Finding Solace in Music: Marco’s Tale of Resilience - Part 2 with Guest Host - Marco Estorino

Dirty Skittles [00:00:00]:
Welcome back to shit that goes on in our heads. This is part two of Marco from Sonic Halls, featuring Move.

Marco [00:00:08]:
I just wanna I just wanna go crazy. No way out. Here's what happened. And I'm not going to name anybody here. But don't get people sued.

Dirty Skittles [00:00:44]:
We appreciate that. Don't get sued.

Marco [00:00:50]:
Yeah, we nearly did, but yeah, no, it was that bad.

Dirty Skittles [00:00:56]:
But.

Marco [00:00:58]:
There'S only a few doctors in at least the country, maybe the world, that are good at fixing this condition, like do the surgery for it. And the doctor I went with it as well. I had like nerves that needed to be fixed as well. So I fixed that as but so I had to go to Connecticut, as I mentioned, to get the surgery. So I went to Connecticut and we had the option of two hospitals in Connecticut. Same doctor, just two different hospitals. One was like I was 17 at the time, so it was a pediatric hospital, like slightly newer fancier equipment, all that kind of stuff. One that was like an older hospital didn't have as much equipment, but it was a little closer to where we were staying.

Marco [00:01:55]:
So they're like, oh, just do the one that's closer. It's not that big a deal. I'm basically an adult. I'm not sure how much pediatric or not would affect me. The pediatric part is not what affected me. I have the surgery and the doctor is like, that was one of the hardest surgeries for this I've ever done. And I was like, great.

Dirty Skittles [00:02:20]:
That's not anything I'd ever want my.

Marco [00:02:22]:
Doctor to say exactly right. It took us like 4 hours. I was like, cool, that's awesome, bro. But and I start recovering and I'm recovering really well, not sarcastically, I start recovering really well. For anyone who's had like any kind of surgery like that. They give you this tube that you got to blow in to make this little ball go up. And I was like hidden it to the top. I was breathing well that wouldn't last long.

Marco [00:02:59]:
No, because they're like and obviously it wasn't morphine, but like morphine adjacent drip. I had the drip, the fashion.

Dirty Skittles [00:03:11]:
Respect the drip.

Marco [00:03:13]:
Yeah, they said, okay, it was like four days later, we're going to take the thing out. And I had slowly been hitting this thing more and more, but I guess no one realized that just in noting that because the first night I barely hit it at all. Because they're like, this is awesome, this kid's doing great. So they take out the drip, I'm like, okay, I'm probably going to feel kind of crappy for a couple of days and withdrawals, whatever. And then I get to go home. So it's sick that night. Or I guess that next morning in a sense. It was like 01:00 a.m..

Marco [00:03:51]:
My dad was staying with me at the time, my parents, because my brother mom and dad came to also my parents. But my brother also came with us to Connecticut. So one was staying with my brother at the place we were staying. One stayed with me at the hospital. My dad was with me that night. I wake up at 01:00 a.m. And cannot breathe.

Dirty Skittles [00:04:11]:
Oh, wow.

Marco [00:04:15]:
Yeah, it really hurt to inhale. I always explain it like I was hyperventilating because I couldn't properly ventilate.

Dirty Skittles [00:04:23]:
Wow.

Marco [00:04:23]:
So I was like, oh, my God.

G-Rex [00:04:26]:
Worst feeling in the world.

Marco [00:04:28]:
Yeah. No. And that next day or whatever, because obviously they put me back on the medicine and just like, okay, we're going to figure something out. Give you a painkiller for now, and then we regroup in the morning or whatever. Everyone's back there and they're like, Put your arms up. Just trying to get me to not hurt because by that next morning, it's like, oh, my God, I'm in so much pain, and it's not working for what we later realized, I had fluid buildup that would come to it collapsed my lung.

Dirty Skittles [00:05:05]:
Wow.

Marco [00:05:08]:
Yeah. So I was like, great, man.

Dirty Skittles [00:05:12]:
I am not a doctor, but if I had a collapsed lung and they were telling me to put my arms.

Marco [00:05:16]:
Up because it would help, that wasn't the doctors.

Dirty Skittles [00:05:19]:
That was like, my okay.

Marco [00:05:21]:
I was like, well, no. They didn't know what to do.

Dirty Skittles [00:05:25]:
Yeah.

Marco [00:05:28]:
It turned into getting a million tests. It got to the point where, because of all this, I'm like, crazy dehydrated, crazy tachycardic for people who don't know, that's when your heart beats really fast. I was, like, 150 sleeping.

Dirty Skittles [00:05:47]:
Wow.

Marco [00:05:48]:
Fever 104. For what we later found out, or not officially found out because they wouldn't tell us, but we kind of know. Essentially what we didn't realize when I chose that hospital is that I got my surgery in July. In May of the year, the hospital had gotten penalized for post outstanding post surgical infections.

Dirty Skittles [00:06:18]:
Wow.

Marco [00:06:19]:
Yeah. Not fun. Damn. Clearly, that's what happened to me. And my mom had been keeping in contact with the parents of a girl that had gotten the same surgery as me, and she went in a couple of days before me, she had, like, build up in her abdomen or something like that. So I was like, okay, it's probably just one of those weird fluid buildups, one of those weird one in ten things with my luck, with health, it's just the thing.

Dirty Skittles [00:06:49]:
Whatever.

Marco [00:06:50]:
Get it fixed, not whatever. Yeah, because it was the first time it had happened to anyone's lungs or anything like that in the hospital. So I have to get a pick line because they can't IV me anymore. I'm not able to fly home anymore, which that's a whole other part of this. That and I'm getting X rays, like, every day now, and I don't even know why. Well, I know why. And the last disc ditch effort was that before, I would have had to get another surgery, and I did eventually spoiler is that they tried to syringe it out of my back.

G-Rex [00:07:37]:
No.

Marco [00:07:41]:
Not fun. And a quick side story, just with that. Obviously, they're sticking a needle in your back, and it's going to hurt. So it's like they give you a numbing thing. So the doctor is like, okay, this is going to sting, but then hopefully you shouldn't feel much of anything. They put the thing in my back stings. I'm like and then I'm like, okay, but it should be fine. They get the syringe needle and stick it.

Marco [00:08:11]:
And I don't know if it hit a weird pressure point with me or something, but it felt like because he was, like, going slow and everything, what? This was felt like that?

Dirty Skittles [00:08:24]:
Oh, no.

Marco [00:08:25]:
It was, like, one of the worst pains. And I jolted like this.

Dirty Skittles [00:08:29]:
Oh, no.

Marco [00:08:30]:
Obviously with a needle near back. So they're like, okay, we're going to do another numbing. Which hurt again, but somehow far less than the other thing. The other thing hurt, and they weren't able to get anything out. So they wheel me back to my room, and I have a breakdown, which I had been having daily at this point, looking cute, crying once again. Another thing I hadn't realized that had been happening throughout this whole ordeal, or rather, once my lung problems started, is by the way, I had gotten moved to the ICU. At this point. Apparently, I had a first ICU room and then a different one.

Marco [00:09:16]:
I don't even remember one of those rooms, the whole thing. But they had apparently sneakily, like, when I was asleep or they'd take them outside or something. They'd talk to my parents and be like, this has happened to him before, right?

Dirty Skittles [00:09:35]:
This is like the gaslighting begins.

Marco [00:09:37]:
Exactly. They're like, no, idiot. We would have told you.

Dirty Skittles [00:09:44]:
Are you sure? I think we've seen you here before for this.

Marco [00:09:48]:
Exactly.

Dirty Skittles [00:09:49]:
Can you just look into this camera.

Marco [00:09:51]:
Across the country before, right?

Dirty Skittles [00:09:55]:
Yeah.

Marco [00:09:56]:
And so after I had the whole syringe fiasco and another random X ray, which I don't remember why, but I come back, I'm crying, and the pain doctor who I don't remember her name. She came in. I'm, like, composing myself. I'm also obviously on a bunch of pain meds, so I'm, like, drugged up the whole, like, I'm not coherent. Yeah. She's like, okay, Marco, I know this has been really hard. You got to tell me this has happened before, right?

Dirty Skittles [00:10:25]:
Wow, so sketchy.

Marco [00:10:27]:
And I was like, what? I don't think so. What? And in my head, because I'm like, whatever's, like, has it. I don't even know anymore.

Dirty Skittles [00:10:38]:
Wait, you were underage were your parents in the room when they were asking us? Yes, they went I went lawyer brain.

Marco [00:10:47]:
It was a whole it was a family event.

Dirty Skittles [00:10:50]:
Family gaslighting event. We need to get the whole family get all the birds with 1 st.

Marco [00:10:57]:
Here is love. Yeah, everyone was there because my brother had to end up flying home because it lasted that long. It was meant to be, like, a week. It was like a month.

Dirty Skittles [00:11:11]:
Wow.

Marco [00:11:13]:
Yeah. So apparently I had to get another surgery. It was called Mini Thoracotomy, where essentially they went in here and got everything out. I had drainage tubes, which was the worst. Not because they hurt. They were just inconvenient.

G-Rex [00:11:32]:
And you were how old when this happened?

Marco [00:11:34]:
17.

Dirty Skittles [00:11:36]:
What the hell?

Marco [00:11:38]:
This is the third surgery I've had in my life, because I had one before this whole thing in 2016 about a completely different issue and other little procedures here and there, but we're talking, like, actually they cut you open type things. I see your eyes.

Dirty Skittles [00:12:01]:
G Rex. Is she's having a hard time with this?

Marco [00:12:05]:
Welcome to my life.

G-Rex [00:12:12]:
I can't even laugh about it because.

Marco [00:12:14]:
Man dude, please do. There's so many funny stories about this whole thing. I'm just telling you the sad part. We'll get into the funny hallucinations.

G-Rex [00:12:22]:
I just feel horrible for you. You're 17 years old. You got to go through all this shit. People can't get their shit together. When I was in the hospital, so I had a hysterectomy. I accidentally overdosed myself with the morphine pump.

Marco [00:12:41]:
Oh, yeah.

G-Rex [00:12:42]:
They had to narcan me twice.

Marco [00:12:43]:
Holy oh, my God.

Dirty Skittles [00:12:45]:
Shit.

Marco [00:12:45]:
Yeah. I was lucky in the hospital in that regard, because the thing had, like, a timer, so it's like I could only do it however many once an hour, however much it was. I forget how long it was between, but at the same time, fast forwarding a little bit after I had to because the first surgery was, like it was glue. So it's like, in theory, as opposed to, like, stitches.

Dirty Skittles [00:13:16]:
Okay.

Marco [00:13:16]:
It's like surgical glue. So in theory, the aftercare is just like, okay, you have the bandage on for a bit, and then standard don't lift heavy things. But the second surgery, I had staples, so I had to stay a few extra days to get my staples taken out. And we were in the hotel, and obviously, I'd been on this medicine for however long I was, and they had tried a million different other pain medicines for me throughout the thing, and what I didn't realize were withdrawals were happening as I'm trying to wean off. So it was that scary moment know? Luckily, my parents were there, and we had this realization all at once. It was like they're know Margaret's dangerous. Be careful. And I'm like I yell, Just please, someone just give me a pill.

Marco [00:14:12]:
And we halls just stop and like, oh, okay. Yeah. No more in terms of the people not having their shit together. Once I was having this surgery, the second surgery, I did this as if I realized the podcast he's pointing to his side. Yeah. Pointing to my scar. And my mom gave that pain doctor an earful, apparently. I wish I could have seen that.

Marco [00:14:45]:
My mom is not someone who gets overly loud mad, obviously, when she needs to, she can get stern. But I am so curious to how that conversation went.

Dirty Skittles [00:14:58]:
She went mama bear mode.

Marco [00:15:00]:
Yeah. And apparently the doctor was just like, I'm so sorry. He's like, Jeez, I didn't mean it.

Dirty Skittles [00:15:11]:
I am not even sympathetic at all. I'm like, fuck that doctor. I don't even know who it is.

Marco [00:15:17]:
All of you. So that's the traumatic side of it. There's more, but it's like, oh, dude, it's not the end of the traumatic side of it, because this is more just like, what the hell?

Dirty Skittles [00:15:36]:
Right?

Marco [00:15:38]:
But it just kind of was like, the staff there was very strange sometimes because one after I had this whole breakdown where I just got gaslit and then I have to have a second surgery. I'm barely eating anything when this I lost like 40 pounds wow.

Dirty Skittles [00:15:58]:
Throughout this whole Louise.

G-Rex [00:16:01]:
And you're tiny to begin with.

Marco [00:16:03]:
So I can't imagine I was overweight. So it's like this, but even at that, it's like I wasn't losing it for the right reasons.

Dirty Skittles [00:16:13]:
I thought you were going to try to paint that in a positive way. I'm like, how are you seeing the positive in.

Marco [00:16:23]:
I i there was a point where, due to the issue I had before, I was way skinny for a while because tangent, I guess, but the thing I had before mal's was a thing called pyloric stenosis. If anyone doesn't know what your pyloris is, it's this thing. I forget it's at the top of your bottom of your stomach, but it lets your food digest. Mine was closing, so I couldn't keep anything down to put it cleanly. And so at one point, I was my height. Now I'm 53. I'm a short guy, but I was like 90 pounds. I was a fucking twig.

Marco [00:17:01]:
But yeah. Anyway, they are trying to order me food at the hospital, and the cafeteria lady just hung up on my dad because they got the room wrong a million times, all this kind of thing. And then the big one after because that's more just like, funny. The big one after is that, as I mentioned, I had a pick line. Kind of like big boy IV kind of thing. So there was this one nurse who's like, oh, I'll take that out for you, but it's not that simple. So they were like, hey, no, stop. We'll wait till the other person comes in.

Marco [00:17:41]:
And he did. And luckily because she was going to just basically pull it out and give me a bandage. No, this dude was like, put on a mask. It wasn't like huge, but put on a mask, take this thing out. Proper bandaging. I was like, okay. That nurse was apparently a little salty that we didn't let her take out my thing. She wheeled me out of the hospital, right? And so it's raining outside and obviously with all the stuff here.

Marco [00:18:09]:
I probably shouldn't be in the rain.

G-Rex [00:18:15]:
You didn't melt, right?

Marco [00:18:16]:
No. Okay, I didn't hit the rain. But only after so much arguing between my mom and this lady, because she's saying, okay, no, my dad will just come around and we can stay under the hood. He's like, no, we just wait out here outside of this for some reason, for a while. And I'm, like, still loopy. I'm like, Listen, she's a doctor.

Dirty Skittles [00:18:40]:
My God.

Marco [00:18:41]:
But my mom was right in the end, and it was simple. Just randomly stopped in the middle of the thing. I was strong enough to walk, so it wasn't that bad. But it's like, come on.

Dirty Skittles [00:18:53]:
She's like, yeah, you got the rest.

Marco [00:18:56]:
Yeah, those are the sad parts. We can talk about the funny stuff.

Dirty Skittles [00:19:02]:
Golly, that's crazy. I don't know.

Marco [00:19:08]:
I'm like, hot. It still hits, right? And I forget how much. It was only realistically, I'm 21 now. It was only four years ago.

Dirty Skittles [00:19:23]:
Yeah, but that's going to stick around for a long time, right?

Marco [00:19:26]:
That was only a fifth of my life ago. Yeah, and the aftermath of it was a lot, and right after was the pandemic. So I was like, I so true.

Dirty Skittles [00:19:39]:
Wow, that's brutal.

G-Rex [00:19:41]:
In your short life, you've had all this adversity, but I listen to your music. I know. Don't be too surprised. I listen to the music because I told you I have very eclectic taste, right? It just depends on the day. And maybe if I've had a gummy or two. Your outlook on life, it just amazes me, right? At my age, if I went through the amount of crap that you went through in the last three years, I'd be like, Fuck it, I'm done. But you just really impressed me with your strive and your drive to just keep producing music and doing stuff that makes you happy.

Marco [00:20:28]:
Well, it's kind of like, once again, I'm not going to front and be like I mentioned, especially in high school, and there's times now still, but especially for a while when most of this wasn't figured out. Not to say that it fully is now, but when it was a lot worse, it was like, yeah, it was really hard. I was really depressed, and I've tried to mask it best I can. And it's a weird complex I have sometimes because I am naturally a very energetic person that comes across in my music, and I try to have a very positive outlook on life, but there was a time where I didn't but try to act like I did. And it almost some people saw straight through it. I think my really good friends did. But there was a time where it's not on YouTube anymore, but I had put out a song, I don't even remember at this point, but it was a song about my depression, that kind of thing. And I talk about, once again, Trigger Warning, but I talk about kind of suicidal thoughts within it.

Marco [00:21:43]:
And I sent that to a couple of my friends being like, hey, here's a song. And they're like, that's a good song, man. I was like, oh, yeah, it's what I've been going through. Like, whoa. And I was in a group chat at the time, and this one dude in the group chat who kind of didn't like me. And even this I'm not going to name him, but this dude now is cool. But he was like, what I call bullshit. There's no way.

Dirty Skittles [00:22:12]:
EW.

G-Rex [00:22:14]:
Oh, no.

Dirty Skittles [00:22:15]:
That makes me so mad.

Marco [00:22:17]:
Yeah. He was like, you put on these aesthetics and you want to be emo, but you're like the bubbliest person I know. And I was like, I'll be real. I mask a lot.

Dirty Skittles [00:22:27]:
Yeah, marco.

G-Rex [00:22:28]:
I can identify with that because that's me. So the way how I grew up, we were taught to stuff all our shit as far down as we could and not talk about it. And dirty skittles. She knows. Like, I put on the happiest face in the world, but on the inside I was dying. And so I wanted to know from you, do you think that your music was your way of finding your voice? Because for the longest time, I couldn't find my voice or my footing.

Marco [00:23:02]:
I was talking about this today because even now, it's something I'm growing past. But I have issues still where because of everything I went through and everything I essentially put my family through, realistically, I spent not because of them, I'll caveat this now. They were all amazing through all this, but because of it, I felt like a burden for most of my life. And through that now, especially with my social media presence, which is me, let me be clear, but like anyone, you put on a certain face that you want to present to the world. And it's only now that I'm starting, and it's even like baby steps for me where it's like I'm very overly apologetic for myself a lot of the time. It's like the same. Especially because of all the stuff in school, I had to be extra, extra. If I was in physical classes, I'd be the goody two shoes fucking as best grades you can.

Marco [00:24:16]:
Or else I didn't get the leniency I needed. I'd still be in 10th grade right now.

Dirty Skittles [00:24:27]:
Are you sorry? Are you doing anything besides music to help with those feelings?

Marco [00:24:35]:
I go to therapy. It's something I've had on and off because I talked to you guys earlier. I think I went most of my life with undiagnosed ADHD. So I have that thing where it's like I forget. It's like someone says, hey, you should look into this. I'm like, yeah. And then three months later, it's like, oh, what?

Dirty Skittles [00:24:57]:
Right.

Marco [00:24:57]:
And then I'm like, struggling. But I am currently now seeing someone. And that helps a lot. But it's just that thing of trying not to over apologize for being happy and fun and nice, but also being willing to be like I like being sassy to people and just like making random jokes or even just from different aspects of my life. I'm queer, at least fluid within my gender and that kind of thing. So that alone already creates a complex. But even just like how much I'm willing to talk about that, how much I am, it's a weird thing because of things like that, especially. And once again with my personality, that kind of thing, it seems so inconsequential and it's things I'm either passionate about or think, yeah, this is cool.

Marco [00:26:01]:
If this was anyone else, I'd say, yeah, speak your truth or just be you. It's awesome. But when it comes to me, it's like I feel very afraid of like, well, yeah, but what if these people in my life don't like me? What if fucking business people are like, that's not how you should act, even though I work in the music business. So it's like what? But it's just that thing of being willing to put on your real face or even just like the not hi face. Right. That's what Clunk is about, in a way. It's about a performance persona, but it's also about being like, screw you, I don't care. Yeah, and not even in a mean way, which is, I guess weird in the way I phrased it.

Marco [00:27:06]:
Sorry, I kind of rambled on about that.

Dirty Skittles [00:27:07]:
But no, don't apologize. Yes, there's a lot I wanted to say something earlier on where I want to thank you for being vulnerable. But more than that, I appreciate that you admit to wearing a mask sometimes, because I think a lot of the guests that we've had in the past and people that we just know in our day to day lives that go through therapy and kind of work through that trauma, there's almost like this closure. But I feel like there's not always closure. Right. And we're human and we're complex and it's beautiful and it's not anything we need to apologize for. And I think you just opening that up that not everybody is going to have it all figured out, but we're going to present the best way we know how, right? Yeah, just opening up that discussion. I mean, I want to thank you for that because I don't think anybody that we've talked to in the past has ever said like, well.

Marco [00:28:12]:
That'S not to say everyone has faces they put on for different people. It's like you act nicer and more innocent around your grandma.

Dirty Skittles [00:28:22]:
No, I know what you're saying.

Marco [00:28:23]:
Yeah, but you changed a little bit. But it's being the part that's been hard for me and I'm not past it. I'm not going to act like I'm not. But the part I'm getting past is being like, so weird because music, I don't feel this way. I feel so excited about putting out bratty sonic about whatever. But in my actual life, I feel very meek sometimes.

Dirty Skittles [00:28:55]:
You're like, free in your music.

Marco [00:28:57]:
Yeah. And then it's a whole thing where it's like, that's how your friends see you. So you're like, oh, Marco, he's the cute little whatever on the side. I was like, no. But then it's also that thing of, like, you feel weird about subverting those expectations you get lost in. This is a song, I need to stop saying this. So I come up with lyrics aside. It's a whole spiral, and I fall into it a lot.

Marco [00:29:30]:
My brain goes into when I think about a topic that freaks me out, it's just like down. Like you fall down the rabbit hole, which in some ways creates cool things because it creates these fun little interesting thoughts that maybe you wouldn't have had before. But it also means that it brings out a lot of insecurities you have about whatever topic.

Dirty Skittles [00:29:58]:
Yeah. I love just in general, when people can make art out of something ugly or something not as put together or something that you would never want to show somebody. For me, that's where my favorite art is, is when I can either hear a piece, see a piece that is absolutely just breathtaking to me that somebody.

Marco [00:30:25]:
Can do what one of my favorite songs I've put out. It's not on Spotify, but it's on SoundCloud. It's a song called Pretty Boy. The hook of the song is the Pretty Boy that ain't know. It delves a lot into, I guess, vanity in a sense, while also being heavily insecure. And it goes into everything I just said. Obviously a lot of songs about, like, oh, I'm worried about my fucking hair or whatever, but it is also about walking in, trying to be like, oh, he's so cute. But also I'm really fucked up inside.

Dirty Skittles [00:31:13]:
You're just complex.

G-Rex [00:31:15]:
You're complex.

Marco [00:31:16]:
Yeah, we are complex beings. No one's just one thing. We're not just muppets in this world. We don't just like cookies.

Dirty Skittles [00:31:24]:
That's true.

G-Rex [00:31:25]:
Well, I do just like cookies.

Marco [00:31:27]:
But that's not your only facet.

G-Rex [00:31:31]:
But I just love your perspective on life and all the shit you've gone through. And you're only 21, right? I can't wait to see where you're at ten years from now, because I get really excited. I want to see you again in a year and see where you're at. What have you done?

Marco [00:31:55]:
Like check ins?

Dirty Skittles [00:31:56]:
You're like part of the family now.

G-Rex [00:31:58]:
Yeah, you're part of the family.

Marco [00:31:59]:
Lights go down halls? Eyes around me? I spin around you like what you see to watch out because you know that I'm jumping like a punk?

Dirty Skittles [00:32:08]:
Make the beat go it's okay to be not okay. Just make sure you're talking to someone.