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This episode is sponsored by a company I've used for well over a decade and that is 5.11.

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I wore their uniforms back in Anaheim, California and have used their products ever since.

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From their incredibly strong yet light footwear to their cut uniforms for both male and female

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responders, I found them hands down the best workwear in all the departments that I've worked for.

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Outside of the fire service, I use their luggage for everything and I travel a lot and they are

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also now sponsoring the 7X team as we embark around the world on the Human Performance Project.

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We have Murph coming up in May and again I bought their plate carrier. I ended up buying real

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ballistic plates rather than the fake weight plates and that has been my ride or die through

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Murph the last few years as well. But one area I want to talk about that I haven't in previous

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sponsorship spots is their brick and mortar element. They were predominantly an online

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company up till more recently but now they are approaching 100 stores all over the US.

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My local store is here in Gainesville Florida and I've been multiple times and the discounts you see

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online are applied also in the stores. So as I mentioned 511 is offering you 15% off every

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purchase that you make but I do want to say more often than not they have an even deeper discount

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especially around holiday times. But if you use the code SHIELD15 you will get 15% off your order

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or in the stores every time you make a purchase. And if you want to hear more about 511, who they

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stand for and who works with them, listen to episode 580 of Behind the Shield podcast with

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511 regional director Will Ayres. This episode is sponsored by Bubbs Naturals, yet another company

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that I track down to bring on as a sponsor because I myself love their products. They are offering

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you the audience of the Behind the Shield podcast a 20% discount but before we get to that I do want

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to highlight a few of the products that I use myself. Firstly collagen. I am about to turn 50

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and so my hair, my skin, my nails, not really a big concern when I was younger, definitely a lot more

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of a concern now. However where I've really seen the impact is joint health and gut health

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and I've been blown away that when I'm consistent using collagen, Bubbs collagen in this case,

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I see a massive improvement in both. Another area I drink coffee, love coffee and in the morning I

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use the halo creamer. Now originally I used the MCT oil powder but now they have the halo creamer

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which has also got grass-fed butter in it, a lot more creamy if you're not trying to go for the vegan

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option that they have as well. Now it's important to mention as well the altruistic element of Bubbs

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Naturals. The origin story involves Glenn Bubb Doherty, one of the two Navy SEALs killed in

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Benghazi and a good friend of the founders Sean and TJ. So 10% of every single sale goes towards

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the Glenn Doherty Foundation. Now as I mentioned before they are offering you the audience 20%

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off your purchase if you use the code SHIELD, that's S-H-I-E-L-D at bubbsnaturals.com. And finally if

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you want to hear more about their products and Glenn's powerful story, listen to episode 558

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with co-founder Sean Lake. Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast as always my name is James

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Gearing and this week it is my absolute honor to welcome on the show firefighter and cancer survivor

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Kyle O'Neill. Now this was such an important and powerful conversation. Firstly Kyle has lived

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experience with his own diagnosis, treatment and horrendous complications that he endured.

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But then he took his lessons and his journey and he applied them to helping the rest of his department.

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So as you will hear we discuss a host of topics from post-fire decontamination and PFAS,

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self-examination, what to do with a cancer diagnosis, the resources at hand, the financial

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implication, his push to remove as many barriers to entry as possible and so much more. Now before

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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 leave

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a rating. Every single five-star rating truly does elevate this podcast therefore making it easier

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for others to find. And this is a free library of over 900 episodes now. So all I ask in return is

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that you help share these incredible men and women stories so I can get them to every single

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person on planet earth who needs to hear them. So with that being said I introduce to you Kyle O'Neill.

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Enjoy. Well Kyle I want to start by saying two things. Firstly to say thank you to Mark

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Dombroski for connecting the two of us. He's been a wealth of information and brought me to several

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of the guests that are on the show already. And secondly to welcome you onto the Behind the Shield

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podcast today. James thanks for having me. I really appreciate you bringing me on today and

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allowing me to have a conversation with you about some very important topics. Absolutely. Well very

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first question. Where on planet earth to be finding you your morning my afternoon? So I live in San

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Diego and I work for a large metropolitan department in southern California. Beautiful. And so I would

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love to start at the very beginning of your timeline. Obviously we're going to get some

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pertinent chapters in your career but tell me where you were born and tell me a little bit about your

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family dynamic. What your parents did, how many siblings? Yeah so born and raised in San Diego

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California. Grew up in an area kind of right near the beach, Ocean Beach, Pueblo area of San Diego

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which is a you know small beach town community. Let's see my parents were my mom and dad split

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when I was five and so then my mom ended up remarrying and that's when I moved down into the

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the Ocean Beach area. I actually currently live there. Funny thing is I never thought I'd be able

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to own there but life's been good. Family dynamics. I have an older brother two and a half years older

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than me, a sister who's five years older than me. We all are really really close. I've had a very

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close upbringing. My grandparents brought us all obviously moved here and the only reason we ended

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up here is my grandfather was shot in World War II and was treated here in San Diego and years later

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talked my grandmother into moving down this way. They're both since gone but my family all my

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closest relatives are here in San Diego so just a close family. Grew up I'm a kid of the 80s. Grew

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up in the 80s and had a lot of fun growing up. A lot of freedom and just having yeah really good

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life growing up and now I'm married. I've been married for 13 years and have two wonderful

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daughters that are 11 and 8 and yeah just a really really good life so far. Beautiful.

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I would love to go two generations back just for a second. The reason being I just interviewed two

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World War II veterans in November live on stage and they I think were 99 and 98 I think the ages

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were and so that's a generation that we're losing and you know some of their heroism obviously is

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well documented in the books but the real impact of the war the human experience and their homecoming

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experience I think has been a little distorted and a lot of kind of fairy tales told the greatest

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generation which they were but kind of this projection of they were fine you know and a

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lot of times they weren't and you hear this over and over again. What was your experience with your

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grandfather? Did he ever discuss the the war itself or did you ever see the impact of the war as you

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were you know younger in life? That's a great question. As a young kid I remember my brother

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and I both we were really close to my grandfather. I also have three other cousins but they're younger

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but what I remember is I remember the scar on my grandfather's hand where he took a bullet

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but I never felt comfortable asking him questions about the war. It just felt like a topic that was

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kind of off limits to some degree. It felt like you know it just didn't didn't feel appropriate

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at the time. It wasn't until both my brother and I got older and my brother more than me

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started asking more questions to my grandfather. My grandfather since passed he passed away at

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the age of 91. He lived a great life. He was a wonderful man but he did towards his later years

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had developed dementia and some things kind of randomly came out during that that time period

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of probably about eight to ten years of seeing him kind of decline because of age etc. So what we

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know about him is he was a an LCM operator. He talked about one specific thing I really remember

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well is he talked about names going up on a board and if you're a landing craft operator

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he mentioned you never went in a straight line because he was in the South Pacific and they were

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taking the landing craft to the beach and dropping off I assume soldiers and equipment and he said

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you never went in a straight line you always zigged and zagged because that's how you could avoid

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being hit. But it almost sounded to me the way you described your name your name going up on this

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board if you will is you're like you your name would go up and it and then when it came up it

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was your turn and you had to be ready to go. Almost kind of like just how else to describe it other

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than you know if you're you're like winning an unfortunate lottery if you will like your number

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keeps coming up over and over again and I assume at some point you're wondering I hope my number

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doesn't come up anymore to have to drive this thing to the beach because you know how many of

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those times you're going to make it. I'll also say too he did get wounded I knew that was a thing as

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a young kid and you know he never complained he never complained about being a

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over there he went in I want to say at the age of 17 he was born in 1925 so kind of when the war

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started if you do the math people you know that in that area generally speaking they wanted to go

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fight for their country and that was exactly what he did and I want to say he served two or three

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years total and then he was released he got I don't think he was a soldier but he was a soldier

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and then he was released he got I don't think he went back after he got shot in the hand I don't

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think they would allow him back into war but yeah I was I have fond memories of my grandfather and

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again it's it's I wish I would ask him more questions but it was one of those things out

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of respect to him I I really didn't feel comfortable asking him very specific questions.

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Yeah my granddad was the same he was one of the crew in the Auckland Islands which is right up in

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Scotland and they shot down the very first German bomber over the UK but same thing he was tight

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lipped and I think you know like a lot of a lot of kids kind of start to probe and I think they

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get the same kind of reaction because I feel like that generation back then were forced to bury it

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down you know and sometimes they were able to process that and it was a healthy process and

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they had a long you know healthy life but I think a lot of them suffered the same way that a lot of

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our modern day veterans do and it's sad because we romanticize about how well they dealt with it and

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a lot of a lot of them didn't and what they saw and had to do I think there's very few people

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in uniform that have matched that kind of horror that the World War II era endured.

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I I agree wholeheartedly what they must have seen and went through I mean we have I feel like

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you know you talk about with PTS you know when there's it's important to do those

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critical incidents stress diffusings into briefings because if you bring all the different

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components together you're you're able to fill in the gaps of information that if you didn't

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your mind would create on its own for example for us here we bring our dispatchers fire EMS police

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in the same room to discuss what happened and everybody shares their different story and it

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helps build the real story in your own head to help you process it and and likewise with what

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we're discussing it's you know that era that generation you know they they didn't have that

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they didn't know that so those there's a lot of things there that are probably missing so

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and what I was wanted to relate that to is like so with my grandfather not really telling me all

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the details because mainly because I didn't ask we go and see a movie Saving Private Ryan or

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something like that for example and in my own mind am I creating this this whole thing of what might

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have happened with my grandfather but not really knowing exactly all the things he went through

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but you're absolutely right and I 100 agree with you that they went through some really bad stuff

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and the stories are probably a lot worse than we realize absolutely well what about military and

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first responders you had your grandfather anyone else in your family that was in uniform

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so my my maternal grandfather was in World War II he was in the navy and then my paternal

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grandfather was in the army and was in Korean War obviously different age groups so that's where

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that falls in my uncle was also in the army but then from there on out the next generation

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did not go down that path in fact I think I'm I'm the only one in my family that I know of that

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actually went into firefighting so what about at the school age what were you playing in

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as far as athletics and sports yeah so growing up I grew up playing a lot of different sports a

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variety everything from football soccer baseball let's see I tried different things I tried

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martial arts growing up but by the time I got to high school I really narrowed it down to

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football wrestling and track and track and field I did the shot putting discus kind of a bigger guy

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wrestling I wrestled heavyweights and then eventually lightweight heavyweights

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and then played I was a tackle both offensive defense during high school football played all

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all the years I was just busy it kept me busy kept me out of trouble

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I guess you could say one thing I would say tell anybody about sports in general

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the one sport that taught me the most was wrestling

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it was the one thing that I've done in my life where you couldn't blame anybody else for losing

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you either win or you don't and when you put in all the work and the effort to to beat the person

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they're your opponents coming up you'd either at either a wrestling match that's like a

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city match or if you're gonna if we had to wrestle at a competition where we were

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going up against multiple people it's it's a lot of people are going to be going up against

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multiple people it's it's you you have to take ownership for the loss and so put in the work and

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the effort and so that that actually is one of the things I like to tell the young guys is

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you know try different things try you know push yourself because it'll make you better and that

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that was the one sport that I think really shaped me as an individual and got me ready for the fire

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service. You just answered the question I was going to ask because you know the individual sport

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versus the team sport it's an interesting dynamic when people have done both. I had the founder of

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the Iron Neck and have you ever seen that but it's a neck strengthening tool it's incredible and you

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know great application for us in the fire service and martial arts and the stunt world that I've

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been a part of as well but he was a wrestler and a football player and I asked him you know how did

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how did wrestling or football help you with you know we do a development as an athlete and his

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and his answer was wrestling helped him immensely with football he said but football was detrimental

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to wrestling did you have the same experience? No not detrimental so the last part it wasn't

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detrimental to football football or wrestling definitely helped me for uh so excuse me wrestling

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definitely helped me for football and was the reason I got into is I've been I was a lineman

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I've been a lineman basically my entire youth playing football and then into high school and one

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of the coaches at the end of football season says hey you really should think about wrestling and

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they could use a guy a bigger guy like your size so when I started high school I was 215 pounds

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was a big kid I kind of grew quick because I'm probably about 225 now so I haven't grown a lot

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since but it became a natural fit and the other thing is is I had a long-time childhood friend

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who is my brother's age three years older than me who was in the as a wrestler as well and he

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encouraged me to do it just because he thought I would be good at it one thing I didn't mention

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this is something important about that sport is so I when I wrestled my freshman year I lost every

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match I didn't win a single match and I wanted to win and I wanted to learn how to get better

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but because of all those losses I kept at it I kept pushing myself and I just got stronger

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and I got more hungry to to be better and actually win a match and my sophomore year I remember this

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really well I actually did something it's called a Japanese arm throw I threw the guy put him on his

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back and I had him he was turning blue that's how hard I was squeezing I'm trying to pin this guy

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to the mat so I won my first match and then the rest was history after that I got a taste of what

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it was like to win what it took to win how hard I had to work my wrestling coach was a long-time

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wrestling coach he was really hard on us but it like you want to talk about shaping character and

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and paving a path for people to be successful is you give them the skills and the tools and you

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show them what it's like once they get that taste of a victory then then the rest rest is you know

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up to you how how far do you want to go did you do play football and wrestle at the same time

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I think that was what Mike's comment was that he was so beaten up from football that he was he was

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kind of you know a shadow of himself when it came to wrestling practice when he wasn't playing

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wasn't playing football at the same time his wrestling was incredibly strong understood yeah

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no so for us here in the west coast football and wrestling are different seasons so wrestling is a

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winter sport one thing I do I do remember too is I wanted to play baseball but I wasn't allowed to

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because if you wanted to play baseball you had to play winter ball to be able to play spring ball

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and I wasn't I got into wrestling and so no I wasn't beat up you know I would always come out

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of wrestling football season heavy for some reason I guess I just didn't get quite as much exercise

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or burn quite as many calories so it always kind of started as a higher weight class and then

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eventually with wrestling because the work was so hard I mean you're probably familiar with monkey

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rolls we would do monkey rolls which are like a figure eight of three you have three people

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to one laying down in the middle two on each side and you're just jumping over each other and

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rolling and doing push-ups and basically you're doing that for 15 minutes in a hot you know heated

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room and amongst all the other stuff we would do you couldn't we couldn't keep the weight on so I

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I would always go from heavyweight to light heavyweight at some point in the season and

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so no I wasn't beat up from from football I was I would I that would be tough having to do both

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would be a definitely a big challenge what did you notice mentally when you got that first win

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because it's funny I talked about this a few times on here I did taekwondo not quite the the impact

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of football or wrestling but I went into a tournament I went up against a friend of mine

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I'm all tippy-tappy smiley like we are in in the class and he fucking destroyed me and so from then

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on it was something switched and I shifted my training I'd be up in I live on a farm so I'd be

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up in the the bedroom I had a heavy bag hanging from the ceiling through the attic space and I

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would just drill for hours and hours and hours and I started winning and winning and winning and

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winning and I'd never had that kind of you know for lack of a better word killer instinct until

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someone would kick my ass was that kind of similar for you was it was was there a certain point where

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you turned that corner and you found a different part of yourself yeah just something inside I

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I just remember I've always been kind of a nice soft-spoken kid growing up um tough I felt like I

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was a tough kid growing up and I grew up you know I was one of those kids that left the house in the

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morning on the weekend and came home when it was dark and there were no cell phones and parents

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kind of knew we were somewhere safe and they knew we would be home and we kind of fended for ourselves

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for different things and I experienced things along the way but I think there was a moment where I

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just got tired of losing and I just told myself that I some something something inside of me

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became like you know just like straight out of rocky or something like you dig down super deep

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to a place that you didn't know existed and then what comes of that is a bigger better version of

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yourself that and I just just built this toughness and one thing I will tell you you talked about one

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one sport affecting another I decided to start boxing after high school and I had to unlearn

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the wrestling stance because in boxing you have to narrow your your plane so that you don't get hit

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right so you're you're going from this square stance to like a profiled stance at an angle and

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so that was that was one area that impacted me later on but still to this day I think it's

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one of the greatest sports if there's the team aspect to it when you're when you're wrestling

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team competitions and but then there's the the personal aspect and the you know similar to boxing

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can you can't blame anybody if you lose it's it's it's on you 100 if you're going to win that match

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or not absolutely well from the career aspect then you didn't have anyone in your immediate family

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that was in the first responder profession were you dreaming of the fire service when you were in

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school or was there something else in mind yeah so what happened was is my senior year in high school

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we were required to do what's called a senior portfolio upon exit from high school and

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essentially what this was was a three members from the public come in and they were kind of all walks

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of life if you will and you had one of those like foam boards and would put up your four years of

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what you did in high school and and then talk about not only what we did but then what we were going

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to do after high school and it just so happens that there was a division chief from a local fire

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department in that group and after everything was done he pulled me aside and says hey how would you

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like to come do a ride along at my fire department I sure I took him up on it and that was my first

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exposure to the fire service and and he you know I started to learn a little bit everything I learned

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as I went really really made me like it because I was one of those people that really had that

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mindset of I don't really want to be behind a desk but this this I could do so that's kind of where

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it all started for me initially was that that experience and then that offer and just taking a

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leap of faith was that department you're with now was it another department went to first

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it was a different department I didn't end up working for them but what stemmed off of that was

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uh I had a neighbor the street that I grew up on this old guy that used to walk up and down the

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block and I would see him every just about every afternoon he says hey you know Kyle there's this

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old fire captain up the street you gotta go talk to him you know uh he he knows his stuff and he

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might be able to help you out and again one day I got the courage to go up there and ring his doorbell

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which was a pull station funny funny enough here the actual pull station and uh little did I know

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he was actually one of the most well-respected uh captains on my department they have a building

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named after him um and he got me pointed in the right direction with the fire cadet program here

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and I got involved with that was in that for um from 18 to 21 and then with my my current department

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um there was a few things that run concurrently with that but essentially um for three years that

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my life I ate slept and breathed fire department and then eventually got picked up with the current

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my current department at the age of 21. So this is an interesting topic that's coming up a lot

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recently because of the nationwide recruitment crisis and I don't think you know we're in we're

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in the landscape now where people are scrambling they just put bums on seats in a lot of departments

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and it breaks my heart because I don't think our younger firefighters know what hiring looked like

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when you and I first came on so I got hired in 2004 and I was testing certainly and when I went

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back to west to anaheim I was testing against like a thousand plus candidates all with resumes that

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were stacked so you just mentioned a three-year gap where you're in a cadet program which by the

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way I love mentorship programs in fire service I think it's the answer to so many of our issues

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talk to me about the difficulties getting hired when you you first try to get in uniform.

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Oh very competitive I was also hired in 2004.

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Jeez it was thousands of people were taking the the initial test to get through the general

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aptitude component of the testing and all that and I just remember being in this in the groups

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with those people and just seeing how many people again I was really young I was 21 when I when I

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finally got the job but super competitive but it was like kind of we always we always talked about

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how it was competitive but like a friendly competitiveness you know we all work together

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and and some of those same people that again being friendly competitive with later got hired

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to the same department and so we all we all kind of made it in our own way but it wasn't wasn't

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easy and the department I currently work for it is it was highly sought after department so

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it drew a lot of attention I I'm throwing a random number out but I want to I think somewhere in the

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neighborhood of seven to eight thousand people took the test and then you know kind of dwindles

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down to you know maybe they only hire a hundred off of that list over the course of three academies

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you know 30 some odd people per academy and something to that nature is the intent but it's

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it's super super competitive and yeah like you mentioned there's been a shift it's it's not the

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same doesn't have the same flavor anymore it concerns me in a lot of ways that we're not

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attracting the right people for the right reasons but there's also the component that we need to

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we need to take better care of our firefighters from a higher level ensuring you know adequate

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pay and you know I don't know why any of the benefits would be going away in any way shape

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or form especially things that we used to have like lifetime medical and with so many firefighters

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you know getting having some long-term health consequences you know those things would be

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really important and probably draw more people in and we also just need to focus our energies on

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health and safety of members and then put our efforts there that could be a recruitment tool

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in and of itself is like our department has a robust health and safety operation so taking

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care of our members we need to make sure that they're the highest priority and one thing I'll

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speak to is I wrote a grant some years back and was fortunate to get the award for that grant

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it's 47 PPE washing extractors and I finished that that grant writing with the most important

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resource in the fire service is not the fire engine but the fire personnel and what my I'm

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I still stand behind that it's our membership they matter the most it's the people we got to

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put all our time and effort into making sure that they're properly taken care of and one of the

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things I'll finish with here is that my my boss taught me one thing really important he says we've

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always been so concerned about our members making it home safely and in the health and safety arena

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the perspective kind of shifts towards making sure that our members come back to work safely

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and healthy and in one piece because our home lives there's things that go on everybody's got

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stuff things that don't go right at home and the things that they say well back in the day they

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would just say well just leave it at the door and nothing that happened at home should come into

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work well unfortunately it does and that's the reality so we have to have things in place that

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help our members that essentially that that help them take care of themselves give them the

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resources that they need ensure that they're well taken care of through all kinds of different

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things and I don't want to go into all of them but we we can do better and we have to because

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the fire service has changed we're not running um the call volume has just gone through the roof

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and we're not expanding our departments fast enough to to keep up with this demand of the of

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the public whereas there's much more public a 911 abuse than I can recall from my earlier years in

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my in my career um there's and they and they as you mentioned recruitment we didn't need recruitment

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when I came on the department that's it that that whole thing blew me away when that started because

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it spoke for itself and there was people just chomping at the bit to get hired on the fire

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service and now we're we're in a different completely different phase and it's a different

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generation too there's some of the generational things that I think we could do better at is just

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kind of learning how we can best communicate with the newer generation etc so I'll kind of pause there

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no no I think these are such important conversation it's great when I have someone that's you know

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kind of my generation some of the guests have been on a lot longer than I have but

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it kind of shines a light on what it was like for us and how competitive it was and I agree a thousand

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percent studying with other firefighters trying to get one of those positions not stepping on each

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other or stabbing each other in the back but just you know helping each other trying to training

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together all those things but what my perspective in is interesting because you said a phrase that

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we always talk about make sure they go home the next day we never say make sure they go home more

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often and we look at what's going on at home one of the big reasons why we have issues at home is

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that we don't get to go home very much and so correct me if I'm wrong you guys are 56 hour

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work week do you have a kelly or no kelly 56 yeah so so yeah so 56 so there we go so when you and

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I were hiring bright-eyed and bushy tail no one was talking about seat deprivation mental health

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you know hardly anyone was talking about cancer in the fire service no one was talking about

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you know divorce and you know uh overdose and addiction and all the things and that's not

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the entire fire service but it's the part that they kind of kept on the shelf out the way from

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everyone and so we could just be rah rah rah you know getting the job and love it and we did

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generationally we always talk about you know these newer guys kind of you know in a kind of looking

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down lens I think what's happened is that there's been an awakening because this young generation

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now has so much information at their fingertips they can look at the fire service that you and

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I never could because they can see the whole picture and now when they see 56 hour weeks and

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they see mandatory overtime and they see all these other things that they factor into the equation

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of a job to be proud of and service and camaraderie and all the good things they look at the whole

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puzzle and go this doesn't sound as good as everyone was saying this doesn't look to me like I

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I only work 10 days a month this looks like I work one and a half times more than every civilian I

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know actually when you do the math so this is one of the things I think that we're it's exciting

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because we're a paradigm shift now the world has realized or the US at least has realized

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all the things that are contributing to killing our firefighters and we're going to get to obviously

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other factors so we have the most beautiful opportunity to fix it because either a we go

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down to minimal recruiting where we have to basically take everyone which includes the good

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ones and the bad ones or be in some departments we might not have a department anymore we might

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not have firefighters anymore so I look at it optimistically like we've turned a corner where

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we have the option to really go back to the old day where people are queuing up lining up to become

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a firefighter if the department has the courage to actually advocate for their people put you know

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workplace health initiatives in which includes more rest and recovery between shifts because

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of the high up tempo of a firefighter in 2024 and therefore we solve that and we make a huge dent in

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all the issues that we see so that's kind of my perspective I agree wholeheartedly that

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is a really good summary of the way of explaining that yeah it really there has been an awakening

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and I think you're right and the technology is a huge huge part of that I think when we started

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realizing these things were problems too is that we just opened up pandora's you know this pandora's

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box if you will of information like I remember so I'll get into it here if it's okay I just talk a

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little bit about being a cancer survivor and please let's go yeah yeah so you know I'm really

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proud of being a firefighter I actually became a firefighter in 2003 and I was a reserve for a local

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Indian reservation Native American reservation fire department and first shift in a fire station

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believe it or not I go in two hours into my shift I get called out to the apparatus bay and

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you're going to go on a strike team and didn't know this but it led to nine days being deployed

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first to the Grand Prix fire in San Bernardino and then four days into it we we were demobilized

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and sent back to the cedar fire here in San Diego and it what I what I think about in retrospect of

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that whole time was how much experience I gained in a really short amount of time that and now

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how much exposure I had in a really short amount of time and how we fought those types of wild

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and urban interface fires it wasn't fought in structure gear and we didn't think about using

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our SCBAs yeah so many things cycled through my head and it's kind of a just you opened up a random

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thought there but if you start if I think if all of us were really to sit down as firefighters and

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start thinking about how many times we've been exposed throughout our career if you've been on

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any amount of time you're going to start to realize really quickly that you've been exposed a lot

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it's not and I know we've talked previously and it's not just the the the fire ground exposures

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that's the problem it's the culture it's the sleep deprivation it's this whole huge mixture of of

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things that are are leading to adverse health effects in our firefighters so uh yeah so I got

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diagnosed back in 2016 with a mid-grade form of cancer spent a year and a half on the sidelines

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in part due to the treatment from the cancer the cancer treatment and actually I had quite a few

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complications unfortunately that not everybody would have but certainly infections and pulmonary

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embolisms and things kind of set me back and kept me out longer than I needed to be and I feel very

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fortunate that I made it back but that kind of was a turning point for me in my life because I

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was so frustrated because I felt I kind of felt cheated I felt like I had given so much of my

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of my life to the fire service and as I mentioned being very proud of being a firefighter but also

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working at busy companies putting myself in harm's way more than if I went to a slower station and

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and just kind of kicked my feet up but I definitely like going back in my mind and thinking of all the

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times where I made mistakes and I could have done better and I and now that fire service is no longer

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in my mind that that fire service shouldn't exist anymore but unfortunately because of the cultural

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barriers that we face in today's fire service we have we still have all these problems and we have

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policies and we have SOGs and we've done infrastructure changes but we haven't fixed the

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crux of the problem which I think ultimately comes down to better leadership and the the people that

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they can make those changes they can be firm in their stance on things have to do those things

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in order to protect the people underneath them so I might have wandered a little bit on that question

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no no no this is the space for wandering wander away um it's interesting when you were talking

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I had a concept I never thought about before and it's you know it would be it would have to take a

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little um open-mindedness but if say that there was no fire service and you had to create one from

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scratch here in 2024 would we do the things that we do at the moment and the answer is no because

388
00:40:50,160 --> 00:40:55,280
you would look at for example health and safety standards from companies that deal with hazardous

389
00:40:55,280 --> 00:41:00,160
materials and bio hazards so the way that you looked at decon and PPE would be completely

390
00:41:00,160 --> 00:41:05,040
different the way that you looked at rest and recovery and shifts would be completely different

391
00:41:05,040 --> 00:41:10,240
but I feel just as you said earlier that there was absolutely an application when we were literally

392
00:41:10,240 --> 00:41:16,240
sitting around a firehouse playing you know cards stroking the dalmatian and waiting for a fire

393
00:41:16,240 --> 00:41:23,120
period but what we have now jack of all trades master of none you know ems fire rope rescue

394
00:41:23,120 --> 00:41:29,120
confined space you name it snake retrieval I've done I've done some of that too um you know we

395
00:41:29,120 --> 00:41:36,640
we really are just spread so thin and that's okay if the environment the health and safety side the

396
00:41:36,640 --> 00:41:44,080
PPE the advances in technology had gone along with it but the that mentality has stayed back

397
00:41:44,080 --> 00:41:52,000
in the 1950s but as you pointed out 70 years later what we do is completely unrecognizable

398
00:41:52,000 --> 00:41:59,360
to our forefathers a couple of generations before right and we I think to factor into that as well

399
00:41:59,360 --> 00:42:07,120
is you know just look at the example of of legacy fuel fires versus modern fuel fires I mean those

400
00:42:08,240 --> 00:42:12,880
these aren't the same fires anymore and you if you I've talked to the old guys the old guys will

401
00:42:12,880 --> 00:42:17,920
say the same thing they these these the fire behavior is different the fire department's

402
00:42:17,920 --> 00:42:24,480
different a lot of things are changing I mean look at look at the more current um topics lithium ion

403
00:42:24,480 --> 00:42:30,480
right hot topic I'm sure still for a lot of departments cancer prevention's hot topic

404
00:42:30,880 --> 00:42:36,080
behavioral health all these things that if you had to start a new fire department right now

405
00:42:36,880 --> 00:42:40,800
you would have to start with that and how much more time would you spend on those topics

406
00:42:41,840 --> 00:42:48,400
as compared to you know endless days out on the grinder pulling hose and and you know

407
00:42:48,400 --> 00:42:54,080
these are the things that could kill you too when you look back now you had what 12 years

408
00:42:54,080 --> 00:42:57,920
on when you first got diagnosed have I got that right I can think back my first department was

409
00:42:57,920 --> 00:43:04,160
Hialeah Miami and then I went to Anaheim for a few years in California and I can remember the

410
00:43:04,720 --> 00:43:12,240
complacency when it came to dumpster fires when it came to overhauling car fires you know and

411
00:43:12,240 --> 00:43:18,000
then I went into to Anaheim they got a lot better even overhaul but you know there was always and

412
00:43:18,000 --> 00:43:22,720
it's understandable you know the stuff we wear is hot it's heavy you want to get it off as soon

413
00:43:22,720 --> 00:43:29,520
as you can so I saw that kind of slow movement towards getting better but you know the beginning

414
00:43:29,520 --> 00:43:35,280
of your career the beginning of my career I'm sure there were a lot of micro exposures so with that

415
00:43:35,280 --> 00:43:42,080
being said though were there any larger incidents that you look back and think maybe gave you a kind

416
00:43:42,080 --> 00:43:49,520
of macro exposure during that particular fire absolutely so the one I mentioned earlier the

417
00:43:49,520 --> 00:43:57,520
nine-day strike team for the Cedar fire in 2007 had a another nine-day strike team here locally

418
00:43:57,520 --> 00:44:05,520
it was the Witch Creek fire again this is just my my the way I like to think of the wildland

419
00:44:05,520 --> 00:44:12,560
urban interface is just you're fighting a structure fire in the wrong equipment and I've heard

420
00:44:12,560 --> 00:44:16,640
different things like oh well you should have been in structure gear well it's not realistic

421
00:44:16,640 --> 00:44:22,720
you're not going to spend nine days in structure gear and there's not enough SCBA bottles that

422
00:44:23,360 --> 00:44:28,560
you would breathe down every SCBA bottle in the department and our light and airs would never stop

423
00:44:28,560 --> 00:44:37,520
running if we were to operate that way so there's those exposures were macro in my mind a few other

424
00:44:37,520 --> 00:44:45,600
ones would be just really big you know commercial structure fires we've had quite I've had quite a

425
00:44:45,600 --> 00:44:53,520
few over the course of my career and then some of the ones where we actually were able to figure out

426
00:44:53,520 --> 00:44:59,520
what was burning and thinking about how bad that probably was I remember one of them that I was on

427
00:45:00,160 --> 00:45:06,560
there was a fairly large amount of hydrogen cyanide it was a color smoke I'd never seen before at a

428
00:45:06,560 --> 00:45:11,120
structure fire you know if you if you know anything about reading smoke it stems from

429
00:45:11,120 --> 00:45:19,120
it stems from the ISO incident safety officer course and we talk about a lot about different

430
00:45:19,120 --> 00:45:26,400
colors of smoke but we also don't really think too much about the off-color yellows or browns

431
00:45:26,400 --> 00:45:32,080
that happen occasionally when there's really bad toxic stuff burning so that that one kind of stands

432
00:45:32,080 --> 00:45:37,760
out in my mind as a another bad one so they they happen and like you said though there's probably

433
00:45:37,760 --> 00:45:42,800
a lot more of the micro exposures over the course of the career and kind of that whole

434
00:45:43,440 --> 00:45:49,280
mindset of like you know rocks in the backpack or drops in the bucket and and you know you fill it

435
00:45:49,280 --> 00:45:55,680
up the more the more you fill it up the worse your chances of getting a you know a diagnosis for cancer

436
00:45:55,680 --> 00:46:00,720
is or if it's on the behavioral side it's more a likeliness of having some kind of a behavioral

437
00:46:00,720 --> 00:46:07,920
issue but all those things happen and the fact that we're we're doing a better job of equipping

438
00:46:07,920 --> 00:46:12,640
today's fire service with that it's a step in the right direction we still have a long way to go

439
00:46:13,600 --> 00:46:19,520
what about the road into realizing that something is wrong with you kind of walk me through how you

440
00:46:19,520 --> 00:46:25,200
discovered that and then you touched on you know the the the side effects of some of the issues

441
00:46:25,200 --> 00:46:29,520
you know what were the treatments that were presented to you and what were the treatments

442
00:46:29,520 --> 00:46:39,120
presented to you and and how did they affect you positively and negatively okay um so i

443
00:46:40,720 --> 00:46:45,440
felt tired more than usual right before i got diagnosed i was having these

444
00:46:46,400 --> 00:46:51,200
this really i was really fatigued there were some home life things going on

445
00:46:51,200 --> 00:46:57,520
i had a special needs daughter at home who was going to require treatment in another state

446
00:46:58,800 --> 00:47:04,080
and i was working every day i could possibly to pay for that expense because i was essentially

447
00:47:04,080 --> 00:47:13,920
going to have to pay two mortgages uh flights every all these other uh extra expenses that were

448
00:47:13,920 --> 00:47:21,520
to be able to give my daughter to eradicate her to seizures and or find a solution for the seizures

449
00:47:21,520 --> 00:47:29,200
if you will and so i had a lot of stress um i was a fairly new engineer um i would like i said i was

450
00:47:29,200 --> 00:47:34,080
burning the candle at both ends working a lot trying to get all these days covered and you know

451
00:47:34,080 --> 00:47:40,560
the fire service trying to just trying to get it set up and so i just remember just not feeling

452
00:47:40,560 --> 00:47:47,840
real well and i couldn't quite pinpoint what was going on but i did decide i would go to the er

453
00:47:47,840 --> 00:47:58,960
and get checked out and i did have a um a growth and i remember um i had to find child care coverage

454
00:47:59,840 --> 00:48:06,320
i went to the er thought i was going to be there um for a couple hours maybe once they saw me and

455
00:48:06,320 --> 00:48:11,200
um for a couple hours maybe once they saw me and then they would release me and all that whole

456
00:48:11,200 --> 00:48:16,640
mindset and i remember going in and you know when you're in the triage with the nurses

457
00:48:16,640 --> 00:48:22,640
i remember their eyes were big and i when they told me to go have a seat i turned around walked

458
00:48:22,640 --> 00:48:29,520
away and i never hit the seat they called me back right away um they ran a bunch of different tests

459
00:48:29,520 --> 00:48:37,280
which included blood and urine and eventually led to an ultrasound uh and then ct scans and

460
00:48:38,080 --> 00:48:42,480
kind of left leaving there and when i share my my story with people i remember

461
00:48:43,840 --> 00:48:49,040
probably one of the harder things to do is calling my wife and i i made up my mind when i walked out

462
00:48:49,040 --> 00:48:53,760
i'm like i'm not going home and dropping this on her i'm going to call her and let her know

463
00:48:53,760 --> 00:49:00,880
what was going on and so but thankfully very supportive um and you know kind of started

464
00:49:00,880 --> 00:49:09,280
me on that journey if you will excuse me um so fast forward a little bit um there's a whole

465
00:49:09,280 --> 00:49:14,640
lot of details in between but i ended up having to start um i had a surgery to start to remove

466
00:49:14,640 --> 00:49:20,960
the cancer the big tumor and then that uh i moved into having to go through chemotherapy for

467
00:49:20,960 --> 00:49:28,000
um which ended up being i'm going to say um almost three months just about three months

468
00:49:28,800 --> 00:49:32,560
and as as you mentioned you asked about the complications so i was most of the way through

469
00:49:32,560 --> 00:49:40,080
chemotherapy and i was at home and at this point my white blood cell count was really low

470
00:49:40,880 --> 00:49:45,680
um had lost all my hair was had lost a lot of weight because of the effects of chemotherapy

471
00:49:45,680 --> 00:49:51,360
um and then i remember i was sitting in like a lazy boy chair in my living room and um i wasn't

472
00:49:51,360 --> 00:49:56,160
doing a whole lot i was just really because i was really tired and i remember going to get up out

473
00:49:56,160 --> 00:50:05,600
of the chair and i remember feeling this really sharp excruciating pain in my like right um my

474
00:50:05,600 --> 00:50:12,240
right rib cage area and it was so bad it dropped me to the ground and i was having trouble breathing

475
00:50:12,240 --> 00:50:17,280
and what i ended up you know coming out obviously later on figured out that i ended up having

476
00:50:17,280 --> 00:50:22,400
pulmonary embolisms which is a side effect of both cancer and chemotherapy because both are

477
00:50:22,400 --> 00:50:28,800
considered uh they both put your body in a hyper coagulated state so if you're not moving enough

478
00:50:28,800 --> 00:50:32,160
and it's one of the things i tell guys that are going through cancer treatment is make sure you're

479
00:50:32,160 --> 00:50:38,400
moving don't stop have a regimen walk your block do something but don't don't just sit in one place

480
00:50:38,400 --> 00:50:48,000
because then you know that that can cause issues so uh that happened and um it was it was chemo's

481
00:50:48,000 --> 00:50:51,840
bad enough uh you talk to anybody who goes through it and they probably have a very similar

482
00:50:51,840 --> 00:50:57,680
experience and some are worse than others but now i had to do these injections these lovinox

483
00:50:57,680 --> 00:51:04,320
injections which are these preloads um and they're fine at first you're basically stabbing yourself

484
00:51:04,320 --> 00:51:10,320
with like a i don't know 12 gauge needle or 10 gauges it's a big needle and you had to we had

485
00:51:10,320 --> 00:51:16,080
to do it twice i had to do it twice a day morning and night and so i had had literally divided my

486
00:51:16,080 --> 00:51:21,440
anatomy at my right side of my belly was the morning and my left side was the pm but after

487
00:51:21,440 --> 00:51:26,480
a while that the part that you kind of have to like really psychologically psych yourself out for

488
00:51:26,480 --> 00:51:32,320
is it's like meat tenderizer like my whole belly was bruised and i was like i was like

489
00:51:32,320 --> 00:51:37,840
my whole belly was bruised black and blue because i'd stabbed myself so many times for these

490
00:51:37,840 --> 00:51:43,120
injections that you're starting to have to stab yourself in these already bruised areas so it's

491
00:51:43,920 --> 00:51:49,440
it's not it's not fun uh and then on top of that chemo just makes you feel like garbage you know

492
00:51:49,440 --> 00:51:54,560
and the way i tell people chemo is like the worst hangover you've ever had in your life

493
00:51:55,120 --> 00:52:01,360
and it never goes away and and you're you're wearing it for 24 hours a day seven days a week

494
00:52:01,360 --> 00:52:07,840
and even it doesn't subside until many weeks if not months after you you finish off the regimen

495
00:52:09,040 --> 00:52:15,760
um so i had that complication um i got through chemo okay but i kind of fell into this gray area

496
00:52:16,800 --> 00:52:23,920
of um you know what do i do from here well i had my cancer had had gotten into my lymph nodes

497
00:52:24,640 --> 00:52:31,120
and the chemo didn't shrink them enough so the next course of action and i had multiple doctors

498
00:52:31,120 --> 00:52:35,680
weigh in on an oncologist surgeon and and they said you need to have this big surgery so

499
00:52:36,720 --> 00:52:42,960
i had what's called an rpl and d retroperitoneal lymph node dissection where they go in they

500
00:52:42,960 --> 00:52:50,080
basically open you up um i had 44 staples in my stomach when i was done so it's a big surgery

501
00:52:50,080 --> 00:52:56,080
um i think it took about seven hours um but they open you up and they go in and they they take what

502
00:52:56,080 --> 00:53:01,760
they need um they ended up taking six lymph nodes out and when they do and they take those lymph

503
00:53:01,760 --> 00:53:06,480
nodes out they put these clips on these surgical clips and that'll come in here in just a little bit

504
00:53:07,920 --> 00:53:15,280
um so i i remember waking up i got through the surgery you know i survived it and uh spent about

505
00:53:15,280 --> 00:53:23,920
five days in the hospital um and got home and it's pretty humbling as as a firefighter who's never

506
00:53:23,920 --> 00:53:28,880
been transported in an ambulance only only just you know with my job and taking people to the

507
00:53:28,880 --> 00:53:36,640
hospital etc having to get transported for the embolisms and then going home to uh uh a hospital

508
00:53:36,640 --> 00:53:41,600
bed because i had to sit sleeping up and i had to have a pull bar because i didn't they had cut

509
00:53:41,600 --> 00:53:46,560
through my core and i had to have a commode in the bathroom because i couldn't physically

510
00:53:47,440 --> 00:53:52,720
get all the way down to the toilet um you know things that you don't think of at the age of 33

511
00:53:52,720 --> 00:53:59,040
that you're going to need and in order to recover um but i had them and they were there and they were

512
00:53:59,040 --> 00:54:07,040
again it was humbling um so then uh not not far after that not long after that i ended up having

513
00:54:07,040 --> 00:54:15,600
an infection that i had a gastro or a yeah an infection in my in my stomach i had contracted

514
00:54:15,600 --> 00:54:22,640
uh this is gross but cdiff and ecoli in the hospital from being in a room i think with another person

515
00:54:22,640 --> 00:54:28,560
and things weren't as clean and i wasn't able to do as much as i would like to have been my hygiene

516
00:54:28,560 --> 00:54:38,640
better at the time um and and one of the things i tell in my story is this that if so those i was

517
00:54:38,640 --> 00:54:42,640
i stopped doing the lovinox injections prior to surgery for obvious reasons right that's that's a

518
00:54:42,640 --> 00:54:49,120
blood thinner and i had to stop it so that was my stomach was still really badly bruised and i had

519
00:54:49,120 --> 00:54:58,800
this huge abdominal scar and at the time when i got sick i remember i was so violently i was so

520
00:54:58,800 --> 00:55:04,240
violently ill i was just trying to get out of bed and to not tear my staples i had to do like a very

521
00:55:04,240 --> 00:55:09,920
specific like way i rolled off my bed onto my feet kind of thing and it wasn't wasn't easy but i get

522
00:55:09,920 --> 00:55:15,680
out of bed and i make two steps out my door headed to the bathroom and i just vomit everywhere and

523
00:55:15,680 --> 00:55:21,280
that all that if you can picture your stomach muscles when you're vomiting it's like it's

524
00:55:21,280 --> 00:55:27,760
giving you it's doing everything it can and having 44 staples in your stomach and that pain i thought

525
00:55:27,760 --> 00:55:34,480
i tore my stitches i thought i tore my staples in this process and so when i landed back in

526
00:55:34,480 --> 00:55:42,720
the hospital again transported from my house they treated me for the infection and i was in a lot

527
00:55:42,720 --> 00:55:53,280
of pain from all of it and then i i did get through that piece of it and there were some things noted

528
00:55:53,280 --> 00:55:58,000
because they ct they did another ct scan on me and noted that there was this like mass starting to

529
00:55:58,000 --> 00:56:05,200
grow on my stomach from the fluid from one of the clips leaking from the surgery and what ended up

530
00:56:05,200 --> 00:56:11,440
coming of that is that the the leak what's called olymphocel it started to create this like

531
00:56:12,080 --> 00:56:17,120
little baby in my my my abdominal cavity and started walling itself off and it was lymphatic

532
00:56:17,120 --> 00:56:22,640
fluid just leaking out well that eventually pushed on my inferior vena cava it caused a

533
00:56:22,640 --> 00:56:30,320
second round of pulmonary embolisms which i wore about a month later so then i had to go through

534
00:56:30,320 --> 00:56:35,920
i had to they had to intervene because that obviously is causing me problems so i got treated

535
00:56:35,920 --> 00:56:42,160
for the embolisms again ambulance back to the hospital treated for three days and then released

536
00:56:42,160 --> 00:56:51,360
with lovinox now i'm doing the injections again and then sort of towards the end of my my my whole

537
00:56:51,360 --> 00:56:57,760
story of treatment i had they had intervened through interventional radiology where they

538
00:56:57,760 --> 00:57:04,960
basically use a live ct to go in and find that problem and put a needle in there and then

539
00:57:05,920 --> 00:57:12,640
they would they had this needle running through my back and this tube coming out into a 500 cc bag

540
00:57:12,640 --> 00:57:18,720
that i had to carry around with me all the time initially that bag was filling full of lymphatic

541
00:57:18,720 --> 00:57:26,320
fluid twice a day i was draining a thousand ccs of lymphatic fluid and then it started to to slow

542
00:57:26,320 --> 00:57:32,640
down well sadly it failed on me and then i had to wait another month for it to fill back up for them

543
00:57:32,640 --> 00:57:39,680
to do the same procedure again and then they got it in and i got an infection in that and then that

544
00:57:39,680 --> 00:57:46,560
like five different bad things ended up down that tube and into this deep space in my abdominal area

545
00:57:46,560 --> 00:57:52,960
and that landed me in the hospital for seven days with some really a really heavy concoction of

546
00:57:54,960 --> 00:58:01,280
you know antibiotics to to get me through and kill off what had all landed in there

547
00:58:02,800 --> 00:58:06,960
and they didn't know what was wrong with me at the time because i was kind of a little i was a

548
00:58:06,960 --> 00:58:12,080
little bit hallucinating from being just so sick just really the sickest i've ever been

549
00:58:12,080 --> 00:58:17,200
and i ended up they stroke coded me initially because they thought i might be having a stroke

550
00:58:17,200 --> 00:58:22,480
then they spinal topped me the next day so i was just like a pin cushion through this whole thing

551
00:58:24,000 --> 00:58:29,200
and i say all that that's though i mean that that kind of ends the year of treatment and then i

552
00:58:29,200 --> 00:58:33,920
spent six months on light duty just recovering and trying to get my strength back so i could come

553
00:58:33,920 --> 00:58:39,360
back to the job you know i say all that it's really you know a bad experience there's people

554
00:58:39,360 --> 00:58:43,760
that have been through a lot worse than me people that have been through less but that was my story

555
00:58:43,760 --> 00:58:52,960
and it was suffering if if when i tell people what was it you you think you know what pain is

556
00:58:52,960 --> 00:58:57,680
you don't unless you've been through something like that you've never suffered before because

557
00:58:57,680 --> 00:59:02,880
you've never got you don't get a break you're just in pain all the time you feel like crap the whole

558
00:59:02,880 --> 00:59:09,840
time you don't you know you can't eat anything you eat is it doesn't taste right because of the chemo

559
00:59:09,840 --> 00:59:17,360
drugs everything tastes like metal because of the metal chemotherapy based treatments

560
00:59:19,840 --> 00:59:24,800
but it but honestly and here here's the here's the here's a light at the end of the tunnel with all

561
00:59:24,800 --> 00:59:30,400
that the light at the end of the tunnel is i think for me personally i didn't realize that

562
00:59:30,400 --> 00:59:36,880
is i think for me personally i didn't realize how good life was like how much i take for granted

563
00:59:36,880 --> 00:59:43,760
all the time the just waking up every day and getting to eat and having a roof over your head

564
00:59:43,760 --> 00:59:50,240
and getting to go do things and people just they miss out on such the such important things in life

565
00:59:50,240 --> 00:59:57,360
the simple things in life that are just amazing and it's every day if you just would pay attention

566
00:59:57,360 --> 01:00:02,480
to these small things that happen if you have kids if your kids come up and give you a hug your day

567
01:00:02,480 --> 01:00:09,520
is amazing if you were able to eat and not have any you know any problems from the food and if you

568
01:00:09,520 --> 01:00:14,960
have the ability to go to work and make money you you're lucky you just don't know how lucky you

569
01:00:14,960 --> 01:00:22,160
really are put yourself in somebody's shoes who who doesn't have that or is going through a really

570
01:00:22,160 --> 01:00:28,400
really unfortunate time in their life where they're sick and so i find myself one being proud to be a

571
01:00:28,400 --> 01:00:34,000
cancer survivor but two sad for the people that don't survive and have to endure all that pain

572
01:00:34,000 --> 01:00:41,840
only only for it to lead to death so i became and i'll pause here and i want to ask more questions

573
01:00:41,840 --> 01:00:48,720
but that's why i became so passionate about cancer prevention and finding solutions to fix these

574
01:00:48,720 --> 01:00:55,680
problems is because nobody should ever have to go through that that was the worst possible thing

575
01:00:55,680 --> 01:01:00,240
i've ever been through in my life i couldn't imagine it being any worse than it really was but

576
01:01:00,960 --> 01:01:07,040
again thankful for surviving the doctors the amazing friends and family and co-workers that

577
01:01:07,040 --> 01:01:12,240
supported me along the way like it's just it's like overwhelming when you really think about the fact

578
01:01:12,240 --> 01:01:17,840
that you get a second chance what are you going to do with that second chance and i decided to fix

579
01:01:17,840 --> 01:01:25,760
these problems that i know are problems and i knew i could do that if i just applied myself and use

580
01:01:25,760 --> 01:01:32,560
my passion and my motivation so again as you can see that that it is really near and dear to me

581
01:01:32,560 --> 01:01:41,680
that we fix these issues well firstly i mean i think it was so needed to hear all of the horrible

582
01:01:41,680 --> 01:01:47,200
things that happen because it really then reframes the reality of what a diagnosis would be if you

583
01:01:47,200 --> 01:01:53,440
don't you know then end up dying as well but um i just want to go back for one second was it am

584
01:01:53,440 --> 01:01:59,120
i understanding right was it testicular cancer initially yes okay and did you ever do any kind

585
01:01:59,120 --> 01:02:04,080
of self-examination is that where you found the lump because i mean obviously there there is a way

586
01:02:04,640 --> 01:02:10,640
if we are fortunate enough and be you know overly familiar with our balls to actually notice that

587
01:02:10,640 --> 01:02:15,440
you know that can go from a somewhat easy you know removal and treatment all the way through

588
01:02:15,440 --> 01:02:21,760
to the nightmare that you're in jord yes yes and it you know obviously there's different things

589
01:02:21,760 --> 01:02:28,320
at play there's different types of germ cell tumors that you could get if you got testicular cancer

590
01:02:29,200 --> 01:02:35,280
uh and it's one area that actually we'll touch on for a second is this women are taught at really

591
01:02:35,280 --> 01:02:40,640
young ages to do self-breast exam and you know i have two daughters so i want them to know that

592
01:02:40,640 --> 01:02:46,320
information and they should be doing that right young boys aren't taught that and it's it's such

593
01:02:46,320 --> 01:02:51,120
a disservice that you know i know it's it's a touchy topic or whatever but when you start

594
01:02:51,120 --> 01:02:54,960
you know i start bringing these things up in the fire station you know like the guys that are

595
01:02:54,960 --> 01:03:00,800
approaching 40 like hey you you're gonna have to go through a prostate exam and it's really not that

596
01:03:00,800 --> 01:03:06,400
bad if you really i mean it's uncomfortable nobody likes to do it but you shouldn't avoid it and if

597
01:03:06,400 --> 01:03:12,480
they give you an option out of it tell them no you want it because the the worst of the two is

598
01:03:12,480 --> 01:03:19,200
you get it and um you don't treat it right away like you said i mean with the self-exams are so

599
01:03:19,200 --> 01:03:24,880
important and that's an education component that i think is equally important as having the right

600
01:03:24,880 --> 01:03:29,520
screening set up for your department because from my experience about half of the people that have

601
01:03:29,520 --> 01:03:33,200
come in through my office that have been diagnosed with cancer have taught have caught their own

602
01:03:33,200 --> 01:03:41,120
cancer through self-examination self-examination um but yeah yeah that's that's it mine actually

603
01:03:41,120 --> 01:03:47,920
just been transparent here is my uh testicle was three times its normal size and it grew that fast

604
01:03:47,920 --> 01:03:54,640
and in just a few days crazy what about the self-talk i want to get to obviously what happened

605
01:03:54,640 --> 01:03:59,600
next and all the initiatives that you're working on now but i've had a few guests on here that have

606
01:03:59,600 --> 01:04:04,480
just been through absolute hell and there were times where they just wanted it to end and you

607
01:04:04,480 --> 01:04:11,120
know contemplated just finishing it what was that self-talk that kept you going through this this

608
01:04:11,120 --> 01:04:20,880
nightmare for an entire year i remember when i first started and i just i just put on my

609
01:04:20,880 --> 01:04:28,240
warrior face um i knew i had to go through this uh chemo class before i started chemo and i remember

610
01:04:28,240 --> 01:04:34,160
uh the doctor looking at me and saying are you ready and i said yeah i'm ready i mean what other

611
01:04:34,160 --> 01:04:39,280
choice do i have i have to do this or i'm dead so it's it's pretty straightforward for me

612
01:04:40,560 --> 01:04:48,000
um i was really strong initially and i like to think i'm a tough tough guy but after

613
01:04:48,000 --> 01:04:55,520
enough of the treatment it really really uh pushed me to a place that i've never been before

614
01:04:55,520 --> 01:05:03,040
and i'll cycle back to uh the wrestling comment earlier i think there is a a level of

615
01:05:06,000 --> 01:05:12,560
mental toughness that i've had from childhood and from firefighting and from wrestling and things

616
01:05:12,560 --> 01:05:20,720
that i've done and i think that that along with having uh being having two little girls at home

617
01:05:20,720 --> 01:05:27,040
at the time three and six months were my two daughters and you know my wife and all these

618
01:05:27,040 --> 01:05:32,800
things that are one that i have to live for right um those are the things that carried me through

619
01:05:32,800 --> 01:05:40,400
probably the hardest parts of that and i don't know i just i didn't have a choice i just had to

620
01:05:40,400 --> 01:05:48,560
deal with it i had to tough it out i had to get through it um uh taking my own life was not an

621
01:05:48,560 --> 01:05:54,400
option it's never been an option i don't care how bad life gets for me it's no it's not an option

622
01:05:54,400 --> 01:06:00,720
it's just not not me i'll suffer the worst suffering um if it kills me then it kills me but

623
01:06:01,520 --> 01:06:09,040
killing myself would not be an option for me i just had the uh former head of psychology for

624
01:06:09,040 --> 01:06:14,880
the navy seals eric part around and it was interesting because he himself was shifting

625
01:06:14,880 --> 01:06:23,520
away from the word trauma and um using the word struggles instead and the the observation he'd

626
01:06:23,520 --> 01:06:29,920
made because i was talking about you know when we have things happen early in life if we are able

627
01:06:29,920 --> 01:06:34,960
to process them work through and whatever it is i truly believe that becomes a superpower so it's

628
01:06:34,960 --> 01:06:39,280
that post-traumatic growth it's that hope of in the mental health story that we really don't hear

629
01:06:39,280 --> 01:06:44,800
very much it's very kind of you know sad violin at the moment um and he said he made a comment

630
01:06:44,800 --> 01:06:52,640
basically that almost none you know he struggled to believe that that any candidate could come

631
01:06:53,280 --> 01:07:00,800
into buds having never really endured struggles in their life and be successful in that selection

632
01:07:00,800 --> 01:07:07,600
process and so when we hear now about your resilience and the ability to maintain a healthy

633
01:07:07,600 --> 01:07:12,400
thought because it means suicide basically is suicide ideation comes when that brain is

634
01:07:12,400 --> 01:07:18,240
breaking down whether that you know that miswiring begins so through all that suffering

635
01:07:18,240 --> 01:07:21,840
i would argue that you know some things that happen when you're younger and i'm sure the

636
01:07:21,840 --> 01:07:28,160
separation of your parents and the wrestling and other areas created that um repetition of

637
01:07:28,160 --> 01:07:32,400
overcoming struggle that then factored later in life when you were fighting for your own life

638
01:07:32,400 --> 01:07:41,520
absolutely yep i do i do agree with that it it it's it factors into that and so many other things

639
01:07:41,520 --> 01:07:49,680
um i just it it's hard to explain but it was one of those things that probably the hardest

640
01:07:49,680 --> 01:07:55,120
points in my treatment when i was the sickest i was just curled up into a ball on my bed

641
01:07:55,120 --> 01:08:02,480
i couldn't move it hurt to move um there weren't enough pain medicines in the world that would

642
01:08:02,480 --> 01:08:12,080
would treat the pain that i was in um and the as i mentioned going to the hospital um my wife uh

643
01:08:12,080 --> 01:08:17,840
recapped this for me recently actually uh when i went in for the the first round of pulmonary

644
01:08:17,840 --> 01:08:25,280
embolisms um and i don't know where the pains generated in that in that type of scenario but

645
01:08:25,280 --> 01:08:30,320
they dumped everything on me they cut me off because i'd had too much and my respiratory

646
01:08:30,320 --> 01:08:35,760
drive is starting to slow down but uh that's a whole another animal right there you know we

647
01:08:35,760 --> 01:08:41,840
treat we're treating i got treated with a morphine on the on the road trip over there in the ambulance

648
01:08:41,840 --> 01:08:50,880
then uh delotted at the hospital then eventually fentanyl which was short-lived um and when the

649
01:08:50,880 --> 01:08:57,200
pain's that bad and you can't you can't touch it you just have to wear it and you know i never

650
01:08:57,200 --> 01:09:01,360
never heard that comment about the navy seals talking about struggles but it makes sense you

651
01:09:01,360 --> 01:09:07,680
know and i think um some people wear those struggles easier than others others don't and

652
01:09:07,680 --> 01:09:13,840
that's okay i think everybody's individual but my whole life literally prepared me to endure that

653
01:09:13,840 --> 01:09:25,360
moment uh at 33 years old um i think just being a firefighter a bruiser of a kid and uh it yeah and

654
01:09:25,360 --> 01:09:31,760
i got me through it just glad i'm i'm glad i'm done with it and then ackham wood doesn't ever happen

655
01:09:31,760 --> 01:09:39,120
again uh yeah certainly agree with you that there's life life trains us for upcoming events for sure

656
01:09:40,880 --> 01:09:44,640
while we're on the conversation of pharmaceuticals you mentioned about your daughter

657
01:09:44,640 --> 01:09:51,120
and her seizures i had a woman on about a year ago now page figgy and her daughter was charlotte and

658
01:09:51,120 --> 01:09:57,120
if you ever look into the kind of cbd conversation there's a story charlotte's web um and that is

659
01:09:57,120 --> 01:10:02,480
charlotte page's daughter and she was born she was a twin born and then very early on they noticed

660
01:10:02,480 --> 01:10:07,120
she was different developmentally and she started having seizures and the seizures got more and more

661
01:10:07,120 --> 01:10:15,600
acute to the point where i think she was about a year and a half old um she was seizing for 29

662
01:10:15,600 --> 01:10:21,280
minutes having a one minute post-exile period and then seizing for 29 minutes again so we're talking

663
01:10:21,280 --> 01:10:27,040
about you know hospice palliative care by this point and she had tried all the latest supposed

664
01:10:27,040 --> 01:10:32,880
wonder drugs and all the you know the pharmaceutical side and she went the other way to cbd and

665
01:10:32,880 --> 01:10:38,640
literally found a a company that would formulate um a hemp kind of cocktail for her and they put

666
01:10:38,640 --> 01:10:45,760
it in her stomach tube and immediately the seizures started diminishing and page went from hospice

667
01:10:45,760 --> 01:10:51,280
through living nine more years and then ultimately she passed away from febrile seizures from covid

668
01:10:52,000 --> 01:10:57,280
about two or three years ago now but you know massively extended the lifespan and she was a

669
01:10:57,280 --> 01:11:02,800
healthy little girl up to that point so um what has been your experiences with that because i've

670
01:11:02,800 --> 01:11:07,360
had patients you know numerous times as a paramedic that have been on all kinds of meds and they just

671
01:11:07,360 --> 01:11:12,320
didn't just didn't work they didn't change anything but they turned them into a zombie when they

672
01:11:12,320 --> 01:11:16,640
weren't seizing um what have been your experience with that i mean is there anything that you found

673
01:11:16,640 --> 01:11:21,360
on the pharmaceutical side or have you looked on the plant medicine side well ultimately ended up

674
01:11:21,360 --> 01:11:28,240
being is the uh the pharmaceutical medicine is what has been successful in treating my daughter's

675
01:11:28,240 --> 01:11:36,880
seizures uh so my daughter um has a rare disease called sturgweber syndrome um it's kind of a three

676
01:11:36,880 --> 01:11:43,360
things that are the makeup of that syndrome um they're born with a port wine birthmark um usually

677
01:11:43,360 --> 01:11:49,760
on their face usually the ones that are affected the most is when it covers the eye um or in the

678
01:11:49,760 --> 01:11:56,720
upper portion of the cheek and the more the more there is and basically what that the birthmark is

679
01:11:56,720 --> 01:12:02,240
replicated on the back of the brain on the opposite side and it's it's like a calcification in the

680
01:12:02,240 --> 01:12:11,840
brain the same associated eye that's affected by the port wine birthmark also has um i'm drawing

681
01:12:11,840 --> 01:12:17,920
a blank right now um uh usually there's there's eye pressure issue and i'll think of the name here

682
01:12:17,920 --> 01:12:24,240
in a second um glaucoma glaucoma thank you glaucoma and then the birthmark so those are the kind of

683
01:12:24,240 --> 01:12:30,400
three the three things that that are there so as i mentioned i was trying to get my daughter

684
01:12:30,400 --> 01:12:40,000
um working all this time to take my daughter out um to a specialist out of maryland um and it would

685
01:12:40,000 --> 01:12:46,640
end up being the first trial study for what is now uh the first fda approved version of cbd

686
01:12:47,280 --> 01:12:54,160
now what i can tell you is it didn't work for her um it wasn't a one-size-fits-all so

687
01:12:54,160 --> 01:13:00,960
uh one thing i do remember from early on is she was on like kepra and some like lower level um

688
01:13:00,960 --> 01:13:08,800
forms of um you know anti-seizure medicine one of them was like an alcohol base which is really

689
01:13:08,800 --> 01:13:15,440
common i'm and i couldn't think of the name of it right now but um we had to get her off that

690
01:13:15,440 --> 01:13:21,280
you know that wasn't going to be good for a long term uh this is i said the cbd didn't work but we

691
01:13:21,280 --> 01:13:26,800
we pulled out all the stops and we got invested into he's the last she was the last candidate to

692
01:13:26,800 --> 01:13:34,880
get involved or participant to be involved in this uh this trial study um and as we were trying to

693
01:13:34,880 --> 01:13:41,280
titrate her off of her normal meds with the cbd oil her seizures picked up and got worse um you

694
01:13:41,280 --> 01:13:48,720
know emergency medicine we treated her with the diazepam the rectal valium several times throughout

695
01:13:48,720 --> 01:13:55,840
she started seizing seizing when she was six weeks old um and they were more focal seizures not not

696
01:13:55,840 --> 01:14:02,960
full body but um again we we kept kept with it with the neurologist and finding different uh

697
01:14:02,960 --> 01:14:08,080
trying different anti-seizure medicines and now we have what we have her on you know definitely

698
01:14:08,080 --> 01:14:12,960
knock on wood has been working with her for very well she hasn't had a seizure in quite some time

699
01:14:13,680 --> 01:14:18,080
but it's not like people ask me all the time hey you know will she be able to drive someday or

700
01:14:18,080 --> 01:14:23,520
will these averages go away and the answer unfortunately is no because it's part of the

701
01:14:23,520 --> 01:14:29,840
syndrome with the calcification in the brain and the neurological dysfunction in the brain it's

702
01:14:30,400 --> 01:14:37,360
not correctable um completely but it's live you can live with it for a long time and um you can

703
01:14:37,360 --> 01:14:44,000
also be seizure free for a really long time so sad to hear about charlotte passing away and i do

704
01:14:44,000 --> 01:14:50,160
remember her story very well i watched a documentary on that um and i think it's magical for a lot of

705
01:14:50,160 --> 01:14:56,480
kids and a lot of people it just isn't it's there's no it's not the miracle drug for everybody

706
01:14:57,200 --> 01:15:01,600
in my opinion yeah no and that's what page says as well i mean it's just knowing i think it's even

707
01:15:01,600 --> 01:15:06,400
with the mental health conversation in nutrition conversation strength and conditioning conversation

708
01:15:06,400 --> 01:15:11,680
is understanding what tools are in the toolbox and if plant medicine has been vilified for so

709
01:15:11,680 --> 01:15:16,960
many years it may work better than other things for some people and as you said it might be the

710
01:15:16,960 --> 01:15:23,360
pharmacy when i don't demonize drugs you know some drugs have a powerful application even the ones

711
01:15:23,360 --> 01:15:28,240
in our drug boxes medics i mean they're miracle drugs in my opinion some of those but you know

712
01:15:28,240 --> 01:15:34,160
it's understanding that if we bring in the plant medicine into the toolbox as well you've only

713
01:15:34,160 --> 01:15:40,320
given parents and you know and children alike more opportunities to find whatever their unique fit

714
01:15:40,320 --> 01:15:48,880
is going to be absolutely yep all right so you have now come out the back end of your own you

715
01:15:48,880 --> 01:15:56,400
know journey through cancer you've got this new you know perspective on life how does that now

716
01:15:56,400 --> 01:16:00,880
affect the way that you view the fire service we touched on it early as far as some of the issues

717
01:16:00,880 --> 01:16:07,440
that we are still doing wrong that we haven't evolved what was your perspective now on elements

718
01:16:07,440 --> 01:16:13,120
when it came to you know the actual gear that we wear and pfas and the exposures and the diesel

719
01:16:13,120 --> 01:16:18,320
fumes and all the things that we've been talking about but a lot of us still haven't taken seriously

720
01:16:20,880 --> 01:16:27,840
yeah uh that's a pretty that's a that's a loaded question um gosh there you know i spent five years

721
01:16:27,840 --> 01:16:34,880
working in this field uh dedicated as a in an administrative position and i remember early on

722
01:16:34,880 --> 01:16:41,120
thinking gosh you know how bad is this problem and the more i read the more more i got frustrated

723
01:16:41,120 --> 01:16:47,600
the more i more i realized that we've been doing things wrong for a long time and the the current

724
01:16:47,600 --> 01:16:56,320
fire service the modern day's fire service has inherited a lot of problems um and i think let

725
01:16:56,320 --> 01:17:05,360
me start here uh the cultural issue is is one of those things that jumps out of me is one of those

726
01:17:05,360 --> 01:17:11,920
things that's fixable but we as firefighters have to own it we have to fix it um if we're going to

727
01:17:11,920 --> 01:17:17,440
fix it it means we have to have buy-in it means everybody has to be on the same page and i remember

728
01:17:17,440 --> 01:17:22,640
when i you know got started in this whole cancer awareness and prevention program somebody asked me

729
01:17:22,640 --> 01:17:27,120
says kyle what what does cancer awareness prevention mean to you and what what is the program

730
01:17:28,400 --> 01:17:32,480
and i said well i started thinking then i wasn't really putting a lot of thought into it well it's

731
01:17:32,480 --> 01:17:41,200
you know it's policy and sog changes supported by infrastructure changes um it's a you know a social

732
01:17:41,200 --> 01:17:46,560
marketing campaign to fix this problem and all these different things and then i stopped and

733
01:17:46,560 --> 01:17:51,520
really thought about it and i says you know what it is it's all of us it's never one person it's

734
01:17:51,520 --> 01:17:57,360
not the person who's the the person in the position who's running it it's never one person it's

735
01:17:57,360 --> 01:18:03,920
everybody and it only works if we all believe in it so we really i really think that we one one of

736
01:18:03,920 --> 01:18:08,480
the things i looked at was how do we break down these barriers but we have to draw emotional

737
01:18:08,480 --> 01:18:13,680
impact you know i tell my story and i shared my story today with you about my cancer um it's

738
01:18:13,680 --> 01:18:19,040
pretty personal right not everybody wants to share their story but i do it in hopes that people will

739
01:18:19,040 --> 01:18:25,680
learn from it and and it will impact them emotionally to see the the the greatest

740
01:18:27,040 --> 01:18:32,000
the loss right and here's one of the things that i've realized when i share and i say i've lost a

741
01:18:32,000 --> 01:18:39,360
year and a half of my career the bigger impact is i lost a year and a half of my my kids and my wife

742
01:18:40,240 --> 01:18:46,800
and i said i i feel like i stepped into a time machine and i fast forwarded a year and a half

743
01:18:46,800 --> 01:18:54,000
and when i woke up my daughter that was six months old is now two years old and it just completely

744
01:18:55,760 --> 01:19:06,640
it changes it changed me and i i just that's that's the impact that's the loss so if we can make

745
01:19:06,640 --> 01:19:12,880
decisions right now today that can prevent that i mean think about that nobody wants that to happen

746
01:19:12,880 --> 01:19:20,960
to themselves it just it's brutal um so that cultural component of this is really important

747
01:19:20,960 --> 01:19:27,360
and it has to be i think the starting point is that people have to understand that it all starts

748
01:19:27,360 --> 01:19:33,440
with me it all starts with me the changes within me then there's the parts that i would like to

749
01:19:33,440 --> 01:19:40,800
get into about we know exposures are bad right and most departments a lot of departments there's

750
01:19:40,800 --> 01:19:45,920
still some that aren't have caught on to the fact that we need to do things like post-fire crust

751
01:19:45,920 --> 01:19:52,320
decontamination we need to wash our gear better we need to do all the personal decontamination

752
01:19:52,320 --> 01:19:57,200
components the wipes the showering at the station and we need to prioritize those things

753
01:19:58,240 --> 01:20:02,800
and that's the on-scene stuff right and then there's those things that are a little more subtle

754
01:20:02,800 --> 01:20:10,640
you know the diesel exhaust extraction systems in the station you know um having that i i'd say

755
01:20:11,440 --> 01:20:18,240
most people think that death for some reason magically makes diesel exhaust healthier for us

756
01:20:18,800 --> 01:20:26,400
and i argue that that's not true um you know and obviously we know that there's some concerns there

757
01:20:26,400 --> 01:20:31,280
so you got it you got to do those things you got to do the small things every day that you know

758
01:20:31,280 --> 01:20:37,360
keep those things from factoring and adding up on us and then the the added you know the bigger

759
01:20:37,920 --> 01:20:43,040
the bigger things need to happen too and it starts with the leader at the station it starts with the

760
01:20:43,040 --> 01:20:48,880
captains the the biggest influence in the fire service as we know is our fire captains they run

761
01:20:48,880 --> 01:20:56,720
the company and they have the ability to firmly say that we need to do these things and personally

762
01:20:56,720 --> 01:21:01,840
i'm seeing them not happen now that i'm back in into operations as a captain i'm not seeing them

763
01:21:01,840 --> 01:21:07,760
happen and people aren't taking them serious so we have things at our fingertips right but the

764
01:21:07,760 --> 01:21:12,560
firefighters unfortunately i'm one of them and i'm guilty of some of these things but we like to

765
01:21:12,560 --> 01:21:18,400
complain and we like to complain that these things don't happen but were we really doing them are we

766
01:21:18,400 --> 01:21:25,840
taking them serious are we considering them are they in our minds although they we keep the

767
01:21:25,840 --> 01:21:31,520
information comes out over and over and over again about the same things right we have these

768
01:21:31,520 --> 01:21:35,200
stand downs in january january's dedicated firefighter cancer awareness but how many

769
01:21:35,200 --> 01:21:39,840
people are getting on their computer and reading the information how many captains are sitting down

770
01:21:39,840 --> 01:21:45,360
with their crew and making sure that they're doing how many chief officers are ensuring that

771
01:21:45,360 --> 01:21:50,640
decon gets set up at every fire right this is these are the changes that have to happen until

772
01:21:50,640 --> 01:21:56,560
they do unfortunately we're going to continue to see the numbers rise and i hate to say that but

773
01:21:56,560 --> 01:22:02,000
it's true and for many departments that haven't had a cancer case and maybe think it's not going

774
01:22:02,000 --> 01:22:09,760
to happen sorry but it's just a matter of time the odds are against us in so many ways so those are

775
01:22:09,760 --> 01:22:16,960
our big areas i think we need to continue to um the death by a thousand cuts approach we need to

776
01:22:16,960 --> 01:22:23,840
continue to drive that home we need people out there that have have gone through really bad form

777
01:22:23,840 --> 01:22:29,360
you know have gone through cancer they're the best spokesperson spokespeople are the firefighters

778
01:22:29,360 --> 01:22:35,600
that are cancer survivors they could stand up in front of people have instant credibility and talk

779
01:22:35,600 --> 01:22:41,120
to them like people and tell them literally how bad it is and that you don't want this and that

780
01:22:41,120 --> 01:22:50,000
there's things you can do every day to to help keep this from happening uh ppe pfos

781
01:22:52,160 --> 01:22:59,440
gosh well ppe we need to do a better job of teaching our people about ppe most people most

782
01:22:59,440 --> 01:23:06,960
firefighters probably don't know a whole lot about nfpa 1970 and 1851 and the the criteria in there

783
01:23:06,960 --> 01:23:13,600
and here in the state of california 1851 is now state law so we're required to do those things

784
01:23:14,640 --> 01:23:19,040
like a preliminary exposure reduction and those different things that need to happen

785
01:23:21,760 --> 01:23:27,840
you know and then the pp itself and we get into pfos i mean pfos is a really complicated topic

786
01:23:28,400 --> 01:23:34,560
i've done a very deep dive into it yes it's in our gear yes it's in our station wear is it in all of

787
01:23:34,560 --> 01:23:40,480
it no it's in some of it probably most of it it's in a lot of things it's in pizza boxes it's in

788
01:23:40,480 --> 01:23:46,320
all this not to diminish with the the how bad it is it's bad it's a class of chemicals that

789
01:23:47,280 --> 01:23:52,480
is as an endocrine disruptor an immune suppressor and the way i frame it is you know you you as

790
01:23:52,480 --> 01:23:59,120
firefighters um that essentially eliminates your body armor for when you do get exposed to those

791
01:23:59,120 --> 01:24:05,680
really bad chemicals so what can we do better there well i mean for one um you know i just think that

792
01:24:05,680 --> 01:24:09,600
we don't need to wear our gear all the time you know and there's nuisance calls that we need to

793
01:24:09,600 --> 01:24:16,640
evaluate um you know hospital ringing alarms for example that you know you've probably looked back

794
01:24:16,640 --> 01:24:22,160
historically in the records and seen that there's never there's been very few actual responses for

795
01:24:22,160 --> 01:24:27,520
to some of these nuisance ringing alarms maybe surface street traffic accidents things like that

796
01:24:27,520 --> 01:24:32,400
that i've had discussions about so should we be in structure gear for those or can we get maybe

797
01:24:33,120 --> 01:24:38,880
uh a more tactical form of equipment or ppe that people wear that's pfos free that you know

798
01:24:39,440 --> 01:24:44,080
but we're not going to completely be able to eliminate this hazard i mean it's if it's

799
01:24:44,080 --> 01:24:49,280
everywhere it's everywhere but we do need to do things and we do know that there are things out

800
01:24:49,280 --> 01:24:54,800
there that are working to help eliminate at least certain forms of pfos in the blood the study that

801
01:24:54,800 --> 01:25:03,200
came out of australia in regards to blood and plasma donation excuse me that's being replicated

802
01:25:03,200 --> 01:25:12,880
in in arizona um all very important things that need to be looked at and done um and in low-hanging

803
01:25:12,880 --> 01:25:20,320
fruit of of pfos is you know uh essential uh concepts for essential use take a look at that

804
01:25:20,320 --> 01:25:25,920
you know is it is it essential is it non-essential or is it substitutable find those find it in one

805
01:25:25,920 --> 01:25:30,400
of those three categories and and make recommendations to your department on based on that

806
01:25:31,840 --> 01:25:37,600
um let's do you want to talk about sleep these guys i'm gonna keep you the microphone i've got

807
01:25:37,600 --> 01:25:44,640
some things i'll ask after you are done but please lead us through these lists okay um you know so

808
01:25:44,640 --> 01:25:48,560
i've kind of bounced around a little bit but when i started really looking at the exposure side of

809
01:25:48,560 --> 01:25:53,680
things i started just basically thinking in terms of the fire scene back to the fire station and

810
01:25:53,680 --> 01:25:58,160
everything in between and that's how i started to work on eliminating exposure and that's how i

811
01:25:58,160 --> 01:26:06,720
wrote policies and um that's how i got infrastructure things and advocated for better things like wipes

812
01:26:06,720 --> 01:26:14,720
and soaps and different cleaning supplies for decontamination developed a decontamination kit

813
01:26:14,720 --> 01:26:21,360
for uh all of our apparatus including our reserve so that we can decon appropriately started

814
01:26:21,360 --> 01:26:28,480
looking more into uh extractors that were nfp 1851 compliant to meet that criteria

815
01:26:29,200 --> 01:26:33,200
uh making it more accessible to firefighters so they're all at there at every station in the

816
01:26:33,200 --> 01:26:39,200
department i work for um and also looking at things that from the exposure side how do we track these

817
01:26:39,200 --> 01:26:44,960
so that if there's an issue with workers compensation because cancer is presumptive in california you

818
01:26:44,960 --> 01:26:49,760
know how do we make sure the firefighters are being taken care of uh so those are all things

819
01:26:49,760 --> 01:26:56,720
and i'm just kind of highlighting them and just bumping on them quickly um uh but let's i'm gonna

820
01:26:56,720 --> 01:27:03,520
move over into sleep for a little bit so obviously sleep disruption is is very bad and i'll tell you

821
01:27:03,520 --> 01:27:10,080
i'll tell you one like aha moment i had is when i was in a a meeting for a research study we're

822
01:27:10,080 --> 01:27:15,200
involved with here with locally with the salk institute and ucst for the healthy heroes study

823
01:27:17,360 --> 01:27:21,520
which was in a sleep study it was actually more about time restricted eating and how maybe that

824
01:27:21,520 --> 01:27:28,160
could improve firefighters health um and there was discussion about how that did actually improve

825
01:27:28,160 --> 01:27:35,840
and make better sleep um but the actual circadian rhythm disruption component was really fascinating

826
01:27:35,840 --> 01:27:40,960
and learning more about sleep and i am by no means an expert in that area but one aha moment i had

827
01:27:40,960 --> 01:27:46,960
is when i was in this meeting and we were talking and one of the researchers brought up the fact

828
01:27:46,960 --> 01:27:52,560
that shift workers were considered considered a class two or group to be possibly carcinogenic

829
01:27:52,560 --> 01:27:58,720
a classification through iarq international agency for research on cancer and i was like what do you

830
01:27:58,720 --> 01:28:03,440
mean like i hadn't read that anywhere didn't know that and i should i feel like i should have known

831
01:28:03,440 --> 01:28:10,240
that and in the majority of what i was able to figure out about that that grouping and why

832
01:28:10,240 --> 01:28:14,960
shift workers were brought into that grouping was the sleep disruption component and i said well

833
01:28:14,960 --> 01:28:20,480
we're shift workers firefighters are shift workers this is not good and then that was several years

834
01:28:20,480 --> 01:28:28,720
back and in fact then july of 2022 the firefighter occupational exposure was reclassified from group

835
01:28:28,720 --> 01:28:36,000
to be possibly carcinogenic to group one one which was a known carcinogen and then it was really clear

836
01:28:36,000 --> 01:28:42,720
to me that there's a toxic soup of of things the firefighters deal with the the the fire ground

837
01:28:42,720 --> 01:28:49,600
exposures the the sleep disruption and then so on there's more there's a lot of things to this and

838
01:28:49,600 --> 01:28:56,000
now you know the new challenges of how do you combat lithium ion and the pfos and those types

839
01:28:56,000 --> 01:29:04,320
of hot topics so again it's a lot it's a lot of information and it's it's a big challenge all the

840
01:29:04,320 --> 01:29:13,360
way around i've i've touched on all of them all of them have many many many details but i do think

841
01:29:13,360 --> 01:29:18,960
as a whole the fire service service is getting better but there's not just one thing that is

842
01:29:18,960 --> 01:29:25,920
involved here it's a lot of things let me let me go touch back into the sleep so one of the things

843
01:29:25,920 --> 01:29:32,080
i have a problem with is so sleep hygiene right we we as firefighters don't sleep good at work

844
01:29:32,080 --> 01:29:38,320
we know that's a problem so what do we do when we go home well i'm guilty of this and i used to

845
01:29:38,320 --> 01:29:43,920
fall asleep by drinking a couple cocktails right well come to find out the falling asleep drinking

846
01:29:43,920 --> 01:29:50,960
a couple cocktails actually reduces the amount of REM sleep you get so we we can't just you know

847
01:29:50,960 --> 01:29:58,800
complain about these things affecting us and and then not go home and not have uh just be disciplined

848
01:29:58,800 --> 01:30:03,760
enough to do these things appropriately you know if you know you don't sleep good at work then you

849
01:30:03,760 --> 01:30:08,640
need to find time to sleep good at home now that's not the answer to the whole problem but that is

850
01:30:08,640 --> 01:30:13,280
part of the issue i have with it is we can't just complain about something we actually have to do

851
01:30:13,280 --> 01:30:20,880
something ourselves within our own power to fix it you know having a good nighttime routine

852
01:30:20,880 --> 01:30:25,360
having a good you know get off your your mobile devices there's all those things you could go

853
01:30:25,360 --> 01:30:32,960
deep into the details of it all but those are all all big problems with the sleep side of things

854
01:30:34,000 --> 01:30:38,880
and then as a department we have to start looking and start thinking outside of the box some of the

855
01:30:38,880 --> 01:30:44,720
things i've heard that some organizations are starting to do this mainly this first part is

856
01:30:44,720 --> 01:30:52,000
mainly ambulances are starting to give them actual rest periods at night and taking them off and

857
01:30:52,000 --> 01:30:56,720
taking them out of service and allowing them some time to sleep that's a step in the right direction

858
01:30:57,920 --> 01:31:01,920
shift change maybe shift change should be at a different time i've heard some departments are

859
01:31:01,920 --> 01:31:10,400
starting to do a 12 noon shift change and what that noon shift change might do is allow you time

860
01:31:10,400 --> 01:31:15,120
to sleep in if you're on duty if you had a bad night maybe you get to sleep in a little bit

861
01:31:15,680 --> 01:31:21,040
when you go home you're guaranteed at least the ability to go to sleep at night and not have to

862
01:31:21,040 --> 01:31:27,040
wake up early in the morning it's just a thought now it's not going to solve all the problems let

863
01:31:27,040 --> 01:31:33,360
me just say this this is like this stands out to me the most in all this stuff as firefighters

864
01:31:33,360 --> 01:31:38,960
and you're not going to like most firefighters are not going to like this but really to fix the

865
01:31:38,960 --> 01:31:47,120
problem in my mind the biggest part of this is you need more fire stations you need to fill in more

866
01:31:47,120 --> 01:31:53,440
gaps in the district you need more firefighters you need more units running calls out there to

867
01:31:53,440 --> 01:31:58,080
start to reduce the amount of call volume that each individual firefighter responds to

868
01:31:58,960 --> 01:32:03,440
to start to eliminate some of those wakeups we're all going to have to share it we're all going to

869
01:32:03,440 --> 01:32:11,760
have to wear it but more stations more firefighters right those resources have to if you're in a fire

870
01:32:11,760 --> 01:32:18,240
department that hasn't grown much in the last five to ten years think about how much your population

871
01:32:18,240 --> 01:32:24,640
has grown and think about how much run call call volume has gone up if you don't start adding to

872
01:32:24,640 --> 01:32:29,920
reduce that effect on the membership they're just they're just running all those calls i don't where's

873
01:32:29,920 --> 01:32:34,640
in a slow station left in my department they're all gone they used to be there used to be slow

874
01:32:34,640 --> 01:32:38,880
stations right and those are the ones that young guys didn't want to work at because they wanted

875
01:32:38,880 --> 01:32:46,000
to be where the action was but but now they're all somewhat busy and most most of them are so

876
01:32:46,000 --> 01:32:50,640
you have to combat that side of it too because you are a firefighter you start to age in the fire

877
01:32:50,640 --> 01:32:58,560
service you're you're you're not wanting to get up and run 15 calls a day and five after midnight

878
01:32:58,560 --> 01:33:06,160
your body just can't endure that for 30 years so i i'm just kind of throwing a bunch of stuff all

879
01:33:06,160 --> 01:33:11,680
out at once but those there's so many areas that if you even mentioned it i could probably focus

880
01:33:11,680 --> 01:33:18,800
in on it more but it's it's a complicated problem there are a lot of just different sides to it

881
01:33:18,800 --> 01:33:23,440
different things that are problematic and there are solutions to some of these and some of them

882
01:33:23,440 --> 01:33:30,240
are still building the airplane in the air and trying to figure out how to fix it so i'll pause

883
01:33:30,240 --> 01:33:37,360
there well one one area you didn't mention when it came to sleep which people listen to this podcast

884
01:33:37,360 --> 01:33:42,080
i've been preaching for seven years now and this is you know when you're talking about it's on us

885
01:33:42,080 --> 01:33:48,640
this is the problem that we have there's so many of us still believe fairy tales unicorns and

886
01:33:48,640 --> 01:33:53,360
rainbows and the fact that firefighters have the best shift in the world and we only work 10 days

887
01:33:53,360 --> 01:33:59,760
a month when you actually break it down we don't work one day on two days off for example we work

888
01:33:59,760 --> 01:34:06,000
three day three eight hour days crammed together so we work three days on one day off or 30 days a

889
01:34:06,000 --> 01:34:10,640
month so this is the first thing we need to debunk this fallacy that we have this amazing

890
01:34:10,640 --> 01:34:17,200
schedule because we fucking don't 56 hours a week before mandatory overtime is not a dream schedule

891
01:34:18,160 --> 01:34:24,320
secondly and i've had two great um guests one um chief hubert ruder chief of pointon beach who

892
01:34:24,320 --> 01:34:32,080
went to 2472s um about a year ago now and then dixon phillips union leader in pasco county here

893
01:34:32,080 --> 01:34:36,880
in florida they are about to go to that system in a couple years so you got one that's made it

894
01:34:36,880 --> 01:34:42,720
happen already one that's kind of ramping up to do it but both of them i'd love to say that their

895
01:34:42,720 --> 01:34:46,640
departments are just like we love our firefighters so much we're going to change it because of their

896
01:34:46,640 --> 01:34:51,920
mental health and their physical health but it was money they realized that they were bleeding money

897
01:34:51,920 --> 01:34:58,160
on overtime and all these other things and going to a healthier shift saves money hand over fist

898
01:34:58,160 --> 01:35:02,960
so anyone can look at those two episodes and listen to the why behind it and what's beautiful

899
01:35:02,960 --> 01:35:08,160
is the dominoes are falling here in florida finally they are falling and now the departments

900
01:35:08,160 --> 01:35:13,280
around are going well shit if they go to that department and we're struggling to hire now how

901
01:35:13,280 --> 01:35:17,760
the hell are we going to hire when these other departments are doing it better than us they

902
01:35:17,760 --> 01:35:23,040
become what they call destination departments the other kind of kick back to that is like oh well

903
01:35:23,040 --> 01:35:27,200
you know but how are we going to hire we don't have enough people now circling back to what you

904
01:35:27,200 --> 01:35:33,520
and i said these young candidates now see the work week is a lot more healthy you know what i think

905
01:35:33,520 --> 01:35:37,840
i am going to be a firefighter and gainesville has seen that here where the recruitment line has

906
01:35:37,840 --> 01:35:44,080
started to line up outside the door again pascoe boynton so that's the other part and i agree and

907
01:35:44,080 --> 01:35:49,360
it needs to be a double-pronged attack you need to educate people from the front door about sleep

908
01:35:49,360 --> 01:35:54,880
hygiene i talk about this all the time if you get an extra 24 hours between two shifts which is what

909
01:35:54,880 --> 01:35:59,600
we need to do it just bring it to a 42-hour work week basically the same as all the people that

910
01:35:59,600 --> 01:36:04,320
make decisions that firefighters should not get more time off they work 40 hours so you're bringing

911
01:36:04,320 --> 01:36:12,080
it down to their their work week but then you educate them look go hang drywall go dig you know

912
01:36:12,080 --> 01:36:16,800
be landscapers whatever it is if you want extra money go do it but don't take a night shift at

913
01:36:16,800 --> 01:36:22,800
er don't work for a private ambulance company understand that you need to be in your bed and

914
01:36:22,800 --> 01:36:27,120
then understand the sleep hygiene and the acute effects of sleep deprivation the chronic effects

915
01:36:27,120 --> 01:36:33,680
of sleep deprivation now you've put the onus on the individual and the employer simultaneously

916
01:36:33,680 --> 01:36:39,040
so i think that's a big part of the conversation but we have this i kind of called us called the

917
01:36:39,040 --> 01:36:44,720
fire service out a while ago i'm like we're so courageous in a fire yet such giant pussies when

918
01:36:44,720 --> 01:36:49,520
it comes to advocating for our own health and more time with our families and it's about time that

919
01:36:49,520 --> 01:36:54,880
we look in the mirror and say why the fuck do i not deserve to be at home with my children and

920
01:36:54,880 --> 01:37:00,000
my wife or my husband the same amount of time that the average civilian that i protect does

921
01:37:00,720 --> 01:37:05,680
so this is i think a real kind of you know point now if we want to affect the mental health and

922
01:37:05,680 --> 01:37:10,880
the cancer and the obesity and the hormonal disruption that's got half of our men on trt

923
01:37:10,880 --> 01:37:16,080
and our women on the same then we have to bring this into the equation if we're going to talk

924
01:37:16,080 --> 01:37:22,640
about dcon and pfas if we're going to talk about what we see in peer support we have to also talk

925
01:37:22,640 --> 01:37:27,040
about the work week so that's the one thing i would add to your your sleep conversation

926
01:37:28,080 --> 01:37:34,560
i like it i like it i think they're that's that that's an out of the box thought process that

927
01:37:34,560 --> 01:37:40,720
needs to happen and it makes sense right we we know that we need to sleep we need to make we need

928
01:37:40,720 --> 01:37:48,000
to find a better way to get sleep we need to take better care of our people so time will improve

929
01:37:48,000 --> 01:37:55,360
this and it it's been you know what it's been really rewarding to be a part of i can tell you

930
01:37:55,360 --> 01:38:02,320
i don't have all the answers i do think very logical try to keep my thought processes simple

931
01:38:02,960 --> 01:38:08,560
but if if uh if you're we're dealing with a recruitment problem there's a really good

932
01:38:08,560 --> 01:38:15,600
tool right there if you in your organization have a robust health and safety program that takes into

933
01:38:15,600 --> 01:38:21,440
account the sleeping component the shift changing of the shift maybe work cycles where there's

934
01:38:21,440 --> 01:38:27,040
mandatory breaks different things like that you're going to see a better recruitment you're going to

935
01:38:27,040 --> 01:38:31,520
improve the firefighters lives their outcomes we're going to start to reduce these numbers

936
01:38:31,520 --> 01:38:38,560
because they're there and the numbers don't lie and that's it learn from somebody who learned the

937
01:38:38,560 --> 01:38:44,560
hard way i i will tell you all day long i wish i could go back and change some of my my thought

938
01:38:44,560 --> 01:38:52,480
processes as a young aggressive firefighter but i still to this day um love the job i think it's

939
01:38:52,480 --> 01:38:58,320
amazing personally i love what we're able to do to help people but it's the people at the station

940
01:38:58,320 --> 01:39:03,840
that matter the most going into the work is all about the guys you know and and if you're one of

941
01:39:03,840 --> 01:39:10,000
those people if that resonates with you then realize that we have to change we can't continue

942
01:39:10,000 --> 01:39:17,920
to ride this old fire tradition you know the hundred years unimpeded by progress thought

943
01:39:17,920 --> 01:39:24,240
process anymore you have to we have to start thinking of very innovative ways of fixing these

944
01:39:24,240 --> 01:39:30,400
problems and there's solutions out there somewhere in between all these discussions and all these

945
01:39:30,400 --> 01:39:37,680
questions and all these answers there's there's a there's a path forward and a way to fix it so

946
01:39:39,920 --> 01:39:46,080
one more area when it comes to dcon that i have observed you know i mean now we have a lot of

947
01:39:46,080 --> 01:39:51,520
departments where you know like 50 60 percent of departments got five years on or less so these are

948
01:39:51,520 --> 01:39:58,320
young people coming on where a lot of these lessons are being learned now and you know it's it's some

949
01:39:58,320 --> 01:40:02,720
of the same ones that i see you know a year in they've already bought their leather helmet

950
01:40:02,720 --> 01:40:08,960
they've got the big old bushy mustache and they're all chiming in on the you know um clean cabs stop

951
01:40:08,960 --> 01:40:17,920
grabs bullshit that i hear banging around too so talk to me about ego and narcissism as an opposition

952
01:40:17,920 --> 01:40:23,520
to to progress because you know when it comes to for example leather radio straps i've got leather

953
01:40:23,520 --> 01:40:27,280
radio strap with a name on they're beautiful but when you learn about what leather does as far as

954
01:40:27,280 --> 01:40:32,880
its porous element and and being a sponge to carcinogens then you think well should i be a

955
01:40:32,880 --> 01:40:37,920
cunt my throat for you know ems call after ems call when i've just had it in a structure fire

956
01:40:37,920 --> 01:40:45,600
two shifts back you know so i also talk about the the the uh you know leather fire helmet the same

957
01:40:45,600 --> 01:40:51,600
thing and there's this real nauseating kind of ridiculing of the european helmet which is you

958
01:40:51,600 --> 01:40:56,560
know easy to decon ergonomic light you know and as you were talking about trying to fight

959
01:40:56,560 --> 01:41:02,240
wildland fire in bunker gear that's kind of what we're doing now with that so where i see resistance

960
01:41:02,240 --> 01:41:07,680
to progress and thus preventing a lot of these needless deaths that we have in the fire service

961
01:41:08,320 --> 01:41:14,800
our own ego is a part of it and and this is just through my eyes i see a lot of resistance and

962
01:41:14,800 --> 01:41:20,240
ignorance created even people by people that are being hired in a generation that now should know

963
01:41:20,240 --> 01:41:28,480
better yeah what's that saying about three years of mustache and a leather helmet you know big

964
01:41:28,480 --> 01:41:34,720
lifted truck you know when you talk to guys that have been in the fire service for any amount of

965
01:41:34,720 --> 01:41:39,600
time um and certainly there's guys have been doing this a lot longer than me and the guys those are

966
01:41:39,600 --> 01:41:45,360
the guys i look up to um i'll tell you this this is one really important thing i remember

967
01:41:46,480 --> 01:41:52,720
probably one of the best firefighters um most legendary figures in my department

968
01:41:53,920 --> 01:41:58,720
he was also the only firefighter who ever was a lead instructor at our academy and there was a

969
01:41:58,720 --> 01:42:06,640
very good reason for that he was really good at his job and really really well respected it wasn't

970
01:42:06,640 --> 01:42:11,520
until years later that i put something together i remember working a shift with him when i was on

971
01:42:11,520 --> 01:42:17,840
probation and i noticed how clean his helmet his leather helmet was it kept it very clean now

972
01:42:17,840 --> 01:42:23,280
here's a guy who went to a lot of fires who fought a lot of fire again very well respected busy station

973
01:42:24,080 --> 01:42:31,840
a guy and uh i realized that he kept his helmet clean because that's what we were supposed to do

974
01:42:31,840 --> 01:42:36,720
and you didn't need a dirty helmet to tell everybody else around you that you'd been to

975
01:42:36,720 --> 01:42:45,520
a lot of fires they just knew right and i when i finally realized that i just is this again on

976
01:42:45,520 --> 01:42:52,240
like another aha moment like man that's so powerful for me in my mind that we can convey that to the

977
01:42:52,240 --> 01:42:57,680
younger generation you don't need to have a dirty helmet you don't need to have dirty gear

978
01:42:57,680 --> 01:43:05,200
and this this concept of clean cabs stops grabs or whatever listen i had a captain in texas called

979
01:43:05,200 --> 01:43:11,120
me one day he says i just wanted to ask you some questions about your fire apparatus

980
01:43:11,120 --> 01:43:17,200
shoot go ahead he said yeah um it's my understanding you used to have the scbas in the seats

981
01:43:17,200 --> 01:43:22,480
in the jump seats i said yes sir he says do you know why i found out that you don't have them in

982
01:43:22,480 --> 01:43:26,800
in there anymore i said yes we we got rid of them some years back but to be honest with you i don't

983
01:43:26,800 --> 01:43:31,760
know why so i had dug around a little bit and i asked the questions and i got a hold of a couple

984
01:43:31,760 --> 01:43:36,720
of our different chiefs at the time the reason we removed them had nothing to do with clean cab but

985
01:43:36,720 --> 01:43:42,000
it had everything to do with tactical pause at a fire because it's our belief in our culture is

986
01:43:42,000 --> 01:43:47,760
that when we had our scbas on the outside of the apparatus and during the opportunity where you're

987
01:43:47,760 --> 01:43:53,600
donning your ba you're taking a look at the fire and that tactical pause moment that's why we we

988
01:43:53,600 --> 01:44:02,000
moved back to that um and it just happened to work out well for the the clean cab part as well

989
01:44:02,000 --> 01:44:06,560
like years later and so i told him then he says well our guys here don't want to move away from

990
01:44:06,560 --> 01:44:12,160
them in the seat they think that they they get a uh extra i don't know whatever 10 or 15 seconds

991
01:44:12,160 --> 01:44:16,320
it could be the difference between a life and death and i said really that's a good question

992
01:44:16,320 --> 01:44:22,160
a life and death and i said really that's their that's their that's what they're saying right now

993
01:44:22,160 --> 01:44:28,320
they can't they can't hop out of the rig faster and and get to their ba and do multiple things

994
01:44:28,320 --> 01:44:33,920
at the same time right i mean usually i what i teach my guys is when i get to that cabinet i

995
01:44:34,480 --> 01:44:41,040
get my once i get my ba over my head i'm moving the path of direction towards a hose line if i'm

996
01:44:41,040 --> 01:44:47,040
going back to my firefighting days back to my days of pulling hose so you're moving you're doing

997
01:44:47,040 --> 01:44:52,480
two things at once and it's quick it doesn't have to be slow you just have to be efficient and and

998
01:44:52,480 --> 01:44:58,080
faster not only that there we're seeing a lot less knee and hip and shoulder injuries from

999
01:44:58,800 --> 01:45:04,960
dismounting the apparatus wearing an extra 40 pounds of equipment you know so you got to weigh

1000
01:45:04,960 --> 01:45:11,200
all those things uh into the equation are you really that much faster also funny enough i've

1001
01:45:11,200 --> 01:45:15,520
can't count how many times i've seen people not get their headset off and they're all wrapped up in

1002
01:45:16,080 --> 01:45:20,320
their their seat belts and their different things right i mean we can all just be a little vulnerable

1003
01:45:20,320 --> 01:45:26,640
here for a moment i've been there i have absolutely been there so so is it faster i mean that that's a

1004
01:45:26,640 --> 01:45:33,520
question is it is it that much faster i don't like having my mask on entering exiting the rig

1005
01:45:33,520 --> 01:45:39,360
personally because it's going to fog up before i get to the where i'm at i'm my vision is more

1006
01:45:39,360 --> 01:45:45,360
obscured there's so many different reasons but that's you know you have to decide you have to

1007
01:45:45,360 --> 01:45:50,240
make up make a decision not to make excuses we can do this job efficiently both ways

1008
01:45:51,200 --> 01:45:56,960
i i like having the scbs outside of the cab and i think it's cleaner i think it's better for our

1009
01:45:56,960 --> 01:46:05,760
health i also think that we can still do the same job just as well with them outside of the cab so

1010
01:46:06,480 --> 01:46:13,680
you know you're i think that we can debunk that that mindset and uh again for the same

1011
01:46:13,680 --> 01:46:21,040
same people that are out there that think that way uh you know just put yourself in somebody's

1012
01:46:21,040 --> 01:46:25,040
shoes you who's start talking to people that have had cancer and you'll think differently

1013
01:46:25,040 --> 01:46:29,040
those are the people you need to be having conversations with and not thinking you're

1014
01:46:29,040 --> 01:46:33,840
you're you're you're tougher than everybody else around you because i tell you what you get cancer

1015
01:46:33,840 --> 01:46:40,080
you won't be as tough anymore well firstly thank you because that's such a powerful testament from

1016
01:46:40,080 --> 01:46:45,680
someone who is the voice that we need to be listening to but i've talked about this a few

1017
01:46:45,680 --> 01:46:51,040
times you know i went to fire academy and i think i'm sure thinking back you know you're all dressed

1018
01:46:51,040 --> 01:46:55,200
up and ready to leap out the engine when you get to your scenario because it's fire academy you

1019
01:46:55,200 --> 01:47:00,640
know and then went and worked in the miami area for about a year and the packs were in the cab

1020
01:47:01,200 --> 01:47:08,640
and then i went to california and firstly the way that we were taught to throw ladders in florida

1021
01:47:08,640 --> 01:47:13,760
which was like a suitcase carry with the 24 lay in front of the building lay it down walk up the

1022
01:47:13,760 --> 01:47:19,200
rungs you know turn it around you button it from the side which never made any fucking sense to me

1023
01:47:19,200 --> 01:47:24,000
fucking says to me whatsoever you know and then you go to california you know and you're spiking

1024
01:47:24,000 --> 01:47:30,320
the ladder and high shoulder throws and you know all the things you go this is better this is just

1025
01:47:30,320 --> 01:47:35,600
better than the way i was taught that's a simple fact you know now i can actually navigate in an

1026
01:47:35,600 --> 01:47:39,600
alleyway and throw a ladder i can throw a ladder if there's cars or hedges in the way the way i was

1027
01:47:39,600 --> 01:47:45,920
taught in florida i couldn't and then i become a tillerman on a truck company and so my pack now

1028
01:47:45,920 --> 01:47:49,840
the packs were in the inside and anaheim's engines and the front of the truck but in the tillerman

1029
01:47:49,840 --> 01:47:56,720
position you had to have it down in in the cabinet and it took 10 seconds to throw that thing on

1030
01:47:56,720 --> 01:48:01,120
and so when this conversation came in and i had david and stefan from the healthy firefighter as

1031
01:48:01,120 --> 01:48:05,200
you know and and got to hear the whole you know story behind the swedish model and the cancer

1032
01:48:05,200 --> 01:48:12,080
deaths that initiated that and they're not creating surgical sterility at the cab they're just removing

1033
01:48:12,080 --> 01:48:17,280
anything that's going to off gas from you and where you're sitting and breathing but you hear

1034
01:48:17,280 --> 01:48:23,680
this say you know clean cab stops grabs bullshit and i say exactly the same thing that you just did

1035
01:48:23,680 --> 01:48:29,200
if you are leaping like a gazelle from a fire engine right through the front door of a building

1036
01:48:29,200 --> 01:48:33,600
you are gonna fucking die it's that simple because you have no idea what you're doing

1037
01:48:34,400 --> 01:48:39,760
chances are you need to stop look at where you're going to go in listen to your company officer get

1038
01:48:39,760 --> 01:48:44,560
with your partner make sure you've checked each other's gear you know when you actually mask up

1039
01:48:44,560 --> 01:48:51,200
and then you make entry and the other thing is the um the seat belt the the time that i was not

1040
01:48:51,200 --> 01:48:56,720
seatbelted in a moving fire vehicle wasn't my jacket because i'd already put my jacket on before

1041
01:48:56,720 --> 01:49:02,240
i stepped in it was putting my straps on so now you add that element too if you wreck and we're

1042
01:49:02,240 --> 01:49:08,000
all bunkering up in the back you're going through the windshield versus you sit down it's ergonomically

1043
01:49:08,000 --> 01:49:13,600
sound you don't get an scba in your back if you do wreck and then you get off you take that tactical

1044
01:49:13,600 --> 01:49:19,760
pause you throw on your gear and you are a better firefighter that way as well as adding in the

1045
01:49:19,760 --> 01:49:25,600
preventative element of not being exposed to car signatures or minimizing that exposure so i want

1046
01:49:25,600 --> 01:49:30,400
to thank you because you've mirrored exactly the way i think and again that ego narcissism

1047
01:49:30,960 --> 01:49:37,680
cancerous element that is putting all this bullshit out we have to have the humility to say i was

1048
01:49:37,680 --> 01:49:48,080
told this way but that way is better yep 100 and just add one more thing with that is you know think

1049
01:49:48,080 --> 01:49:52,560
of the time okay if you have an scba in your seat if you're going to move over into that seat now

1050
01:49:52,560 --> 01:49:57,120
you're dealing with some you're dealing with all your straps and messing with all your things right

1051
01:49:57,120 --> 01:50:03,680
are you paying attention to your approach into the incident are you catching the your interior size up

1052
01:50:03,680 --> 01:50:09,280
of the building when if you're not sitting in that seat messing with all that gear you're looking at

1053
01:50:09,280 --> 01:50:14,480
the fire you're getting an idea you're starting to develop what's what you're going to do what's your

1054
01:50:14,480 --> 01:50:19,360
approach how much hose do you need to pull what what what is what is going on with their your read

1055
01:50:19,360 --> 01:50:23,520
on the building do you have bars on the on the building do you have you know all those things

1056
01:50:23,520 --> 01:50:28,240
that are going to go through your head that's another little tactical pause is before you exit

1057
01:50:28,240 --> 01:50:32,800
the cab and if you're fussing with your scba that's in the seat that sometimes gets strapped in and

1058
01:50:32,800 --> 01:50:39,520
you get stuck and all these different things i mean and you're a better firefighter we can throw

1059
01:50:39,520 --> 01:50:44,640
scbas fast i mean if you're good at your job you don't need that i don't care how you throw it you

1060
01:50:44,640 --> 01:50:50,320
throw it over your head you do the shoulder method or whatever your department does i mean you should

1061
01:50:50,320 --> 01:50:55,040
be able to throw that scba fast it shouldn't be taking you more than like you said about 10 seconds

1062
01:50:55,040 --> 01:51:02,560
if that you open the compartment it's on your back and you're moving um yeah i mean people can

1063
01:51:02,560 --> 01:51:07,600
come up with all kinds of um i guess it sounds cool in the moment it makes me sound tough and

1064
01:51:07,600 --> 01:51:14,000
you know i'm i'm i'm the big firefighter bad firefighter but talk to people that have um have

1065
01:51:14,000 --> 01:51:18,720
lived some really unfortunate things and you know you want to start to do is think about how can we

1066
01:51:18,720 --> 01:51:26,080
best integrate the best of both worlds and make it work better for our people i was supposed to have

1067
01:51:26,080 --> 01:51:32,480
a firefighter i think he was california anthony ben alisha on the show um and we had talked i think

1068
01:51:32,480 --> 01:51:39,920
it was late last year um he was fighting you know a cancer batter of his own um and then we'd

1069
01:51:39,920 --> 01:51:44,320
scheduled a time and he actually messaged me is that james i'm going through you know this chemo

1070
01:51:44,320 --> 01:51:49,360
is a little rough um you know can we can we reschedule and he was dead three weeks later

1071
01:51:50,720 --> 01:51:56,000
this is the reality of why you're so passionate why i'm so passionate about this i lost one

1072
01:51:56,000 --> 01:52:02,240
of my my uh fellow firefighters in orange county carl andreano i think he was 23 or 24 years old

1073
01:52:03,040 --> 01:52:09,120
you know i'm i'm about to turn 50 i've had two of carl's lifetimes right now so this is why i get

1074
01:52:09,120 --> 01:52:14,960
so wound up about this fucking ignorance in the fire service because until we stop this mythology

1075
01:52:14,960 --> 01:52:20,880
this chest beating and saying it's for them it's not it's for you you want to look a certain way

1076
01:52:20,880 --> 01:52:26,800
you want your mustache and your helmet and your dirty gear you know and your your bullshit rhetoric

1077
01:52:26,800 --> 01:52:32,480
when if you truly think it's for them then start doing it for not only the people you serve

1078
01:52:32,480 --> 01:52:36,640
but your family when you come home and the men and women to the left and right of you

1079
01:52:39,040 --> 01:52:44,720
that's what matters the most when all said and done here's one of the things i'll tell you is we

1080
01:52:44,720 --> 01:52:52,160
have uh what i remember as you know pillars of the department you know legacy members of the department

1081
01:52:53,680 --> 01:52:58,400
that i would remember now and if i started to share the story in a fire station

1082
01:52:58,960 --> 01:53:05,360
these young guys don't know who i'm talking about and kind of a sad reality is is that

1083
01:53:05,360 --> 01:53:12,240
nobody remembers those people after a certain period of time and those are my memories and those

1084
01:53:12,240 --> 01:53:18,240
are things that i have of those people being just influential in my my career but when you leave this

1085
01:53:18,240 --> 01:53:23,440
job what matters is your family they're the only one that are going to be left for you after you

1086
01:53:23,440 --> 01:53:27,920
retire you may still have some of your fire department friends but what matters is your

1087
01:53:27,920 --> 01:53:35,200
family they're they're the most important thing i can tell you if you think about anything in your

1088
01:53:35,200 --> 01:53:41,760
career for those members here that may be younger or even older i mean think about the lost time

1089
01:53:41,760 --> 01:53:49,440
i i tell you what i i never will get that year and a half of my life back i can't replicate that i

1090
01:53:49,440 --> 01:53:55,120
doubt that little girl that was six months old is two years old i lost that time you don't get it

1091
01:53:55,120 --> 01:54:02,160
back i have to try to make i feel responsible for making up for it right as a husband and father you

1092
01:54:02,160 --> 01:54:07,200
know i have to do my part but if you're not even if you don't have kids you could think about your

1093
01:54:07,200 --> 01:54:12,320
family members who don't they don't want to see you go through that they live it too they have to

1094
01:54:12,320 --> 01:54:20,880
go through it with you all these things that are trying to um if you're trying to overshadow

1095
01:54:21,600 --> 01:54:28,240
something that's not a cool concept or a cool idea and it's not fun and it's it's just not cool

1096
01:54:28,880 --> 01:54:35,280
i'm going to say things that just devalue it you know that that's just inappropriate right

1097
01:54:35,280 --> 01:54:39,680
talk to the old guys start listening to them those are the guys that have been there and those are

1098
01:54:39,680 --> 01:54:45,360
the guys that know what to do and when those old guys are telling the new guys that man i really

1099
01:54:45,360 --> 01:54:50,960
wish i would have had this cancer prevention stuff in my career that would have really really would

1100
01:54:50,960 --> 01:54:56,160
have made a difference then then you're starting to really focus in on what matters your family

1101
01:54:56,880 --> 01:55:02,800
uh doing things the right way the saying of there's always time to do the right thing i mean think

1102
01:55:02,800 --> 01:55:07,120
i mean think about it there's a bigger picture and when you i guess maybe through age and

1103
01:55:07,760 --> 01:55:15,360
through time and experience you start to realize that those that mentality of that i'm indestructible

1104
01:55:15,920 --> 01:55:21,920
you're not let me just tell you you know what right now today if somebody comes up to you and

1105
01:55:21,920 --> 01:55:26,160
you know hey i prayed today you had to go to the doctor's office you're not feeling well

1106
01:55:26,160 --> 01:55:31,200
and you left there today with a cancer diagnosis how much would that change your life how much

1107
01:55:31,200 --> 01:55:37,200
would that affect you how much of that badass thinking matters now it doesn't it doesn't matter

1108
01:55:37,200 --> 01:55:46,480
at all it's it's in it's it's non-existent it your mind completely goes into another place

1109
01:55:47,120 --> 01:55:52,240
and you start to go into survival mode because you don't know how you're gonna if i'm gonna live

1110
01:55:52,240 --> 01:55:57,120
or not it's a different if it's completely different experience it'll change your life

1111
01:55:57,120 --> 01:56:02,480
you don't want it to happen to you it's not the kind of life-changing experience you want um and

1112
01:56:02,480 --> 01:56:10,480
all that stuff you thought was cool and important not not important not cool doesn't matter the

1113
01:56:10,480 --> 01:56:16,320
reality of what matters is your life uh being able to live as long as you can as healthy as you can

1114
01:56:17,200 --> 01:56:23,360
um and having a family and having your family and those are the people that will be with you

1115
01:56:23,360 --> 01:56:28,960
from now until the end as long as they live or until as long as you live but those other things

1116
01:56:28,960 --> 01:56:37,120
that you think matter not important don't matter sorry that's the reality absolutely well i want

1117
01:56:37,120 --> 01:56:42,720
to make sure that we cover some of the incredible things that you've been able to put in place so

1118
01:56:43,520 --> 01:56:51,280
in your department if a man or woman discovers that they do have a cancer diagnosis walk me

1119
01:56:51,280 --> 01:56:56,000
through the tools that you've put in place to help that firefighter through their journey now

1120
01:56:58,800 --> 01:57:03,200
well yeah so the way i've approached them and they're all different and i don't have a written

1121
01:57:03,200 --> 01:57:09,840
algorithm of how to go down through it but the general flow path is you know when most of the

1122
01:57:09,840 --> 01:57:16,160
people when they call i know who they are i know them most of them um so i talk to them and i

1123
01:57:16,160 --> 01:57:21,040
and i can kind of hear it in their voice something's wrong and obviously realize that

1124
01:57:21,040 --> 01:57:26,560
there's a reason they're calling me and it's usually not a good one but i just i talk to them

1125
01:57:26,560 --> 01:57:31,920
much like if you haven't gone through any peer support training um you know just talk to them

1126
01:57:31,920 --> 01:57:36,640
and try to understand what's going on and and everyone's a little different you know some

1127
01:57:36,640 --> 01:57:40,400
people are really upset and some people are just still in shock and they're going through the

1128
01:57:41,120 --> 01:57:45,200
the stages of death or or those kinds of things that are kind of cycling through in their head

1129
01:57:45,200 --> 01:57:50,800
and since i've lived it i've been able to relate in some ways of like where they're at and try to

1130
01:57:50,800 --> 01:57:58,080
make sense of it for them or like help them through that process and then um get them the support you

1131
01:57:58,080 --> 01:58:04,320
know the i i'm the assistant state director here for in california for firefighter cancer support

1132
01:58:04,320 --> 01:58:11,280
network so um i have close closely work with them and getting the resources that they offer to our

1133
01:58:11,280 --> 01:58:18,240
members which is their cancer toolkit and then their mentorship program so kind of starting there

1134
01:58:18,240 --> 01:58:23,040
that's kind of a starting point is just kind of understanding what's going on the gravity of the

1135
01:58:23,040 --> 01:58:28,560
diagnosis of what kind of cancer they're dealing with what kind of treatment plan is going on and

1136
01:58:28,560 --> 01:58:36,560
i'm not really there to offer um you know health advice if you will uh but i you know it's a gray

1137
01:58:36,560 --> 01:58:41,280
area i kind of step out there a little bit and make sure they're they're advocating for themselves

1138
01:58:41,840 --> 01:58:45,920
you know what's net what's the next step in this process get them thinking of the questions they

1139
01:58:45,920 --> 01:58:52,160
should be asking the doctor the tough questions um you know ensuring that they're they're taking

1140
01:58:52,160 --> 01:58:57,440
care of themselves and that they have people to help them so kind of start there there's also some

1141
01:58:57,440 --> 01:59:06,720
financial resources we can tap into uh we also do meal um uh the meal uh what do you call it

1142
01:59:08,480 --> 01:59:12,720
we kind of like bring meals to our people we have a whole thing and i'll think of the meal train

1143
01:59:12,720 --> 01:59:19,840
but um train thinking uh meal train uh to support our members um you know that you'd be surprised

1144
01:59:19,840 --> 01:59:23,760
how far that goes to help the member and their family especially their family because they're

1145
01:59:23,760 --> 01:59:30,400
their caretaker right um and then you know there's the part that you got to do the deal with the

1146
01:59:30,400 --> 01:59:35,600
paperwork here in the state of california and all states have some level of a cancer presumptive law

1147
01:59:36,560 --> 01:59:42,000
here it's presumptive thankfully the the agency i work for we have really streamlined the work

1148
01:59:42,000 --> 01:59:48,080
comp process to the point of when i was in the position i would just i would get the phone call

1149
01:59:48,080 --> 01:59:54,160
i would deal with all the resources and and and you know my approach to the person was just really

1150
01:59:54,160 --> 02:00:00,640
caring for the individual and then it would stem into the hey you know since you have a diagnosis

1151
02:00:00,640 --> 02:00:05,360
we have to get the paperwork rolling and it's pretty straightforward we have a packet it has

1152
02:00:05,360 --> 02:00:10,560
everything in it from the state forms that are required to our own department uh city forms

1153
02:00:11,200 --> 02:00:17,200
and i would stop what i'm doing and i would go um meet them somewhere take care of that and importantly

1154
02:00:17,200 --> 02:00:23,440
uh very importantly get a one page summary diagnosis of their cancer so that it's indisputable

1155
02:00:23,440 --> 02:00:32,080
we know we we have a diagnosis and um i would we complete the paperwork and for us there's a call

1156
02:00:32,080 --> 02:00:38,720
in process that's a supervisory component and then i would just take all that that paperwork in the

1157
02:00:38,720 --> 02:00:45,840
packet signed um and i would hand deliver it to our work comp division and within within minutes

1158
02:00:45,840 --> 02:00:50,480
they're already in the system and in just a very short amount of time their cancer claims approved

1159
02:00:51,200 --> 02:00:56,720
now we didn't get to that overnight it took time to get there it took conversations with risk

1160
02:00:56,720 --> 02:01:03,200
with our risk management department and workers compensation division to get to a point where we

1161
02:01:03,200 --> 02:01:09,600
had a streamlined approach like that i've heard so many things over the over the course of my time

1162
02:01:09,600 --> 02:01:15,280
in the in the position and even still now that other departments don't have that they're denied

1163
02:01:15,280 --> 02:01:22,720
they're delayed every time and i think that there's a big challenge within workers compensation

1164
02:01:23,360 --> 02:01:29,280
alone and all you don't have to go very far if you just go to one of the workers compensation fraud

1165
02:01:30,560 --> 02:01:37,360
conventions you'll understand that they deal with a lot of fraud and um generally speaking it does

1166
02:01:37,360 --> 02:01:43,280
happen but it's unfortunate that a bad few bad seeds out there ruin it for the rest of us people

1167
02:01:43,280 --> 02:01:48,800
that are good people that are trying to do good things for this for our department and the public

1168
02:01:48,800 --> 02:01:56,160
and everything and then we're being mistreated because of of things like that um but that's part

1169
02:01:56,160 --> 02:02:01,360
of the process it's getting that work comp piece done you know it's the business part of it and

1170
02:02:01,360 --> 02:02:05,520
and you gotta you gotta be efficient you gotta get it done quickly and so that's kind of how i did

1171
02:02:05,520 --> 02:02:12,080
that and then i most of the time served as the person's mentor um continually supporting him

1172
02:02:12,080 --> 02:02:16,080
through the process i've done things i've done everything from take people to their

1173
02:02:16,640 --> 02:02:24,480
chemotherapy appointments um because they couldn't get a ride to bring them a meal to um get guys

1174
02:02:24,480 --> 02:02:29,680
over there to mow their lawn you know have christmas presents you name it like you know

1175
02:02:29,680 --> 02:02:34,720
give them everything that you would want for yourself you know make their lives easier

1176
02:02:34,720 --> 02:02:40,080
uh reduce the burden of paperwork um take that off their plate because they they got to deal

1177
02:02:40,080 --> 02:02:44,640
with cancer they got to deal with fighting something that's gonna it's either gonna say

1178
02:02:44,640 --> 02:02:48,960
they're either gonna live or they're not and you got to give them the chance and you got to make

1179
02:02:48,960 --> 02:02:57,600
it as comfortable and as possible and just kind of be um their wrestling coach beautiful

1180
02:02:57,600 --> 02:03:02,000
beautiful i mean you've you've got in place so many things i'm sure a lot of people listening

1181
02:03:02,000 --> 02:03:06,960
are gonna probably want to reach out to you because you've done so much work to get to this point

1182
02:03:07,200 --> 02:03:13,120
and the the thing that really jumps out is that you've removed as many of the external stresses

1183
02:03:13,120 --> 02:03:18,640
as you can to someone who's been given such a horrendous diagnosis and factoring back to for

1184
02:03:18,640 --> 02:03:23,840
example you mentioning having two mortgages simply just to get the medication for your daughter

1185
02:03:23,840 --> 02:03:29,360
in our broken health care system what's heartbreaking is someone firstly gets a diagnosis

1186
02:03:29,360 --> 02:03:33,920
of something terrifying like that and then they understand the financial implication which is a

1187
02:03:33,920 --> 02:03:39,200
kind of double whammy on this thing so by getting all these ducks in a row making sure that you know

1188
02:03:39,200 --> 02:03:44,240
you're getting them approved when it comes to the presumptive law and streamlining wortman's comp

1189
02:03:44,960 --> 02:03:49,440
you've taken a lot of the the stresses that arguably would make the cancer worse

1190
02:03:49,440 --> 02:03:56,800
away from the firefighter yes yeah it when i when i went through it because i walked through this path

1191
02:03:57,520 --> 02:04:04,160
um it was complicated and it wasn't as easy as i would have liked it and i i realized when i got

1192
02:04:04,160 --> 02:04:08,880
in the position that i was going to change that i was going to do something about that because nobody

1193
02:04:09,280 --> 02:04:13,360
should have to deal with oh i can't get prescriptions approved you know that shouldn't

1194
02:04:13,360 --> 02:04:18,560
be a problem because i'm not going to be able to do that because i'm not going to be able to do

1195
02:04:18,560 --> 02:04:24,800
that shouldn't be that shouldn't be an issue you know you're you're not well you're um if you're

1196
02:04:24,800 --> 02:04:31,600
going through chemo or radiation or any other form of cancer treatment you are sick and the last thing

1197
02:04:31,600 --> 02:04:35,520
you want to think about is oh i need to get this piece of paperwork in because i need to get

1198
02:04:35,520 --> 02:04:40,720
something approved you know that's that that shouldn't matter and so one of the other things

1199
02:04:40,720 --> 02:04:47,440
i mentioned earlier on was the nurse case managers and uh them you know all these these or maybe i

1200
02:04:47,440 --> 02:04:53,440
didn't mention it but nurse case manager so we we have them as a pre-authorized thing for our

1201
02:04:53,440 --> 02:04:57,520
members who get diagnosed with cancer and they're worth their weight in gold these are

1202
02:04:58,960 --> 02:05:05,200
rns that are able to you know work with you on things you need whether it's paperwork approved

1203
02:05:06,720 --> 02:05:12,320
medications approved and off hours on the weekends things like like that or or different things like

1204
02:05:12,320 --> 02:05:17,360
i mentioned i needed things i didn't know i needed like a commode in a hospital bed in my house and

1205
02:05:17,360 --> 02:05:27,280
and later on when i was um my last um my last uh major infection i was at home infusing for two months

1206
02:05:27,920 --> 02:05:34,320
um with the and i had to self-administer all this stuff for i was like infusing for like 18 hours a

1207
02:05:34,320 --> 02:05:40,000
day on these different heavy antibiotics they were the ones that were able to make that happen so

1208
02:05:40,640 --> 02:05:44,880
you want to provide your people at the end of the day ultimately my i think my message here is you

1209
02:05:44,880 --> 02:05:51,840
want to provide your people as many resources possible to give them to reduce that burden and

1210
02:05:51,840 --> 02:05:56,400
and just it's already hard enough let's not make it harder on them let's make it easier

1211
02:05:57,840 --> 02:06:03,200
so someone goes through treatment hopefully successfully they're wanting to return to duty

1212
02:06:03,200 --> 02:06:07,440
i don't know if i think you and i talked about this but i've certainly had it mentioned before

1213
02:06:08,240 --> 02:06:12,880
an element that is often forgotten is the reintegration of someone back into the

1214
02:06:12,880 --> 02:06:18,160
workforce whether it's a mental health challenge that they suffered or cancer or or some sort of

1215
02:06:18,160 --> 02:06:24,160
injury um a lot of them feel ill prepared and sometimes it may be even kind of out of the

1216
02:06:24,160 --> 02:06:27,360
tribe by that point so what have you observed with that conversation

1217
02:06:29,680 --> 02:06:36,720
well i have a firsthand experience on that one um just to share with you that so i when i got

1218
02:06:36,720 --> 02:06:40,880
finally got done with all my treatment and complications and everything i the department

1219
02:06:40,880 --> 02:06:47,680
was really good about getting me a light duty assignment um they gave me the opportunity to

1220
02:06:47,680 --> 02:06:56,080
i mean shoot i had i'm just i like 2000 plus emails um i had like a thousand vector solutions

1221
02:06:56,080 --> 02:07:02,720
assignments that were were past due i mean you think about your worst welcome firefighters

1222
02:07:02,720 --> 02:07:10,960
having all that red right well think about having just pages of red so uh yeah i mean

1223
02:07:11,520 --> 02:07:15,520
that's that's like the business side of things but then there's like the mental side of things and

1224
02:07:15,520 --> 02:07:22,160
the physical side of things so i think it's important to develop an um injury prevention

1225
02:07:22,160 --> 02:07:28,160
and rehabilitation program for your department um if you don't know what that is uh look it up

1226
02:07:28,160 --> 02:07:36,560
and read about it and learn about it um we are fortunate to have um physical therapists so i

1227
02:07:36,560 --> 02:07:41,280
didn't at the time have physical therapists but that would have been really good um and i think

1228
02:07:41,280 --> 02:07:46,240
just keep trying things like i my whole body hurt my whole freaking body hurt i was trying to get

1229
02:07:46,240 --> 02:07:51,360
back and part of it getting a little older too on top of it but i did all kinds of things that i used

1230
02:07:51,360 --> 02:07:57,280
to poopoo back in the day like yoga and um different things like that and it it really

1231
02:07:57,280 --> 02:08:03,360
helped me really really helped me i started to clean up my diet a lot um cut back and i'll find

1232
02:08:03,360 --> 02:08:08,720
a lot of things i don't drink anymore i'm a non-drinker and i can talk to you about that if

1233
02:08:08,720 --> 02:08:13,280
if you want to see some major life improvements stop drinking that'll improve your life greatly

1234
02:08:13,920 --> 02:08:19,840
and your and your pocketbook um but yeah i think what we really get into is the the cancer

1235
02:08:19,840 --> 02:08:25,520
survivorship right the you've survived cancer and you're coming back into the department

1236
02:08:25,520 --> 02:08:31,280
what happened to me was i went through the the the six months of light duty came back in my first

1237
02:08:31,280 --> 02:08:38,480
shift my first call was a terminally ill cancer patient i don't know that i was ready for that

1238
02:08:38,480 --> 02:08:43,280
i didn't at the time i had to step out of the room i wasn't ready i was still mentally

1239
02:08:44,560 --> 02:08:50,720
mentally hurting i had the i was able to step out of the room being the apparatus operator at the

1240
02:08:50,720 --> 02:08:56,240
time and just kind of gather myself and think about the fact that this is going to continue

1241
02:08:56,240 --> 02:09:01,200
and i'm going to see more stuff and i'm going to see more bad stuff too but i think going through

1242
02:09:01,200 --> 02:09:07,600
a cancer survivorship course uh miami did a great job um the university of miami created a course

1243
02:09:07,600 --> 02:09:14,800
it's online it's free i actually got to be a part of the the build of that curriculum and uh shoot

1244
02:09:14,800 --> 02:09:22,400
it it touches on everything the physical the the the behavioral component uh things that you can do

1245
02:09:22,400 --> 02:09:29,760
to kind of prepare yourself to be ready to go and then to some to some degree um you have to decide

1246
02:09:29,760 --> 02:09:35,760
what's going to help you what what's going to help you and and getting you back and then so when i was

1247
02:09:35,760 --> 02:09:41,200
in the position people that were coming back and reintegrating back into the workforce i would i

1248
02:09:41,200 --> 02:09:45,600
would bring to bring things to light i would make them think about things like hey or you know are

1249
02:09:45,600 --> 02:09:50,400
you physically okay because there's a physical side of this job like we have to pass a physical

1250
02:09:51,120 --> 02:09:55,520
test to be able to come back after being out for a certain amount of times a certain amount of time

1251
02:09:56,640 --> 02:10:02,080
but we don't really talk about the behavioral side are you mentally prepared because it's going to

1252
02:10:02,080 --> 02:10:07,200
be hard it's going to be maybe harder and your new hundred percent of where you're at now after

1253
02:10:07,200 --> 02:10:11,600
going through so much treatment is going to be different than the person you were before are you

1254
02:10:11,600 --> 02:10:17,520
are you ready so all good questions all things that i think that cancer survivorship

1255
02:10:18,880 --> 02:10:25,040
online program does address and i think it's uh we can we can certainly do more hey and since

1256
02:10:25,040 --> 02:10:31,040
we're talking about it go meet with a psychologist you should be meeting with a psychologist if you

1257
02:10:31,040 --> 02:10:35,200
get diagnosed with cancer get get a phone appointment go meet with psychologists start

1258
02:10:35,200 --> 02:10:40,080
talking to them start start airing out your dirty laundry start getting the mental side

1259
02:10:41,680 --> 02:10:47,040
of the discussion going because it is very much a part of it is is just as much as the physical

1260
02:10:47,920 --> 02:10:57,360
absolutely so sorry um one last thought there is is that at some point you're going to have to

1261
02:10:57,360 --> 02:11:02,160
rip off the band-aid and come back if you're planning to come back to the job you're just

1262
02:11:02,160 --> 02:11:06,640
going to have to rip it off and you're going to have to do it and just know that it will get

1263
02:11:06,640 --> 02:11:13,920
better and that's saying about time healing all wounds is is true it for me it took quite a while

1264
02:11:13,920 --> 02:11:21,120
longer than i wanted but it did get better i did get back to the job i'm not quite as

1265
02:11:22,000 --> 02:11:29,200
strong as i used to be maybe but i'm still able to do the job i'm still able to keep up and uh

1266
02:11:29,200 --> 02:11:38,640
it's it's uh it's something really uh if you can overcome it it it's the resilience like you spoke

1267
02:11:38,640 --> 02:11:44,960
of earlier just to be able to overcome cancer come back to this job is is a huge lift and it's it

1268
02:11:44,960 --> 02:11:48,960
should be it's commendable in my mind and all the people that i've been able to help bring back

1269
02:11:49,600 --> 02:11:56,560
i brought more back than not and i'll never forget the the compliments and the thanks and the

1270
02:11:56,560 --> 02:12:01,840
appreciation that was shown to me for for bringing the help helping them through it all because it

1271
02:12:01,840 --> 02:12:10,160
it's a it's a it's a disaster in your life that you have to live and so if you plan on coming back

1272
02:12:10,160 --> 02:12:16,960
to the department in one piece you have to fix yourself and so anyway i'll kind of stop no no

1273
02:12:16,960 --> 02:12:20,320
it's been amazing i've got one more thing to ask you and then we'll close up because you've been

1274
02:12:20,320 --> 02:12:28,320
talking for over two hours now but i have had a few people on here and i cringe when i think that

1275
02:12:28,320 --> 02:12:33,360
they go back to the very shifts that contributed to the cancer in the first place not the only

1276
02:12:33,360 --> 02:12:39,280
thing but contributed amplified reduce the armor as the example you used earlier what are your

1277
02:12:39,280 --> 02:12:46,880
thoughts on a cancer survivor returning back to duty but if possible entering a 40 hour spot where

1278
02:12:46,880 --> 02:12:54,160
they sleep at night versus being on shift work again that would that's best case scenario if

1279
02:12:54,160 --> 02:12:58,240
you could bring somebody back and put them in an administrative assignment whether or not

1280
02:12:59,920 --> 02:13:06,960
having to be exposed to as many things anymore the the sleep issue as we talked about that that's

1281
02:13:06,960 --> 02:13:11,120
certainly the best case example and that's actually kind of what happened to me to some

1282
02:13:11,120 --> 02:13:16,240
to some extent although i don't think i worked 40 hours i worked a lot more than 40 hours because

1283
02:13:16,240 --> 02:13:23,920
of the demand and i well one thing i will tell you is i my oncologist very directly told me

1284
02:13:26,960 --> 02:13:32,240
you might think about finding a new a new career you know it was very obvious to him what caused

1285
02:13:32,240 --> 02:13:40,240
the cancer in his opinion it was the career being a firefighter the exposures he certainly told me

1286
02:13:40,240 --> 02:13:47,200
don't go back to busy fire stations because that that was not a good plan and not good for me and

1287
02:13:47,200 --> 02:13:55,360
my health but i did have a straight-to-assignment for five years unfortunately because i take things

1288
02:13:55,360 --> 02:14:03,360
very serious i probably stress put i had more stress in that position than normally but

1289
02:14:03,360 --> 02:14:08,400
uh all things said and done it's uh reducing those exposures better sleep if you can improve those

1290
02:14:08,400 --> 02:14:14,400
things you're you're doing yourself uh so you know you're doing your body is solid and you're and

1291
02:14:14,400 --> 02:14:21,360
you're staying to live longer if you do it that way i'm kind of hard-headed and uh i wanted to get

1292
02:14:21,360 --> 02:14:26,480
back to the job at some point just to prove to myself i could do it again and that i was still

1293
02:14:26,480 --> 02:14:31,440
capable and so here i am doing it again and but i don't have any ambition to go back to the busy

1294
02:14:31,440 --> 02:14:38,720
houses um i was in them long enough and i did my time and uh now it's more about you know doing

1295
02:14:38,720 --> 02:14:43,520
other things in the department that will improve every you know improve the department make it

1296
02:14:43,520 --> 02:14:50,560
better um and leave it better than i got it ultimately leave it better than i got it beautiful

1297
02:14:50,560 --> 02:14:56,480
well kyle i want to say firstly that mark was absolutely right this was such a phenomenal

1298
02:14:56,480 --> 02:15:01,600
conversation and that lived experience the same with the mental health conversation is what we

1299
02:15:01,600 --> 02:15:06,560
need it's all well and good that someone gets in front of us and gives us a you know slideshow and

1300
02:15:07,520 --> 02:15:12,720
you know talks about statistics and all these kind of things but that doesn't really grab us by the

1301
02:15:12,720 --> 02:15:17,120
throat and make us pay attention but when it's from someone who's been through hell and has been

1302
02:15:17,120 --> 02:15:20,960
through hell and i think one of the most poignant things that you said was that you lost a year and

1303
02:15:20,960 --> 02:15:25,600
a half with your family i hope that really resonated with people so this is the very

1304
02:15:25,600 --> 02:15:29,440
conversation people need to hear and then the solutions that you brought to your department

1305
02:15:29,440 --> 02:15:34,080
that people can can learn from i think is incredibly powerful too so i want to thank you

1306
02:15:34,080 --> 02:15:39,040
firstly for your courageous vulnerability and secondly for being so generous with your time

1307
02:15:39,040 --> 02:15:44,720
and your knowledge and coming on the behind the shield podcast today hey thanks jim for

1308
02:15:44,720 --> 02:15:51,520
having me it's uh it's an honor to be here it's been a great experience thanks for listening to me

1309
02:15:51,520 --> 02:15:57,840
and you know i'm just i'm very like i said earlier i'm very passionate about fixing this problem and

1310
02:15:57,840 --> 02:16:04,000
so i i pull out all the stops if it if it's me sharing my story another time to benefit others

1311
02:16:04,000 --> 02:16:11,120
or me sharing more ideas about how we fix these problems in the fire service i'm all about it and

1312
02:16:11,120 --> 02:16:18,480
again thanks so much for having me i appreciate this opportunity