DOD268: A Helluva Haeley Health Hupdate

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:02 Clip: I'm the cool dad, that's my thing I know now what I can offer you that no one else can Complete and under-dependent I'm a man, I'm sensitive I need to feel loved, I need part of being a father that I enjoy

0:00:28 Tom: Welcome to Dear Old Dads, the podcast that doesn't even need Eli Bosnick. I'm Tom Curry. I'm joined, as always, by Thomas Smith. Hello, Thomas Smith!

0:00:32 Thomas: He's really been weighing down the show. You know, he's just been dragging it. Yep, yep.

0:00:40 Tom: Have you noticed the same thing? Because I've noticed the SAME thing. Like, I didn't want to say it while he's here, because... But I'm sure he's not going to listen.

0:00:46 Thomas: I'm like, hey buddy, make a joke once in a while. Like do, you know, he's always so serious.

0:00:52 Tom: Man.

0:00:53 Thomas: No, but I was thinking actually the role of Eli Bosnick, I think will be played by Thomas. I think I can do this. I think we can do it. Yeah. Can I say something brave? Can I say something brave. I can it.

0:00:54 Tom: Can you do it? Can you be the Eli Bosnick of... from your heart? Is it from your HEART?

0:01:05 Thomas: Yeah, from my heart.

0:01:07 Tom: Yeah, I think...

0:01:07 Thomas: Tomifer, Tomifer Bethesda Curry, from my heart, say something brave, I can do it. No, we had, Eli had a emergency schedule thing. We actually got several fucked up schedule things happening in short order. And it was so cool because we got ahead in order to facilitate

0:01:13 Tom: You can. I believe in you. You I believe I believe in you but yeah right yeah

0:01:26 Thomas: Tom's news. Oh, wait, I'm going to be Eli. In order to facilitate Haley faking whatever, you know, pretend medical thing she had.

0:01:33 Tom: Right yeah her they do a lot of faking at md anderson down in houston kid look I want to give everybody an update I do and I will about hayley and about her health I know that's what people actually want to hear I know it's actually the most important thing but first I've got to talk about houston because I cannot go to houston without being shocked and appalled every time by how horrifying and lousy and shitty and unappealing every square inch of that That fucking city is, I've been there four times now, four times, Thomas Smith, Haley's dad. I know I mentioned on the last show, Haley's dad flew down to Houston to be with us, to be there, to lend support. He stayed there for, I think like three days in the hospital. He went home, he went back to his hotel in the evening, but he was there. Like he got up, he drove over to the hospital. We sat with her, hung out with her

0:01:44 Thomas: That's why I'm here. Oh wow

0:02:22 Tom: For, for I think three days while she was like actually recovering from surgery in the hotel. It was wonderful. It Was just, it was great. It was just awesome but like a major topic of conversation was can you fucking believe this city we're in if you've never been to houston it defies imagination and expectation thomas have you been there dude

0:02:34 Thomas: I think I've only stopped through it I've been to austin a long time

0:02:45 Tom: Eight million people I've been look so I've been to Dallas. I like Dallas I've been to San Antonio. San Antonio's a fine little touristy city I've been to Houston. It's unrecognizable as an american city for the fourth largest city in america eight million people yeah it's fucking massive it's so big you start driving in houston and like you never stop driving through houston it's f*****g unbelievable it's unbelievable it' s the never -ending story of cities yes and

0:03:00 Thomas: Ago fourth oh wow huh to this day tom is still driving through houston

0:03:15 Tom: Like what I learned because I'm fascinated with how horrible this city is I just think you can still fighting to this day when you land in Houston. You're like okay well it's probably just shitty around the airport and that's

0:03:18 Thomas: They say if you stop at a car wash in houston you can hear tom scream still yeah most airports pretty shitty yeah there's

0:03:29 Tom: True and that' s true like that' S normal right yeah I grew up around midway airport like I get it like it's shitty over my midway like that's where I grew up, yeah yeah right yeah but like it never gets nicer

0:03:35 Thomas: There's a reason we put people like Tom next to the airports when they're going. Yeah. People like Tom's mom.

0:03:43 Thomas: So I'm being Eli, just to be clear. Fuck poor people. Fuck them. They're dirty. Okay. That's, that's. Yeah. There's nothing brave. Money is good.

0:03:50 Tom: They're dirty filthy can I say something beautiful and from my heart yeah fuck poor people max will never have to go to houston like so I I look this up because I'm like okay am I just a crazy person I look it up there are several articles you can find naming houston not

0:04:02 Thomas: He'll never be around an airport.

0:04:13 Tom: Only the ugliest city in america but one of the ugliest cities in the world thomas smith

0:04:13 Thomas: Wow. In the world. Well, I mean, to be fair, our cities are pretty fucking ugly here. Like so you'd figure we're the big leagues of ugly cities so

0:04:25 Tom: There's no like arts district theater district the city doesn't isn't divided into to districts. So the stuff you might want to go to is just randomly interspersed amongst the stuff you would not want to GoTo. So like everything is just random randomly placed near another thing. Like you will legitimately be driving by like a laundromat with all the lights burned out.

0:04:46 Tom: And then there'll be like a gated community next door to like an empty lot surrounded by barbed wire by like a fucking rub and tug massage parlor near like some massive building and I'm not even making this up at all like some huge like corporate headquarters and this will be on the same city block it makes you feel crazy I

0:04:46 Thomas: Man yeah it's so funny wait hold on is that how it should be though is that like better I don't you know what I mean

0:05:09 Tom: Don't think so man like I don'T KNOW look I understand that like the argument is like well what about gentrification and segregation and like all that look all of that's very legitimate but it makes YOU feel crazy when you're in houston the woman we met in the in In the very first line, when Haley and I were there, so we fly down to Houston. Let's just tell the whole story. So we fly out to Houston,

0:05:27 Thomas: Like yeah yeah here's how bad houston is tom went and you know his wife's had a major major medical thing that I think has gone well and he's like I don't care about that let me talk about this fucking

0:05:37 Tom: It's stunning. It's just stunning. So we get down there and it is a topic of conversation between Haley and I as we're like driving to MD Anderson, right? So MD Anderson is one of, if not the best hospital in the country and arguably one of the best hospitals in the world. And they have this world -renowned cancer center. We're going to the cancer center, even though she doesn't have cancer.

0:05:45 Thomas: City everyone there just hates being in houston so much like fuck I guess I'll just study how to be really good at my job I was fucking yeah can

0:06:04 Tom: So, yeah, everybody, even the cancer in Houston is trying to get out of you. That's the thing. It's like cancer is like, get me out of here. Throw me in a biohazard.

0:06:14 Thomas: I spread to another person I I forget. What are the rules of me?

0:06:18 Tom: God. So if you've been to like one of these centers of excellence is the second one we've been through. And that's like a name for certain types of like major medical institutions like Mayo or Cleveland Clinic or like Sloan or MD Anderson. And so they feel different, right? So they have a lot of people who are coming in from out of town, from out -of -state, from out of the country in order to avail themselves of these services. So they have a very different like setup. So we're standing in line the day before. We fly down, we check into our hotel, and we have to get up very early the next day to go do some lab work. So, we're standing in lines like seven o 'clock in the morning or something. We're doing lab work. And there's this big like assembly line process for all of this stuff. And And we're kind of just quietly talking about how shitty Houston is like this, you know, like trying to, and the lady in front of us hears us because I can't whisper and she's from Houston and she turns around and I'm like, oh man.

0:07:11 Thomas: Yeah. Fuck.

0:07:11 Tom: And she's basically like, yeah, it's fucking horrible. She's like, yeah,

0:07:14 Thomas: Like here, we have a mic for that. Do you want to give them the mic? Yeah. Go up. There's a little stage. Does anyone talk shit on the city we're in? Yeah. You actually earn credit on your hospital bill if you do it.

0:07:21 Tom: Do a tight five on Houston. It's fine. We have a whole thing here.

0:07:28 Tom: So she's like yeah, you, you haven't got to be, make sure, you know to always lock your car doors like even in what they think of a nice part of town she's like you don't want to have your purse visible people steal it I'm like cool cool city you've got this is great so we go and we do all the lab work and everything and then we meet with the surgeon

0:07:40 Thomas: Sure. Wait a minute. Are we, are we, I wasn't sure. Do we need to do first ad?

0:07:47 Tom: Oh we got it to the first ad oh yeah all right you know what's even shittier than houston the auto ads pretty much nothing but the auto adds are pretty bad

0:07:48 Thomas: I wasn'T, I thought you were still on like a Houston. I wasn 'T sure. Yeah. And you know, it's possibly not worse than Houston. In basically the un gentrified auto ads. There's just no stratification in them. And frankly, we're lost every time we go to the auto ads, we don't know where we're going, but you can get rid of the Murr. I forgot the Z light shop. Damn it. Uh, and he's, Oh, he actually always thinks of something pretty funny for this. Well, you know, can't win them all. Uh and

0:08:16 Tom: Well can't we just like cut and paste something from previous episode in here you know just hello this is eli bosnick

0:08:21 Thomas: You can help pay for or Haley's fake medical problems at patreon.com/seriouspod. And you can get rid of the auto ads that are so bad. They may be the one thing that they're all, they compete with Houston. They're so bad they compete với Houston, but we can't, we can'T rule on that. That's too close of a call. Patreon .com.

0:08:37 Tom: They are that bad unlike

0:08:45 Thomas: Yeah.

0:08:53 Ad: [Ad break 1 — ad music]

0:08:53 Tom: Houston there's a way out of the auto ads so we go through and we get these labs done and everything it's this whole assembly line process then we've got some time to kill and we're walking around md anderson and again this is like one of these like centers of excellence they literally have a helipad for like saudi princes to like fly in and then helicopter over from, like, it's a whole thing. Like, MD Anderson, we're told, like it's going to be a different kind. Well, it looks like the place hasn't been renovated since the late 1960s.

0:09:20 Tom: Like, the place is like, oh, God. So we're looking around like we're not feeling real good and confident here. Like, it has that, like churn and, like everybody is hyper -efficient at their job. Everybody's here. Like, It's got all that stuff. But, like you look around, you're like, this place is, like kind of beat to shit. Like, its like really kind of beat to shit, doesn't inspire. Great confidence. So we're feeling kind of nervous. And then we go and we meet the surgeon. And this is the reason we travel down there. The reason we traveled down there was specifically for this one surgeon. There's been documentaries about this guy, like he is a big deal guy. And so there's no reason to go there. We could have had the surgery locally, but like the people that do this surgery locally may or may not be as proficient. It's a micro whatever surgery. It'S very precise and careful and all that stuff. And so, you know, we go and we we meet with this guy and this guy immediately just like puts everything at ease just puts everything it is

0:10:16 Thomas: And then he hands you a brochure. That's like, so you're in the worst city in the world.

0:10:22 Tom: Which by the way I got the barbecue uninspired entirely uninspire you can get better barbecue in those suburbs out

0:10:28 Thomas: I don't know. Look, I'm going to be real with you. I don' t understand. I don'' t eat meat anymore, so it kind of doesn' t apply. But I did. Once upon a time, I did eat meat.

0:10:31 Tom: Here yep tell me yeah yeah

0:10:37 Thomas: Barbecue, to me, it' s pretty binary. It' s like, this is great because it' S just the, back when I ate meat, the idea of barbecued meat and some fucking, whatever sauce you got going, whatever food it is, it'' s either, wow, that is delicious, or it' m poison or something. I don'T know.

0:10:55 Tom: You kind of can't fuck it up yeah

0:10:55 Thomas: There' s not really. Everyone is like oh no this is the better barbecue than this I'm like if both seems great I don't know man I can't I'm not I can evaluate and maybe this is just it's just me I can evaluate how I like songs and movies pretty well like when they're really good it's hard to pick one you know when it comes to like good food like that I'm just like I donno man it seems good it both of it's good I donna fucking know everybody's pretending I think I've

0:11:21 Tom: Look when it comes to barbecue and I'll get fucking killed for saying this from certain purists or whatever but I agree with like good barbecue is very good and then there's bad barbecue and there's not a lot of middle ground and it's not the hardest thing to cook like I've made lots of it's Not particularly challenging there's a method to it you follow the method and it turns out great that's it like period you're

0:11:43 Thomas: Always had a problem my whole life with those opinions that people have that I think are just bullshit because of like regional whatever like they just want to claim their little thing they know is better and I've never been able to handle I'm like I don't okay man I don'T fucking I can't deal with this anyway yeah

0:11:58 Tom: Just like sure yeah all right anyway so anyway so the surgeon immediately puts us at ease was just saying a lot because up until that moment up until the moment we talked to that guy literally in the cafeteria ahead of time I was like look I'm not making you do this if this is something we decide you're not 100 comfortable with we can go home we'll figure something out I don't know what the thing is to figure out the problem is that I we don't know what fucking thing is right yeah I don t know I mean maybe

0:12:20 Thomas: What you're gonna learn the surgery or what oh

0:12:24 Tom: There's somebody else we go to you know I like but like we weren't feeling very confident just in the space that we were in and we're and I think nerves were there too for sure you know it's a big deal but the surgeon just just immediately just like puts the whole thing at ease, just immediately puts the whole thing. And I'll tell you, I've never had anybody describe in more detail exactly what they were going to do and how they were gonna do it and why this approach, you know, is better than the other approach. And, you, know, every question that we had, cause some people, you know, we look online, you talk to people that have had this surgery and some people lose their sense of taste and smell for a long time because the surgery is done through the nose. It's called the transphenoidal approach and he's like oh yeah he's like well I approach you know from this there's a big cavernous space here here's where all the olfactory nerves are I'm not going to get near them

0:12:29 Thomas: Gotcha sure yeah wow

0:13:11 Tom: Here's how I go like he's just like everything he's got like a really good answer to when he first got the MRI and it's like yep there's the tumor here and we're just like sure question mark you know like it's not like if you squint and like cross your eyes or whatever you know and then he's Like oh yeah it's Like what you got to do is adjust the contrast on these things then you can really see it and he's like got his and he adjusts the contrast and it's like boom it's right here and you're like oh yeah okay well it's right there so that makes you feel better yeah right so the next day early in the morning we get to the hospital five in the morning we have to get to the hospital so we get to the hospital five o 'clock in the morning meet Haley's dad there and you know get get set up so

0:13:12 Thomas: Hmm yeah that's awesome oh right right Right. Right. Yeah. Wow. Instills confidence.

0:13:50 Thomas: Yeah, that's five. Are you on back in time a little bit? So it's early for you. Time zone wise.

0:13:54 Tom: No it's the same so it's the same time zone central central central yeah yeah so thankfully we didn't have to deal with any nonsense there so you know 5 a .m. is fucking horrible you got to get up at four to get there at five you know it's just it's a nightmare yeah

0:13:55 Thomas: Oh, so you're in the same time. Oh yeah. Okay.

0:14:04 Thomas: Oh yeah, I can't do it. I'd stay up. Yeah yeah.

0:14:07 Tom: Well I don't know we kind of considered it but being tired is like the least of our worries you know so we get there we meet hayley's dad there and then you know you do all the pre -surgical stuff which mostly includes just being hooked up to every machine and iv they put an arterial line in her arm which was kind of crazy

0:14:24 Thomas: Is that different than IV? I don't know what that sorry.

0:14:25 Tom: Yeah it's different than an iv so like ivs go in your veins veins nothing typically goes in your in your

0:14:32 Thomas: Pretend I'm an idiot. Arteries are they're different. They're like just the big ones or or something oh

0:14:33 Tom: Artery yeah yeah yeah no so so when your your blood pumps out that's into an artery blood returning to your heart is a vein yeah yeah so the blood that pumps out of your heart Is that's an artery and that is like uh it's it's like a higher pressure situation like literally higher pressure and then the blood returns to your heart through veins which are smaller and thinner and not as robust

0:14:58 Thomas: So it's like when you nick an artery that's why it's like this zombie show whatever like yeah oh I never literally never thought about

0:15:02 Tom: That's a huge big deal yeah it just shooting blood everywhere like a fucking yeah yeah so they use your veins to put medicine and shit and that's what your IVs are for and to add fluids but if she needed blood for a blood loss issue like if they had to actually like transfuse her the best thing to do is to transfuse through an arterial line so they open they they have an arteria well it hurts like hell I didn't know this she's never had one before and it hurts Like hell so she's got this arterial liner arm she got IV in one arm and IV in another arm she's hooked up to every fucking thing and then you just just kind of wait you know you just kind of wait for a while and like people come in and ask you the same question they make you verify your name like 30 times your birthday like 30x it's like it's a crazy

0:15:07 Thomas: It wow okay yeah hmm oh wow yikes yeah yeah which brain are we doing amputating this one yeah Yeah. It's so funny. They do that when they're doing any, like,

0:15:48 Tom: Dude they did that on her nose they wrote the word yes on her nose I'm not even kidding I have a picture of

0:15:50 Thomas: I know. And it's so funny because they should do it. Like the fact is like, they'll fucking amputate the wrong arm if they don't do it, you know what I mean? Like, it's like, you know, if it's the cost of maybe not, that is, I'm going to write something and draw a dick on your face or whatever. Like, fine. If that helps, fine,

0:15:59 Tom: It yes yes so they they write the word Yes on her nose which I took a picture of which is hilarious because nobody likes like a close -up of their own nose that's like the worst most most unflattering photo and then you know we wait for a while and then they they wheel her back through and then my job so my experience and her experience at this point differ greatly right so she goes back and she has surgery you know that's a big fucking deal

0:16:30 Thomas: And she going out, is she going full out? Yeah.

0:16:32 Tom: Oh yeah it says it took hours yeah it's it's like uh

0:16:33 Thomas: Nice. Okay. That's what So I was wondering, I was going to ask earlier, like, couldn't they put her out and then do the arterial thing or?

0:16:39 Tom: You know one would think so because they put you out and then they do the catheter and they do other stuff so like there's plenty of time right so the surgery took a few hours but then there's also just like they knock you out and do all this other stuff time as well so like they wheel her back there at like 7 7 30 and then scott her dad and I hang out for the longest time we've ever hung out together in our entire lives yeah dude we hung out until like 1 30 in the afternoon two o

0:17:02 Thomas: I was gonna say, how's that? How's that conversation?

0:17:10 Tom: 'Clock or some shit like we're just hanging out being nervous nervous waiting in the waiting space and like you have to like pick your waiting zone when you go back there so like it's all like named after flowers so we're like I guess we're geraniums you know so we tell the guy up front like we're in the geranium lounge or whatever so he can come find you when he needs to like when a nurse has to give you an update or the doctor is ready to come like have a conversation with you or what have you so if you want to like leave and get a cup of coffee or go down to the cafeteria or whatever you go to the front desk and you're They're like, hey, I'm a geranium scout or fucking whatever. Like, Kenny, if you need me, like, I're going to go grab a cup of coffee. I'll be back in five minutes or whatever. And then they tell you, like. Okay, this would be a good time to go. Or no, you know, you should.

0:17:25 Thomas: Wow. Weird. Huh? Oh, wow. Based on like what's happening in the game right now.

0:17:57 Tom: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Right. Like, hey. Maybe. Yeah.

0:17:59 Thomas: Surgeon's doing real battle with the tumor right now, it's probably a good time. He called timeout. They're gonna, it is halftime.

0:18:05 Tom: So we wait and hang out. And it was actually kind of awesome. Like, Scott turns out, her dad turns out. Of course, to be a great guy. Like, he and I got along just famously. We had real talk conversation too,

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0:18:15 Tom: Which I was like, God, are we just going to like bullshit for like, you know, how's the weather? Don't you hate Houston for like six hours or something? He was opening up to me about his life, about like stuff. And like, I was Like, yeah, sure. You're doing it. I'm doing it like we had like real talk conversation. So like we like got in there together and like, it was great.

0:18:21 Thomas: Man. Man hey man not to racially profile but if hayley has adhd and that's genetic and maybe her dad has it people like us with adhd it's on or off switch it's like either not talking or here's my entire life right here's all of

0:18:46 Tom: Yeah. And I don't know if he has ADHD or not. He doesn't strike me that way. But very quickly, there was like a real like hey we're both here because we both love the same person and so there was a lot of like just like kind of trust right there I think that we both felt but it's funny because like I was you know I have a hundred other things to be much more nervous about but I was like I hope it's not really weird and awkward because I don't know her dad her dad lives in New

0:18:51 Thomas: It gotcha me eli bosnick that's the person so just getting eli in there oh yeah I would be more nervous about that not nervous but like just dreading it like uh man I just I'll be honest I I'd want to do a crossword or something I don't want to just do something

0:19:16 Tom: York yeah it was kind of nice because like both of us would lapse into to like long periods of time where like I'm reading a book and he's like doing whatever on his phone and then we would chat but like when we chatted it was like real conversation like serious good it

0:19:35 Thomas: Oh okay yeah that's cool yeah jokes aside that's probably how I do it that's nice I like that that's

0:19:45 Tom: Was great it was Great actually and like being able to do that and being able to like have something that was like really open with somebody that was not it was actually consequential help make the time go by but also make kind of melt the anxiety away a little you you know, because the whole time you're just like, somebody's cutting into my wife right now and I don't know what's happening and I just have to sit here.

0:20:07 Thomas: Well yeah and in her freaking dome like in the head area which is is pretty important

0:20:13 Tom: It's not nothing. You know, it's it's a nerve wracking wait. So the doctor eventually comes out and he's like, hey, so let's let's give the update. And I immediately was like, OK, I have to surreptitiously voice record this entire conversation for Haley, because if I don'T, I'm going to translate what he said to her she is going to ask me a question I don't know the exact answer to or don't remember the exact wording of and then she's going to be annoyed with me right because I'm going to be like why I think he said or he said something like and she's gonna be like that is not precise enough that is that doesn't work for me so I was like there's no way so I like I take out my phone and I hit the voice record I just like I'm holding my phone and I'm recording the whole conversation and it was actually it's actually kind of like weird too because they have a variety of these these rooms and because again this is a huge center right where they're just doing like dozens and dozens of surgeries a day you know it's a massive space so they have these rooms and the rooms are like clearly set up to deliver both good news and bad

0:21:16 Tom: News so there's like tissues everywhere in these rooms for like the bad news

0:21:16 Thomas: God oh I thought you were saying there's like a good news room and a bad news room it's like well let's make our ones like pink ones like black

0:21:26 Tom: They walk you in there's different music a sad trombone why are we going in the sad trumbone room jim I don't want to go in a sad Trombone room but like yeah it's like you walk in this like tissues everywhere and stuff and you're like oh this is a room where people don't always get the answer they want like I don t I'm pretty scared like I would like to get the answer I want please and he goes in and he's like hey so you know we went in right where we thought there a tumor would would be because that's something they don't tell you too by the way is like they look on all this imaging and they're like yeah the imaging is suggestive of or seems to show but like until they look in there it's never a hundred percent that one that's the only thing that they're gonna find and two that the thing that the imaging will actually be the right kind of tissue so he's like when we go in there we're looking for these specific markers we took a lot of that out I got out the old melon baller scooped out her memories yeah she got we we got rid of junior high. Nobody likes junior high, so we scooped that out of there, but he was very confident. He's like, you know, we went in there, and you know like you can, it was actually kind of gross, but I'll say it's like you could actually feel with your scalpel, with your tools.

0:22:15 Thomas: Like yeah we found all this gross brain in there didn't uh yeah yucky yuckums jesus

0:22:36 Tom: He's, like, when it's a tumor, he's, the tool just kind of falls through the tissue with very little resistance. He's like, so that's one of the ways you can tell is just by feel, and I'm, like cool.

0:22:45 Thomas: Yeah but when I stab someone's brain it takes it takes a few tries takes a few

0:22:49 Tom: There's a little more. Yeah, he did say, he ,s, like you know you can make a a pocket in anything if you push hard enough and I was like duly noted man duly fucking noted he felt really confident that he got out the material that he was looking to get out it was right where the imaging suggested that it would be he felt like really good about it so that was that was great and then you know we were a few hours later able to go up and actually see hayley and sit with her she spent a few days in the uh hospital the first day in the hospital is the the fucking worst like they literally had around 24 hour hourly neuro checks

0:22:54 Thomas: Goes jesus christ nice

0:23:26 Tom: So every single hour they come in and they do a neurological check

0:23:30 Thomas: She had to be like man woman but But, what was that? Yeah. Wow.

0:23:33 Tom: Man woman camera child yeah so they they have to come in every hour and do that but then they also have to come in whenever it is whatever the schedule is to do your vitals then they got to come in every time there's a shift change then they gotta come in everytime somebody down the hall all sneezes twice then they got to come in like there's somebody constantly coming for the first 24 hours that you're there there is literally someone in that room every 40 minutes on average it's fucking insane

0:24:03 Thomas: Which I guess is good, but that must suck.

0:24:06 Tom: Dude it's so bad it's like they're like we just gotta rest and relax you're like rest and relaxed somebody's in here taking my blood pressure or fucking adding a medicine to an iv or like making me fucking like push on their hands and shit for the neurological check how is anybody supposed to wait just are you resting okay how are you what he made resting okay go fuck yourself and then there's like there's two kinds of nurses right this is what we've discovered there's the nurses that are sane people who understand that you feel like shit and you're not in the hospital because today's your favorite day and then There are nurses who burst into your room at full volume like fucking Eli Bosnick just like like three in the morning they'll like open the door not knock gently not gently ease the door open because it's three o 'clock in the morning but like fling the fucking door open with gleeful abandon flip on the lights hey just gotta come in here and check and make sure you're alive and you're like yeah awesome you do know it's it's 3 o 'clock in the Morning and you are a psychopath an actual living psychopath

0:25:10 Thomas: Yeah, it's like, I think the UN defines this as torture, like, honestly. So, I don't know why they don't do that. I don' t know that. Like, it can't be good for, like. Healing. Eventually, they gotta let her get some sleep, right?

0:25:13 Tom: Right it's miserable man it's so bad no I think they do this specifically so that you're so so miserable, all you want to do is sign yourself out and go home. So they can keep the bills down. I think that's it. Because it's just so bad.

0:25:31 Thomas: They're like the, the server, like when you're staying too long in the restaurant, it's like, okay, did you, uh, Haley's barely conscious. Like, did you guys need anything? You got, you got your orders, right? You got, and you did dessert.

0:25:39 Tom: Get the fuck out of here! I will literally kill you.

0:25:46 Thomas: That's kind of weird. You didn't, did you need another menu thing or, or you're just going to sit there? Okay. All right. Just going to beep there. Okay.

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0:26:00 Tom: I gotta tell you about the food, too. They send a guy up from nutrition or whatever, and he is making this big deal about this menu and how you can order anything you want.

0:26:09 Thomas: It better be barbecue. They bet. I like, they all should always have the regional flair to it.

0:26:14 Tom: And I can order anything off of that menu as well. So I'm there the whole time. I got to eat, you know.

0:26:15 Thomas: You know, Tom's just, Tom just just eating the most he's ever eaten and slept in his life. It's actually Tom's quality of life went up a thousand percent just from not having to work and be, or wait, did you still work your way through this? You didn't work. Okay. So this is actually the story of Tom's

0:26:29 Tom: Well, I didn't work. No, I haven't worked at all. No, I didn't work. I didn'' t even check my email. Nope.

0:26:36 Thomas: Best days that he's never had. I wouldn't be surprised if he can see like the future. He can see through the fabric of the universe you're

0:26:39 Tom: Not even close. What a nice staycation I had. I had a nice day staycation. I used all my vacation time for the year, but I didn '' t work, is there anything else can you dig around up in my dome actually I want some of the medicine that's on there yeah have

0:26:47 Thomas: Asking the surgeon did you see any other like future tumors in there like anything else that yeah you do a follow -up right we can oh I know gosh I was gonna say that earlier the getting the night night just disappearing is really nice it's really satisfying I have uh I think once or twice and it's yeah it's like you just wake up and you're like why did I wake

0:27:02 Tom: You been under general anesthesia

0:27:11 Thomas: Up why like literally when you wake up and you're like why am I waking up what did I awake up from that's the best it's the most yep I wish we could do it all the time michael jackson tried that and didn't work out yeah

0:27:11 Tom: Yeah it's unreal to just be turned off and turned back on again you're like right yeah propofol it's the same thing that they use for anesthesia which is crazy it makes you realize that you do still have a sense of time passing while you sleep because the difference when you have anesthesia there's no sense of time having passed at all you're just like hey so and now right yeah

0:27:35 Thomas: Oh you say oh when you sleep normally yeah yeah okay because I was gonna say like no I had no fucking idea what yeah I got you yeah yeah

0:27:41 Tom: Right so when you sleep sleep like a regular like at night sleep you think you're completely unconscious but you're not there's a sense of time having gone by but like when you have general anesthesia you're just like so you're gonna put me and I'm awake so that what the it's just this total like somebody just like rips the timeline and throws it in the garbage like that part of your life didn't happen it's fucking weird so we stay in the hospital she has her surgery on friday we stay in the hospital Friday Saturday Sunday Monday we end up getting discharged she's doing pretty rough like just to let you guys know so the surgery was on paper a success but they won't actually know for quite some time biochemically whether or not the surgery is a full success so what I mean by that is so yeah Haley has something's called Cushing's disease and it's It's caused by a pituitary adenoma, microadenoma, which is a, so like very small tumors. Her tumor is four to five millimeters. So these are very small tumours. The whole pituitory gland's the size of a pea.

0:28:31 Thomas: Peter Cushing famously he the guy who played the in Star Wars. He had it. Oh, wow.

0:28:44 Tom: So the tumor fits inside of something that small. Yeah. Looks like a pair of testicles actually hanging down from the brain. It's crazy looking.

0:28:50 Thomas: Dude, that surgeon's got to be a wizard. That's got to be fucking incredible.

0:28:52 Tom: It's fucking nuts, dude. You can watch the surgery on YouTube and it's crazy.

0:28:55 Thomas: You know, It never even occurred to me that now you could do that. It's such a different age we live in. We're like, yeah, do you want to watch on YouTube someone getting the surgery you're about to get? That's cool.

0:29:04 Tom: Thomas Smith, I'll tell you that like Haley and I were talking and I watched her surgery and I was like, you know, I didn't watch my neck surgery. And then like I watched my neck surgery and I was like I wish I never saw that at all that's fucking nuts that's fuckin crazy like they're like got this thing like a dremel and they're dremeling out your disc it's fucking crazy yes

0:29:15 Thomas: No, I wouldn't. I wouldn't do it. But yeah, what's crazy is when it turns into like a plumbing or hardware problem and the body is converted into lumber or something like it's like, well, here's where we get the saw. And And then we're like, you know, and you're like that a body shouldn't be that. I don't know what's happening.

0:29:36 Tom: Orthopedics specifically is far too mechanical for my liking it's just it's like I don't need to see that I wish I wish I hadn't watched that. That's fucking weird. So Haley has Cushing's disease. And so it's caused by a pituitary microadenoma on the pituitory that is metabolically active. So it's not cancerous, meaning it's not going to grow. It's not gonna spread. Well, it may grow, but it's got cancer cells in it, but it is metabolical active. So what that means is it releases chemicals which stimulate the body to produce cortisol in excess of what the body needs. And that's the problem. So Haley was producing multiple times more cortisol than her body needs in order to do body stuff. And it's very dangerous. It has a host of negative downstream effects on the body, muscle wasting, fatigue, hair loss, just misery in general. It's terrible. It is a lousy disease. So the idea is they go and they take out this tumor tumor and then it will no longer produce this chemical called ACTH. It's a signaling hormone that will cause the body to produce all this extra cortisol. The problem is that the body doesn't just like react instantly, especially to hormonal changes. So her body now has to learn how to produce cortisol on

0:29:44 Thomas: Don't like it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yikes.

0:30:58 Tom: Its own without the tumor over signaling because it's been over signaling for years yes all right I was fucking lazy

0:31:03 Thomas: Damn. So your body's like, I miss that tumor, you know, actually we'd grown so close. It was like you and Haley's dad. I really got to know that tumor. Yeah.

0:31:11 Tom: We just all of a sudden bonded like arm and arm like you know like dancing through the meadow and we won't actually know until she does testing over the course of weeks or months we won'T know if her cortisol has dropped and stays low so you go in there and take a knife and you fuck with an organ it's going to change the organs response to the world for a while so we actually have to get testing and multiple tests over a course of time to see if her cortisol is actually dropped to the right level in the meantime the problem is her cortisol drop goes from like being way too high to way too low so now she's got

0:31:47 Thomas: Yeah, dude. So they're going to make you put some cortisol in a cup like I was supposed to do with my thing. I never did. Nah nope never tested it I I look I could practically feel the disconnected tubes in there like it was so obvious and then uh you know lydia went off birth control and nothing's happened so I think it's fine

0:31:51 Tom: Like yeah exactly you didn't tell you you didn't test your vasectomy Jesus Christ Jesus Christ. So

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0:32:19 Tom: She goes basically from having Cushing's disease, which is too much cortisol, to temporarily being what they call adrenally insufficient, which is essentially like having Addison's disease. So now she has to supplement hydrocortisone in order to stay functional. And then she'll have to wean off the hydrocortisone and hope that her pituitary sort of picks up the slack. So it's a long road to recovery. It'll take us several probably a few months before we really know did biochemically this actually work the surgery was a success in that like the tumor was removed and he felt very confident that this was the tumor it wasn't a place he was looking for it it does appear to be the tissue yeah it does appear to be the issue but in the meantime she's still pretty miserable so you know we're trying to figure out what the right schedule for the dosage for the the hydrocortisone is because if it drops too low it can be very dangerous your blood pressure collapses and like you know so there's a lot of stuff that you need cortisol in your body to survive so you've got to make sure that you're dosing it properly and then cortisol is also something that has a

0:32:57 Thomas: It looked exactly like a little peter cushing yeah so if it's too low do they prescribe like the x games or something they're like get out you got a skateboard down a thing they're like tom uh dropper from something pretty high I have a guy in the hospital that's like designated like dressed up like a murder I know it's I went to medical school for this I know looks weird but like it's it's pretty important it's actually pretty important yeah it's

0:33:29 Tom: Curve well it you're actually not that far off so here's a crazy thing right right. Just jump out of court. Jump out from behind curtains and shit. This is a medical scaring. It's a medical scaring, it's fine. It is a jump scare, but like a doctoral jump scare. I did my thesis on this.

0:33:58 Thomas: Like I'm just as much a doctor as all you. Okay. I know I'm wearing a Freddie, whatever. I'm wearing a Freddy Krueger. Yeah.

0:34:04 Tom: Freddy Fazbear thing. Oh, Freddy Krueger shows my kids. My kids are five nights at Freddy's kids, so I'm different. Well, here's what's crazy. If your body's cortisol level drops too low because she's had this happen then your body will in an emergency state will kick up the adrenaline it'll be like oh oh wait a minute and then you feel fucking crazy right because now you've got this giant adrenaline dump out of nowhere and that's actually a sign that your cortisol so it's a whole balancing act it's very complicated it's super complicated man and I don't know anything yeah

0:34:25 Thomas: Damn. Shit's complicated. It's also like, how is the body doing this all the time? I don't believe it. It is God. No, I'm just kidding. It is also not God because how would God get invented? That is the thing they never do. It is like that is even harder. Whatever, however crazy this is, having a God somehow for no reason is also So a thousand million times crazier, but it's like, how does your body, so the adrenaline then is like almost your body doing the like ER. Yeah. It's like food, you need 50 CCS cause she's, she's flatlining.

0:34:37 Tom: That's yeah right it yeah it's an emergency parachute yeah yeah it It's exactly it, yeah. Yeah.

0:34:58 Thomas: And then they just do the, yeah, that's crazy. You've got a little ER and there's a dated reference. You got a Little Doctor, uh, whatever. Yeah. A little Grishore. And now, well, now everybody's watching The Pit. I haven't watched it, but, oh

0:35:05 Tom: Little Grey's Anatomy, that's still going on. That show will never end. I've watched The Pit. It's pretty good. Yeah, The Pit is pretty good, yeah, so anyway, so she's pretty miserable, but we're hoping to figure out the right timing, the right dosage to get her cortisol and her hydrocortisone dose, rather, at the right times and whatever, and then it's just, we knew it was going to be a long road.

0:35:10 Thomas: Yeah, you've watched it. You got A Little The Pit in there. Yeah. Right.

0:35:27 Tom: It doesn't make the road being hard any better, so that's something that, like, I think it's worth saying is that just because you expect something to be bad doesn't make the bad thing not bad. There is a sense, I think, that people have. It's like, well, this is what you expected to have happen. It is like, yeah, but it still sucks. It it is like you can tell somebody that, hey, it really hurts to have a baby, and you are like, it hurts while I am having this baby. It isn't like, didn't we tell you to expect that? It still sucks! Right! It is like things that suck don't suck less because you knew they were going to suck right yeah yeah

0:35:43 Thomas: Right. Yeah. It sure matters how much of it. Yeah. Yeah.

0:35:54 Thomas: Look, we told you to expect the worst pain imaginable. What are you complaining about?

0:36:03 Thomas: However, not to counter that, but it's got to be much, I mean, for you guys mentally. I mean the difference between you spent, you know, time is hard for me, but somewhere what feels like 10 years is probably at least several just not knowing what the fuck was going on. Like something was wrong, deeply wrong, like serious medical stuff with the person you love most in the world for years. And you're just like, what the fuck? It's why Tom doesn't believe in psychiatry. And you know, he got, doesn't Believe in medicine anymore. Like, I'm just kidding, but you've gone through struggles with the, uh, the medical system to say the least.

0:36:21 Tom: Big wrong yeah yeah

0:36:38 Thomas: And that, so it's got to at least be a mental relief to be like, okay, now we're at least on a path. That's like a tangible thing that should, you know? Result in being better again.

0:36:38 Tom: For sure yeah yeah I you know I try to make sure that like like I'm having an experience that's different than hayley's experience right and no no no but like I do like I actually think it's worth talking about a little bit so I want to make sure that like, I'm not in my household, that I'm not like centering my own experience, right? Because the experience that I am having is a different and easier experience, right? My life is not in any danger. It's just that all the things that I love and care about are in danger, right so it's

0:36:55 Thomas: Oh, for sure. Yeah. Yeah, no, this is not to say that it's any easier for her or anything. It's just like mentally for you. Sure,

0:37:22 Tom: Still like, it's a big deal, it is a massively big deal. There is no part of my life that is not affected by my wife being this sick, you know, there is not any part of life, my my work is affected. My, you know, social experiences are affected. My relationship day to day with my wife and how we interact with each other, my worries, all that stuff has been affected and changed. But like all of that is still easier than what she goes through.

0:37:49 Tom: Right. Because she's the one that's sick. So I try at home to make sure that like I'm not bringing that up. Right. Like that's not something I'm going to ask her to hang on to. Right? Hey, hold on to this for me. This is how I feel about this. Like, that's something that has to live somewhere else, you know, as far as my experience is concerned. Like the show. Yeah, I like the show way. Yeah. So what I keep thinking personally is I don't know what happens next. I don'T want to do the false optimism stuff. You know, like, I just don'T WANT to do that. What I know is that if we DIDN'T do the surgery, she was never going to get better. Never. There was never a chance that she was ever going to have to get bettEr if we didn'T do this surgery. It wasn't possible chemically. Biochemically was not possible. Now it's possible she can get better. And that is such a difference. It's hard because day to day it's like, well, my wife is still suffering. So today in this hour from noon to two, it doesn't help. Right. But like when I reflect, it does because like she just needs to get better and she can't

0:38:04 Thomas: Like this show. Yeah.

0:38:52 Tom: Get there if we can't. If we didn't do this, it was not going to get there. She was never going to get better. It's been nowhere. And eventually this would have killed her.

0:38:52 Thomas: Quality of life has just been nowhere. Oh, wow.

0:39:01 Tom: So like eventually what would happen is like because your muscles weaken over time and eventually like people end up with diabetes and they end up with heart disease and they ended up dying of these things. So, you know, you don't have like if you have untreated Cushing's disease over time, your life expectancy dramatically shortens. So it was not an option to not deal with it you know was not like we could just be like well we'll just you know hit the pause button and live in stasis there there's there was no stasis it was just a decline and so you know I'm deeply hopeful that we've done what we can to not only arrest the decline but to give her the option the possibility now of gradually getting better and like I keep keep thinking like the dream I have, like the thing that I hang on to that I think like I can't wait for is like, I can'T wait to put her in the car and drive her to physical therapy. One of these days, I CAN'T wait for her to be well enough to start getting well. Do you know what I mean?

0:39:09 Thomas: Man. Yeah. Right, yeah, it's a more active process rather than kind of just suffering. Yeah. Yeah.

0:40:03 Tom: That's the thing I daydream about right now is like I day dream about like being able to puther in thecar and driveher to physicaltherapy. There's stuff that like I'm going to be weird about too, is I've been driving her everywhere. I was thinking about this the the other day I've been driving her everywhere for five plus years she's gonna get better and just have her life back which is great but it's gonna be weird for me to be like you're just going somewhere like without me

0:40:19 Thomas: Well. It is weird that you've been doing it like a chauffeur and have her sit in the back, though. It is kind of weird that for five years and you've been wearing a little hat. And like the little outfit.

0:40:32 Tom: Well that way she can use the riding crop on me you know yeah which you know it helps everything you know so but yeah like I like at some point you know she's going to get well and then she's not going to need me the same way and that is going to be an adjustment too that I've been like oh at some point she's not going to want me to go with her to everything we do you know

0:40:57 Thomas: Fortunately, every entity in the rest of the world needs you all the time somehow. You know, so I think for other people, that could be a tough one. I think it's like, well, I have 75 other things that need me, my attention every minute so maybe it won't be as hard I don't know yeah yeah that's why it's like I I was like I'm almost insisting like the listeners me patrons everybody needs to hear what's going on like we've

0:41:02 Tom: Yeah I won't be bored I don't think right yeah yeah maybe it'll be fine yeah so I do I want to say too like we got a lot of like really kind you know messages and well wishes and it's so nice it's just such a nice thing

0:41:28 Thomas: Been waiting for the update for forever it's great that it's you know as of right now pretty much all good news right there hasn't been anything that's been like you know you don't know for sure that's going to be like perfect or anything but there hasn't been like oh this was a big setback here this was wrong here or this was bad here.

0:41:44 Tom: No yeah there's not been anything that we're like oh fuck you know there's a risk of like um the big scary thing that we were worried about the most was um what they call a csf or cerebral spinal fluid leak so happens about 17 percent of the time you said nothing you can do about it just happens it's a very thin wall between where he's working and yeah right man yes I just

0:41:56 Thomas: Oh, oh wow. Oof. Yeah. And he's in there gouging shit just to test it. He's like, yeah, I mean, I had to test It. It looked a little harder, firmer than the other stuff. So I just wanted to see, I call it the stabby stabby scale. I was like, I want, oh, that's like a four on the stabbie stabbie scale. The tumor is like a one that just boop. Yeah, Yeah. Oh God. No, I see those. You ever see those videos of them practicing on a little grape or something?

0:42:10 Tom: I poke a knife in here and it feels good so that's that's pretty much what yeah oh no nope that's good stuff I ruined that that's this is why I could never be a surgeon man I'd be like well I have bad news and bad news yes

0:42:31 Thomas: And you're like, dude, that's fucking awesome. I see those on Reddit or whatever. And it'll do, you'll do a little surgery on a little grape. You're just like, how is that even fucking possible? The amount of genius, brilliant, amazing things that humans have. And then also we're bombing an entire country because a guy is a rapist in the files. You know, and you're just like the two these two things coexist so fucking stupid on

0:42:49 Tom: Yeah I know man it's fucking crazy yeah so I I just wanted to say thank you to the people that did you know reach out and express their you know concern and their care it's really nice it's really kind it was

0:43:01 Thomas: Behalf of eli bosnick tom you are welcome I know you're thanking me eli

0:43:09 Tom: All you it was alia

0:43:55 Thomas: Bosnack I did it it was all me tom for bethesda curry from my heart

0:44:03 Tom: Hello this is eli bosnick why are we going in the sad trombone Phone room!