Trigger Warning: This episode discusses eating disorders, grief, and mental health challenges. Listener discretion is advised.
We are honored to be the 2024 People's Choice Podcast Award Winner for Health and the 2024 Women In Podcasting Award for Best Mental Health Podcast. In this powerful continuation of Ella's story, she opens up about her ongoing battle with eating disorders amidst a series of life-altering traumas. From navigating the loss of loved ones to coping with multiple surgeries, Ella shares her deeply personal journey toward healing. Through resilience and the support of her family, she began to confront the underlying issues behind her eating disorder, finding the strength to push through the darkest times. Her story sheds light on the complexity of mental health recovery and the importance of community support.
Key Takeaways:
- The Impact of Unresolved Trauma: Ella's experiences illustrate how trauma can accumulate and contribute to mental health issues, emphasizing the need for addressing and healing past wounds.
- The Journey of Recovery: Ella explains the challenges of refeeding syndrome and the process of gradually healing her body and mind in treatment.
- Support Systems Matter: Surrounding yourself with people who understand mental health struggles is crucial for sustained recovery.
Ella is a teacher, author, and mental health advocate who has faced an intense battle with an eating disorder spanning over two decades. Her book, From Broken to Beautifully Broken: Turn Grief Into Growth - How To Use Dark Times As A Catalyst For Change, shares her story of using adversity to fuel personal growth. Ella's insights on trauma, resilience, and healing are a testament to the power of perseverance. Connect with Ella:
- http://www.ellashae.com
- https://www.instagram.com/ellashae_author
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/elisa-d%E2%80%99amelio-5a74b4289/
Connect with G-Rex and Dirty Skittles:
- Website - https://goesoninourheads.net/
- Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/shltthatgoesoninourheads
- Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/grex_and_dirtyskittles/
- LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/g-rex-and-dirty-skittles-1367a8299/
If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, reach out to the crisis hotline in your area. Remember, it's okay not to be okay. Talk to someone.
- United States: Call or Text 988 - https://988lifeline.org/talk-to-someone-now/
- Canada: Call or Text 988 - https://988.ca/
- Worldwide: https://findahelpline.com/
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#MentalHealthPodcast #MentalHealthMatters #STGOIOH #Grex #DirtySkittles #AwardWinningPodcast #AwardWinningMentalHealthPodcast #EatingDisorderRecovery #TraumaHealing #Resilience #SupportSystems #MentalHealthAwareness #PodcastCommunity #InspiringStories #HealingJourney
00:00:07 --> 00:00:09 Hey there listeners welcome to shit that goes under our
00:00:09 --> 00:00:13 heads the podcast where we normalize conversations around
00:00:13 --> 00:00:18 mental health that's right i'm dirty skittles and alongside my amazing co-host
00:00:18 --> 00:00:23 we are here to share stories and tips from our incredible guests each episode
00:00:23 --> 00:00:27 we deep dive into struggles and triumphs of mental health offering practical
00:00:27 --> 00:00:31 advice and heartfelt support because no one should feel alone in their journey.
00:00:32 --> 00:00:36 Join us as we break the stigma and build a community of understanding and compassion.
00:00:36 --> 00:00:39 Tune in and let's start talking about the shit that goes on in our heads.
00:00:45 --> 00:00:53 Three, two, one. Welcome back to another episode of shit that goes on in our heads.
00:00:53 --> 00:00:59 This is a two-parter so welcome to chapter two with my amazing co-host G-Rex
00:00:59 --> 00:01:03 and our guest picking back up when she left off is Ella.
00:01:04 --> 00:01:08 So Ella, you left us with a cliffhanger. I did. And we're ready.
00:01:09 --> 00:01:13 Tell us what happened. Before I can get to what happened, I'm going to make
00:01:13 --> 00:01:14 you guys wait a little bit longer.
00:01:14 --> 00:01:20 I have to tell you the circumstances that led up to that moment because being
00:01:20 --> 00:01:26 near organ failure is not something most people will ever experience in their life.
00:01:26 --> 00:01:29 So I don't want to throw the term around lightly.
00:01:29 --> 00:01:36 There was a series, a serious series of unfortunate events that took place leading
00:01:36 --> 00:01:38 me up to that. I want to explain that first.
00:01:38 --> 00:01:45 So I think I mentioned last time that we were renovating the house and we moved
00:01:45 --> 00:01:47 into the house and it was great.
00:01:47 --> 00:01:55 We decided that we wanted to have a baby and I was getting older.
00:01:55 --> 00:01:58 So I'm like, he still hadn't gotten me an engagement ring.
00:01:58 --> 00:02:02 So I'm like, by the time this kid proposes and we get married,
00:02:02 --> 00:02:06 I'm not gonna have like no eggs left. So I'm like, let's do this first.
00:02:06 --> 00:02:08 I got pregnant, like right away.
00:02:09 --> 00:02:13 And it was obviously my husband's first pregnancy.
00:02:14 --> 00:02:20 And we were excited. We told family members way earlier than we should have.
00:02:20 --> 00:02:25 But he was excited. We told immediate family members. It wasn't like the entire world.
00:02:25 --> 00:02:29 And one day I was at work and I started bleeding.
00:02:30 --> 00:02:34 And I left work early. I was a teacher and I was on my feet.
00:02:34 --> 00:02:38 So I thought maybe it was just from being on my feet all day long.
00:02:38 --> 00:02:41 So I went home, I went to the doctor and she's like, you're totally fine.
00:02:41 --> 00:02:43 We had already heard a heartbeat.
00:02:43 --> 00:02:47 She's like, you're fine. Sometimes this happens in the first trimester, just take it easy.
00:02:48 --> 00:02:52 And it continuously got worse. And we went in to visit her.
00:02:53 --> 00:03:00 And when she did an examination, it just was awful. It just got so bad.
00:03:00 --> 00:03:03 And we knew obviously what was happening.
00:03:03 --> 00:03:07 But I had to go through it, through the motions of it. It's a miscarriage.
00:03:07 --> 00:03:11 It doesn't just happen in a couple seconds. It takes time.
00:03:11 --> 00:03:15 So I had to go home, lay in bed and pray.
00:03:16 --> 00:03:20 Again, pray that this wasn't going to actually happen. And I would be the lucky
00:03:20 --> 00:03:22 one that this didn't happen to.
00:03:23 --> 00:03:28 All the while in the back of my mind, I thought like, okay, So God was really
00:03:28 --> 00:03:32 pissed at me when I had that abortion and he's definitely making me pay for it now.
00:03:33 --> 00:03:37 And so I started to like blame myself for what was happening,
00:03:37 --> 00:03:40 thinking like, oh my God, this is like my punishment.
00:03:40 --> 00:03:44 But I did have to miscarry in my house.
00:03:44 --> 00:03:52 And we had to actually take what was there without being graphic to the hospital
00:03:52 --> 00:03:58 with me to get examined because they wanted to do genetic testing on it.
00:03:58 --> 00:04:02 And it turned out that the baby had like 60 something chromosomes.
00:04:02 --> 00:04:06 So it was an error of genetics, obviously.
00:04:06 --> 00:04:11 Not genetics in terms of him and I together. The egg didn't split.
00:04:11 --> 00:04:13 It just was like an unfortunate circumstance.
00:04:14 --> 00:04:19 But we had to wait a little bit. My husband was devastated, but I just pushed that down.
00:04:20 --> 00:04:25 So this is something that I do all the time. I go through the motions and I
00:04:25 --> 00:04:29 don't process. I push it down and I move on to the next thing. This is just what I do.
00:04:30 --> 00:04:33 So I'm like, all right, it's fine. Let's move on. Let's try again.
00:04:33 --> 00:04:37 We waited one month. We tried again. I got pregnant right away.
00:04:37 --> 00:04:44 Okay. So we go to the ultrasound and at the doctor's office for our very first
00:04:44 --> 00:04:46 ultrasound, see if everything's okay.
00:04:47 --> 00:04:51 And the doctor's like sitting there quiet, looking at the ultrasound screen,
00:04:51 --> 00:04:52 which was not pointed towards us.
00:04:53 --> 00:04:58 And I was like, oh my God, like this is happening again. I cannot believe this.
00:04:59 --> 00:05:03 And he's not saying anything. And he's like squinting his eyes and he's looking at the screen.
00:05:04 --> 00:05:09 And like my husband is just like, he's holding my hand and he's like sweating.
00:05:09 --> 00:05:12 And I'm like, oh my God, like, I just want to get up and leave because this
00:05:12 --> 00:05:17 is, I already know what's about to come out of his mouth. So he turns the screen
00:05:17 --> 00:05:23 to face us and he's like, everything's all in one. Like everything's perfectly fine.
00:05:23 --> 00:05:29 Everything's great. In fact, it's so great. You're having twins. I was just gonna say.
00:05:31 --> 00:05:37 I was like, she's about to say she's having twins. So I scream like, what?
00:05:37 --> 00:05:41 I look at my husband, he's frozen. No expression, no movement.
00:05:42 --> 00:05:44 He's just like, you're kidding.
00:05:44 --> 00:05:51 Like he, we already had two kids at home. He's like, like he was not prepared for twins whatsoever.
00:05:51 --> 00:05:56 And he was expressionless. And the doctor was like, Hey, like you good over there?
00:05:57 --> 00:06:01 And he's like, oh my God, yeah. Like he just needed a second to process it.
00:06:01 --> 00:06:04 But we heard two heartbeats. Like everything was fine.
00:06:05 --> 00:06:09 I was considered high risk because of my age and the previous miscarriage.
00:06:09 --> 00:06:14 On Easter, we were hosting Easter at our house.
00:06:14 --> 00:06:20 And I had these cute little eggs out on everybody's table arrangement and had
00:06:20 --> 00:06:23 their name on it. I'm a teacher, so I do things extra.
00:06:24 --> 00:06:27 So they had ribbon, their names, all this stuff.
00:06:27 --> 00:06:31 And before they ate, I said, if everyone could just open up the egg that's in
00:06:31 --> 00:06:35 front of them. And inside it said, we have a little chick arriving.
00:06:35 --> 00:06:39 And everyone was like, oh, this is so great. We knew this was going to happen.
00:06:39 --> 00:06:43 And I was like, all right, well, if you could just do me a favor and look underneath your plate.
00:06:44 --> 00:06:48 So then underneath their plate was the ultrasound of the twins.
00:06:49 --> 00:06:54 And I have a video of it. And literally everyone was screaming like,
00:06:54 --> 00:06:57 no way, you've got to be kidding me.
00:06:58 --> 00:07:01 My aunt was like, well, there goes your social life.
00:07:01 --> 00:07:07 They couldn't believe it. In fact, my grandmother and my husband's auntie,
00:07:07 --> 00:07:09 which was like his grandmother, were there.
00:07:09 --> 00:07:13 And I'm so grateful for that because we ended up losing them during COVID.
00:07:13 --> 00:07:20 So that day was a fond memory, even though it's bittersweet because we went
00:07:20 --> 00:07:26 for our next ultrasound and the technician was acting very strange.
00:07:26 --> 00:07:31 It was at the high-risk place because we went for all our ultrasounds at the high-risk place.
00:07:31 --> 00:07:36 And she just kept circling around the one baby with the ultrasound machine and
00:07:36 --> 00:07:42 she kept avoiding the other sac and measurements for baby A and heartbeat for baby A.
00:07:42 --> 00:07:48 And then she was like, okay, I'll be back. And I was like, she didn't do anything for the other baby.
00:07:48 --> 00:07:51 And they had this big screen TV in front of you.
00:07:51 --> 00:07:58 And I'm searching every number like frantically on that screen to see if I see any signs of baby B.
00:07:58 --> 00:08:04 And I see nothing. And I'm like, I know exactly where this is going now.
00:08:04 --> 00:08:07 That's why she left. She brings the doctor in and the doctor's like,
00:08:08 --> 00:08:10 well, I have such great news.
00:08:10 --> 00:08:14 Like baby A is completely healthy, growing at a normal rate.
00:08:14 --> 00:08:18 Like there's nothing to be worried about. but unfortunately lost the twin.
00:08:19 --> 00:08:22 So I was like, oh my God, here we go again. Like, okay.
00:08:22 --> 00:08:27 So I didn't even process that because here I am thankful that I still have pregnancy
00:08:27 --> 00:08:32 with the one baby, but I'm like grieving the other one,
00:08:32 --> 00:08:40 but I don't want to like cloud my pregnancy with sorrow because I want it to be like a happy time.
00:08:40 --> 00:08:45 That was likely going to be my last child. So I wanted it to be a happy memory.
00:08:45 --> 00:08:47 So again, I just pushed that down.
00:08:47 --> 00:08:52 Every ultrasound I went to, I had to see the two sacs.
00:08:52 --> 00:08:57 Every doctor's appointment, the sac didn't just go away.
00:08:57 --> 00:09:02 It was still there, the entire pregnancy. Two placentas, two sacs,
00:09:02 --> 00:09:03 two embryos, two everything.
00:09:04 --> 00:09:07 We found out we were having... We couldn't find out what we were having at the
00:09:07 --> 00:09:12 10-week mark when everyone else does with the blood work because the other baby
00:09:12 --> 00:09:14 was still admitting hormones.
00:09:15 --> 00:09:19 So they couldn't tell which hormones were from which baby.
00:09:19 --> 00:09:23 So we couldn't find out the sex of the baby at 10 weeks through blood work.
00:09:23 --> 00:09:25 We had to wait for the 20-week ultrasound.
00:09:26 --> 00:09:30 So we found that we were having a boy. We did a huge firework show and we did
00:09:30 --> 00:09:32 sparklers in memory of the other baby.
00:09:33 --> 00:09:44 And I guess it was probably 36 weeks, I went for my ultrasounds and I had way
00:09:44 --> 00:09:47 too much amniotic fluid and the baby was breech.
00:09:48 --> 00:09:54 So with too much amniotic fluid, if that sac ruptures, you only have seconds to get the baby out.
00:09:55 --> 00:10:00 So the doctor said I needed to have an emergency C-section, but the baby's lungs
00:10:00 --> 00:10:07 were not formed fully yet. and he was breech and he couldn't turn him because
00:10:07 --> 00:10:08 it would rupture the sac.
00:10:08 --> 00:10:11 So we had to do emergency C-section.
00:10:11 --> 00:10:16 Not that day, two days later, because I needed to get a series of injections
00:10:16 --> 00:10:19 of steroids to quickly form his lungs faster.
00:10:20 --> 00:10:25 So I did the shots. I stayed off my feet those two days. I went in.
00:10:26 --> 00:10:30 Now my first two children I had naturally, so I never had a C-section before.
00:10:30 --> 00:10:36 So of course, my anxiety with that in general, go in and they have like four
00:10:36 --> 00:10:37 different teams waiting.
00:10:37 --> 00:10:43 Like the really worst case scenario, someone else from this regular...
00:10:43 --> 00:10:46 Like everyone's just ready because nobody knows what's going to happen because
00:10:46 --> 00:10:48 I'm a month early and he was twin.
00:10:49 --> 00:10:53 I had to deliver the two placentas. They had a...
00:10:54 --> 00:10:59 There just was so many things in question. He was born, I was like holding my
00:10:59 --> 00:11:03 breath because I'm like, well, how bad is it? And he was totally fine.
00:11:03 --> 00:11:08 Like didn't even need oxygen 100%, totally fine.
00:11:08 --> 00:11:13 And we could finally take a deep breath knowing that was okay.
00:11:13 --> 00:11:21 But my husband got to go off with him and I had to stay there and deliver the second of everything.
00:11:22 --> 00:11:27 And I just tried to keep on focusing on the baby and not on what was happening.
00:11:27 --> 00:11:30 But again, another thing that was just pushed down.
00:11:31 --> 00:11:36 So I guess it was... With a C-section, you had to stay a few days later,
00:11:36 --> 00:11:38 longer than normal, right?
00:11:38 --> 00:11:42 And on the day I was about to be discharged, I got a terrible headache and they
00:11:42 --> 00:11:47 made me go for a CAT scan and they found an aneurysm.
00:11:48 --> 00:11:52 And they didn't know if that aneurysm was causing the headache,
00:11:52 --> 00:11:58 which would mean that it was currently rupturing or if it was an incidental finding.
00:11:58 --> 00:12:04 So then I have to go for a spinal tap which was fun to make sure that was not
00:12:04 --> 00:12:06 the case. So thankfully, that was not the case.
00:12:06 --> 00:12:10 It was an incidental finding. But now I find out I have this aneurysm.
00:12:11 --> 00:12:15 I go home. The baby was born in November.
00:12:16 --> 00:12:23 In December of 2019, he started eating less.
00:12:24 --> 00:12:28 And he just was like, I could just tell something was off.
00:12:28 --> 00:12:31 I kept taking him to the doctors and they're like, he's fine.
00:12:31 --> 00:12:34 His lungs are clear. Nothing is wrong.
00:12:34 --> 00:12:41 And one of my fears was RSV. I'm like, I know this is like peak time for babies to get RSV.
00:12:41 --> 00:12:46 I have two older children who are constantly bringing germs in the house. Like,
00:12:47 --> 00:12:49 Do you think this could be it? And they just kept saying, no,
00:12:49 --> 00:12:54 you're just paranoid. It's totally fine. So it took me like three weeks.
00:12:55 --> 00:12:58 And my husband was like... And they kept saying the same thing.
00:12:58 --> 00:13:01 He's fine. He's fine. It's probably a cold. He's fine. This,
00:13:01 --> 00:13:03 that. Maybe the formula. This, that.
00:13:03 --> 00:13:06 Finally, my husband was like, you know what? Let's just go to the emergency room.
00:13:06 --> 00:13:11 Let's just go. And they will test him for whatever it is he needs to be tested
00:13:11 --> 00:13:13 for. And it was Christmas Eve.
00:13:14 --> 00:13:18 And they tested him. And sure enough, he had RSV.
00:13:19 --> 00:13:23 So he was five weeks old. They said, go home. If he gets a fever,
00:13:24 --> 00:13:25 you need to come back right away.
00:13:25 --> 00:13:30 And because he didn't have any of his vaccines yet at five weeks old,
00:13:30 --> 00:13:37 they were telling you that if the panel came back and it wasn't RSV and they
00:13:37 --> 00:13:41 couldn't identify what it was, that they were going to have to do a spinal tap on him.
00:13:41 --> 00:13:45 So they were prepping him for a spinal tap. find out it's RSV.
00:13:45 --> 00:13:48 We go home. They tell us if he has a fever, come back. Well,
00:13:48 --> 00:13:54 I wasn't even in the house for more than five minutes and he had 101 fever at five weeks old.
00:13:55 --> 00:14:00 So we rushed back to the hospital. My two kids, I send them to my brother's
00:14:00 --> 00:14:03 house for Christmas Eve. So at least they're not missing out on Christmas Eve.
00:14:04 --> 00:14:08 And we get admitted because He needs help breathing.
00:14:09 --> 00:14:13 He needed to be suctioned. We were there for Christmas Day.
00:14:13 --> 00:14:17 We see he spent his first Christmas in the hospital. First time I was ever away
00:14:17 --> 00:14:19 from my other two children.
00:14:20 --> 00:14:24 And again, pushing it down. Let's just make sure the baby's okay.
00:14:24 --> 00:14:27 Let's not focus about that stuff. Let's just get through this.
00:14:27 --> 00:14:31 I need him to be discharged, healthy. Let's focus on that.
00:14:32 --> 00:14:40 We get discharged only because a, I guess it was a nurse, came in a full hazmat
00:14:40 --> 00:14:44 suit, head to toe, full hazmat suit, which they had never done up to this point.
00:14:44 --> 00:14:52 And they said, we're discharging you because we believe that he can heal the rest of the way at home.
00:14:52 --> 00:14:59 He doesn't need our help so much as it would be worse for him to stay here right now.
00:14:59 --> 00:15:01 And we're like, what are you? We didn't even understand. And we're like,
00:15:02 --> 00:15:02 what are you talking about?
00:15:03 --> 00:15:08 And they said, there is an outbreak of the flu and all of our rooms are full
00:15:08 --> 00:15:12 to capacity and the germs are just like not containable.
00:15:12 --> 00:15:16 And we don't want him to get the flu on top of the RSV.
00:15:16 --> 00:15:21 So we're discharging you to go home and we feel like he'll be okay to recover from home.
00:15:22 --> 00:15:25 Now hindsight is 2020. This was December, 2019.
00:15:26 --> 00:15:33 March, 2020 is when COVID hit, right? So I don't know. if those were flu.
00:15:33 --> 00:15:36 I don't know if we just didn't know about it. I don't know what it was.
00:15:36 --> 00:15:40 But in any case, we had to pack up and we were out of there within an hour.
00:15:42 --> 00:15:47 So everyone's got to wear masks around him. I'm not really allowed to have visitors at the house.
00:15:48 --> 00:15:52 And he finally gets better end of January from this.
00:15:53 --> 00:15:57 February was our first month of freedom where people could come to the house
00:15:57 --> 00:16:01 and meet the baby because he was only five weeks old when he got sick.
00:16:01 --> 00:16:05 And no one had seen him since then. So people were coming over to see him.
00:16:05 --> 00:16:12 Music.
00:16:12 --> 00:16:17 He was better from RSV and we hear about this highly contagious,
00:16:17 --> 00:16:20 infectious disease that's spreading.
00:16:21 --> 00:16:26 And we're like, okay, no one's leaving the house. Like, I'm panicked.
00:16:27 --> 00:16:28 I know what was happening.
00:16:29 --> 00:16:33 Right. Oh, then the kids' school got canceled. The kids had to stay home.
00:16:34 --> 00:16:37 I had postpartum depression with all three of my kids.
00:16:38 --> 00:16:42 I didn't know it was a thing with my daughter. I suffered through that immensely.
00:16:42 --> 00:16:47 With my son, I went on medication for it afterwards because I knew it was a thing.
00:16:48 --> 00:16:57 With my third child, I didn't go back on medication right away because I was
00:16:57 --> 00:17:00 breastfeeding and I was like, I think I may be okay this time.
00:17:00 --> 00:17:03 I have a different kind of husband who's supporting me.
00:17:03 --> 00:17:05 I might not need... I might be okay.
00:17:05 --> 00:17:10 And then RSC happened and all that. I just never made it back to a therapist
00:17:10 --> 00:17:12 or a psychiatrist or whatever.
00:17:12 --> 00:17:19 So my anxiety is like through the roof at this point because I had postpartum,
00:17:19 --> 00:17:20 but I had never addressed it.
00:17:21 --> 00:17:25 Now it's COVID and good luck trying to find a therapist at this time.
00:17:28 --> 00:17:33 So we locked down like the rest of the world, except I'm trapped in my house
00:17:33 --> 00:17:38 with two kids who are doing school via Zoom and a newborn.
00:17:39 --> 00:17:42 March, we're like, all right, we can make it. It's only gonna be a couple of weeks.
00:17:42 --> 00:17:46 Then April, then May. And then the rest of the school year, they were home.
00:17:46 --> 00:17:51 And I just slowly was like going into this deeper depression.
00:17:51 --> 00:17:56 Like I just couldn't handle like being stuck in the house, the postpartum,
00:17:56 --> 00:18:02 a newborn baby, two older kids, not having the normalcy of going to work every
00:18:02 --> 00:18:06 day. It just was a lot, but I was still handling it.
00:18:06 --> 00:18:09 So then let's see.
00:18:11 --> 00:18:17 It was the whole time, but I didn't really address it until probably like summertime.
00:18:17 --> 00:18:19 I kept having a pain in my hip.
00:18:20 --> 00:18:24 And when I finally went to the doctor for it, I had a hip labral tear.
00:18:25 --> 00:18:29 And they could fix it through surgery, a very simple surgery.
00:18:29 --> 00:18:35 But when they did an x-ray, they realized that I had hip dysplasia and never knew about it.
00:18:35 --> 00:18:40 So this simple surgery now turned into a complete hip replacement.
00:18:41 --> 00:18:46 And it was COVID. I had a newborn. And I'm like, I don't really want to do this.
00:18:47 --> 00:18:51 But they're like, you have to because you're in pain. And we have to fix the tear.
00:18:51 --> 00:18:55 And we're not going to fix the tear and then do a separate surgery for the hip.
00:18:55 --> 00:18:57 We have to do it all at once.
00:18:57 --> 00:19:03 So I go into HSS in the city, the hospital for special surgery.
00:19:04 --> 00:19:08 And go by myself because it's COVID and nobody can go with you.
00:19:09 --> 00:19:14 So I go by myself. I end up having complications. I lost a lot of blood.
00:19:15 --> 00:19:19 My hemoglobin dropped. I had a reaction to the pain medication.
00:19:19 --> 00:19:24 What was supposed to be one night of me staying there was five nights of me staying there.
00:19:25 --> 00:19:28 And when I came home, I was in the worst pain.
00:19:29 --> 00:19:34 The woman next to me was in her 80s and she got out of bed with her walker and
00:19:34 --> 00:19:41 was discharged the same day as her surgery. and I couldn't even get up to use the bathroom.
00:19:41 --> 00:19:48 So I was so confused why I was 30 something years old and I couldn't do this,
00:19:48 --> 00:19:55 but everyone else seems to have hip replacement surgeries with minimal issues.
00:19:55 --> 00:19:58 So it turns out I needed to have a femur rotation as well.
00:19:58 --> 00:20:03 So I guess maybe when they rotated my femur, it just moved a lot of things around
00:20:03 --> 00:20:08 and the healing was a lot longer than we expected.
00:20:09 --> 00:20:14 So when the baby was crying in the middle of the night, I had to go up the stairs
00:20:14 --> 00:20:16 to get to his room. My bedroom's on the first floor.
00:20:17 --> 00:20:21 On my butt, I went up the stairs backwards because you can't move your leg a certain way.
00:20:22 --> 00:20:26 And my husband did it as many times as he could, but he was waking up every
00:20:26 --> 00:20:32 two, three hours and he needed a break too because his mental health was the same.
00:20:33 --> 00:20:37 He didn't go through the surgery, but he had to wait at home to make sure I
00:20:37 --> 00:20:39 was okay, not knowing anything.
00:20:39 --> 00:20:44 Because unless somebody called him, he had no idea what was happening to me.
00:20:44 --> 00:20:48 And half the time, I couldn't even answer my phone because I was so sick from
00:20:48 --> 00:20:50 the pain medication they gave me.
00:20:52 --> 00:20:56 So that was a challenge. That happened in September.
00:20:58 --> 00:21:02 In January, I ended up needing to have brain surgery.
00:21:04 --> 00:21:10 Yeah, it's wild because during my pregnancy, I noticed I got this swishing sound
00:21:10 --> 00:21:14 in my ear and everyone thought it was just tinnitus.
00:21:15 --> 00:21:18 Everybody gets that sometimes, the beeping sound or the swishing.
00:21:18 --> 00:21:20 Then it's just something you live with forever.
00:21:21 --> 00:21:26 But mine was getting worse and mine was getting to the point where I couldn't hear over it.
00:21:26 --> 00:21:31 It was getting louder and louder. and I had... I forget what it's called when
00:21:31 --> 00:21:38 the brain surgeon went in through my wrist to see what was happening in my brain.
00:21:38 --> 00:21:47 And she noticed that I had stenosis and diverticulum of one of the arteries
00:21:47 --> 00:21:49 that go from your brain to your heart.
00:21:49 --> 00:21:56 And this artery has a bone that's wrapped around it and I was missing a piece of the bone.
00:21:56 --> 00:22:00 So I essentially had an aneurysm that was sticking out of the piece of that
00:22:00 --> 00:22:03 bone and it was sitting on my eardrum.
00:22:03 --> 00:22:07 So every time my heart was beating, that's what I was hearing.
00:22:07 --> 00:22:12 So if I was anxious or moving around a lot, that's why I would get louder and louder.
00:22:13 --> 00:22:22 No doctors knew how to do a bone graft and cauterize this aneurysm without doing a full craniotomy.
00:22:22 --> 00:22:29 I found a doctor in Boston who had this new procedure that he was doing and was known for.
00:22:29 --> 00:22:36 I met him through Zoom. I had to put complete trust in this man that I only met through Zoom.
00:22:37 --> 00:22:43 Got in the car, drove myself to Boston by myself, again, COVID,
00:22:43 --> 00:22:47 checked into a hotel, met him the next morning,
00:22:48 --> 00:22:52 And he said that he would be able to fix this.
00:22:52 --> 00:22:58 It was no problem. I only have a scar that goes from the top of my ear all the way down to my neck.
00:22:58 --> 00:23:04 So he opened basically my skull from behind my ear right where the bone needed
00:23:04 --> 00:23:05 to be to have the bone graft.
00:23:06 --> 00:23:10 Checked myself into the hospital alone, went into brain surgery alone.
00:23:11 --> 00:23:16 The brain surgery was successful, but I was in so much pain after.
00:23:16 --> 00:23:22 My mom and my sister then drove together so that one could drive my car home
00:23:22 --> 00:23:26 and one could drive obviously the car they took their home.
00:23:26 --> 00:23:30 It just was like a series of all these things happening. So now I had like these
00:23:30 --> 00:23:35 emotional traumas and now physically my body was going through traumas.
00:23:35 --> 00:23:41 And during this whole time of me getting sick and needing these surgeries and
00:23:41 --> 00:23:46 all of that, my husband's anxiety, which he never had before in his life.
00:23:46 --> 00:23:52 The man has never suffered from any mental issues, brain issues,
00:23:52 --> 00:23:53 anything his entire life.
00:23:54 --> 00:23:59 During this time, the fact that the baby had RSV, the fact that I needed two
00:23:59 --> 00:24:03 surgeries, he sort of... And he was watching the TV all the time with the numbers
00:24:03 --> 00:24:06 on it and the mayor's speeches and all this stuff.
00:24:06 --> 00:24:13 And he just totally went into fight or flight and was like, nobody leaves the house anymore.
00:24:14 --> 00:24:17 Like I can't have anyone getting sick. Like I can't do this anymore.
00:24:17 --> 00:24:23 So when the world started opening up again slowly, we stayed seeing people.
00:24:24 --> 00:24:27 Like when the kids finally went back to school, when they got home,
00:24:28 --> 00:24:29 they had to take their clothes off, take a shower.
00:24:30 --> 00:24:35 If people were coming to visit, they had to wear masks or we had to make sure that they weren't sick.
00:24:35 --> 00:24:40 It just was a lot. But I knew it's what my husband needed for his own peace of mind because...
00:24:41 --> 00:24:46 He really was suffering from PTSD from losing the first baby,
00:24:46 --> 00:24:50 losing the twin, having the emergency delivery.
00:24:50 --> 00:24:57 The baby getting RSV at five weeks old is a life-threatening situation for babies.
00:24:57 --> 00:25:01 Then me with the complications with the hip surgery. Then the brain surgery.
00:25:01 --> 00:25:05 It's just like he was like, I can't do... He just was protecting us.
00:25:06 --> 00:25:12 And it was, I know from having anxiety myself that when someone's in that state
00:25:12 --> 00:25:17 of mind, like no matter what you say, you're not gonna be able to reason with them.
00:25:17 --> 00:25:22 Like the way that they're thinking is the only way because they're in that fight or flight mode.
00:25:23 --> 00:25:28 So I did it. I stayed home and friends would ask me to do things and I would say no.
00:25:29 --> 00:25:32 And this is when my eating disorder was starting to get worse.
00:25:32 --> 00:25:36 And I kind of didn't want to see my friends anyway because I knew they noticed
00:25:36 --> 00:25:39 that I was losing weight and I didn't want them interfering.
00:25:40 --> 00:25:42 I didn't want the questions. I didn't
00:25:42 --> 00:25:47 want them trying to stop this eating disorder that I was falling into.
00:25:47 --> 00:25:50 I didn't want anyone... I wanted to just be left alone.
00:25:50 --> 00:25:53 And so I declined going to see friends.
00:25:54 --> 00:25:57 The lease was up on my car. So I said, I don't leave this house anyway.
00:25:57 --> 00:25:59 We might as well just have one.
00:26:00 --> 00:26:03 So when my husband would go to work or do what he needed to do,
00:26:03 --> 00:26:05 I was in the house with the baby.
00:26:05 --> 00:26:09 I was no way out. There was a car until he came back home.
00:26:09 --> 00:26:16 I resigned from teaching because we didn't want to put the baby in daycare with
00:26:16 --> 00:26:18 all the germs going around.
00:26:18 --> 00:26:25 And so all of those life changes for me and all of those traumatic things that
00:26:25 --> 00:26:28 happened to me put me in a downward spiral.
00:26:29 --> 00:26:37 What really made me crack, I think, was my grandmother had got...
00:26:37 --> 00:26:39 I was very close to all of my grandparents.
00:26:39 --> 00:26:43 So like I had mentioned in the last episode, my grandmother and grandfather
00:26:43 --> 00:26:46 had passed away. That was very hard on me.
00:26:46 --> 00:26:51 This grandmother lived down the street from me. And my mom lived in Florida.
00:26:52 --> 00:26:55 Her son had passed away. That was my uncle.
00:26:55 --> 00:27:01 And my other aunt lived far away. So when she got sick, she had congestive heart
00:27:01 --> 00:27:07 failure, not from COVID, but during COVID, I had to be the one to run there if something happened.
00:27:07 --> 00:27:11 So I had a newborn baby and I was running to take care of my grandmother.
00:27:11 --> 00:27:17 She fell and I had to go run there to help her up or whatever the case may be.
00:27:18 --> 00:27:22 I was there every day. My house, her house, my house, her house.
00:27:22 --> 00:27:26 Her congestive heart failure started to get worse and worse.
00:27:27 --> 00:27:32 And she started to forget things. And so I would try to sit with her and just
00:27:32 --> 00:27:36 kind of soak in those moments with her knowing where this was gonna eventually lead.
00:27:37 --> 00:27:43 And one time she fell in the middle of the night and then nobody knew until
00:27:43 --> 00:27:46 the next day when I tried to get into her apartment and I found her on the floor.
00:27:47 --> 00:27:51 And she had been on the floor all night long because she couldn't get to the phone to call me.
00:27:51 --> 00:27:56 So at that point, my mom came from Florida. we hired people to help take care
00:27:56 --> 00:28:00 of her because that was just like heart-wrenching to know that she was laying
00:28:00 --> 00:28:02 there like all that time.
00:28:02 --> 00:28:07 But I still was the only one that, even though we had people coming in and out
00:28:07 --> 00:28:09 to care for her, she still wanted me there.
00:28:10 --> 00:28:14 My mom came from Florida. She can only stay for so long. She came,
00:28:14 --> 00:28:15 she went back to Florida.
00:28:16 --> 00:28:22 And during the final stages of all of that, I was there and my mother made me
00:28:22 --> 00:28:25 power of attorney for all of her medical decisions.
00:28:25 --> 00:28:27 And my mom went back to Florida.
00:28:28 --> 00:28:33 And a lot of things happened that were traumatic times where I thought that
00:28:33 --> 00:28:35 it was the end and it ended up not being.
00:28:35 --> 00:28:40 But the last time I took her to the hospital, I sat with her.
00:28:40 --> 00:28:45 I was giving her pudding. She's from Alabama. So she had like this,
00:28:45 --> 00:28:48 and she had a sweet tooth for everything.
00:28:48 --> 00:28:53 So even when she was, can you find me some pudding or can you find me some ice cream?
00:28:53 --> 00:28:58 So I was feeding her pudding. She was making fun of one of the doctors,
00:28:58 --> 00:29:03 like filed this dream what I think that like this was the end of everything.
00:29:04 --> 00:29:08 So it was, she was in the emergency room and they told me when she gets a room,
00:29:08 --> 00:29:11 we'll let you know because I had to go home to, I had a baby at home.
00:29:11 --> 00:29:14 I said, I can't sit here for, I was already there for hours.
00:29:14 --> 00:29:17 I said, let me run home, make sure the baby and the kids have dinner.
00:29:18 --> 00:29:21 Then I'll come back. So let me know when she has a room and I'll come back.
00:29:22 --> 00:29:25 They let me know she had a room, but it was past visiting hours at that point.
00:29:25 --> 00:29:27 So I said, okay, I'll come in the morning.
00:29:28 --> 00:29:33 At about two o'clock in the morning, the baby woke up. I went upstairs to feed him.
00:29:33 --> 00:29:37 I came back downstairs and my phone was blowing. So my ringer was on silent.
00:29:37 --> 00:29:41 So had the baby not woken up, I would have never even known my phone was ringing.
00:29:42 --> 00:29:44 My phone was ringing. I answer and it's the hospital.
00:29:45 --> 00:29:50 And they're like, your grandmother coded. We had to resuscitate her.
00:29:50 --> 00:29:56 And I said, well, I'm confused because she had a DNR. I gave you the DNR,
00:29:56 --> 00:29:57 which is do not resuscitate.
00:29:58 --> 00:30:01 I don't know. He said, there must have been a miscommunication,
00:30:01 --> 00:30:04 blah, blah, blah. I said, okay, whatever the case may be, I'm on my way.
00:30:04 --> 00:30:07 I get there. I tried calling my mom. I tried calling my aunt.
00:30:07 --> 00:30:09 Nobody's answering the phone.
00:30:09 --> 00:30:13 So the doctor tells me I have two choices because now at this point,
00:30:13 --> 00:30:15 she's breathing on her own, but she's not awake.
00:30:16 --> 00:30:23 And I have two choices. I can take whatever measures possible to keep her alive,
00:30:23 --> 00:30:26 whether that's a breathing, ventilator, whatever it needs to be.
00:30:27 --> 00:30:30 Or I can choose to keep her comfortable.
00:30:31 --> 00:30:36 Meaning they were going to give her medication that was going to keep her comfortable,
00:30:36 --> 00:30:40 but would slowly slow down, right?
00:30:40 --> 00:30:42 So how was I supposed to make this choice?
00:30:43 --> 00:30:46 Yeah, I'm power of attorney, but I never thought I was going to have to make
00:30:46 --> 00:30:49 the choice to keep her alive or not.
00:30:50 --> 00:30:56 So I called my sister who lived in West New York at the time. She said, I'm on my way.
00:30:56 --> 00:31:01 By the time... That's a little bit of a ride to me. It was like 45 minutes.
00:31:01 --> 00:31:03 So the doctor came in, he said, what is it that you want to do?
00:31:03 --> 00:31:06 And I looked at her and her breathing was so labored.
00:31:07 --> 00:31:11 And I just knew, like I said, is she in pain? And he said, most likely,
00:31:11 --> 00:31:13 like it's very hard for her to breathe right now.
00:31:13 --> 00:31:18 I said, just keep her comfortable. Like the words just came out of my mouth.
00:31:18 --> 00:31:21 Not even, I didn't even really think about what I wanted to do.
00:31:21 --> 00:31:23 Like it's just what came out of my mouth.
00:31:24 --> 00:31:28 And before he could even return with the kit to keep her comfortable,
00:31:28 --> 00:31:31 she had taken her last breath
00:31:31 --> 00:31:34 so ultimately I never had to
00:31:34 --> 00:31:37 make the choice because she had passed away moments later and
00:31:37 --> 00:31:40 my sister didn't get there until after so I was alone in
00:31:40 --> 00:31:46 the room with her when that happened which was really hard for me to deal with
00:31:46 --> 00:31:52 because I also was the one in the room with my other grandmother when she passed
00:31:52 --> 00:31:59 away I was alone in the room so I was with all of my grandparents when they passed away.
00:31:59 --> 00:32:06 And so grief from loss for me is one of my biggest triggers.
00:32:07 --> 00:32:12 I don't know if it's a time thing, knowing that time is never guaranteed or
00:32:12 --> 00:32:18 if it's just loss in general. It is a huge trigger for me and it puts me in a spiral.
00:32:18 --> 00:32:22 It happened when my grandmother died. It happened when my grandfather died.
00:32:22 --> 00:32:23 It happened when my uncle died.
00:32:24 --> 00:32:28 This time with my grandmother, it just happened at an extreme,
00:32:28 --> 00:32:30 way worse than the other time.
00:32:30 --> 00:32:33 I think because I spent so much time with her leading up to it.
00:32:33 --> 00:32:37 And my grandmother took care of me. She lived with us growing up.
00:32:37 --> 00:32:41 It was my mother's mother. So she lived with us. When I was in my car accident,
00:32:41 --> 00:32:46 she's the one who held my hand when I looked in the mirror the first time to see my stitches.
00:32:46 --> 00:32:51 She really was... She was there for me when I came home from school because
00:32:51 --> 00:32:55 my mom was... I had a very close relationship with my grandmother regardless.
00:32:55 --> 00:33:00 And then being so close with her the months leading up to her passing away just
00:33:00 --> 00:33:02 made this death really hard on me.
00:33:03 --> 00:33:11 So I think that's when the eating disorder got so bad that I couldn't pull myself
00:33:11 --> 00:33:17 out of it because I had such levels of anxiety and sorrow.
00:33:17 --> 00:33:19 And I don't know if this has ever been to either of you before,
00:33:20 --> 00:33:22 but when I have anxiety, food tastes like sand.
00:33:23 --> 00:33:28 I can't eat it. I can't swallow it. It just is awful.
00:33:28 --> 00:33:34 So I wasn't eating at first because I just was so sad and so anxious and had
00:33:34 --> 00:33:38 all these emotions that when I ate, it was hard to swallow.
00:33:38 --> 00:33:40 Physically, it felt like my throat was not working.
00:33:41 --> 00:33:48 And then that led into my old tendency is like, okay, I'm going to have this
00:33:48 --> 00:33:50 breakfast bar for breakfast.
00:33:51 --> 00:33:56 And if I don't eat anything else the rest of the day, I'll allow myself to have
00:33:56 --> 00:33:58 a little bit of the dinner that I cook.
00:33:58 --> 00:34:04 But if I eat something during the day, because I just can't take the hunger
00:34:04 --> 00:34:08 pain, then I can't eat dinner. I can't have both.
00:34:08 --> 00:34:14 So that started happening. And then I lost my hunger cue altogether.
00:34:14 --> 00:34:20 I was never hungry. So I didn't even know this happened when you have an eating
00:34:20 --> 00:34:22 disorder because it had never gotten this bad for me.
00:34:23 --> 00:34:26 Even though it started when I was 16 and I was struggling with it all those
00:34:26 --> 00:34:29 years, it never had gotten this bad.
00:34:29 --> 00:34:33 I remember getting dressed in front of my daughter.
00:34:34 --> 00:34:40 I had taken my sweatshirt off and she saw my backbone and she gasped and she was like, oh my God.
00:34:41 --> 00:34:44 And I was like, what? I thought there was a bug on me. I was like, what?
00:34:44 --> 00:34:48 And she's like, oh my God, I can see all your bones. And I'm like,
00:34:48 --> 00:34:49 oh my God, you're so dramatic.
00:34:50 --> 00:34:57 And then I had gone out with my husband at one point for the first time and I made a joke about it.
00:34:57 --> 00:35:00 I posted it on social media and I'm like, We're leaving the house after 9
00:35:00 --> 00:35:02 days. This is our first time.
00:35:04 --> 00:35:08 And everyone looked at that picture and was like, something's wrong with her.
00:35:08 --> 00:35:11 My bones were showing on my chest. My collarbone was showing.
00:35:11 --> 00:35:14 Even my shoulder bones were sticking out.
00:35:15 --> 00:35:18 And even still, I'm like, they're just jealous. Shut up.
00:35:18 --> 00:35:23 And I think because my husband saw me every day, I don't think he really noticed
00:35:23 --> 00:35:26 how bad it was getting. When you're with someone all the time,
00:35:26 --> 00:35:31 You don't really notice it so much as someone who hasn't seen you for a long period of time.
00:35:31 --> 00:35:37 So I went for routine blood work for my thyroid with my endocrinologist and
00:35:37 --> 00:35:46 he called me back and he said, your blood work is in the red flags for like 20 different things.
00:35:46 --> 00:35:55 Like everything is off. And the only reason I can think of this is because you're malnourished.
00:35:55 --> 00:35:59 And I was like, I'm not malnourished. And he's like, I really think you are.
00:35:59 --> 00:36:01 And I'm like, I assure you I'm okay.
00:36:02 --> 00:36:06 And he was like, okay, but I think you should follow up with your primary.
00:36:06 --> 00:36:11 And I was like, okay, I'll do that. Okay, I did do that. I'll get right on that. Yeah, yeah.
00:36:12 --> 00:36:15 I'll do that right now, sure. I did have a therapist because like I said,
00:36:15 --> 00:36:17 I was going through a lot, but it was through Zoom.
00:36:18 --> 00:36:24 I only saw her once every two or three weeks because that's all I could get
00:36:24 --> 00:36:26 appointment-wise. through Zoom.
00:36:26 --> 00:36:29 So when I was on the Zoom with her, I said...
00:36:30 --> 00:36:33 I told her what the endocrinologist had said. And I was like,
00:36:33 --> 00:36:35 can you even imagine that he said that to me?
00:36:35 --> 00:36:41 And she's like, honestly, she's like, your face is very sunken in. Your skin is gray.
00:36:42 --> 00:36:47 You just, you don't look good to me. And I was like, you too?
00:36:48 --> 00:36:51 Like, what's like, I was like, okay.
00:36:51 --> 00:36:55 Like maybe it's the lighting, like it's Zoom. Like you can't possibly see how
00:36:55 --> 00:36:57 I look in real life. Like I was just in complete denial.
00:36:58 --> 00:37:03 So I guess it was maybe two or three days after that, I was getting up to go
00:37:03 --> 00:37:09 into the kitchen to get the baby something to drink. And I forgot why I went in there.
00:37:10 --> 00:37:13 And I just was so tired.
00:37:14 --> 00:37:20 And I remember sitting on the floor thinking like, I don't know why I'm in this kitchen.
00:37:21 --> 00:37:25 I can't even stand up. I have to sit down because I'm so tired.
00:37:25 --> 00:37:28 I must be sick. Maybe I have COVID.
00:37:29 --> 00:37:35 I sent out a text and I was like, I need somebody to come here and help me take care of the kids.
00:37:35 --> 00:37:39 I'm just so tired. I have this brain fog.
00:37:40 --> 00:37:46 I'm just so sick of feeling this way. And within minutes, there was SWAT team at my house.
00:37:47 --> 00:37:51 And I think it was because they all were watching me deteriorate.
00:37:52 --> 00:37:54 And actually I do remember my mom
00:37:54 --> 00:37:57 making me send her videos while she was in Florida of
00:37:57 --> 00:38:00 me eating and I would do it as a joke like look I'm eating
00:38:00 --> 00:38:03 a cheesesteak and she's like just because you're taking a bite
00:38:03 --> 00:38:07 on camera doesn't assure me that you eat the whole thing and
00:38:07 --> 00:38:12 I guess they were noticing but nobody like nobody really knows how bad it is
00:38:12 --> 00:38:17 until the bones are showing and at that point it's just really too late my mother-in-law
00:38:17 --> 00:38:23 came over my sister-in-law came over my husband came home and they had like
00:38:23 --> 00:38:25 an intervention and they were like,
00:38:25 --> 00:38:29 you have to go to treatment for an eating disorder. And I was like,
00:38:29 --> 00:38:30 yeah, no, that's not happening.
00:38:31 --> 00:38:35 And my sister-in-law is in the mental health field. And so she said,
00:38:35 --> 00:38:37 do me a favor, I'm thirsty. Can you go get me a water?
00:38:38 --> 00:38:42 And she did that on purpose because she wanted to see how long it took me to
00:38:42 --> 00:38:45 get up from the couch to go and get the water in the kitchen,
00:38:45 --> 00:38:46 which was just the next room.
00:38:47 --> 00:38:51 And when I got up, to walk, everything went black.
00:38:51 --> 00:38:56 And I was like unsteady. And I couldn't do it. I couldn't go get the water.
00:38:56 --> 00:39:00 So she was like, at the least we're going to the emergency room.
00:39:00 --> 00:39:02 And she's like, and I'm not taking no for an answer.
00:39:03 --> 00:39:06 My kids were listening on the steps, which I didn't know.
00:39:07 --> 00:39:09 And she said...
00:39:09 --> 00:39:15 You need to go to the hospital now. You're dying. And my kids heard that.
00:39:15 --> 00:39:21 And they don't know how to process like, she's actually dying in this moment
00:39:21 --> 00:39:23 or I'm leading down the path of that.
00:39:23 --> 00:39:26 So that started freaking out.
00:39:26 --> 00:39:29 And I'm like, I'm not leaving my kids like this now. Forget it.
00:39:30 --> 00:39:31 I'm not going to the emergency room.
00:39:32 --> 00:39:37 Somehow or another, they convinced me to go to the emergency room. They get there.
00:39:37 --> 00:39:40 They ask me why I'm there. I tell them I have no idea.
00:39:42 --> 00:39:46 And my sister-in-law explains the story, gets me down. They do an EKG.
00:39:46 --> 00:39:47 They do blood work, blah, blah, blah.
00:39:48 --> 00:39:54 They come back. They say your EKG has abnormalities. Your blood work is awful.
00:39:54 --> 00:39:59 The only thing we can do for you here is give you an IV with some nutrients and send you on your way.
00:40:00 --> 00:40:04 We don't have any other way to help you at this particular hospital.
00:40:05 --> 00:40:10 So I was like, see, I told you. I could have just taken it liquid IV and I would have been fine.
00:40:13 --> 00:40:19 Like, if you know my sister-in-law, like she is the type of person that's not
00:40:19 --> 00:40:22 going anywhere until she gets the answers that she needs.
00:40:22 --> 00:40:26 So she was like, hold on a second, like don't go anywhere.
00:40:26 --> 00:40:29 And the doctor was like, yes.
00:40:31 --> 00:40:38 At what point should we as her family be concerned if she has some sort of eating
00:40:38 --> 00:40:43 disorder or is malnourished in some way and needs to be admitted into a facility.
00:40:43 --> 00:40:47 And he looked at her like, how do you not know this? He's like,
00:40:47 --> 00:40:50 she should have been admitted and she's like,
00:40:50 --> 00:40:55 a long time ago, like already. Like you're in a very bad place right now.
00:40:56 --> 00:40:57 You should have been admitted a long time ago.
00:40:58 --> 00:41:04 So I was like, this guy's crazy too. Like in my mind, I'm thinking everyone is so dramatic.
00:41:04 --> 00:41:07 So I said, so we got home. She relayed the message to everyone.
00:41:07 --> 00:41:10 Now, while I was at the emergency room, my husband, my mother-in-law,
00:41:11 --> 00:41:14 my sister-in-law, everyone was searching for facilities for me.
00:41:15 --> 00:41:20 So I don't know if you know this, But in New Jersey, there is only two inpatient
00:41:20 --> 00:41:23 facilities for eating disorders.
00:41:23 --> 00:41:27 The rest are all outpatient or for adolescents.
00:41:28 --> 00:41:32 There was nothing for my age inpatient besides two places.
00:41:32 --> 00:41:37 And then they also have to take your insurance. So when I got home,
00:41:37 --> 00:41:38 I said, I'm not going anywhere.
00:41:39 --> 00:41:42 I'm going to my doctor tomorrow. I loved my primary care physician,
00:41:42 --> 00:41:46 even though I didn't want to see her the first time. I said, I'm going to go to her.
00:41:47 --> 00:41:50 She's straightened this all out. She knows me. She knows my history.
00:41:51 --> 00:41:55 She knows everything about me. She will put an end to this nonsense.
00:41:55 --> 00:41:59 So I go to the doctor the next day.
00:42:00 --> 00:42:04 And she essentially says the same thing to me. Like your skin's gray,
00:42:05 --> 00:42:06 your vitals, or this, that.
00:42:07 --> 00:42:12 You're in danger of organ failure with these numbers in front of me that I'm
00:42:12 --> 00:42:14 looking at. I suggest, inpatient.
00:42:15 --> 00:42:20 And I got up to leave. And again, everything went black.
00:42:20 --> 00:42:25 And so I had to lay back down. My skin got a gray color to it.
00:42:25 --> 00:42:32 And I waited until she obviously got me some juice or whatever it was. And I drove home.
00:42:32 --> 00:42:37 And at that point, my husband was like, you were going, we're going,
00:42:37 --> 00:42:45 I think this was like a Friday, we're going on Monday for an intake interview,
00:42:45 --> 00:42:47 at Robert Wood Johnson Barnabas.
00:42:47 --> 00:42:50 And I said, okay.
00:42:50 --> 00:42:54 Like at this point, I just felt defeated because I knew I wasn't getting out of it.
00:42:55 --> 00:42:58 Like my family was about it. My kids were crying.
00:42:58 --> 00:43:00 Like my kids were begging me to go.
00:43:00 --> 00:43:05 And even though I didn't want to go, So I didn't want to see them hurting.
00:43:06 --> 00:43:12 So they tell me I have to pack a bag, no sharp objects, no pants with drawstrings,
00:43:13 --> 00:43:17 like a million different regulations of this bag that I have to pack that I
00:43:17 --> 00:43:19 know I'm not going to use because I'm coming back home.
00:43:21 --> 00:43:26 And we go on Monday for the interview and they make me step on a scale.
00:43:26 --> 00:43:32 And the freaking scale has a piece of cardboard over where the numbers are.
00:43:33 --> 00:43:38 Like, so I can't see how much I weigh. They can only see it on the other side.
00:43:38 --> 00:43:40 And I'm like, what kind of shit is this?
00:43:40 --> 00:43:45 Like scale, like get the scale away from me because I was weighing myself,
00:43:46 --> 00:43:53 Oh my God. 10, 12 times a day. After I ate, when I used the bathroom,
00:43:53 --> 00:43:54 after I showered, before I went to bed.
00:43:55 --> 00:44:01 If it was off by an ounce, either way, no food until that ounce came back down.
00:44:02 --> 00:44:10 So it was just constant obsessing over these numbers and what I ate,
00:44:10 --> 00:44:13 what I didn't eat, when I can. It was exhausting mentally.
00:44:13 --> 00:44:17 So anyway, I go on this scale and I'm like, this is ridiculous.
00:44:17 --> 00:44:19 I can't even believe I have to go on a scale where I can't even see the number.
00:44:20 --> 00:44:26 Whatever. So they do an EKG. They review my blood work. And then I have this
00:44:26 --> 00:44:28 interview where she's asking me a bunch of questions.
00:44:29 --> 00:44:35 And she tells me that from what she sees, I'm not in the right state of mind.
00:44:35 --> 00:44:41 I'm in a fog. I can't answer my questions clearly. I seem confused.
00:44:42 --> 00:44:44 My coloring is off. My EKG is off.
00:44:45 --> 00:44:51 My weight was not alarming. For a normal person, that might be an up.
00:44:51 --> 00:44:58 So I'm 5'7". So when you see that number on the scale, it's alarming at my height.
00:44:58 --> 00:45:02 But anybody else who might be that way, it wasn't a crazy number. I'll be honest with you.
00:45:02 --> 00:45:05 It's not a number. I still thought that number could be lower.
00:45:05 --> 00:45:12 But I guess coupled with all of those other things, they knew that this was a problem.
00:45:12 --> 00:45:16 And so she said her recommendation was impatient. And I said,
00:45:16 --> 00:45:17 well, what does that involve?
00:45:18 --> 00:45:21 And she said, you come right now, like today. And...
00:45:22 --> 00:45:26 You don't leave until you're better. And I was like, I have three kids.
00:45:26 --> 00:45:28 I have a house. I have a husband.
00:45:29 --> 00:45:35 I can't just like uproot everything and come here and that's it.
00:45:36 --> 00:45:39 And she's like, but you can. And I'm like, no, I can't.
00:45:39 --> 00:45:44 And even my husband didn't love that idea because he could come visit me, but my kids couldn't.
00:45:45 --> 00:45:48 I couldn't have a cell phone. There was like certain times when you can make
00:45:48 --> 00:45:54 phone calls and he just knew like for my mental being to not be able to see
00:45:54 --> 00:45:58 my children every day for an amount of time that is unknown,
00:45:58 --> 00:46:01 it would probably be worse for my mental health.
00:46:01 --> 00:46:04 And as much as they would want to try to get me to be better,
00:46:04 --> 00:46:10 that would probably almost make me into more of a depression and not cooperative.
00:46:11 --> 00:46:17 So I was ready to walk and she said, I can offer you another option if it will
00:46:17 --> 00:46:21 at least get you to do something because if you leave here, you're going to die.
00:46:21 --> 00:46:27 She told me I could do partial hospitalization, which meant I drove there every day.
00:46:28 --> 00:46:33 I ate my meals there. I was under observation there. I did all their therapy sessions there.
00:46:33 --> 00:46:39 Then I could drive home at night and I could be with my kids at night and on the weekends.
00:46:39 --> 00:46:44 But if there was one hiccup, one thing that was going backwards,
00:46:44 --> 00:46:46 I would have to agree to go into inpatient.
00:46:48 --> 00:46:53 And so I said, fine, I'll do this. So that started the next day.
00:46:53 --> 00:46:58 And when I walked in, everyone was younger than me.
00:46:58 --> 00:47:04 And I was like, this is crazy. I don't belong here. I cannot believe they convinced me to do this.
00:47:05 --> 00:47:11 These kids could be my kids. Really, this is insane. and,
00:47:12 --> 00:47:15 When you first arrive, they make you take off any hoodies you have,
00:47:15 --> 00:47:20 any in your pockets, whatever, and get on a scale. Again, that does not have a number.
00:47:20 --> 00:47:23 They do your blood pressure. They do all these things before you even get into
00:47:23 --> 00:47:25 the session with somebody.
00:47:26 --> 00:47:30 And it drove me crazy that I could not see the number on that scale.
00:47:31 --> 00:47:36 But at the same time, I was like, tricks on you. I already weighed myself before I came here.
00:47:37 --> 00:47:42 And I'm going to weigh myself when I get home to see how much you guys are actually feeding me here.
00:47:43 --> 00:47:50 So it got to a point where they spoke to my husband and they made him remove the scale from my house.
00:47:50 --> 00:47:55 And so now I really was going into this without my vice.
00:47:56 --> 00:48:02 The scale was so hard for me. But I absolutely needed to go.
00:48:02 --> 00:48:09 I probably should have been impatient, but I made partial work Because what
00:48:09 --> 00:48:15 my body went through during that healing process is never something I could have done on my own.
00:48:15 --> 00:48:18 I went through refeeding syndrome.
00:48:18 --> 00:48:22 I had gastro issues.
00:48:22 --> 00:48:25 I would become so swollen.
00:48:26 --> 00:48:32 My sodium levels would change. My sugar dropped to like 40 one day.
00:48:33 --> 00:48:38 Just like so many things. Oh, and because my organs were so close to organ failure,
00:48:38 --> 00:48:45 if I ate too much too fast, you awaken those organs too quickly and they work
00:48:45 --> 00:48:47 too hard and they can shut down.
00:48:47 --> 00:48:52 So it's almost like they have to find this happy medium of giving you enough
00:48:52 --> 00:48:58 food to get you out of the danger zone of malnourishment, but not too much to overwork your organs.
00:48:59 --> 00:49:02 So it was... My menu was very calculated.
00:49:02 --> 00:49:04 And I couldn't have done that myself.
00:49:05 --> 00:49:10 And in fact, every meal you have there, they watch you. They take notes.
00:49:10 --> 00:49:13 They see if you have different eating tendencies.
00:49:14 --> 00:49:17 Do you talk when you're eating? Do you eat really fast because you're starving?
00:49:17 --> 00:49:21 They look at all of these things. And if you don't complete your meal,
00:49:22 --> 00:49:23 it's called an incomplete.
00:49:23 --> 00:49:27 And if you have a certain amount of incompletes, you go inpatient.
00:49:28 --> 00:49:33 So first day, I didn't complete anything. I was consuming 500 calories a day
00:49:33 --> 00:49:35 before I went into treatment.
00:49:36 --> 00:49:39 They put in front of me like...
00:49:39 --> 00:49:44 A brownie and ice cream and a piece of pizza and cauliflower.
00:49:44 --> 00:49:48 And I didn't eat that much in weeks. And now I had to eat it in one sitting
00:49:48 --> 00:49:51 and it was impossible. I was sweating. I was gagging.
00:49:52 --> 00:49:57 It was so hard. So the first day, every meal, every snack, everything was incomplete.
00:49:57 --> 00:50:00 I'm like, they're definitely putting me upstairs.
00:50:00 --> 00:50:06 The next day I go back and I forced myself... They scaled back on the food because
00:50:06 --> 00:50:10 they saw that I really just had such a hard time I'm eating what it is.
00:50:10 --> 00:50:15 So they really did scale back and I forced myself through it.
00:50:15 --> 00:50:19 And that was the start of me actually like putting an effort into treatment.
00:50:19 --> 00:50:26 I had one-on-one therapy. I had group therapy, art therapy, music therapy,
00:50:26 --> 00:50:31 movement therapy, because you have to move your body enough, but not too much.
00:50:31 --> 00:50:33 You can't exercise, but you have to have movement.
00:50:34 --> 00:50:40 Everything is just so calculated. and Robert Wood Johnson Barnabas had those
00:50:40 --> 00:50:43 calculations down to a science.
00:50:43 --> 00:50:47 They knew exactly what it was that I needed. And so I'm so thankful for them
00:50:47 --> 00:50:54 because I really couldn't have gotten out of this hole that I dug for myself if it weren't for them.
00:50:54 --> 00:51:00 So not only was I healing physically, but there's the mental aspect to it,
00:51:00 --> 00:51:07 right? So an eating disorder is not actually the illness.
00:51:08 --> 00:51:13 An eating disorder is a symptom of an illness.
00:51:13 --> 00:51:16 So what was my illness? What was my problem?
00:51:17 --> 00:51:23 And I had to figure that out. I had to figure out why I decided to control my
00:51:23 --> 00:51:25 food intake in the first place.
00:51:25 --> 00:51:30 And it took some time, but I uncovered all of these traumas that I've spoken
00:51:30 --> 00:51:32 to you about, plus more that are in my book.
00:51:32 --> 00:51:37 I uncovered these traumas that I never even knew were called traumas for myself.
00:51:38 --> 00:51:43 And I had to work through them and talk about them out loud with other people
00:51:43 --> 00:51:47 and figure out how to heal from them. And it was a journey.
00:51:47 --> 00:51:49 I was there for four months.
00:51:50 --> 00:51:55 It was like, I cried a lot of the days on my drive, my hour drive home.
00:51:56 --> 00:52:02 It was really hard, but I just kept envisioning like my kids with no mom or my husband, no wife.
00:52:02 --> 00:52:07 And that's what first pushed me through it. But then the fact that I wanted
00:52:07 --> 00:52:10 to heal on my own is what got me to the finish line.
00:52:10 --> 00:52:14 Because if I didn't want to do it on my own, I would have just fallen back into
00:52:14 --> 00:52:17 those habits when I was discharged or I would have never been discharged. I don't know.
00:52:18 --> 00:52:24 But yeah, I was discharged at a healthy weight. All my numbers were back to
00:52:24 --> 00:52:25 where they were supposed to be.
00:52:26 --> 00:52:31 And everybody asks me when I do book signings or book interviews after they've
00:52:31 --> 00:52:32 read my book, like, am I healed?
00:52:33 --> 00:52:37 Like, am I better now? and I don't think I'll ever be healed.
00:52:37 --> 00:52:40 I don't think I'll ever be better.
00:52:40 --> 00:52:50 I have a toolbox now of ways that I can prevent myself if I start to go in that direction.
00:52:50 --> 00:52:57 But obsessing over all of those things for over 20 years doesn't just go away in four months.
00:52:58 --> 00:53:02 Identifying the traumas that I went through is one thing, but healing from them
00:53:02 --> 00:53:06 doesn't just happen in four months and the people that were involved,
00:53:06 --> 00:53:10 like I have to find forgiveness for and it's a process and yeah,
00:53:11 --> 00:53:17 I have days where I don't feel like eating because I'm in some type of mood but.
00:53:17 --> 00:53:24 Once that becomes a pattern, then that's the issue. So I'm going to have... It's not a linear thing.
00:53:24 --> 00:53:29 I'm going to have ups and downs. That's okay as long as I'm still maintaining
00:53:29 --> 00:53:31 my health at the end of the day.
00:53:31 --> 00:53:35 And I do talk about... At a lot of my speeches at colleges and stuff,
00:53:35 --> 00:53:40 I talk about the importance of having a support system that really truly understands
00:53:40 --> 00:53:42 what it is you're going through.
00:53:42 --> 00:53:47 Because on the days when I don't feel like eating or on the days where I just
00:53:47 --> 00:53:53 push my food around on the plate, I have people who encourage me and remind
00:53:53 --> 00:53:56 me and support me and put me back on the right path.
00:53:57 --> 00:54:02 And contrary to that, if you have people who don't know anything about mental
00:54:02 --> 00:54:06 health, who don't understand, they don't have to understand an eating disorder,
00:54:06 --> 00:54:09 but just to understand anxiety, depression,
00:54:10 --> 00:54:12 emotions, all of those things just in general.
00:54:13 --> 00:54:16 If you don't have somebody who doesn't... If you have someone around you who
00:54:16 --> 00:54:20 doesn't believe in that and thinks that it's all nonsense, you're going to go
00:54:20 --> 00:54:24 backwards because they're going to hinder your healing journey.
00:54:25 --> 00:54:30 So I think it's so important who you surround yourself with as you're healing
00:54:30 --> 00:54:31 and even after you're healed.
00:54:31 --> 00:54:34 Like learn who has a seat at your table.
00:54:35 --> 00:54:38 Learn who doesn't belong there anymore.
00:54:38 --> 00:54:43 Learn who you can have in your life but keeps at an arm's distance.
00:54:43 --> 00:54:45 Know your people you can rely like those things are
00:54:45 --> 00:54:48 so important to continue on your healing journey
00:54:48 --> 00:54:51 because it's a lifetime thing it's forever like
00:54:51 --> 00:54:54 you're not i'm not going to just be magically healed it's something that you
00:54:54 --> 00:55:00 have to work on forever i love that is that what's tied back into the the name
00:55:00 --> 00:55:05 of your book beautifully broken yes i believe that just because you're broken
00:55:05 --> 00:55:11 doesn't mean that you're not beautiful right like you can go back to those,
00:55:11 --> 00:55:18 you can carry your scars and hold your head high because you made it through, right?
00:55:18 --> 00:55:20 Like just because you have scars doesn't mean that you're not beautiful.
00:55:21 --> 00:55:23 It just means you have a story and nobody's perfect.
00:55:24 --> 00:55:26 And that is where the title came from.
00:55:26 --> 00:55:29 Yeah, so that is where the title came from. I love that. I have some random
00:55:29 --> 00:55:31 questions for you. Go ahead.
00:55:31 --> 00:55:36 If you could go back to a younger version of yourself, what advice would you
00:55:36 --> 00:55:39 give yourself and how old is that younger version? Yeah.
00:55:39 --> 00:55:45 I don't think it's advice I would give myself. It's more so something that I
00:55:45 --> 00:55:47 would try to change, I guess you could say.
00:55:48 --> 00:55:54 I think that as a middle schooler, when that boy made fun of me,
00:55:54 --> 00:56:01 if I would have had self-confidence that was built up in me as a child.
00:56:02 --> 00:56:05 I think that comment would have maybe just rolled right off of me.
00:56:05 --> 00:56:14 I think that I didn't grow up in a family that showed love physically.
00:56:15 --> 00:56:19 Again, it was a generational thing. My grandmother didn't really give hugs and
00:56:19 --> 00:56:22 kisses and say, I love you on both sides of my family.
00:56:23 --> 00:56:26 And so it was the same with my mom and dad. I knew they loved me,
00:56:26 --> 00:56:28 but we didn't say, I love you.
00:56:28 --> 00:56:34 We didn't hug and kiss and do all of that stuff. And nobody ever told me, you're beautiful.
00:56:35 --> 00:56:39 You're so smart. It just wasn't something that was done. And I think if my confidence
00:56:39 --> 00:56:46 was built up a little bit more, then what his words maybe would not have meant anything to me.
00:56:46 --> 00:56:52 And I think the whole trajectory of my life may have been different if I had
00:56:52 --> 00:56:56 self-confidence and self-worth from a young age.
00:56:57 --> 00:57:00 Yeah. Would you say that's the hardest lesson you've had to learn?
00:57:00 --> 00:57:06 Yeah, absolutely. And because as a parent, I was the same way.
00:57:07 --> 00:57:10 My daughter will always say like, don't touch mom. She hates when you hang all
00:57:10 --> 00:57:12 over her. And that's the case.
00:57:12 --> 00:57:15 I just am not like... I love my kids and they know I love them.
00:57:15 --> 00:57:22 But I have to work on being physically, more of like a physical person because I'm not like that.
00:57:22 --> 00:57:28 I'm not an affectionate person. And yeah, it's a huge thing because I want to
00:57:28 --> 00:57:32 show my kids that they're beautiful, that they're smart,
00:57:32 --> 00:57:37 that straight A's in school doesn't mean shit if you don't believe in yourself,
00:57:38 --> 00:57:41 you don't have self-confidence or self-worth, and you let people treat you like shit.
00:57:41 --> 00:57:45 I don't even care what your grades are in school. If you are not helping the
00:57:45 --> 00:57:48 underdog, if you don't have... If you're not a good person, if you don't have
00:57:48 --> 00:57:52 good morals and all those things, then your grades in school don't matter.
00:57:52 --> 00:58:00 So yes, I want to build my children up from an early age so that when some asshole
00:58:00 --> 00:58:04 tries to date my daughter and tell her that she's not like me,
00:58:04 --> 00:58:06 my daughter's in town to take a hike.
00:58:06 --> 00:58:11 And I want my son to never do that to a girl, both my sons.
00:58:11 --> 00:58:14 So yeah, I think that I'm doing a good job of that.
00:58:14 --> 00:58:17 My daughter is a little anxious, but she does have confidence.
00:58:17 --> 00:58:19 She is confident in herself.
00:58:19 --> 00:58:25 She is in a relationship and she has her... She set boundaries with friends.
00:58:26 --> 00:58:29 Those are all things that I was lacking my entire life.
00:58:29 --> 00:58:35 Even as an adult, I was a people pleaser because I was around narcissists growing
00:58:35 --> 00:58:38 up, dating in many different forms.
00:58:40 --> 00:58:46 And I then turned into a people pleaser because of the lack of attention I would get from them.
00:58:46 --> 00:58:50 I always had to do something to like get their attention and that always came
00:58:50 --> 00:58:52 in the way of pleasing them in some way.
00:58:52 --> 00:58:55 And I don't want my kids to be people pleasers.
00:58:55 --> 00:58:59 So as an adult, I never set a boundary.
00:58:59 --> 00:59:02 Like if something made me uncomfortable, I stayed uncomfortable to make the
00:59:02 --> 00:59:05 other person comfortable because I wanted to make them happy.
00:59:05 --> 00:59:10 And I don't want that for my kids because it's just, it's an awful way to live.
00:59:10 --> 00:59:13 So that's definitely an important lesson.
00:59:13 --> 00:59:16 I love this. Thank you for sharing your story.
00:59:18 --> 00:59:22 Yeah, so amazing. So I have a question for you today.
00:59:22 --> 00:59:27 What do you do for self-love and self-care? I think that a lot of times people
00:59:27 --> 00:59:30 think of self-love and self-care.
00:59:31 --> 00:59:35 Well, one, they think they confuse it with being selfish, right?
00:59:35 --> 00:59:38 Like as a mom, you're supposed to take care of your kids.
00:59:38 --> 00:59:43 As a wife, you're supposed to clean the house, cook dinner, do all of these things. But nobody...
00:59:44 --> 00:59:48 You go take five minutes to yourself and sit on the couch and someone's like,
00:59:48 --> 00:59:50 why are you sitting down? Yeah.
00:59:50 --> 00:59:54 So you confuse it for being selfish, but really at the end of the day...
00:59:55 --> 00:59:58 It's so important because you can't pour from an empty cup, right?
00:59:59 --> 01:00:00 That's the saying we've done our whole life.
01:00:01 --> 01:00:06 You can't save the sinking ship if you don't have the life vest on yourself.
01:00:06 --> 01:00:12 You have to take care of yourself first before you can be everything for everyone else.
01:00:12 --> 01:00:18 And I think another misconception is that self-care is this elaborate thing.
01:00:18 --> 01:00:22 Like self-care is a spa day or self-care is a vacation.
01:00:22 --> 01:00:27 And that's not it. If you want to maintain your mental health and you want to
01:00:27 --> 01:00:30 maintain being the best version of yourself, you have to take little pieces
01:00:30 --> 01:00:32 of self-care throughout the day.
01:00:32 --> 01:00:39 So if that means that I get to drink my cup of coffee in my room by myself for
01:00:39 --> 01:00:43 10 minutes before I deal with anybody else, that's what I'm going to do.
01:00:43 --> 01:00:47 I love reading. Obviously, I'm a writer. I love reading.
01:00:47 --> 01:00:51 And I make sure that I make time every single day to read.
01:00:51 --> 01:00:54 It could be a page. It could be 10 pages. Whatever it is, I make sure that I
01:00:54 --> 01:00:56 carve out that time for myself.
01:00:56 --> 01:01:01 So I don't really need elaborate things for self-care.
01:01:01 --> 01:01:05 I need little things throughout the day for self-care.
01:01:06 --> 01:01:10 And it takes different forms, different days. Sometimes I need physical self-care.
01:01:10 --> 01:01:13 So I'll need to go outside, sit outside, get some fresh air.
01:01:14 --> 01:01:15 I just need to physically relax.
01:01:16 --> 01:01:21 Sometimes it's a mental thing. Sometimes mentally, I need to just sit down and
01:01:21 --> 01:01:25 listen to something to get my mind in the right headspace.
01:01:25 --> 01:01:30 So self-care looks different to me on different days depending on what it is that I need.
01:01:31 --> 01:01:34 I love that. I love that. And I love that you're taking care of yourself.
01:01:35 --> 01:01:39 And I'm so happy that you're here and got to share your story and your journey with us.
01:01:39 --> 01:01:42 How can our listeners find your book?
01:01:43 --> 01:01:49 Find out more about you. So on my website, lshay.com, I have all my previous
01:01:49 --> 01:01:53 interviews and anything that I did, public speaking, television magazines,
01:01:54 --> 01:01:55 all that stuff can be found on there.
01:01:55 --> 01:01:59 So if they wanted to listen to some of my topics that I discuss,
01:01:59 --> 01:02:01 they can listen to them there.
01:02:01 --> 01:02:03 The book is also for sale on the website.
01:02:04 --> 01:02:11 It is on Amazon, Target, Barnes & Noble. I think Walmart even has it online.
01:02:12 --> 01:02:18 It comes in ebook and paperback, but I'm in the middle of actually doing a relaunch.
01:02:18 --> 01:02:24 I changed the cover a little bit. I went back in and rewrote some of the paragraphs.
01:02:25 --> 01:02:30 I just wanted to change some things up, but mostly I did. And each of my chapters
01:02:30 --> 01:02:35 has a song that's associated with it by a specific artist that sort of resonated
01:02:35 --> 01:02:37 with me when I was writing that chapter.
01:02:38 --> 01:02:43 And in this new book that's coming out in about a month or so,
01:02:43 --> 01:02:48 there will be QR codes at the end of every chapter that the reader can then
01:02:48 --> 01:02:50 scan and it will take them to the song.
01:02:50 --> 01:02:54 So after you're done reading the chapter, you listen to the song and it sort
01:02:54 --> 01:02:58 of just puts that whole thing into perspective because that particular song
01:02:58 --> 01:03:01 sums up that chapter in music.
01:03:01 --> 01:03:04 So you have the written form of it and then the music form of it.
01:03:04 --> 01:03:10 So that will be on Amazon to replace this one in about a month or so.
01:03:10 --> 01:03:13 That's so cool. That is so, so, so cool.
01:03:14 --> 01:03:20 I think there's some copies in the Barnes & Noble in Woodland Park and the new
01:03:20 --> 01:03:23 one in Paramus on Route 17 has some copies too.
01:03:24 --> 01:03:28 So awesome. Thank you, thank you, thank you for doing this.
01:03:28 --> 01:03:34 Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Thank you for hearing my very long and elaborate story.
01:03:36 --> 01:03:39 It's all good. You have any more questions, Skittles? No, no.
01:03:39 --> 01:03:42 No, I literally was hanging on to every single word you said.
01:03:42 --> 01:03:45 So I'm like, well, now I'm going to get that book with a song.
01:03:46 --> 01:03:47 I'm like, that would be perfect.
01:03:48 --> 01:03:51 Yeah, the songs are in there now. It's just listed in the front of the book.
01:03:52 --> 01:03:55 And I feel like the feedback I got from my readers was like,
01:03:55 --> 01:03:59 I forgot about the song when I was done after I forgot about it.
01:03:59 --> 01:04:02 And I read the next chapter and I was like, all right, I need to make it so
01:04:02 --> 01:04:07 it's more interactive. And they can see the song right after they're done with
01:04:07 --> 01:04:11 the paragraph. But surprisingly, I've been with you guys, I don't know,
01:04:11 --> 01:04:12 what, two hours now almost?
01:04:13 --> 01:04:16 And I haven't even probably told you half of the stories in this book.
01:04:17 --> 01:04:20 So there is so much more that you can learn.
01:04:22 --> 01:04:25 I will definitely be getting it. Thank you so much again. I appreciate your time.
01:04:26 --> 01:04:29 Yeah, me too. I have been dying to come on this podcast.
01:04:29 --> 01:04:33 Hi, all. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. I'm G-Rex.
01:04:33 --> 01:04:38 And I'm Dirty Skittles. don't forget to subscribe rate and review this podcast
01:04:38 --> 01:04:44 we'd love to listen to your feedback we can't do this without you guys it's
01:04:44 --> 01:04:47 okay to be not okay just make sure you.
01:04:46 --> 01:05:04 Music.