
mental health.

1184
01:15:09,500 --> 01:15:15,680
So I hope that Instagram eventually will start to loosen that back up again, because yeah,

1185
01:15:15,680 --> 01:15:18,140
we now know AI can create transcripts.

1186
01:15:18,140 --> 01:15:22,220
If someone's saying, oh, why don't you just kill yourself, clearly that's hate speech.

1187
01:15:22,220 --> 01:15:27,380
But if you're talking about suicide in an open, compassionate, community based way and

1188
01:15:27,380 --> 01:15:31,560
trying to educate people and open doors, that's a completely different thing.

1189
01:15:31,560 --> 01:15:38,100
But they just kind of tar with the same brush, which has created the complete opposite environment

1190
01:15:38,100 --> 01:15:41,340
of what we actually need, especially for our young people.

1191
01:15:41,340 --> 01:15:42,460
Yeah.

1192
01:15:42,460 --> 01:15:48,140
And in the gross room, when I write posts about suicide now, especially, they'll be members

1193
01:15:48,140 --> 01:15:53,320
of my group that will write like, I tried to kill myself a couple years ago, and this

1194
01:15:53,320 --> 01:15:55,180
is how I got help.

1195
01:15:55,180 --> 01:15:59,280
And then someone will say like, thank you for telling me that because I'm going through

1196
01:15:59,280 --> 01:16:00,280
that right now.

1197
01:16:00,280 --> 01:16:06,140
It's like an open forum of discussion, whereas social media right now is just complete, just

1198
01:16:06,140 --> 01:16:07,380
trolls.

1199
01:16:07,380 --> 01:16:11,700
It's just constant comments of people that would never say anything to you in real life,

1200
01:16:11,700 --> 01:16:18,020
never confront you, and just being like aggressive behind their screen or something.

1201
01:16:18,020 --> 01:16:22,740
And they don't even necessarily mean to put it towards you, but that's the environment

1202
01:16:22,740 --> 01:16:24,980
that's created on there now.

1203
01:16:24,980 --> 01:16:25,980
Absolutely.

1204
01:16:25,980 --> 01:16:27,460
Well, I want to be mindful of your time.

1205
01:16:27,460 --> 01:16:29,100
Now we've got 15 minutes left.

1206
01:16:29,100 --> 01:16:32,260
Before we go to where everyone can find all the things that you have out there, there's

1207
01:16:32,260 --> 01:16:36,460
a couple of things I want to pull out from what you said before, again, through a pathology

1208
01:16:36,460 --> 01:16:37,460
lens.

1209
01:16:37,460 --> 01:16:39,980
The first thing you talked about miscarriages.

1210
01:16:39,980 --> 01:16:45,540
Now I don't have data, but it seems like a lot of my men and women, my brothers and sisters

1211
01:16:45,540 --> 01:16:51,780
in uniform struggle with fertility and seem to struggle even with miscarriages too.

1212
01:16:51,780 --> 01:16:59,340
So firstly, are we seeing nationally an increase in that?

1213
01:16:59,340 --> 01:17:03,700
And have you even been exposed to any statistics when it comes to that?

1214
01:17:03,700 --> 01:17:06,820
I don't know statistic wise, and I can't say.

1215
01:17:06,820 --> 01:17:12,660
I think a lot of it is, again, you have all of these environmental factors that are different

1216
01:17:12,660 --> 01:17:14,660
now.

1217
01:17:14,660 --> 01:17:18,900
But just talking to real life, talking to someone like my mom.

1218
01:17:18,900 --> 01:17:25,140
My mom went through a couple of miscarriages before she had us, and she seems to think

1219
01:17:25,140 --> 01:17:30,700
that this has been going on a long time, but you just didn't talk about it back then.

1220
01:17:30,700 --> 01:17:35,060
It was a hush hush thing.

1221
01:17:35,060 --> 01:17:38,260
She would have killed my father if he told one of his friends that she had a miscarriage

1222
01:17:38,260 --> 01:17:40,820
kind of thing.

1223
01:17:40,820 --> 01:17:45,500
Whereas now you're saying one of your friends is saying his wife had a miscarriage.

1224
01:17:45,500 --> 01:17:51,660
A lot of it is just culturally, there's more awareness to it and more normalization of

1225
01:17:51,660 --> 01:17:52,660
it.

1226
01:17:52,660 --> 01:17:57,380
I don't know if there's anything else to it.

1227
01:17:57,380 --> 01:18:02,780
I've known a couple of women that I've worked with over the years that have gone for fertility

1228
01:18:02,780 --> 01:18:07,220
treatment, and some of them, I feel it was really valid.

1229
01:18:07,220 --> 01:18:11,340
They were really having a hard time for years getting pregnant.

1230
01:18:11,340 --> 01:18:15,940
Some of them, I was like, yo, you've been trying for six months.

1231
01:18:15,940 --> 01:18:16,940
Relax.

1232
01:18:16,940 --> 01:18:22,260
Because again, my mom is an example of someone that couldn't get pregnant for a couple years,

1233
01:18:22,260 --> 01:18:28,140
but she ended up naturally having three children and she had two miscarriages or something,

1234
01:18:28,140 --> 01:18:32,500
which she's okay with talking about now, by the way.

1235
01:18:32,500 --> 01:18:37,180
But yeah, so it could be a combination of environmental factors and stuff and just also

1236
01:18:37,180 --> 01:18:39,900
just awareness of it.

1237
01:18:39,900 --> 01:18:45,220
Now the other side of that, the kind of almost shame that comes with a loss, what did I do

1238
01:18:45,220 --> 01:18:46,740
wrong?

1239
01:18:46,740 --> 01:18:52,740
I think one of the conversations that seems to be lost is the body's incredible innate

1240
01:18:52,740 --> 01:18:57,100
ability to heal itself, innate ability to know when something is right and something

1241
01:18:57,100 --> 01:18:58,980
is wrong.

1242
01:18:58,980 --> 01:19:06,060
With some of these miscarried fetuses, did they more often not seem healthy or were you

1243
01:19:06,060 --> 01:19:09,740
ever able to find a reason why possibly they were aborted by the body?

1244
01:19:09,740 --> 01:19:16,500
Yeah, so I mean, that's what I always try to tell a mom that had a miscarriage is just,

1245
01:19:16,500 --> 01:19:22,620
this is like a good thing that this happened because your body most of the time does not

1246
01:19:22,620 --> 01:19:27,940
reject something that is good like that.

1247
01:19:27,940 --> 01:19:33,140
So it's rejecting this fetus because there's something wrong with this fetus and you don't

1248
01:19:33,140 --> 01:19:37,940
want to deal with having this fetus born into a baby that's going to have problems for the

1249
01:19:37,940 --> 01:19:39,260
rest of their life.

1250
01:19:39,260 --> 01:19:45,140
So it's like nature's way of getting rid of something that didn't go right.

1251
01:19:45,140 --> 01:19:51,620
And yes, most of the time they would say that a miscarried fetus is because of a genetic

1252
01:19:51,620 --> 01:19:59,140
anomaly, we do send, in some cases send the tissue for genetics to see if they could find

1253
01:19:59,140 --> 01:20:00,140
something.

1254
01:20:00,140 --> 01:20:05,460
And again, that only tests for X amount of genetic diseases, not every single genetic

1255
01:20:05,460 --> 01:20:07,740
disease that exists.

1256
01:20:07,740 --> 01:20:12,460
So just because it's negative doesn't mean that the fetus didn't have a genetic disease.

1257
01:20:12,460 --> 01:20:16,900
There are these like rare times too where there's something, the fetus is completely

1258
01:20:16,900 --> 01:20:19,500
healthy but there's something wrong with the placenta.

1259
01:20:19,500 --> 01:20:23,580
It didn't form right, a blood clot got behind the placenta.

1260
01:20:23,580 --> 01:20:29,340
But unfortunately, there's nothing that you can do to stop that, especially early on in

1261
01:20:29,340 --> 01:20:30,700
a pregnancy.

1262
01:20:30,700 --> 01:20:36,460
If someone starts having a clot behind their placenta when they're 10 weeks pregnant, I

1263
01:20:36,460 --> 01:20:40,220
mean, I don't even know how you would go in and fix that.

1264
01:20:40,220 --> 01:20:48,620
And it sucks because the baby's fine or the fetus is fine but the placenta is not.

1265
01:20:48,620 --> 01:20:51,860
But yeah, you see a whole bunch of different things.

1266
01:20:51,860 --> 01:20:57,340
We get late term miscarriages, 35 weeks and stuff.

1267
01:20:57,340 --> 01:21:01,020
It could have so many different factors to do with it.

1268
01:21:01,020 --> 01:21:02,180
Yeah, well, thank you.

1269
01:21:02,180 --> 01:21:07,980
I think that's an important perspective because for most people it's just quote unquote, a

1270
01:21:07,980 --> 01:21:11,520
natural abortion miscarriage.

1271
01:21:11,520 --> 01:21:17,700
But again, if we're not painting the picture that the body knows what it's doing, these

1272
01:21:17,700 --> 01:21:21,740
parents are left with, like I said, with guilt and shame, like, what did we do wrong?

1273
01:21:21,740 --> 01:21:26,620
It must have been the round of golf I played or whatever the hell it was, instead of trusting

1274
01:21:26,620 --> 01:21:30,820
the fact that as you said, the body will let you know.

1275
01:21:30,820 --> 01:21:33,840
When the baby's healthy, the body will go full term.

1276
01:21:33,840 --> 01:21:36,900
So give yourself some grace.

1277
01:21:36,900 --> 01:21:42,260
One other area, I don't know if you've been exposed to this, but when it comes to the

1278
01:21:42,260 --> 01:21:48,780
smart inside, sadly, when it comes to TBI, and this is more so for combat athletes and

1279
01:21:48,780 --> 01:21:55,420
also our military and some of the law enforcement, the CTE seems to be behind some of the acute

1280
01:21:55,420 --> 01:21:57,560
mental health struggles.

1281
01:21:57,560 --> 01:22:05,260
Have you come across any kind of autopsy where you found that the brain had been damaged

1282
01:22:05,260 --> 01:22:08,700
from some sort of trauma if you'd known the background of the individual?

1283
01:22:08,700 --> 01:22:11,220
Yeah, we used to do a lot.

1284
01:22:11,220 --> 01:22:16,860
We were associated with a neuro hospital, so we would do a lot of just brain only autopsies

1285
01:22:16,860 --> 01:22:21,340
for research and things like that.

1286
01:22:21,340 --> 01:22:27,940
I didn't specifically work on any cases of CTE, and especially I feel like in the past

1287
01:22:27,940 --> 01:22:32,140
10 years, it's been getting more and more recognition where it wasn't even a thing,

1288
01:22:32,140 --> 01:22:34,180
like when I was in PA school.

1289
01:22:34,180 --> 01:22:37,580
I didn't even learn about, well, I won't say that.

1290
01:22:37,580 --> 01:22:43,620
We learned about boxing trauma that we would see in boxers and dementia that you would

1291
01:22:43,620 --> 01:22:49,540
see in boxers, which is probably now what would be considered to be CTE, but that was

1292
01:22:49,540 --> 01:22:55,260
only 15 years ago I went to PA school or whatever.

1293
01:22:55,260 --> 01:22:59,540
It's a new and upcoming topic, and I think it's really, really important.

1294
01:22:59,540 --> 01:23:03,540
I actually vent with my husband about this all the time with these football players that

1295
01:23:03,540 --> 01:23:08,540
they're getting these, in my opinion, young kids that they're taking advantage of and

1296
01:23:08,540 --> 01:23:13,380
just throwing a lot of money at them and not caring what their life is going to be like

1297
01:23:13,380 --> 01:23:19,660
when they're in their 30s and retire from football, and they have severe brain damage.

1298
01:23:19,660 --> 01:23:25,340
CTE can cause you to go completely nuts at the end of your life and just psychosis and

1299
01:23:25,340 --> 01:23:29,820
not being a nice person to your family, dementia.

1300
01:23:29,820 --> 01:23:34,580
It's a lot to consider when you want to put yourself in a career where you know you're

1301
01:23:34,580 --> 01:23:36,340
getting repeated head trauma.

1302
01:23:36,340 --> 01:23:37,340
Absolutely.

1303
01:23:37,340 --> 01:23:38,900
Well, it's an important conversation.

1304
01:23:38,900 --> 01:23:43,500
I think if you watch the Aaron Hernandez documentary, I think they found that at the end of his,

1305
01:23:43,500 --> 01:23:45,940
and that was obviously a homicide.

1306
01:23:45,940 --> 01:23:47,740
Then Junior Sayers, I think, was another one.

1307
01:23:47,740 --> 01:23:52,020
It was a suicide, but he shot himself in the chest knowing that it was something in his

1308
01:23:52,020 --> 01:23:55,380
mind that was great in that.

1309
01:23:55,380 --> 01:24:02,140
We have a responsibility as parents, as coaches, as members of schools to minimize the impact.

1310
01:24:02,140 --> 01:24:08,420
You can have so many elements of a football game without constant head trauma, and the

1311
01:24:08,420 --> 01:24:10,780
same with our young martial artists too.

1312
01:24:10,780 --> 01:24:13,860
If you're going to become a fighter, at certainly some point, you're going to have to get hit

1313
01:24:13,860 --> 01:24:17,620
in the head, but what can we do to minimize that in the gym as well?

1314
01:24:17,620 --> 01:24:20,580
Then, again, our military, the practicing, the breaching.

1315
01:24:20,580 --> 01:24:25,460
Again, how can we look at that and minimize the amount of exposure the concussive force

1316
01:24:25,460 --> 01:24:27,380
are you going to get in uniform?

1317
01:24:27,380 --> 01:24:30,020
These are really, really important conversations.

1318
01:24:30,020 --> 01:24:32,620
Yeah, there was also a wrestler.

1319
01:24:32,620 --> 01:24:36,100
I think his name was Chris Benet.

1320
01:24:36,100 --> 01:24:37,100
Benoit.

1321
01:24:37,100 --> 01:24:38,100
Does that sound right?

1322
01:24:38,100 --> 01:24:39,100
Yeah, Benoit.

1323
01:24:39,100 --> 01:24:40,100
Yeah.

1324
01:24:40,100 --> 01:24:44,740
He killed his, I believe, his wife and his child.

1325
01:24:44,740 --> 01:24:45,740
Same thing.

1326
01:24:45,740 --> 01:24:49,220
They found that he potentially had CTE.

1327
01:24:49,220 --> 01:24:54,980
We actually just went to, over Christmas time, we went to Key West and we visited the Ernest

1328
01:24:54,980 --> 01:24:56,880
Hemingway house.

1329
01:24:56,880 --> 01:25:01,820
On the way home, we were watching a documentary about his life and everything.

1330
01:25:01,820 --> 01:25:08,560
I think that he had it too, honestly, because he had multiple situations where he had head

1331
01:25:08,560 --> 01:25:13,900
trauma from being first in the military, but then he was in a plane accident.

1332
01:25:13,900 --> 01:25:19,260
He had all of these different times that he had a traumatic brain injury.

1333
01:25:19,260 --> 01:25:24,220
Then, towards the end of his life, he was also an alcoholic, but aside from that, he

1334
01:25:24,220 --> 01:25:33,140
was having psychosis at the end of his life and hearing voices and things like that.

1335
01:25:33,140 --> 01:25:35,540
That was my first thought, was that he had CTE.

1336
01:25:35,540 --> 01:25:36,540
Yeah.

1337
01:25:36,540 --> 01:25:42,020
I think you combine possibly a rough childhood.

1338
01:25:42,020 --> 01:25:46,580
Now you have the precursor to mental health struggles, and then you add in CTE.

1339
01:25:46,580 --> 01:25:48,740
If you look at it one dimensionally, they're, oh, he was an addict.

1340
01:25:48,740 --> 01:25:49,740
He was an alcoholic.

1341
01:25:49,740 --> 01:25:52,620
He was violent, but what was causing that?

1342
01:25:52,620 --> 01:25:58,020
Unaddressed trauma, problems physiologically in the brain, all the things.

1343
01:25:58,020 --> 01:26:04,940
If it's just reported as he was a cold-blooded killer that murdered his family, again, we're

1344
01:26:04,940 --> 01:26:09,820
disregarding the lessons if we don't reverse engineer what happens in all these situations.

1345
01:26:09,820 --> 01:26:10,820
Agreed.

1346
01:26:10,820 --> 01:26:13,860
I know we're running out of time here.

1347
01:26:13,860 --> 01:26:19,460
Where can people find The Gross Room, find your Instagram profile, and your podcast as

1348
01:26:19,460 --> 01:26:22,040
well?

1349
01:26:22,040 --> 01:26:24,340
The Gross Room is thegrossroom.com.

1350
01:26:24,340 --> 01:26:27,740
That's pretty easy.

1351
01:26:27,740 --> 01:26:31,140
My website, I'm so proud of it.

1352
01:26:31,140 --> 01:26:35,180
It's a cool place that I would have liked to go to when I was learning about all of

1353
01:26:35,180 --> 01:26:37,500
this stuff.

1354
01:26:37,500 --> 01:26:42,620
I post every single day lots of cases, lots of articles, and just it's a great group of

1355
01:26:42,620 --> 01:26:50,220
people, and we all can have discussions on there normal, not Instagram-like.

1356
01:26:50,220 --> 01:26:51,220
That's my website.

1357
01:26:51,220 --> 01:26:55,760
My podcast is called Mother Knows Death, and I do that with my daughter.

1358
01:26:55,760 --> 01:26:59,420
That's where the Mother Knows Death comes from.

1359
01:26:59,420 --> 01:27:04,340
That Instagram is at Mother Knows Death.

1360
01:27:04,340 --> 01:27:07,340
What was the other thing you asked?

1361
01:27:07,340 --> 01:27:16,260
My actual Instagram account is my name, at Mrs. Underscore, and Jemi, A-N-G-E-M-I.

1362
01:27:16,260 --> 01:27:20,460
It was I Heart Autopsy when I started, but my account got deleted so many times.

1363
01:27:20,460 --> 01:27:25,540
I just had to keep coming up with different names for my account.

1364
01:27:25,540 --> 01:27:28,340
That's what it is, but that's my main Instagram account.

1365
01:27:28,340 --> 01:27:32,740
I still post on there every week, but the majority of my content goes into The Gross

1366
01:27:32,740 --> 01:27:33,740
Room now.

1367
01:27:33,740 --> 01:27:34,740
Beautiful.

1368
01:27:34,740 --> 01:27:36,540
Well, I want to say thank you so much.

1369
01:27:36,540 --> 01:27:39,940
It's been such an interesting conversation.

1370
01:27:39,940 --> 01:27:45,340
We're opposite ends of the chain of survival, as they call it.

1371
01:27:45,340 --> 01:27:49,060
Obviously, people have passed by the time they end up on a table in front of you, but

1372
01:27:49,060 --> 01:27:52,460
I think there's so much value, especially comparing the two professions.

1373
01:27:52,460 --> 01:27:55,900
I want to thank you so, so much for being so generous and coming on the Behind the Shield

1374
01:27:55,900 --> 01:27:57,700
podcast today.

1375
01:27:57,700 --> 01:27:58,700
Thanks for having me.

1376
01:27:58,700 --> 01:28:09,460
Have fun.