Podcasts about demerol

Darren Prince: The Bottom is The Beginning | The Hopeaholics PodcastDive into an unforgettable episode of The Hopeaholics Podcast featuring Darren Prince, a legendary sports and celebrity agent who has represented icons like Magic Johnson, Hulk Hogan, Pamela Anderson, and the late Muhammad Ali, and the international best-selling author of Aiming High. In this powerful conversation, Darren lays bare his grueling battle with opioid addiction, revealing the raw, heart-wrenching moments that defined his path to 16 years of sobriety, including his desperate plea to God for freedom from the hell of addiction and the soul-shattering realization that his glamorous, high-flying life masked a profound inner emptiness. From his teenage introduction to liquid Demerol at sleepaway camp, which sparked a decades-long struggle, to orchestrating the historic Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier reconciliation and founding the Aiming High Foundation to support addiction recovery, Darren's journey is a masterclass in resilience and redemption. His story resonates with high-functioning addicts, teens grappling with self-esteem, and anyone seeking hope amidst despair, showcasing how vulnerability and service can transform lives.#thehopeaholics #redemption #recovery #AlcoholAddiction #AddictionRecovery #wedorecover  #SobrietyJourney #MyStory #RecoveryIsPossible #Hope #wedorecover Join our patreon to get access to an EXTRA EPISODE every week of ‘Off the Record', exclusive content, a thriving recovery community, and opportunities to be featured on the podcast. https://patreon.com/TheHopeaholics Follow the Hopeaholics on our Socials:https://www.instagram.com/thehopeaholics https://linktr.ee/thehopeaholicsBuy Merch: https://thehopeaholics.myshopify.comVisit our Treatment Centers: https://www.hopebythesea.comIf you or a loved one needs help, please call or text 949-615-8588. We have the resources to treat mental health and addiction. Sponsored by the Infiniti Group LLC:https://www.infinitigroupllc.com Timestamps:00:04:43 - Soul Broken by Truth00:05:45 - Uncle's Harsh Wake-Up Call00:07:00 - Surrender to God on Knees00:07:59 - Ego Crushed in Meeting00:09:55 - Life Beyond Wildest Dreams00:10:42 - High Bottom Humbling00:13:18 - Gift of Desperation00:16:35 - Paying It Forward Revelation00:18:22 - Liquid Demerol's Superman Effect00:19:26 - Chasing Pills with Lies00:23:27 - FBI Investigation Fallout00:31:28 - External Validation's Emptiness00:33:34 - Finding Self-Love After Loss

On the October 15 edition of the Music History Today podcast, Chuck Berry gives his final performance, as does CBGB, plus Rick Nelson gets booed & writes a song about it. Also, happy birthday to Chris de Burgh. For more music history, subscribe to my Spotify Channel or subscribe to the audio version of my music history podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts from ALL MUSIC HISTORY TODAY PODCAST NETWORK LINKS - https://allmylinks.com/musichistorytoday On this date: In 1937, singer Jo Stafford married singer John Huddleston. * In 1955, the Grand Ole Opry TV show premiered on ABC TV. * In 1956, Little Richard recorded the song Good Golly Miss Molly. * In 1958, Jackie Wilson recorded his smash hit Lonely Teardrops. * In 1960, the Beatles, with Ringo Starr on drums instead of Pete Best, recorded together for the first time. * In 1963 Mary Travers of Peter, Paul, & Mary married photographer Barry Feinstein. * In 1965, Jimi Hendrix signed his first recording contract. * In 1966, The Four Tops hit #1 with the song Reach Out I'll Be There. * In 1966, The Monkees recorded the Neil Diamond - written song I'm a Believer. * In 1968, Led Zeppelin performed together for the first time, in England. * In 1971, Rick Nelson was booed at Madison Square Garden when he tried to perform newer songs instead of old hits during his concert. The experience went on to inspire him to write his comeback song Garden Party. * In 1973, Elvis entered the hospital for treatment of respiratory problems, which is where his doctor realized that Elvis was addicted to Demerol. * In 1977, Debbie Boone hit #1 with the song You Light Up My Life. * In 1981, Metallica formed. * In 1988, UB40 hit #1 with a cover version of Neil Diamond's song Red Red Wine. * In 1992, Madonna held her infamous Sex party in Manhattan to promote her Sex photo book. * In 2000, Dave Edmunds had triple bypass heart surgery. * In 2001, Slash of Guns N Roses married his wife Perla Ferrar. * In 2003, the Louis Armstrong House Museum opened in Queens, NY. * In 2006, Patti Smith was the final performer at the original New York City club CBGB. * In 2014, Chuck Berry played his final performance. It was at the Blueberry Hill Club in St Louis. * In 2016, the Lifetime Channel music docu-movie Surviving Compton: Dre, Suge, & Michel'le premiered. * In 2016, Winston Marshall of Mumford & Sons married singer and actress Dianna Agron. * In 2017, the music documentary series The Platinum Life premiered on the E! TV channel. In the world of classical music: * In 1886, Modest Mussorgsky's classical piece Night on Bald Mountain premiered in St. Petersburg, Russia. It would later become famous to an entire generation of kids in the Disney movie Fantasia. * In 1905, classical composer Claude Debussey's La Mer premiered. In 1925, the opera Beatrice from Willem Landre was performed for the first time. In 1994, Philip Glass premiered his Symphony No. 2 for string orchestra. In award ceremonies held on this date: * In 1969, Tammy Wynette & Johnny Cash won at the Country Music Association awards. * In 1973, Roy Clark won at the Country Music Association awards. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/musichistorytodaypodcast/support

Could subbing in multiple offices before starting your own be the key to clarity? In this episode, we're bringing on Dr. Lara Saleh, a seasoned dentist, to reveal some game-changing advice for aspiring practitioners. Lara shares her journey from working in various offices to finally opening her own practice, highlighting the invaluable lessons she learned along the way. She candidly discusses the protocols and strategies that have made her practice thrive, from managing financial challenges to implementing clear emergency protocols. This episode is packed with real-world insights that could make all the difference for anyone dreaming of establishing their own dental hub.Lara delves into the critical importance of working in multiple dental environments before taking the plunge to start your own practice. Recognizing what works and what doesn't has helped her shape a practice that not only meets her standards but also ensures patient safety and satisfaction. She pulls back the curtain on the must-have protocols and the potential pitfalls, including which stress-inducing sedation techniques to avoid and why hiring adaptable team members is crucial. With a focus on continual learning and adaptation, Lara's advice is both practical and inspiring for any dentist looking to elevate their career.What You'll Learn in This Episode:The benefits of working in multiple dental offices before starting your own practice.Key protocols to have in place for a successful practice.Financial challenges of running a dental practice and how to manage them.Non-negotiable practices that will ensure the smooth operation of your clinic.Effective team management strategies and the importance of hiring adaptable team members.Why continual learning and adapting to new systems keep your practice competitive.Tune in now to empower your career with Lara's expert advice!‍‍Sponsors:‍Oryx: an all-in-one cloud-based dental software created by dentists for dentists.Patient engagement, clinical, and practice management software that helps your dental practice grow without compromise. Visit Oryx today for a special TDM offer! (Just click or copy and paste the link here) https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/oryx/‍You can reach out to Dr. Lara Saleh here:Website: https://drtoothfairy.com/Email: lara@drtoothfairy.com‍Mentions and Links: Terms:Demerol‍If you want your questions answered on Monday Morning Episodes, ask me on these platforms:My Newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/The Dental Marketer Society Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2031814726927041‍Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)‍Michael: Hey, Laura. So talk to us. What's one piece of advice you can give us this Monday morning? Lara: my one piece of advice for anyone who is thinking about opening their own practice. is if it's possible to do what I did. And I think it's a wonderful start of a career. If you want to do private practice is to take some time off, but not completely off.You'll be doing subbing or replacing doctors. Either because of an injury, or they go on maternity leave, or for any other reason, they just want to go on vacation, you just cover for them. So I did this exclusively for about 18 months before I opened my own practice, and that really opened my eyes to what I wanted to implement in my office, what were the non negotiable things that I wanted in my office, what I could compromise on, And the definite no no's. And I gained a lot of perspective by knowing what not to do in my office. And actually it set my priority list on what's really important and non negotiable all the way down to what's really a kind of forbidden to be done in my office. And that I do not want to go down that path.And that was. The best thing that I did throughout my career, because when you work in one office for a long period of time, you're an associate, you get sucked into that office and the policies of that office. I think I covered about, 21 offices in the whole state of Virginia, where I worked, I just got to see so many things that I never thought I would implement in my own office, or I didn't think it would have been, a good idea.But when I was there and practice in these offices, it turned out to be fantastic ideas that I would have never thought about had I not been in that situation in this office at that time. Michael: After the 18 months, did you feel ready?Were you like, okay, this is all I needed. I'm good to go on my own. Lara: Absolutely. I felt I'm ready to do everything that I needed to do clinically to open a practice. But also there's not a lot of transparency when you're actually visiting an office. There's not like that huge door that they would open for you to look at their finances and to look at billing issues.So that part, I just had to learn when I opened my own office because you learn it hands on, like the first time I saw an EUB is the first time I learned how to deal with an EUB. I've never seen one before until I opened my own office and that's how I learned it.Michael: Yeah. Interesting. Okay. And then what were some of the non negotiables or the no nos that you mentioned? Lara: most of it were protocols. That I did not want to implement those. Emergency protocols. really learned it the hard way in one of the offices you never think that it's going to happen to you, but it might happen to you.And the worst thing is not to be prepared for it. So even subbing at those offices, I had it in my contract that I had to look at their emergency protocol before actually going into that office and making sure that. Their emergency kit is up to date and well stocked. Michael: Gotcha. So emergency protocols and you immediately implemented that into your absolutely now.Lara: Yes. Michael: Okay. And then what were some things that you watched that you said, I would never want to do this. I thought I did, but I would never want to do this with my team or my practice. Yeah. Lara: Honestly, oral sedations. my training program was very heavy on oral sedation. some of the practices wanted me to do.To sedation at a time and then sedation fell out of favor, but some offices still were heavily sedating kids some of the offices would advise you to use their protocol, which might be something that you're not trained to use, like Demerol. I was not trained to use Demerol. they had good record with Demerol. my stress level was much higher with sedations. And I knew that right there. And then when I wanted to open my own office, keep in mind that I opened my office after 10 years of practicing. So I've had a lot of experience experience and I saw a lot of things and I was okay doing sedation the way I learned how to do it.But once I started seeing how these sedations are and how little control you have after the sedation for monitoring, I decided that is something that I do not want to do in my office. Michael: So do you get a lot of parents who ask? Lara: Actually some parents don't really know the difference between nitrous, mild sedation, moderate and deep sedation.So there's a lot of people who don't know, so kind educating them. And I do refer some cases to other providers who do them. It's just I learned to be true to my comfort level and to listen to myself. If I'm not 100 percent comfortable with a procedure, I'm not doing it. And I learned that from, age and just stress levels.I don't want to be stressed for the rest of the day or for two days after my sedation. Michael: you ever feel Laura, like the ones that you feel super stressed or not comfortable, do you think okay, you know what, I'm gonna get there. I want to get there. I'm going to get some training. Or you're just like, Nope, that's just not how my practice runs.That's not how we are. Lara: After 10 years, I kind of learned, what really stresses me out. I just want to avoid it. let's say it's an advancement in pediatric dentistry, I definitely want to learn about it. So if it's something that we were not heavy on in my residency, I would want to learn about it.But sedation, I had, a lot of training on it. And we were super competent doing sedations. We did this every morning in our residency. So every morning we started with a sedation three days a week. So we're super, super comfortable doing the sedation. It's just my stress level was high after doing them that I decided I do not want this chronic stress, even if it's not super high stress, chronic low stress, I feel is very detrimental for your health, your mental health, your physical health, and for everybody around you. Michael: Yeah, no, a thousand percent. So then You worked at 21, that's a lot, 21 Lara: Sometimes it was just an afternoon.So it still counts, but it was just an afternoon. But it was quick in and out. It would be an emergency. They'll call me and can you come in this afternoon and I'll show up for the afternoon. Michael: Yeah. Interesting. Okay. So the 21 offices that you worked at, which were the things that you saw when it came to systems that they implemented?Were a good idea or were not a good idea, but it turned out to be fantastic to you in your eyes. Lara: Some of the systems that I thought were a great idea are system implemented by someone on site. There was that office manager that she ran this office.lovingly being respectful to everybody and in an emergency situation, you have the team leader, you have everybody knowing their roles, things just fell into place. And the day went by so well. Another thing is an office manager that was super tight with the owner, I feel like everybody liked that nonchalant, but nobody knew what they were doing. So instead of doing your job, a hundred percent, everybody was getting by, by doing 50 percent and people just getting confused, who does what and when should it be done? So I feel like these kind of situation I wanted to avoid.Michael: All the confusion and everything like that. So be more specific. Lara: Yeah. having like a role for everybody and a very well defined role. So these are your responsibility. And it's kind of hard sometimes when you're a startup, cause you really don't, know everything.And then you start making lists. And that's what I did. I started making lists and start as I go adding on to these lists of responsibilities, but it's so well defined that people have their boundaries and also like, this is what's expected of you and.this is the outcome that I want. So you can do everything that is expected of you, but not have the outcome that you want. That means maybe you didn't give them enough training on it, there's something that needs to be fixed within those boundaries that you've set.Michael: I like that. So then whenever you're making this list and you add new technology, new practice management software or something. Do you put it on there like, I expect you guys to get it, to know it, or do they sometimes say like, I don't like this practice management software, it's not working with us, Lara: some people express this pleasure with some things. It's just cause you're adding things on their plate. But I was very clear that I am learning with them. So as I learn more things, they need to keep up with me. And that's how we're a team. If I'm just learning, that means everything is falling on me.That's not teamwork. So as I learn and every CE that I go, I try to take at least one or two people with me, even though it will not be super beneficial for the dental assistant to come to a trauma. for me, it's just keeping that teamwork. If I learn something, I want them to learn with me.If I evolve, I want them to evolve with me. And that's how I think the best thing for a team is to evolve together. So we have actually blocked time on our schedule when you're a startup, you have a lot of time, but I do block time for us to go through pediatric dentistry articles and I have also blocked time to go through our software.everybody needs to know how to schedule an appointment, how to cancel an appointment, how to collect payment. Everyone in the office, no matter what their role is, everybody needs bare minimum. And then with our current software, we have a lot of evolution in it. And requests, so they keep adding stuff to the software and we block time to actually go through every additional feature, whether we use it or not, it's going to be determined later, but we all go through it together.Michael: I like that. And then the software you guys use is what right now Lara: is Oryx cloud based. Michael: Gotcha. Is there a reason why you guys went with cloud based? Lara: I think this is the future of everything having your software, your radiographs, everything in the palm of your hand, anywhere you go was just a non brainer for us and not having a server and depending on backing up those servers was just I feel like it's a dinosaur age to have anything that is not completely cloud based. Michael: Okay. I like that. So then any final pieces of advice that you would like to give to our listeners? Lara: If you're thinking about opening your own practice. Open it with the mindset of the future.if you're going to hire somebody, hire them thinking that they need to be open to all the newer technologies that you want to implement. Do not hire someone who's so attached to their previous, say software, or do not hire someone who's attached to their previous practices who are not open to learning new things. Most of my hires have no dental experience. And it worked out great for me. Michael: Wow. That's fantastic. If anyone had any questions or concerns, where can they reach out to you? Lara: They can reach out to me at my first name, Laura at Dr. Tooth Fairy, which is the name of my practice. Laura at drtoothfairy. com. Michael: Nice.Awesome. Laura, thank you so much for being with us. We appreciate it. And thank you for being with me on this Monday morning episode. Lara: Thank you for having me.‍

Our friend, Kelsey, shares with us today what giving birth is like in Canada. From moving and traveling between provinces, Kelsey had experienced different models of care and when it came time to prepare for her VBAC, she was very proactive about choosing a birth environment where she felt safest. From a scary Cesarean under general anesthesia to an empowering unmedicated VBAC in a birth center, Kelsey's journey is entertaining, beautiful, and powerful. We love hearing the unique details of her story including giving birth at the same time as her doula just in the next room over! The personalized care she was given during her VBAC is so endearing and heartwarming. As her husband mentioned, it should be the gold standard of care and we agree! The VBAC Link Blog: Assisted DeliveryFetal Tachycardia in the Delivery RoomIs There Still a Place for Forceps in Modern Obstetrics?Forceps Delivery ComplicationsNeeded WebsiteHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details 07:36 Review of the Week09:27 Kelsey's stories11:47 Logistics of giving birth in Canada14:38 A normal pregnancy17:50 Arriving at the hospital21:37 Stalling at 7 centimeters26:22 Asynclitic and OP positioning29:31 Kelsey's Cesarean under general anesthesia34:50 Second pregnancy and VBAC prep41:07 Switching to midwives46:14 Beginning of labor51:07 Driving to the birth center54:49 Pushing baby out in two pushes1:00:24 Differences in care1:02:11 Enterovirus1:08:02 Risk factors for forceps and vacuum deliveriesMeagan: Hello, Women of Strength. We have our friend, Kelsey, from Canada. Is that correct? Kelsey: Yes. Yeah. Meagan: She's sharing her story with you guys today. Something about her first story of her C-section that stood out to me was that she had a forceps attempt that didn't work out. Sometimes that happens. I want to talk a little bit about forceps here in just a minute before we get into her story. Kelsey, I wanted to ask you that this is something that in our doula practice we will ask our clients. If it comes down to an assisted birth with forceps or a vacuum, what would you prefer? It's a weird thing because you're like, Well, I'm not planning on that, but a lot of people actually answer, “I would rather not do those and go straight to a C-section.” Some people are like, “I would rather do every last-ditch effort before I go to a C-section.” Did you ever think about that before? Had it ever been discussed before as their style? That's another thing. Some providers are really vacuum-happy. Some are really forceps-happy. I know it's a random question, but I was just wondering, had you ever thought of that before going into birth? Kelsey: So no. I didn't think about whether I wanted a C-section or a forceps delivery. However, I was really staunchly against having a C-section. That was primarily nothing against it, it was just that I have a really huge fear of awake surgery so with my forceps attempt, the OB who was there because it wasn't my provider. That's not the way Canada works. The OB who was there who was called in said, “Are you sure you want to do forceps? You could tear.” I told her, “I would rather tear than have a C-section.” That was just a personal preference for me because I was so terrified of having a C-section. Meagan: Yeah. I think that is very common and very valid to be like, “No, I would rather try this.” Kelsey: Yeah. Meagan: So I did. I wanted to go over just a little bit. I mean, I have seen a couple of forceps and they are not happening as often these days, but there was an article that said, “Is there still a place for forceps delivery in modern obstetrics?” I'm trying to say obstetricians and obstetrics. We're just going to stop. Kelsey: We know what you mean. Meagan: You know what I mean. There was an article and I was like, That's a really good question, because I think a lot of people think they shouldn't be done anymore or a vacuum shouldn't be done anymore either. It talked a little bit about the background. it says, that nowadays we are seeing a decrease in instrumental deliveries and a continuous increase of Cesarean rates. That makes me wonder if we were to increase vaginal and help instrumentally if that would decrease, but one of the things that I thought was interesting is that it says, “The prevalence of forceps delivery was 2.2% and the most common indication for a forcep delivery was fetal distress.” It is very common where it's really, really close, baby is struggling. Baby is so low and let's get baby out. That's 81.6% which is crazy. It says, “Among mothers, the most frequent complication is vaginal laceration,” which means we have tearing at 41% and third and fourth-degree perineal tears were noted. It says, “Regarding neonatal APGAR scores, around 8 around the first and the fifth minute,” which is around 91.2% and 98% of newborns which is pretty great. An 8 APGAR is pretty great. I think a lot of people worry about that. It says, “8.8% experience severe birth injuries like hematomas and clavicle fractures.” Those are probably shoulder dystocias. That's probably why they were having. It says, “Although fetal distress is the most common indication for forceps delivery, the vast majority of newborns were actually in good condition and didn't require NICU care.” That's something that was kind of cool. Obviously, there are a ton of more studies and deeper studies on that. This was just one, but it was kind of interesting. It was like, all right. That is a good question to ask as we are preparing for VBAC is hey, if for some reason a forceps or a vacuum is necessary, that's something to think about. What do we want to do at that point? I love how you were like, “Yeah, I didn't want a C-section. I feared that more than I did that.” Anyway, getting off that topic now so we can get this review and get on to your story but I think it's a topic we don't talk about and it's not something that we are thinking about so as you are preparing, Women of Strength, for your VBAC, it might be something that you want to discuss and learn more about both vacuum and forceps and discuss with your provider what their tool of choice is and just have that in the back of your mind. 07:36 Review of the WeekMeagan: Okay, so onto today's review. It is from laurenswat and it was back in 2023. It says, “Thank You.” It says, “I listened to as many episodes as possible when preparing for my VBAC. The stories on here were so encouraging to me and Meagan is so knowledgeable and reassuring. I am happy to say that I had my unmedicated hospital VBAC last week and I caught my own baby before the doctor even got in the room.” Oh my gosh, that is awesome. Seriously, catching your own baby is so amazing. I loved it personally myself as well and highly encourage it to anyone that is sort of interested because it is a really cool feeling. Thank you for your review and as always, we are looking for reviews. It is what helps people find this podcast. It helps us grow as a community. You can leave it on Apple, Google, email us, or whatever but we are so grateful for your reviews. 09:27 Kelsey's storiesMeagan: Okay, Kelsey. Kelsey: Yeah? Hi. Meagan: Hello. Welcome to the show. Kelsey: Thank you. I'm super, super excited. Meagan: Me too. Me too. I would love to turn the time over to you. Both of your babies were born in Canada. That's correct, right? Kelsey: Yes. Yeah. Meagan: Tell us the story. Kelsey: Yeah, so basically my husband and I got married in November 2019. Just prior to that, we had actually been living in New Brunswick. Just prior to getting married, we decided to move back because we are from Ottowa. We moved to Ottowa. We were living with his parents, his dad, at the time. We went to Mexico for our honeymoon and on our honeymoon, we decided to start trying to have a baby. We decided to start trying but not preventing it because we weren't sure how long it was going to take and there was no indication that it could take a while but my husband is actually an IVF baby. It had taken 7 years for his parents to conceive him. Meagan: 7 years, wow. They are amazing. That's a long time. Kelsey: He was actually their last attempt. When his mom got up to say our wedding speech, she was like my 1 in 7 or something like that and I was just bawling. So because of that, we decided to start trying and not preventing but there was nothing indicating it would take us a while. We started trying in December of 2019 and it just wasn't happening for us so around the year mark, we had a lot of friends who started trying around the same time as us and were getting pregnant really, really quickly. I was going to so many baby showers and crocheting baby blankets that just weren't for my baby. Actually, the year mark rolled around and I got my period the day of. My best friend gave birth the day of. I was trying so hard to be happy and stay positive and whatnot, but it was devastating. 11:47 Logistics of giving birth in CanadaKelsey: We ended up being referred to a fertility clinic. They did a full work-up on both of us and there was nothing. They didn't come up with anything. So they said, “You could keep trying or we could start IUI.” My husband and I said, “Let's do 3 more months of trying on our own, and then we will try for IUI.” Our fertility clinic was in Ontario and we ended up moving to Gatineau, Quebec in July 2020.The way it works in Canada is you have your healthcare which covers. You can go inter-provincially and give your card unless you are from Quebec. If you are from Quebec, it's kind of like living in another country. If you have a RAMQ card, you actually have to pay for your care in Ontario. The Quebec government will reimburse you but only for 30%. It's super weird. If you are from Ontario and go to Quebec, the Ontario government will cover you in Quebec. Meagan: What? So weird. This world is so weird. Kelsey: I know. It's super bizarre. So essentially we moved to Gatineau because the housing market was a little less expensive. I was working in Gatineau at the time as a teacher. I was extremely stressed out in my job especially once COVID hit. We were sent back to the classroom before any of the other provinces were. Anyway, I was extremely stressed out in my job and I decided to switch to the Ontario side because you can go between the two. Where I lived, you cross a bridge and you can get to Ottawa so you are in Ontario. Essentially, we went through the fertility clinic. They said that nothing was going on but because the Gatineau government will cover you for IVF and any fertility treatments up to a certain price so we had to be referred back to Quebec for IUI. The month that we were referred back to Quebec for IUI, it was the day before my appointment that I found out I was pregnant. Meagan: Oh my gosh, yay! Kelsey: Yeah, on our own. It super just happened and some weird funny things happened. The day before, my husband and I went for a walk around our neighborhood. I found a quarter and was like If pennies are lucky, then quarters must be super lucky. I picked up the quarter and put it in my pocket and the day after, I found out I was pregnant. These weird things kept happening. My pregnancy made me oddly psychic too which I'll get into after. 14:38 A normal pregnancyKelsey: I got pregnant in March. I was due November 28th. I had a super easy pregnancy. I was nauseous for the first little bit. I was working for a virtual school in Ontario so I didn't have to go into the school which was really nice. I just got to hang out in my basement and yeah. I mainly had nausea as a symptom but I was also extremely anxious because it had taken us so long to get pregnant. It felt like it was so long. It was about 15 months. I was super anxious. I had heard so many stories of miscarriage and whatnot, but luckily, we were followed by the fertility clinic because we were with them so we had a scan at 5 weeks and we had a scan at 8 weeks and then at 12 weeks once we graduated which was really nice. It was a really, really normal pregnancy. I ended up going back into the school in September and I was working as a French teacher. I went off work at 36 weeks. It was pretty normal. The reason I say that I was psychic during my pregnancy is that I kept saying all of these things about my baby. I had this gut instinct that he was a boy and sure enough, it was a boy. Mind you, it's because my husband's family only really has boys but then with certain things, people would say, “When do you think he will be born?” I'd be like, “Oh, I think December 4th.” I would make off-hand comments like, “Oh, he's going to have really dark hair.” My husband and I were both born at 5:00. I was born at 5:00 at night. He was born at 5:00 in the morning. I said, “Wouldn't it be funny if he was born at 5:00?” I said, “He's going to be over 9 pounds. I can just feel it. He's going to be 9 pounds.” Then the other weird thing is that I said he would be born December 4th, but someone told me, “No, you don't want him to be born on December 4th. He will share a birthday with your cousin.” I was like, “Okay, December 3rd.” December 3rd rolls around and I am 5 days past my due date. I wake up in the morning to go to the washroom and my water breaks. I had not been well-informed about birth. I was just going into it like, Yeah. Everything is going to be fine. I had a bunch of friends who just had babies and everything was smooth sailing. The only time I had heard of a C-section was when my aunt had two C-sections because she had a breech baby and a special scar and then they didn't give her an option for a C-section. I was like, Oh yeah. It's going to be fine. My provider told me, “If your water breaks, go straight to labor and delivery.” Meagan: Many do, by the way. Kelsey: Yes, I do know that. Meagan: It's a very normal thing for people to say, but we don't have to do that. Kelsey: Exactly. Meagan: I did the same thing, the same exact thing. 17:50 Arriving at the hospitalKelsey: Yeah, so we went into labor and delivery. Actually, we went slowly. My husband was like, “I'm going to take a shower.” I was under the impression that baby was going to be born in a couple of hours. I was like, “We've got to go.” He was like, “No, no. I've got to take a shower. First impressions are important.” I was like, “All right.” Then we went and we got Tim Horton's because I was super hungry. I figured This will be the last time I eat.We got to labor and delivery. They monitored me for two hours and I didn't have a contraction until 6:00 right as I was leaving and I was only a centimeter dilated. She was like, “Come back in 12 hours or sooner if your contractions get intense.” So I went home. I decided to go to sleep but I was having irregular contractions. I woke up probably around noon and I was starting to get uncomfortable. My contractions were starting to get closer together and they were more intense. I could feel them in my back and in my bum. I learned a lesson. Anyway, I'll get into that after. I could feel them mostly in my back and in my bum. My husband was like, “You look like you're really uncomfortable. We need to go to the hospital now.” He was afraid of getting stuck in traffic because I ended up giving birth in Ontario even though we lived in Quebec. The reason is the hospital I gave birth at actually takes your RAMQ card, the Quebec healthcare card so we weren't going to be charged for it or anything. The Gatineau hospitals are not known for being super well-equipped for much so we preferred to give birth in Ontario. We drove to Ontario which was a 30-minute drive so not super terrible, but traffic can be bad going across the bridge sometimes. The whole way there, I had really uncomfortable contractions. We got to the hospital and the doctor had me in the waiting room for 30 minutes, not terrible. The doctor meets with us and immediately, I just was not into him. He just put me off. He made an off-hand comment about nurses. He was like, “I see pain. Do you want pain medication? Do you want Advil or Tylenol?” I was like, “Whatever you can give me, I don't know.” I told him, “One of the things going into it is that my husband would really like to catch the baby. Can we do that?” He was like, “Well, do you think you can handle it?” I'm like, “Well, he was a firefighter so he's pretty okay with that kind of stuff.” Yeah. I can't even remember the comment now, but he made an offhand comment like, “Well, that's what nurses are for,” or something like that. I just was super put off by him. We went into our room and I didn't know at the time that maybe I could have asked for someone different or whatever. We go into our room and we get set up and they were like, “We have to monitor you for a little bit.” I was like, “I'd really like to labor in the tub. Can I get in the tub?” They said, “We need the monitor on you for an hour.” I'm like, “Okay.” They monitor me for an hour. They give me a shot of Demerol or whatever. I was under the impression and my mindset going into it was that when you give birth, you use pain medication as pain management. I hadn't researched anything else. I was just like, “I want the epidural as soon as I can get it and whatever you can give me for the pain is great.” 21:37 Stalling at 7 centimetersKelsey: I was monitored for about an hour and they let me get in the tub. For two hours, I laid in the tub and that's my best memory of my birth with my first. I laid in the tub and listened to music. My husband and I were in the dark. It was very calm, soothing, and relaxing. When I got out, the doctor was like, “We need to check you.” He checked me and I was at a 1 but he could stretch me to a 3. He said, “If you want your epidural, you can have it now.”I didn't know any better so I said, “Yeah, okay. Give me the epidural.” Overnight, I was progressing 2 centimeters every 2 hours. We got to 3:00 in the morning. I told a nurse, “I feel a lot of pressure in my bum.” I said, “I feel like I have to push.” She checked me and she was like, “No, no. You're only at a 7.” 5:00 AM rolls around. My nurse comes in again and she checks me and she's like, “Oh, you're at a 9.” Another nurse comes in right after and she says, “She's not at a 9. She's at a 7.”The two of them were like, “We need to get a doctor in here to confirm.” It's 5:00 AM. The doctor didn't show up until close to 7:45. He's like, “I'm not going to check you because the changeover will happen in 15 minutes and the new doctor is going to check you. I don't want to introduce any more bacteria.” The new doctor came in at 8:30. She checked me and she goes, “No, you're still at a 7. You've been stuck at a 7 for a few hours. We really need to start talking about a C-section.” It was the first time she had seen me. I had been lying in a bed now for almost 12 hours. They gave me the peanut ball for 2 hours and then they took it away I think because my son's heart rate had started to go funny or they lost it or something like that but he was doing fine. They lost it because he moved or whatever. They took the peanut ball away and nothing showed that he was under any distress at all but she was like, “You've been stuck at 7 for a while so I want you to talk about it with your husband.” I was in tears because again, the whole time, all I said to my own provider was, “I don't want a C-section. I don't care what happens. I don't want a C-section.” So I'm in tears. She's like, “Talk about it with your husband.” She comes back an hour later and we were like, “We want to wait a little bit longer.” She goes, “Okay, what we're going to do is put you on the highest dose of Pitocin.” She was like, “We're going to start you on Pitocin and every 5 minutes, we're going to increase it until you're at the highest dose. Then we'll wait 2 hours, check you again, and if you haven't gone anywhere, you'll have to have a C-section.” I didn't know any better so I was like, “Okay.” They started me on the Pitocin but I'm having intense pain and pressure in my bum. I'm like, “I feel like I have to push. My body feels like it is pushing.” I knew that if you pushed too soon, your cervix would swell. That's one of the few things I did know. They put me on Pitocin and I was crying because I was panicking. My husband was having to push my bolus every 15 minutes when it came on because I could feel everything through the epidural. The nurse was not super kind about it. She was like, “You need to stop pushing. If I check you now and you're not an 8, then you're going to have a C-section.” She just was not overly compassionate or anything. Well, finally, she suggests, “Why don't we put you on your hands and knees?” She put me on my hands and knees and I felt immediate relief. Something changed in baby's position. I sat there and I was able to talk. I was comfortable and I was fine. I think we got to an hour and a half and then they checked me because what happened was they put me on my hands and knees and my feet lost circulation and turned purple and went numb. Yeah, so then they put me on my back again. They checked me and they were like, “Oh, you're at a 9.5.” I'm like, “Yes.” I progressed. 26:22 Asynclitic and OP positioningKelsey: Finally, we got to 10 centimeters and I was a typical you push on your back type of thing. The doctor said, “We cannot wait to let baby descend. Your water has been broken too long.” Then she checks me and she's like, “Oh yeah, and baby's OP.” I should have learned. Had I done my research, I would have known all that pressure was my OP baby. So she said, “Baby is OP. We're going to start pushing.” I was so frustrated by her because she would leave the room and then she'd come back and she'd sit there just with her hand inside of me and checking her watch and stuff. She was just waiting for the hours to pass. I'm doing everything I can. Once they told me that I could push, I was like, “Yes. Let's get this baby out.” I pushed for 3.5 hours and then they said, “We'll give you 30 more minutes and if you cannot get baby out in 30 minutes, we'll try forceps but we'll need an OB to come in because if forceps fail, you will have a C-section.” I decided to push for 30 more minutes and the nurse came in and said, “Let's flip you.” They flipped me again and I lost all of my progress. They had also told me that not only was baby OP but he was asynclitic so his head was tilted to the side. They said, “That's probably what's happening.” But when I flipped, I lost my progress. There was a new nurse who couldn't figure out how to get the monitor on me so I couldn't push in that time. They were like, “Well, we're going to stop pushing because whatever.” 30 minutes passed and I had lost all of my progress. They're like, “Okay, we're going to get the OB in.” She comes in and she says, “You could tear.” I said, “I would rather tear than have a C-section. I don't want to have a C-section.” Then I said, “What are the chances that this will work?” She said, “I wouldn't do it if I didn't think it would work.” As she tried to get the forceps on, I could feel my body pushing. I'm like, “Can I push? Can I push?” She's like, “No, don't push right now.” My body is doing it for me and she can't get the forceps on so she's like, “I can't do it.” As she was trying to put the forceps on, baby started getting tachycardic so they said, “Things are going to get really scary for a minute because this is an emergency C-section. A lot of people are coming in here and we have to turn on alarms in the hallway because we have to get you to the OR really quickly.” Meagan: Wait, so baby's heart rate is high not low, and just because baby's heart rate went a little high, they treated it as a true emergency. Kelsey: Yes. Meagan: Okay. 29:31 Kelsey's Cesarean under general anesthesiaKelsey: They start throwing clothes at my husband. There were people piling in. I'm in a hospital that is French-speaking. I can speak French but not medical terminology. Nobody is talking to me. They're all just talking around me and they're rushing me down the hallway. I'm bawling and I'm like, “I don't want this.” I have no idea where my husband is. They're trying to push my legs together but baby is so low that it hurts to do that. I'm telling them to stop and whatnot. We get into the OR and I was inconsolable because I was terrified. They gave me my spinal which didn't take. They gave me the pinch test and I was like, “I can feel it. I can feel it.” I'm crying, “Please just put me out. I don't want to be awake for this. I'm scared.” They're not talking to me and that's the last thing I remember is saying, “I can feel that,” and they put me out. I was under general anesthesia and I woke up 2 hours later in recovery by myself. It was COVID. It was in December 2021. My husband couldn't be there. I asked where he was and they said, “Oh, he's in your room with your baby. Everything is fine.” I was sobbing. The first thing she said to me was, “Everything went great. You are a great candidate for a VBAC.” That stuck with me. The whole way back to my room, I was staring at the ceiling. I couldn't look at anyone. I was just devastated by how everything had gone. I didn't think I could ever look at my husband or my baby ever again. I was just like, What happened?I hear my husband. He is like, “You need to see. Our baby is here. You should see him. He is so beautiful. He has the most beautiful eyes.” He came around to my bed and he passed me my son and nothing mattered. None of it mattered. He was 9 pounds, 8 ounces so I was right. He was born on December 4th which I had said at 5:11 PM. Meagan: Oh my gosh. Kelsey: Yeah. He had a full head of dark hair. He was born in a snowstorm. That was the other thing. I said, “He's going to be born in a snowstorm,” because my husband and I were both born during a snowstorm and he was born during a snowstorm. Yeah, he was perfect. He was huge and he was chunky and he looked exactly like me. Normally, they look like their dads is what I've heard but he looked exactly like me and was so beautiful. Throughout my pregnancy, I don't like being pregnant because I don't like sharing my body I've learned. Throughout my pregnancy, I said, “I don't want another. I don't think I want another.” When he was born and I held him, I was like, “I will do this again in a heartbeat.” 34:50 Second pregnancy and VBAC prepKelsey: Postpartum was good. I ended up starting therapy 5 days after my C-section. He latched and he did not have breastmilk for his first feed which makes me really sad. I was devastated from the C-section because I didn't get to see my baby be born. I didn't get to hear his first cry. I didn't get to touch him first and my husband wasn't there. He wasn't allowed to be in the room. Postpartum was fine. I was seriously anemic. I was incredibly swollen. I had no knees because I was on fluids for so long and getting around was awful, but I just focused on our baby. He was perfect. He was so easy and 6 weeks rolled around and I was like, “Let's have another.” But we waited. We decided around 9 months to start trying again and loosely trying because again, we were wondering how long it would take. Meagan: Right. Kelsey: We ended up trying got 6 months and I got pregnant in April of 2023. My due date was December 29th. Again, super, super easy pregnancy throughout. Immediately after my C-section, I decided to look into VBAC because that stuck in my head. I had been listening to a different birth story podcast. I searched for VBACs and there weren't many and then I searched VBAC in general on Spotify and came across you guys.I started listening to VBACs before getting pregnant and I started doing lots of research about it. I learned about the cascade of interventions and how my case was really typical. I started learning about OP babies and how the pain I was feeling correlated with that. I wanted to try for a birth in a birthing center. Now, when I got pregnant with my second baby, I was living in Gatineau but we had a bunch of stuff happen. My mother-in-law ended up splitting up with her husband. We said, Hey, let's buy a house in Ontario together and we'll move in. I found out I was pregnant about 2 weeks before we put in an offer on a house and we moved in in July when I was 15 weeks pregnant. At the time, my GP was my provider for my first and I started off with her with my second as well. The thing was when I found out I was pregnant, I went to her. Sorry, I should have said. After my C-section, I went to her and said, “I was told I was a good candidate for a VBAC.” She said, “Yes, but you cannot go over your due date. We're going to monitor your baby to see how big it is because you had a big baby before. You cannot be induced. You need to have 18 months between pregnancies.” Typical. Meagan: All of the red flags. Kelsey: Yeah. This was before I started listening to your podcast. Then I started listening to your podcast and when I went in to see her when I found out I was pregnant before I had gone into a birthing center, I said to her– and I'm not an outspoken person. I struggle to advocate for myself. I said, “I want to try for a VBAC, but I do not want you to put limitations on me.” I said, “I know that I can safely have a VBAC even if there is less than 18 months between my pregnancies. From birth to birth, it was 2 years and a bit so it didn't matter. I said, “I know that big babies are 10 pounds+. That is macrosomia. I know that.” I said, “I know that I can't be induced.” In Canada, they generally don't do Pitocin for VBACs at all. They don't generally induce for VBACs at all. I said, “I do know that there are safe ways to induce though and I do know that I can safely go past my due date.” She said, “I believe in informed consent and if you understand all of this, I think that you are well prepared and we can move forward with a VBAC.” I said, “Great.” I had applied for birthing centers prior to this but it is really hard to get into them here. I ended up being able to get into one in Gatineau. I was concerned about moving over cross-provinces again. It ended up working out. I did stick with my GP until I was about 20 weeks pregnant just in case. It didn't work out with the birthing center after my move. What happened was, she was super, super supportive, but she would say things like, “Do you want me to book you an appointment with an OB just in case?” or “Do you want me to book you a C-section at 40 weeks just in case?” I was like, “No, I don't want you to.” She said, “Okay,” but around 20 weeks, my midwife was like, “We can keep you on even though you live in Ontario. It's no problem.” I said to my GP, “My midwife will keep me on.” My GP said, “You sound like a really good candidate so go ahead. I really hope it works for you. I hope that it's everything that you want.”Meagan: That's good. Kelsey: She was very supportive of it so I felt really good about it. 41:07 Switching to midwivesKelsey: I switched to the midwives full-time. My pregnancy was super smooth again, but there were little hiccups. I didn't pass my one-hour gestational diabetes test. They said, “If you have gestational diabetes and it can't be managed, we will have to transfer care.” Around 37 weeks, I started measuring large and they said, “We think we want to send you for an ultrasound just to be sure of how big baby is.” I said, “I know that those ultrasounds aren't super accurate so I'm not sure that's what I want.”I ended up getting a doula through The VBAC Link. I found a doula. Meagan: Yay!Kelsey: Yeah, what was funny about the doula is she was pregnant too and her due date was a week after mine and we found out that we were giving birth at the same place. Meagan: Oh my gosh. Kelsey: So she was like, “I'll keep you on and I'll do your prenatal appointments, but I probably won't be at your birth. I have a partner who is a nutritionist.” She ended up being amazing. My son was in daycare. I got sick a lot and I couldn't take anything for it so she would help me find natural ways of dealing with a cough. I think I had pregnancy rhinitis for the last trimester. I was constantly congested. I had terrible acid reflux. She originally had prescribed chest openers, but my midwife ended up putting me on medication for it because of the trigger to cough. She was afraid that my cough could trigger my water breaking too early. I couldn't give birth at the birth center if baby came before 37 weeks. I had to make it past 37 weeks. Yeah, so pregnancy was smooth. I was extremely nauseous in the beginning. It was really hard with a less-than-two-year-old. I kept him home because I'm a teacher. I'm home over the summer. I kept him home over the summer and it was rough because he just is needy and my 9.5-pound baby continued to stay in the 99th percentile for height and weight. He wanted to be carried everywhere but he is so heavy and he is still so heavy. I was a lot more active during this pregnancy than I had been prior. I tried really hard to walk and whatnot and do lots of stretches. Around 30 weeks, baby was still breech and I started to panic a little bit. I started doing Spinning Babies exercises and lots of inversions and whatnot.When I first met with my doula, I talked with her about everything. I was able to just spit out facts that I had learned from you guys. She was like, “I've never met someone who is this prepared or who knows this much.” She was like, “I have all of this stuff to go over with you, but you already know it.” She ended up as well becoming certified in HypnoBirthing so I took a HypnoBirthing class. I was really concerned about doing an unmedicated VBAC because I didn't know if I could handle the pain of it. I had originally wanted to VBAC in the hospital, but I watched– what is that documentary with Ricki Lake? Meagan: Um, okay, hold on. Kelsey: The Business of Being Born. Meagan: Yes, that's all I could think of was Born. The Business of Being Born. Kelsey: My entire perspective on birth completely changed. My husband watched it with me and he was blown away by it. He was just like, “I want that. I want that for us. I want to be a huge part of this. I want to help you through it and be an active participant. Let's do this.” We did the prenatal classes with my doula. He learned all of the pain management techniques. He was so excited for counterpressure and he wanted to be active. He was fully supportive and he wanted to catch our baby. This time around, we didn't find out the sex of our baby. We wanted it to be a surprise. I was 100% sure it would be a girl. I didn't even pick out a boy name. Anyway, we get to December 21st. I get checked and she can't even reach my cervix. It was so posterior. I was super discouraged, in tears discouraged because I was afraid of going past my due date and they were afraid that this baby was going to be so big because I was measuring large. 46:14 Beginning of laborKelsey: Overnight, I started to have contractions. They were kind of regular, but they were manageable. December 22nd rolls around and I'm still having contractions on and off and I start feeling sick. I had pulled my son out of daycare to prevent getting sick. I started to get a cough and I was really congested. I wasn't feeling well at all. I was supposed to go to Costco with my mom that day. I texted her in the morning, “I'm having contractions. Not feeling great. Let's cancel,” but because my son was home, things started to slow down with the contractions. I said, “You know what? Never mind. I need something to do today.” My mom picks me up and my husband and her are joking that I'm going to go into labor at Costco. We walked the entirety of Costco as I was having contractions. My 18-year-old brother is in the back of the car. I'm breathing through them and he's like, “What is happening right now?”I get home. I started timing them and they were 6 minutes apart. My husband decides that he is going to take our son. He was kind of off work so he took over care of our 2-year-old. I ended up going and taking a bath and all of the contractions stopped. That night, they started again and then on the 24th of December, they were still pretty inconsistent but my doula was suggesting things like, “Oh, if you're comfortable, have sex, then take a shower. Sit on the toilet and do nipple stimulation for 15 minutes on each side and see if that gets things going.” We had sex and then it all stopped. We kept trying things and then my doula was like, “I just think that maybe your body needs to rest and relax so let's try resting and relaxing.” Well then, the 25th is Christmas Day and I decided to host Christmas. Meagan: Because that would be a really good distraction. Kelsey: Yeah, I was like, “It's going to be fine.” My mother-in-law was like, “I'll cook Christmas dinner.” Prior to that, I had all of these ideas. I'm going to make bread by myself. I'm going to make all of these desserts. I'm going to make puppy chow. I'm going to wrap all of my kid's Christmas gifts. I'm going to put together his Pikler Triangel we got for him and wrap that. Just all of these things that I wanted to do for Christmas. By the 24th, I was so exhausted from the contractions that I didn't bake anything. There was no way. But I did host Christmas dinner and everyone told me, “Why? Why are you doing that?” I was like, “Well, it will be easy,” because my husband and I are both from divorced families. We'll just have everyone over for Christmas, and then we won't have to worry about going to anyone else. We had my mom and my brothers came over and his step-mom came over and my step-dad came over. It just was not great. Meagan: Like Christmas Vacation where the door keeps opening and all of the family members keep showing up. Kelsey: I know. I was still having contractions. I couldn't stand up or sit down without having a contraction. I was just exhausted and uncomfortable and felt huge. People are like, “How are you doing?” I'm like, “I'm surviving. Right now, I'm just surviving.” So anyway, finally Christmas Day is over and Boxing Day, I wake up at 7:30. I had a weird contraction. I went to the washroom and I had my bloody show. I was like, “I'm just going to try to go back to bed,” because my son and my husband weren't up but my back started to hurt. I was like, “Okay, I'm actually just going to get my son up and go downstairs.” My husband got up with me. We go downstairs. We started getting my son ready. I'm like, “I'm going to get in the bath and see if my contractions stop because I'm really uncomfortable.” I called my midwife from the bathtub and I said, “They are 5 minutes apart and they haven't stopped, but I'm scared to come in because what if this isn't real?” She said, “If you're in the bathtub and they are still going, this is real labor. You need to get here now.” 51:07 Driving to the birth centerKelsey: We get all of our stuff in the car. It was a 50-minute drive to the birthing center. Meagan: 50? 5-0?Kelsey: 5-0. Meagan: Okay. Kelsey: The good part was that they were regularly 4 minutes so I could look at the clock and know that I was going to have a contraction and I could breathe through it. I was managing pretty well at that point, but before we had left, my mother-in-law decided to stop me at the door. She was like, “So where are you feeling them?” I'm like, “I just need to go. Please just let me go. I can't talk to you right now.” My husband is trying to get me out the door too because he knows. We get to the birthing center. It was nice because I could choose the color of my room. They had options for the color of your room so I chose purple. I get into my room. It's now 10:00. I could hear in the next room a woman screaming, literally screaming. I start panicking. I can hear her yelling, “Get out of me already!” Meagan: Aww. Kelsey: My vagina is on fire! I'm panicking. My midwife says, “I need to monitor you for a little bit, so can you get on the bed? I'm going to monitor your baby's heart rate and then I'm going to monitor your contractions.” She could get baby's heartbeat and she couldn't get my contractions on the monitor. At this point, I'm starting to panic because I can still hear the woman screaming. My husband's like, “I'm going to get you your headphones.” He gets me my headphones. Meagan: Very good call. Kelsey: He gets me my headphones and puts on my birth playlist. I'm laying there and things start getting really intense really fast. I was panicking that the same thing that had happened with my son was happening again. But I started getting irate and my midwife still couldn't get the contractions on the monitor. I remember flinging my headphones off and just being like, “I need to go to the bathroom. Let me up. I can't lay here anymore.”She's like, “Okay. If you need to go to the bathroom, go to the bathroom.” I'm sitting there on the toilet. I'm crying and I'm telling my husband that I can't do this. In the back of my head, I know what that means, but I couldn't ration with myself at that point. My midwife hadn't checked me yet at all so she goes, “I really want to check you because we haven't done that.” I had to get off the toilet. I didn't want to and as I was getting off the toilet, I was so hot. I'm flinging my clothes off. I get to the edge of my bed and I'm like, “It's not me. It's my body. I'm pushing.” I saw my stomach contort. It was just like my whole body was not me at all. It was so wild to me. My midwife gets me on the bed finally and she checks me and she goes, “You're at the 7th centimeter.” She said, “You're a second-time mom so if your body feels like it, it remembers. You can start pushing whenever you want.” It was such a different experience from being told in the hospital, “Do not push,” when I'm at 10 centimeters to my midwife being like, “If your body is pushing, it's fine.” 54:49 Pushing baby out in two pushesKelsey: So she put me over a ball and then she called in the assistant midwife because she was like, “This is happening very soon.” The assistant midwife comes in and that was funny because she goes, “My name is Gabrielle.” I had a friend who had gone to the birth center who had Gabrielle. I turned to her and said, “You know my friend, Kelly.” She was just like, “Yeah.” I'm like, “I heard you're really good.” She's like, “Okay, let's–.”So over the ball, my husband tried to do counterpressure on me and I was like, “Don't. Don't do it.” But he pressed my tailbone down and that made a huge difference and I just kind of let my body do its thing. They had to flip me a couple of times and I ended up being put on my back to push for the final little bit because they needed to keep monitoring baby's heart rate. It kept going down every time I had a contraction so they were a little concerned. At one point, they said, “Don't panic, but we are going to call an ambulance just in case just because we keep seeing this. We're going to call an ambulance just so that they are here.” Yeah, so I pushed on my back for a while and I remember at one point, she said, “The head's right there. If you reach down, you can touch it.” I was like, “I'm going to have my baby vaginally.” My husband was like, “Yeah, you are.” I was just so excited. In one push, his head came out and she goes, “Ope, he's OP.” He was sunny-side up. My husband was like, “He's looking at me.” Well, sorry. That's a spoiler. “They're looking at me. I can see the baby. Their eyes are open. Their mouth is going.” And then she said, “Okay, next time, one really big push,” and he came out on the second push. My husband caught him and put him right on my chest. I was like, “What is it? What is it?” It was another boy, so spoiler alert. We didn't have a name. I got to hold him on my chest for 2 hours. We did delayed cord clamping. My doula made it in the last 15 minutes and she said to me, “I think Victoria is in the next room having her baby.” Meagan: Nuh-uh. I wondered when you were saying that. I was like, I wondered if that was her doula. Oh my gosh. Kelsey: Literally, our babies were born 2 hours apart. Meagan: Oh, that's so cool. Kelsey: We were in the birthing center at the same time which was wild. I got to see her on my way out which was really nice. Meagan: That's so special. Kelsey: Neither of us knew what we were having and we both had little boys. They weighed him and my super big baby was 8 pounds, 3 ounces. Meagan: Perfect. Kelsey: Perfect. Yeah. People were like, “That's a good-sized baby.” I'm like, “My first was 9.5 pounds. He's tiny.” My husband got to tell me the sex of the baby which was another thing I really, really wanted. We did delayed cord clamping. We had the golden hour. We just got to sit there and compared to my prior experience, I just felt so cared for. I remember a midwife putting a cold cloth on my head and I thanked her. Her response was, “I know you are grateful. Save your strength.” She was just like, “You don't need to tell me thank you at this moment. Just don't talk at all. I know you are thankful.”Meagan: Enjoy. Kelsey: Yeah, I was given water in between pushing. My doula sat there and rubbed my eyebrows so I wasn't tense because I learned about the fear/tension/pain cycle. My husband got to be a huge part of it and he got to cut the cord. He didn't get to do that with our first. He got to hold our baby. He touched him before anyone. It was just– my husband and I talked about it for a while afterward and he was just like, “You know, why is this not the gold standard for birth? Why is this not what we do every time? This is the most incredible thing.” We recorded the entire thing. Meagan: Yay. If you decide you want to share, post it in the community. Kelsey: There is a 30-minute video out there because my son was actually, so my first birth was 38 hours total. My second birth, I had my first real contraction at 7:30 AM. My son was born at 12:38 PM. There were 5 hours. Meagan: Another five, by the way. Kelsey: I know, so weird. I was not psychic for this birth because I had a boy. I was so convinced I was going to have a girl but he was a little boy and he was baby no-name for four days. We ended up naming him Oliver. 1:00:24 Differences in careKelsey: Yeah, I just felt so cared about and looked after. There were differences like my husband had to go out and search for food after I gave birth after my first. He was so exhausted, he couldn't get out of the parking lot so my mother-in-law had to drive in to bring us food. I ended up scarfing down Popeye's but I had been intubated and my throat hurt so badly. I ate the world's driest biscuit and thought I was going to choke and die. But with my second birth, they had a postpartum doula who was there. She offered me lentil soup and a grilled cheese so that was my first meal. Meagan: So much better. Kelsey: Yeah, lovely lentil soup and grilled cheese. My son had been placed on my chest but I still had my bra so they washed it for me before I left. Just small things like that, I felt like I was cared for. Meagan: Yeah, absolutely. Kelsey: We ended up leaving at 5:00 PM. We were home in time to eat dinner at home. Meagan: Yeah. Yeah. Kelsey: That postpartum experience was incredible. We literally, I was able to get up and walk and I wasn't dizzy or anything. I barely felt like I had a baby. I did have a second-degree tear but for some reason was just completely unbothered by it. My midwife came to me postpartum which was really lovely. 1:02:11 EnterovirusKelsey: However, one thing I did want to touch on was I had a cold during labor and this is something I wanted to mention because it is not something I knew about. I had a cough and five days postpartum, on New Year's Eve, my doula came. Not my doula, my midwife. As they do, she temped my baby and he was measuring a little hot. She temped him a second time and he was normal. Around 4:00 AM on New Year's Day, I realized he was very warm. I temped him and he had a fever. I only know Celsius but it was 39.9 which is really high. I temped him a second time and he was 39.2. Anything over 38 is a fever. I ended up having to take him to the hospital and I didn't know what the protocol was if your baby gets a fever below two months. We were pretty much admitted on the spot. He had the full workup. He had bloodwork done. He had a lumbar puncture done. He didn't have a birth certificate and had to have a lumbar puncture done because the problem was that they were looking for infections. When they did his lumbar puncture, they did find something. He had a virus called an enterovirus. In adults, it's just a common cold, but if you get it while you are pregnant, you can pass it through your placenta to your baby just before you deliver and your baby can be born with the virus. It can just present as a fever, but it can also progress to viral meningitis. Meagan: Oh, scary. Kelsey: My son was kept in the hospital for two nights. Because of the fever, he stopped nursing. He was super sleepy and they make you stay for two nights even if they perk up and are nursing and everything seems fine. They will keep you for two nights because they are looking for things to grow on the lumbar puncture. If a fever indicates an infection and because the blood/brain barrier is so thin, infections can spread super quickly to the brain. Meagan: Scary. Kelsey: He ended up being okay. He didn't have viral meningitis and I had the most incredible angel nurse while I was there. I was so grateful for her. I forgot my Peri bottle at home and she made me one. She did everything she could to prevent my son from being put on an NG tube while still getting the fluids he needed. She managed to get him nursing enough that we didn't have to switch to an NG tube. We didn't have to switch to bottle feeding. He continued to nurse. She stuck up for me when a resident came in and was like, “Well, what's his urine output like?” I was like, “I don't know. I have no idea.” She was like, “All of that is in his chart if you just check it. She's obviously very tired. Leave her alone.” I had a lovely angel nurse but it is something I wanted to touch on because I had never heard of enterovirus. I did know what to do if your baby got a fever, but it definitely is that you take them right to the emergency room. Generally, they will admit you for two days. But yeah, otherwise, my postpartum experience was night and day compared with my C-section. I was up and moving and I did experience baby blues with my first. I cried for weeks. With my second, I was just so over the moon. But yeah, that's my VBAC. Meagan: I love it. Thank you so much for sharing that. I had actually never heard of enterovirus.Kelsey: Enterovirus.Meagan: Enterovirus. I was like, What the heck? That's actually with an E. I didn't know that. I just Googled that so it's really, really good to know that's a thing. It does look like it's pretty rare but it's something to take seriously. Sorry, my dog was barking in the background. He's got something to say too.I'm so happy for you and I'm so happy that you could see that it was a very similar situation with an OP baby and things like that and you were still able to deliver vaginally. Maybe it was a little bit of that asynclitic position that maybe made it a little harder to get under that pubic bone. It sounds like in ways they were willing to help you, but they also didn't help you too much either. Kelsey: No. Meagan: Yeah. I just love that you were able to prove to yourself too. Not that we have to prove anything to ourselves or anybody, but it is definitely nice when you are like, This is the same situation and look, I did it. Yes, my baby was a little smaller, but it probably wasn't the size more than it was just a slight bit of position and probably the cascade. I love that.1:08:02 Risk factors for forceps and vacuum deliveriesMeagan: Okay, so before I let you go, I wanted to touch a little bit more on those risk factors for forceps and vacuum because we talked about that in the beginning and tearing. Tearing is definitely a risk. You even said with your VBAC baby that you tore a little bit which is really common with a posterior baby coming out vaginally too just to let listeners know. Tearing can happen. It can happen with any baby. We can get rectal pain. Posterior babies, oh my gosh. Amazing to not only labor with one but push one out. It is hard work. You did an amazing job. Yeah. It may have a lower chance or a higher chance of coming out vaginally just in general. For baby, that bruising to the head or even nerve damage. It's really rare but it is a thing. Temporary swelling, skull fractures– again, it's rare but it is a thing so these are all things to take into consideration. For vacuum, we've got weakened pelvic floor, tears as well, possible even larger tears weirdly enough so that's a thing and then yeah, for baby, the suction can pop off and need to be replaced or cause hematomas there. Just all things to take into consideration. In the show notes, I know this wasn't a complete forceps delivery, but because it was something within your story, I wanted to touch on that today and make sure we included links. If you guys want to learn more, check out the show notes. Also, I just think it's so fun that you and your doula were at the birth center at the same time giving birth at the same time. There are so many fun things about this story. Amazing support it sounds like from your husband, from your family, and from all of the things. I just loved your story and appreciate you so much. Kelsey: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. Meagan: Absolutely. It's been such an honor. ClosingWould you like to be a guest on the podcast? Tell us about your experience at thevbaclink.com/share. For more information on all things VBAC including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Meagan's bio, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.Our Sponsors:* Check out Dr. Mom Butt Balm: drmombuttbalm.comSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-vbac-link/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Katie joins us today to tell us about her two birth experiences in Germany. Although she strongly advocated for herself during her first birth, Katie was extremely mistreated. Her labor and horrible C-section experience left her with intense PTSD straining her relationship with both her baby and her husband. Katie knew that if she wanted to have another baby, she had to plan for an out-of-hospital birth. She continued to advocate for herself by not only learning the evidence but by showing it to providers and defending it. Though she wasn't able to find a supportive backup hospital, Katie labored beautifully at home with her husband, doula, and midwife until she knew it was time to transfer. When she transferred, Katie was able to go to the hospital she wanted to go to and was finally treated with respect. Her wishes were honored and she felt heard. Though this labor was also over 40 hours and had its own unexpected twists, Katie experienced so much healing from her VBAC. She was able to achieve the glorious feeling she hoped she would have from a home birth even in the hospital.  TOLAC in Germany ArticleEvidence-Based Birth Blog: Friedman CurveInformed Pregnancy - code: vbaclink424Needed WebsiteHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details 04:41 Review of the Week07:27 Katie's stories11:14 Start of labor16:55 Going to the hospital20:22 Interventions29:44 Katie's C-section32:06 Preparing for VBAC34:34 Second pregnancy42:01 Labor begins47:11 Getting support from her birth team50:12 Transferring to the hospital53:32 Feeling intense scar pain56:23 Asking for the vacuum58:42 Katie's advice for listeners1:01:47 The Friedman Curve1:06:16 Trusting your intuition1:08:56 Doula supportMeagan: Hello, Women of Strength! We have a story for you today where a mama gave birth in Germany. So I love, love, love when we have out-of-the-country birth stories because we often get messages from people outside of the country wondering if VBAC is still possible and the answer is YES. 100% it is possible and we have our friend Katie today. Hello, Katie!Katie: Hi.Meagan: She is going to just be sharing her story showing that it is possible to VBAC. Now, one of the things that I actually really love about Katie's story is that it shows that things can change, and even when things change it doesn't have to be bad. I sit in that because I personally wanted to birth out of the hospital and when I was in labor, in my mind, if I had to transfer, I was for a little while telling myself that that was a bad thing. And that it wouldn't happen, or people would be looking down, or whatever. I was spiraling. I was just going through a moment in labor. But something that stood out to me with Katie's, is she talks about how after a really long labor at home, planned home birth, her intuition, which we talk about a lot, knew that she needed to make another choice in her labor and that was to go to the hospital. Right, Katie?Katie: Exactly. Yep.Meagan: And so I love that we can talk about how plans can change and that doesn't mean it has to be the be-all end-all. Is that how you say it?Katie: Yeah.Meagan: It doesn't mean it has to be over or it doesn't mean your chances of VBAC are done. If you are planning a home birth and you make the choice, or even if it was medically necessary, like sometimes it is, right? That doesn't mean that it has to be bad. And so I love that part about her story and that she listened to her intuition. And then also another highlight, is that intervention happened, right? And that sometimes in this community we fear the intervention. I understand why we don't all usually want the intervention, we just want it to be left alone. But sometimes intervention comes into play and sometimes those interventions help us get the birth that we wanted. And so I'm just going to end there because I want Katie to be able to share her story but those were a couple of things that, for me, as I was reading her submission, stood out to me and I thought were really important topics to touch on because plans can change and even when plans change, it's okay. 04:41 Review of the WeekMeagan: But I do have a Review of the Week so I want to review that and then I'll turn the time over to you Katie. Okay, so this is from our Google reviews, which we absolutely love. Even our Google reviews help people find the podcast, our blogs, our course, our resources, all the things. If you wouldn't mind heading over to Google. Google “The VBAC Link,” and leave us a review, we would absolutely love that. So this is from, I think it's Eimear. Sorry if I am butchering this name. They gave a 5-star review, so thank you so much. But it says that, “This podcast was my constant source of reassurance and inspiring stories throughout my last two pregnancies. I achieved my VBAC in 2021 and was empowered with so much knowledge and mental strength going into this birth because of The VBAC Link. I had my second C-section in 2002 which was not what I wished for but I do plan on having more children and know that VBA2C (vaginal birth after two C-sections) is a possibility for me because of this podcast. I continue to listen to your inspiring stories each time I hop in the car and I'm so grateful for all that you share. I hope to share my own redeeming story with you in time, too.”Thank you so much for that review. I love that you said that VBAC after 2 C-sections is possible. We see that a lot in our Q and A's. “If I've had 2 C-sections is it possible?” The answer is yes, absolutely, 100 percent. So if you want to learn more check out the podcast or head on over to thevbaclink.com and search VBA2C and you'll get to find more about that. 07:27 Katie's storiesMeagan: Okay, Katie! Welcome again. Thank you for being here. Katie: Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to share my story.Meagan: Oh my gosh, me too.  And I know you've got your little one by you. So how old is your little baby?Katie: My daughter, Scarlett, is just shy of 5 months.Meagan: 5 months. Okay, so you're still pretty in the thick of it. Katie: Yes, still sleepless nights.Meagan: Yes, and you're coming from Germany. I don't even know what the time zone is there, but hopefully, you're not up way too early or way too late.Katie: It's like just late afternoon here.Meagan: Okay good, I'm so glad. Well I would love to turn the time over to you to share your stories.Katie: Okay, great. Well, I'll just get started with my C-section story. My son, Charlie, is 2. He was born in 2021. I'm originally from the U.S. but as you mentioned, I live in Germany and I had been in Germany for about 5 years when I had him. And then as just some background, I'm actually an intensive care nurse and I worked in the United States as an intensive care nurse and then for a bit here and have since transitioned into the corporate world. I'm not like a labor and delivery nurse, but I have a lot of knowledge about birth from nursing school. I think there is a little bit of a misconception in the U.S. that everything is better in Europe, that they're more natural or that the healthcare is better, blah blah blah. I just want to say that has not necessarily been my experience especially working as a nurse. I can really see that the shortage of trained healthcare workers is significantly worse here. And there's kind of like, we have our issues in the U.S. too about making sure we're providing evidenced-based care. We try but it's hard to keep up and stuff. I would say it's even harder here and then doctors here are super paternalistic. So when I was pregnant with my son, I had that impression as I was going into it. And also, the way it works here is, you just go to a gynecologist for your pregnancy care and then you just go to the hospital to have your baby. You don't get to pick your doctor. There's just staff, so you just get who you get. I didn't really like that when I was planning my birth for my first pregnancy, but I was kind of like, well what else am I gonna do? That's the way it is. But I felt at the time really confident about my knowledge and that I'm pretty tough and well-informed, and I'll manage to get through it. This is just like the way it's going to be. Didn't have any thoughts about trying to do a home birth or another out-of-hospital environment, it was just like you go to the hospital and baby and go home. So my pregnancy was pretty good. I had the normal kind of aches and pains. There was some concern with my son's placenta. It wasn't functioning great but we didn't have issues from it, just extra growth scans and there were really no problems. He was due December 27th, so around Christmastime. I think if I had known I would have never gotten pregnant to have a baby around Christmastime because my impression was with the hospital, that they were really short-staffed when I ended up having him. 11:14 Start of laborKatie: So I ended up going into labor– he was born on the 22nd, so I went into labor on the 20th of December. I woke up around midnight with really bad back pain and I felt like I was going to have diarrhea. That's probably TMI.Meagan: I totally get that. Katie: Yeah I kept going to the toilet thinking I had food poisoning, and nothing would happen. I would go and sit down, and as soon as I would sit down I'd feel like I'd have to go to the toilet again and I would run back there. This kept going on and then eventually after a little while I had some bloody show and my mucus plug came out. And I was like, “Oh! This was the contractions.” I was not expecting it at all. It was just this stabbing pain in my back and I didn't feel like my uterus was really doing anything so I was kind of surprised. I was like, “I guess I'm in labor,” and it hurt so bad. People always talk about how it starts out kind of light and builds up, and it was really full force. Like I said, I kept going to the couch and trying to sit down and trying to get comfortable and I'd have to keep running to the bathroom. It just kept coming. I was like, “Oh my gosh, is this baby going to be born really fast? This seems pretty intense.” I was like, “No, no I probably have a long time to go so calm down.” I took a shower and got my birth ball out and started trying to work through it. At some point, my husband woke up and I was like, “I think I'm in labor. Go back to bed and I'll get you if I need you.” I labored throughout the night. But around 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning, I started noticing contractions. They weren't quite as painful and it was spacing out a little bit and I was like, “Oh, maybe I should try to sleep.” So I laid down on the couch and I was able to kind of sleep in between these contractions. My husband woke me up a few hours later because I had my 39-week doctor's appointment. And I was like oh well we can just go to the doctor and have them check me there and just see how we're going. We walked to the doctor because I was afraid my water would break in the subway so we just decided to walk. But that didn't happen and by the time we got to the doctor, they had spread pretty far apart. I had waited in the waiting room for a while and I only had a couple while I was waiting.My doctor checked me and she said I wasn't dilated and then they did put me on the CTG there for just a little bit to just see what was happening and I didn't have a single contraction while I was hooked up on the CTG. But the second they took it off and I stood up again, it started again. But it was more how people describe early labor. It came every few minutes. It was totally manageable. I just had to take a few deep breaths. We ended up walking home and the rest of the day, that went on. I labored in the afternoon and I thought at some point I should try to take a nap, but every time I tried to lay down it would be really uncomfortable so I got up. Then my husband and I decided, “Well, this baby is probably coming. Let's go do some grocery shopping, get some snacks, and be prepared.” Katie: So we went grocery shopping and my parents were visiting. They were staying in a hotel, but they came over. We all had dinner together. I was convinced that it wasn't labor, and I was like, “This is probably just fake labor,” so I didn't want to tell them. My mom later told me, “We totally knew you were in labor. You did not fool us for a minute.” We made dinner, we all ate, and they left.It was only 7:00 or 8:00 PM and I was like, “Let's sit down and watch some TV and try to relax.” As soon as I sat down, the intensity really picked up and the frequency. I wasn't timing them, but I really saw that they were coming quite often and it wasn't comfortable to sit down anymore. I thought, “I've been doing this all day, almost 24 hours now. I think I deserve to use some of my coping mechanisms that I'd planned for.” So I had planned to listen to these hypnobirthing tracks and had bought a ton of really nice bath supplies to make nice hot baths. So I got in the bath and was just using this app to do the HypnoBirthing tracks and I found it really helped me and I was doing really well. And then after a while, my husband came in. I think he felt like he should be doing something too. I was like, “You can press start and stop on this app because it's really annoying to dry my hands off,” so he was like, “Okay.” He was there for 10  minutes and something popped up on the app that was like, “You should go to the hospital now,” and he started panicking. I was like, “I'm fine.” In my mind, compared to the contractions I had the first part of the previous night, my contractions were going to have to be at least like that or worse because I hadn't dialed at all, so I was like really mentally prepared this is going to be so bad. Right now I still feel fine. They were just coming close together, but I had no feeling the baby was coming. I felt fine.But he was just like, “Oh my gosh, this app is telling us we should go to the hospital,” and ugh. After a while of him freaking out, I thought, “Okay, let's just go to the hospital and do a check. They'll reassure him that I'm tops 2 centimeters dilated and he can relax and I can continue to labor in peace at home.” 16:55 Going to the hospitalSo we get packed up and drive to the hospital. They put me on the CTG and checked me. I'm 2 centimeters. Then after half an hour, they come in and say, “Well, we don't have any beds so we're going to have to send you to a different hospital.” I said, “Whoa, hold the phone.” In my mind, I'm thinking that I have at least 12 more hours of labor to go. I'm a first-time mom. And I was like, “I want to go home and labor. I don't want to labor in the hospital. I want to go home. Can't I come back at like 6:00 AM and check me again?” It was about midnight at this time. And they were like, “Oh no, you're not going to make it to 6:00 AM. Your baby is coming and will be here by morning.” And I was like, “Seriously?”Meagan: “It's midnight, I've got some time.”Katie: And I was like, “I really don't believe that.” But they were so insistent that I had to go to the hospital and they were even like, “We called an ambulance to take you to the other hospital.” Meagan: Oh my gosh.Katie: I was like, “I don't need an ambulance. I'm not dying, I'm just having some contractions. This is crazy, guys.” They were like, “Are you sure?” I was like, “No, I don't want to be separated from my husband and go in an ambulance. Absolutely not.” They were like, “Well, we're going to send you to this other hospital.” I said, “No. This particular hospital has a really bad reputation.” I said, “No, I don't want to go there. I want to go to–” my second choice was blah, blah, blah. They were like, “Oh, they're full.” I was like, “Okay well, my third choice is blah, blah, blah.” “Oh well, they're full too.” And basically, every other hospital in our city was full. I was just like, “Okay, great.” My husband's freaking out. I really don't want to go to this hospital but they're telling him I need to stay. I was like, “Okay, we'll go over there and I'll just get registered and I'll tell them that I want to go home and labor.” So we drive over and the whole time I'm like, “I don't really want to go to this hospital, but okay.” And then I told my husband that I had no idea where the labor and delivery ward was at this hospital. I had never been there. So I said, “Okay, let's park at the emergency room because usually this late at night, hospitals' other entrances aren't open.” We parked in the emergency room and nobody at the emergency room could tell us where labor and delivery was. And I was like, “What the heck?” I was the one looking at the map on the wall figuring out where it was, having these contractions. We walked there and we finally arrived. I had such a bad feeling there. It was kind of icky and old and gross, this hospital. They also hooked me up to a CTG and checked me. They told me that my cervix was completely closed and so I said, “Okay, great! I'm going to go home.” They started trying to put an IV in. And I was like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Why do I need an IV? I want to go home.” They also said, “No, your baby is coming imminently.” I was like, “That doesn't really make any sense.” In that kind of labor land you're so easily kind of–Meagan: Persuaded and convinced.Katie: Persuaded. And I also observed that I didn't have the support of my husband anymore. He was losing it basically. I thought, “Okay, I guess.” They had a bathtub and I thought, “Well, maybe I can take a bath here for a couple of hours and go home after that.” So we got in the bathtub and I really didn't like it. I'm not really a big water person so it really wasn't for me. So after awhile I got out. 20:22 InterventionsKatie: And oh, I forgot to mention. Before that happened, before they brought my husband back, the midwife was like, “Your cervix is like steel and we want you to take some medication to soften it.” She was like, “Don't worry. It's homeopathic.” I was like, “I don't want to take anything homeopathic. That's fake medicine. I don't want to take that.” She was super insistent. I was like, “Okay, let me see what this is. I'll look it up online and tell you if I want to take it or not.” She handed the pill to me and it was Tylenol with codeine. Meagan: What?Katie: And I was like, “Excuse me?” I was like, “This is not homeopathic medication. This is a narcotic.” She was like, “No, no. This is homeopathic.” I said, “No no. This is a narcotic.”Meagan: Like, “I'm not dumb.”Katie: That really shut me down. Also with this labor land, I was like, “Maybe codeine means something else in German?” I got super confused, do you know what I mean? In hindsight, I've given patients Tylenol with codeine hundreds of times. I know what Tylenol with codeine is. But in that moment, I got confused about it. I was in this labor land kind of thing. Meagan: Yeah. Katie: But it totally set off my fight-or-flight reflex because it freaked me out. “Is she lying to me? Or does she just not know? I don't get this.” I really told my husband that I wanted to leave and he was like, “Where are we going to go? Everywhere else is full.” And I was like, “Well, I'll just stay in the bath. I don't know.”At some point, I got out of the bath and I had been up basically the entire night before, just trying sleeping in between contractions. I wanted to lay down and rest. She came in and was like, “Oh no, you need to get up and move around.” She made us go for a walk around the hospital. This was probably 4:00 or 5:00 AM. I just felt so uncomfortable, I didn't want to be walking around the hospital. I wanted to be in my own little cave. So we went back and then she told me, “Well, you haven't had your baby yet so we're going to have to discharge you to the antenatal ward.” I was like, “Okay, at midnight when I got here, you said my baby was coming imminently and I had to stay and now you want to discharge me. If you're going to discharge me, I'm going to go home. I'm not going to go labor on an antenatal ward.” She was like, “Oh, let me talk about it with my staff at our staffing meeting,” blah blah blah. I don't know whatever came of that but I was so weirded out by it. Meagan: Yeah.Katie: And then like at 6:00 or so in the morning, she came in and they were again like, “Your cervix is as hard as steel. You need something to relax it.” Again she said, “I have something homeopathic for you.” It was Demerol.I again was like, “This is not homeopathy. These are narcotics.” I got really mad and I even said to her face. I looked her in the eye and I said, “It's appropriate to give patients narcotics or birthing women narcotics if they want them but you can't lie about it.” That's so unethical. That's not okay. I was so shocked by it. I had thought about it and I didn't really want to take narcotics. I'm intolerant of them. I've had some dental procedures and they make me really confused and I didn't want them during labor. But I thought at this point, it had been like 30 hours, and I thought, “Well, maybe it's time to try something.”My mom had always said when she had us that she would get a shot of Demerol and dilate to 10 centimeters in an hour from that. “Well, maybe I need that too. Maybe I'm like my mom.” I did consent to it but I felt like pushed into it. I kind of more consented to it because I wanted them to leave me alone. I told her again, “I'm really sensitive to narcotics. They make me confused. Please give me like the lowest dose.” I got my records later and I know now that it was the max dose and she had mixed other things into it so I totally became delirious. I could not cope with the contraction pain anymore because I didn't have this ability to be like, “Oh, I'm a flower, my cervix. Every contraction brings me one step–.” Being able to work my way through it was gone and it was sheer pain. They don't help me. It was just downhill from there. I didn't have the strength anymore to leave. At some point, they tried to make me take another walk. I was so dizzy that I kept falling over. Oh my gosh, if my patient was this dizzy, I wouldn't let them get out of bed but they were forcing me to go for a walk. They told us to leave the hospital and walk around outside. I remember standing at a red light and totally swaying back and forth clutching onto my husband so I wouldn't pass out. I was like, “I should not be outside. This is ridiculous.”So we went back and I'm not exactly sure what happened all afternoon. I forgot to mention we had a new midwife now. At some point in the afternoon they come in and say, “Well, you haven't had your baby yet. You're only a couple of centimeters dilated. We're going to start you on Pitocin.”Katie: And I said, “No, no. I don't want Pitocin.” They said, “Too bad. We're giving it to you anyway.” And I again was not in any kind of state to fight or protect myself. They started it and I didn't have any pain management at all. This was like 4:00 or 5:00 in the afternoon so it had been like 10 hours since I had that Demerol. My contractions were always that really bad back pain. It was so bad with the Pitocin. I ended up getting an epidural which was such a bad moment for me because I actually had more anxiety about getting an epidural. I have a fear of being paralyzed and I thought, “I absolutely don't want an epidural.” I ended up getting one and it didn't really work. They just kept turning the Pitocin up. And I kept telling them, “This isn't working. Can you get anesthesia here? There are things you can do to fix it.” They wouldn't do anything.They kept telling me, “If it doesn't work, it just doesn't work.” I was like, “That's not true. I know a lot about epidurals and there are a lot of things you can do.”At some point, I had realized that I hadn't peed in 12 hours and tried to go to the bathroom and nothing came out. I asked them in they could put a catheter in so I could pee. This midwife just kept ignoring me. I was like, “I really need a catheter.” I had felt really hot. I was like, “Can you take my temperature? I'm worried I have a fever.”Meagan: Oh my gosh. Katie: I also kept asking her if she would help me because I was laying in the bed, halfway falling out of it and I needed some help to reposition myself. I kept pushing the call light and she would come in and yell at me for pressing the call light. And after a few hours of this I finally had a little bit of fight back in me. I remember screaming at my husband, “You need to get me another midwife right now!”They must have heard us fighting outside because somebody else came in. I was like, “I need a catheter. I need someone to take my temperature and I need some help moving around.” So she catheterized me and there was like 500 milileters of urine in my bladder. She took my temperature and luckily that was normal. She helped me get up out of bed so I was sitting on a ball. At that point, I realized that the pump for the epidural was sitting right there. I remember turning to look at it and the pump wasn't even on. I was like, “I've been complaining. I have no idea what happened if it had been off the whole time or something, but it was supposed to be a patient-controlled epidural and it wasn't even on. I was like, “What is this?”At this point, it was midnight. I had been going on 48 hours now and only at like 4 centimeters dilated. They just kept telling me, The only way you're ever going to have this baby is if we keep turning the Pitocin up.” I kept asking them, “Are there positions we can do?”I also forgot to mention in the beginning that the people in Germany told me, “You don't need a doula in Germany because the midwives do all of that kind of stuff.” I never got a single suggestion on how to maybe reposition the baby or if there was anything. I kept asking, “Is he posterior? Is something weird going on?” “No, no. Everything's fine.” With these Pitocin contractions, I felt this pull in my pelvic floor. It felt like my body was fighting against it. I can't believe this is working. I can feel my muscle close with that. 29:44 Katie's C-section Katie: They told me that wasn't a thing, blah blah blah. My cervix had started swelling. And they were kind of like, “The only way you're going to have this baby is having a C-section,” and you know, that's just what happened. I ended up consenting to it because I was so afraid that they were going to do something to harm me. There had been like so much–Meagan: Weirdness.Katie: Weird stuff. I'm not going to die because childbirth is dangerous but because these people don't know what they're doing and they're somehow going to hurt us. And the C-section was just awful. I could remember on the way down, they knocked a bunch of the equipment over that was attached to me. When they started operating, I had a strip on my right side where I could feel everything. I was like, “I can feel what you're doing there. I was screaming.” The birth of my baby was the worst moment that I could imagine. It not joyful or happy at all. What has happened? What has happened to me? How did this happen to me? I just like couldn't believe it. Meagan: Yeah.Katie: What else could I have done differently? I don't know. How did everything get out of control? It was just crazy. I ended up having really bad PTSD afterward that I would have nightmares about the surgery. Postpartum was so rough because I had no connection to my baby and I honestly resented him almost in some ways where it was like, “If I hadn't had you, I wouldn't have gone through this.” It was just really hard to work through.I was also so mad at my husband. I really thought, “How could you? Where were you? You were supposed to be my support. You were supposed to help me.” I don't think he really got it. I kept telling him how much he was going to have to help me. “I really needed you to be strong in that moment and you just weren't.” It was a really low point in our relationship, too. 32:06 Preparing for VBACKatie: But he promised me that if we ever had any other kids, he would try to make it up to me. “Let's try to work through this.” And I got some treatment for my PTSD and I ended up taking Zoloft. I obviously listened to the stories on VBAC Link and other podcasts and I realized this is not unique. This is happening to a lot of people. I really knew that I wanted to have a VBAC. I never really thought there was something wrong with me. I thought it was the way I had been mishandled and that they didn't follow guidelines and that it was really inappropriate care I received. If it had been better, maybe I would have been able to do it. Anyway, I had a lot of anxiety about doctors and I didn't think, “If I have another baby, I want to go to the hospital. What am I gonna do? If I ever have another baby, should I go back to the United States to do it? Can I review clinical literature from my job?” And just from listening to podcasts and your story, Meagan, and the others, I realized an out-of-hospital birth is probably the best option for me if I ever have another baby to have a VBAC. I found a paper from 2019 about birth in Germany, about VBACs in Germany. And the success rate was like 40% in the hospitals to 60% in the birth center and 80% if you planned a home birth. They said that the outcomes for mom and baby were similar. So I said, “That's it. We have real literature that we're going to have a home birth if I ever have another kid.” Before I even got pregnant, I researched home-birth midwives in the city. I started speaking to a doula before I even got pregnant. And I had signed with her and she said that even if she wasn't available when I got pregnant again, she would help me find someone who was. I actually ended up getting pregnant really fast. We got pregnant on the first try and that was about– my son was 14 months when we got pregnant again. They're 22 months apart. 34:34 Second pregnancyKatie: I was like, “I'm going to do this. This is super important to me. I really need to do this.” I listened to VBAC Link stories and other VBAC stories every day. There's some other podcasts that I listened to. I read all the books like Ina May's Guide to Childbirth and Childbirth as a Rite of Passenger by Rachel Reed and I was just only thinking and talking about birth. That was the only thing I paid attention to in that time.I read all the guidelines from every major organization and I read a lot of the literature that they used to come up with the recommendations. I had pretty strong opinions then that I would be okay with. But mostly I just wanted to be left alone. I didn't want any interventions because in my mind, with my sons birth, the intervention is what had ruined it. Katie: I worked out a lot with my first pregnancy, too. But with my VBAC baby, I did the Mamastefit fitness program.Meagan: Love Gina.Katie: And at the end, there's a lot of focus on relaxing your pelvic floor. I started seeing an osteopath. We really worked on trying to relax my pelvic floor. I mostly focused on stretching. I kept doing the HypnoBirth stuff. The pregnancy went on. I registered at a hospital just as a backup just in case we needed to transfer. I went to the registration appointment at this hospital. They were supposed to be the best VBAC hospital and they claimed to be the best VBAC hospital in the city, but the doctor there was so anti-VBAC and just talking about, “Oh, you are causing all of this risk if this happens.” I was really kind of shocked by it and at one point, she was like, “Oh, we need to do this ultrasound,” and I was like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. What do you want to do this ultrasound for?” She was like, “Well, we need to make sure your baby isn't too big and that your scar is thick enough.” I said, “Well, I know that those growth scans, you might as well flip a coin so I'm not interested and also, there is not any research supporting the use of ultrasound measurements of the scar with predicting the risk of rupture so no, I decline.” She said, “Well, no you have to do it.” I said, “No, I don't and I'm not doing it unless you can tell me what evidence you use to come up with these recommendations and what are the cutoffs? How thin is too thin is too thin for the scar? You have to be able to tell me that and you have to tell me what evidence you've used to come up with that definition and I will not consent to the ultrasound until you tell me that.” She just couldn't do it. She kept just going on about like, “Well, you have to. You have to.” I said, “I don't have to do anything. I don't consent. If you don't know the answer, find someone that does.” My doula was with me and she ended up going. This doctor ended up going and getting their boss. She came in and my doula had told them something about how we were just planning this as backup for a home birth. They were like, “You absolutely cannot have a home birth.” I was like, “I absolutely will. That is my choice and you can't tell me what to do. I'm doing that.” They were just like, “No, no. You can't do that. You can come here and have the birth.” I said to them, “I know I'm going to need a long time to labor. I was in labor for 48 hours with my son. I need a lot of time. There was nothing medically wrong with my with my son. It was just this pure, bureaucratic nonsense. I was pressured into it because I took too long. I know that and I need support to get through a long labor and it's safer for me to be at home and it's safest if there is a midwife at home with me that can check on the baby and make the recommendation when it's time to transfer. That's the best course of action.” They were like, “No, no. You can only plan to birth here.” I was like, “Well, if that happens, then I'm going to be home alone without anybody there to check on the baby. How is that safe?” They just kept saying, “You can't do that. You can't have that here.” Katie: We ended up not having a backup hospital. That was kind of a tough conversation but I was really proud of myself that I had stood my ground so much. Just a lot of women talk about how you always want to be polite and non-confrontational. I was like, “I'm not going to be that way. I'm going to demand answers. I'm not going to do things just to be nice.” I was very proud of myself that although I was basically banned from that hospital, I was proud of myself for sticking up for myself. I really felt and the literature also supported that homebirth was a safe option for me, but we went into it not having a backup hospital. 42:01 Labor beginsKatie: I'll move on to the actual labor and birth with my VBAC baby. So that also started around midnight. I woke up feeling kind of funny. I went to the bathroom and a little bit of amniotic fluid came out. I was like, “Oh, great.” I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do in that situation so I got on my birth ball and bounced. I listened to an episode from Evidence-Based Birth about the premature rupture of membranes. I listened to that and was like, “No, no. I feel best about waiting for labor to start on its own.” I kept having some mild cramping throughout the night and then around 5:00 AM, I went to the bathroom again and I had some bloody show. Around 9:00, I texted my doula and my midwife just to let them know. My midwife, Julia was like, “Let me come over. I have a lot going on today. Let me just come over and see how you are doing.”I was like, “You can, but I'm not really having any contractions. I'm just having some cramps.” She came over and we chatted. She offered to do a vaginal exam to see where I was at. I said, “No, I'm not really in labor yet. I don't want to risk it.” She left and then a few hours later, I started having “contractions”. I was so excited because they were actually contractions, this wave feeling in my uterus because with my son, it had always been this stabbing pain in the back. I'd never felt my uterus doing anything. I was like, “Oh my gosh. Everything I did worked. I'm having real contractions.” I was so excited. We just kept working through them. We made a plan to have my son go over to my sister-in-law. I was convinced that oh, maybe labor won't really start. I don't know what I was thinking, but my husband and I made a plan to just have a nice dinner together and send our son off so if I went into labor, he would have somewhere to stay and if not, we would have one more nice evening together before the baby came. But I was in denial. The contractions kept ramping up throughout the day. Finally, at dinnertime, we were eating our dinner and my husband was like, “Do you want me to call Johanna?” Johanna is our doula and I was like, “No, it's way too soon. It's only been a few hours.” He was like, “Are you sure?” Then I realized. I took that as a sign that he needed the support. I was like, “Great. Let's have her come over.” I totally thought she would come over and be like, “Yeah, she's fine. Let's go to bed and we'll take care of this later.” She came over and supported me through some contractions and was like, “Hmm, how would you feel about having your midwife come over?” I was like, “it's way too soon. It's only been 7 hours. The contractions are too far apart and too short.” She was like, “No, I've been timing them and they are over a minute long and three minutes apart.” I was like, “I guess you can call her if you want to.”They called her and she listened to me having some contractions on the phone and was like, “Yep, that sounds like active labor. I'm coming over.” She came over and we all labored together. Katie: At some point, I started having back labor again. During the day, it had been this really nice wave feeling, but then the back labor started to come in. Around 11:30ish, my midwife checked me and she told me that my cervix was really posterior and that the baby was actually just pressing on the lower segment of my uterus. I didn't want to know how much I was dilated, but I knew that it was probably not much based on what she was saying from that.Later, after the birth, I found out I hadn't dilated at all. She actually manually moved the cervix down and held it under the baby's head and had me do a couple of contractions like that. It was awful. She really recommended that I try to lay down as much as possible during contractions because her theory was that something was pulling my cervix back so if I was moving around too much, it would keep pulling it back. It was so painful to lay down. She ended up leaving to go get some sleep. I kept laboring like that throughout the night. I got super nauseated. I was throwing up. It was just the only way I could get through contractions was to sit on my birthing ball. I had hung a sling up and I would hold onto the sling because I just could not have anything touching my pelvis. It felt like along my SI joints, they were going to just split in two.We labored throughout the night like that and they really did a really good job supporting me. They made sure– I had told my husband that his one job was to make sure I was eating or drinking and that after every contraction he should offer me something to drink and he did that to the point of annoyance during labor but he kept doing it and they did a really good job. 47:11 Getting support from her birth teamKatie: Around 7:30, throughout the night, the back pain was getting worse and worse. Around 7:30, we decided to call the midwife and have her come back. This is probably the first moment that I realized, “I think I'm going to need some help here.” I had read so many books talking about how childbirth is a physiological process and everyone can do it. You can do hard things. I really believed that, but it was really that I was starting to realize that, “Yeah, the majority of women are going to get through it fine, but I'm in that minority that really maybe does need some help.” I didn't say anything at that point. My midwife came over and again, I didn't know it at the time, but she checked me and I hadn't progressed at all throughout the night. My cervix had slipped back again into a posterior position. She did that thing where she held it in place again and really had me try to be laying down as much as possible to again with her theory about how my cervix was being pulled back. It was just so painful but it worked.I started progressing which was really exciting, but at the same time, I started having this weird contraction. It felt like my body was doing a kegel uncontrollably and involuntarily doing kegels during contractions. I could feel my pelvic floor closing up on itself. I was like, “I thought that was just because the Pitocin was on too high for my first birth, but this is my own natural oxytocin and I'm having this feeling again.”I kept laboring throughout the day. They somehow found a TENS machine for my back pain, but anyway, around 11:00 or noon, I said to them, “I think I'm going to need some help. I'm not sure anymore.” I had been so adamant during my entire pregnancy that I absolutely do not want to transfer to the hospital. Only if there is a medical reason and they were like, “No, you are doing so good. Let's stay home.” They really kept working with me, but by 4:00 or 5:00, I was like, “I think I really just need to accept that I need help.” We did a lot of massage and position changes. We did all of the Spinning Babies stuff. I could not get my pelvic floor to relax. It had been at this point 30 hours and I was like, “I did everything right this time. I feel safe. I set up a beautiful birthing space. I'm not scared. I want to have this baby and it's just not working. I just need to accept that. I don't know. I need some help.” 50:12 Transferring to the hospitalKatie: We went to the hospital and I thought I was going to be treated like crap because I was a home birth transfer and I didn't register ahead of time. We were just so lucky. We got the greatest people and I remember– I'm going to cry. They placed the epidural and I was finally doing some intake paperwork with the midwife that was going to be taking over and I was like, “I know you think I'm crazy, but this is so important to me. I have to do this.” She said, “Of course, you're going to do it.” It just felt like, I don't even know. It was just like, “Yeah, I am going to do it.” We talked to my anesthesiologist and I was telling him about what had happened at the last hospital. We talked about how I was really scared about another C-section because I had felt it during my first one and I didn't want another C-section. We talked about it. I was like, “You know if I need to have another C-section, I want to be put under. I don't need to experience that again. As much as I want to be awake for meeting my baby, I don't need that to feel it.” We had an agreement that if it ended up going toward a C-section, he would put me under. I felt like it was such a night and day difference. The staff at this hospital was again, way more modern. The staff was so respectful and always asked my permission to do things. We always talked about the plan and what we were going to do and explained the benefits and risks and all of those things.I had to get a Pitocin drip. I understood that with getting the epidural but they were like, “We won't turn it up too high. We will go slow. We'll probably have to break your water at some point, but we're going to wait until as close to the birth as possible.” They really laid out a plan. They checked me 2 hours after I had gotten the epidural and I had progressed to a 7. I just burst into tears. I had just gotten the epidural. At that point, I wasn't sure if it was the right choice or if I had just basically signed up for a C-section by going to the hospital. I didn't know at that point, but since I was at a 7, I was like, “Oh my gosh. I am going to make it.” It took another 10 hours, but I made it to 10. Throughout the night, I had the same issues with the epidural not working, but this anesthesiologist worked his butt off. He came in and he tried so many things like repositioning it and trying different medications, trying different types of concentrations. He tried so many things to help me and I could really tell that he felt bad that he couldn't totally take the pain away. Just that alone was enough. I was like, “It's okay. As long as my pelvic floor is relaxing, I can get through it.” 53:32 Feeling intense scar painKatie: At some point, around 4:00 AM, they gave me a really big bolus because they wanted me to get some sleep but I couldn't feel anything. I was completely numb. They said, “Okay, why don't you labor down a little bit? Your baby looks fine on the monitor. Everything is okay.” Around 6:00-6:30, I woke up and that bolus had completely worn of. This back pain that I was having was in that moment a thousand times worse because her head was down in the birth canal. I could feel. I remember checking and I could feel. I could only go about a fingertip in and could feel her head. It was so intense. My pelvis felt like it was on fire. I thought I was going to burst into flame. They had me start pushing and she was right there, but she was just not descending anymore. At some point, I remember they had me try to get onto my hands and knees. I was like a wild animal so I can't really remember everything, but they had me get on hands and knees. I realized, “Oh, I don't want to be on hands and knees because I can't brace my scar when I'm pushing,” then I realized, “Oh, my scar is kind of hurting.” Then I was like, “Why is nobody else worried about my scar hurting?” I was like, “Oh, I haven't said anything to anybody that my scar was hurting.” It was getting more and more painful. I was finally like, “Oh my gosh, my scar, my scar. It hurts so bad.” The midwife got a doctor to come in and they did an ultrasound and the doctor said, “Your scar looks fine.” It just kept hurting and it was hurting more and more. They were cleaning up the ultrasound machine and the pain wasn't going away in between contractions. Even though they were saying everything was fine, I just felt like things weren't fine. I almost had an out-of-body experience where I envisioned a future where my uterus ruptured and I got rushed out to the OR and it was really nasty. I was like, “No. I can't let that happen,” so I started yelling at them. I was like, “A vacuum, I need a vacuum.” They were like, “Are you sure?” I was like, “Yeah, yeah. I really need a vacuum. I need a vacuum right now.” I remember the doctor asking the midwife, “Well, how long has she been pushing?” In my mind, it had been 10 minutes and they were like, “Oh, it's been over 2 hours.” I was like, “Yes. Yes. Now. I need my baby to be born now, like right now.” 56:23 Asking for the vacuumKatie: They got a vacuum and pulled her out. I can't describe it. Although there was so much intervention and stuff, I felt like it was this home birth experience that everyone talks about because I got this crazy flood of oxytocin and I just bawled my eyes out for an hour and I felt like you know when you are a kid and it's Christmas morning and you've been waiting for weeks to get your Christmas present and you finally get to open it and you're so excited? It was like that feeling times a million. It was just an incredible feeling. She was there. I didn't know at that point if she was a girl or a boy so I got to look and I was like, “Oh my gosh. It's a girl.” It was just a really incredible moment. Meagan: Yes. So amazing that you were supported and that they listened to you. Katie: Yeah. I mean, my husband and I have talked about how this is the hospital that I should have had my son at. I don't know if I would have had a different outcome. I might have still ended up with a C-section there, but I don't think I would have had the same amount of trauma because the staff was so respectful and they were very capable and competent. It made just such a huge difference. Meagan: Absolutely. It sucks that a lot of the time, it comes to that– where we are and who is in that space. Katie: Exactly, yeah. Meagan: You know, we can't always control that which is a little nervewracking sometimes. We've just got to trust, but I love that you– I mean, honestly even with the first birth, like you said, you got to a point where you weren't in your brain-brain because you were in labor land, but you were really amazing at advocating for yourself overall. I just want to say congrats on that because that's really, really hard to do. Katie: Thank you. 58:42 Katie's advice for listenersMeagan: I don't know if you have any advice for listeners to be able to have your voice be heard or find that space inside of your soul that can come out and say what you need when you need it, and how you need it, but that's a really hard thing to do in labor. Katie: Yeah, I would say that I think it really made a difference that the doula was there. I think it created another layer of protection where she could run interference too and take on some of that burden. I think it was a little bit of her. I was like, “A vacuum, a vacuum, I need a vacuum.” She was the one like, “Yes, yes. She is asking for a vacuum. She wants that baby to come out now.” I didn't have to carry on the fight anymore because there was a moment in that when they said, “Everything on the CTG looks good.” I could have said, “Well, if they are saying that everything looks fine, maybe I could keep trying,” but I felt so strongly in myself that the baby needed to come out. Since I didn't have to keep fighting for myself, I verbalized what I needed and she carried the torch basically I would say, it really made a big difference that she was able to keep saying, “Yeah, yeah. She wants the vacuum now. Let's get it.” I guess preparing for a VBAC, you have to read all of the stuff and know because people will come and tell you things. You really need to be able to come back and say, “Actually, the guidelines don't support that.” I think it helps too if you have real citations. Do you know what I mean? You can actually say, “There is a paper that is supportive of this or not supportive.” You have to be able to have that knowledge almost and feel really confident that you know it to have those discussions with people as well. Meagan: Yeah, having the evidence is– not only knowing the evidence but having the evidence. That was something​​ that was really important to Julie and I when we were writing the course was not only giving the evidence but sharing the citations for those. Yeah. I mean, going back to the scar thickness and this and that. You were like, “Listen, no and no. I'm not going to do either of these things,” and they really couldn't come in with the evidence. That was so clear that the evidence wasn't there. They just wanted to bully you into making the decision that they wanted you to make. Katie: Right. Meagan: So having that knowledge and of course, having the evidence in general, but having those actual sites within links on your phone or in a manual or whatever. Katie: Exactly yeah. Meagan: So then you can be like, “It says this right here. Do you see anything different? Do you have anything new and updated?” Katie: Right. 1:01:47 The Friedman CurveMeagan: So talking about new and updated within your story, one of the things you mentioned that you wanted to talk about was the outdated and poor quality research that was done by the Friedman curve that is still being used. Do you want to talk about that at all? Katie: Yeah. That was something I came to the conclusion when I read a lot of papers and in my first birth and in my documentation, the diagnosis was “prolonged labor and failure to progress”. I was like, “What does that even mean?” I couldn't really find a definition in the literature of what prolonged labor was and what I realized was that it's way more that there are economic reasons to speed up labor, not clinical reasons. That's why it was so important to me. I was like, “If I need to have my baby by C-section, I will proudly walk into that OR if there is a medical reason or a clinical reason, but not a bad management reason or not because it's just taking too long.” I just couldn't find anything really convincing and one of the big criticisms of the research that Friedman did was that it was only a very narrow population at one hospital in the 50s. In the 50s, everyone was getting twilight sleep and all of the babies were being pulled out with forceps. It really can't be applied to us as modern birthing women. Yeah, there's an idea of on average, women take so long, this 12-24 hours. That's about true, but there are corner cases like mine or if I remember correctly from your story. You were also in labor for a long time. Meagan: Mine too, yep. Katie: Just because you're in labor for a long time doesn't mean that it's bad. The question is how is Mom doing? Is she healthy? Is baby healthy? If the answer is yes and also if Mom is up to keep going, because I think there are a lot of stories on The VBAC Link Podcast too of women who decided, “I'm only going to labor for so long and if I'm not dilating, then I'm going to call it.” I also think that's great that some women make that judgment call of, “I really want a VBAC, but I just don't want to do it for days and days.” I had the opposite decision for myself where I was like, “I'm going to do this until my baby comes out unless there is a clear medical reason that we need a C-section.” Meagan: Right. Katie: Yeah, I think it's just important to know that there's actually not great research for what is normal and just because you are outside of normal doesn't mean it's bad or dangerous. Meagan: Yeah. I agree. We're going to provide the little bit of a risk factor in Germany specifically with the different locations and then Evidence-Based Birth who we love and adore, they actually have a blog on the Friedman's Curve. They talked about how in 2014– you guys, it's 2024 so 10 years ago– ACOG came together with the Society of Maternal-Fetal Medicine, so MFM, and they published new guidelines on labor progress. They said their new “normal” of labor is longer than the Friedman definition. There is more room for flexibility such as when an epidural is being used. In addition, new timelines were developed to define when labor progresses abnormally slowly. They are recognizing that sometimes labor does progress abnormally in their minds. That's abnormal to them. New terms were defined with purpose and they talk about how it's changed from 4 centimeters to 6 centimeters and things like that. I mean, this is a really wonderful blog. I'm going to drop it in here but I love how you talked about that. Just because it doesn't go as someone thinks it should go or the lack of really true evidence all around shows it should go doesn't mean it's bad. It doesn't mean something is wrong and it doesn't always mean you have to do something different. It just means you may need more time. 1:06:16 Trusting your intuitionMeagan: Now, you may want to do something different. You may feel you need to do something different like transfer to the hospital. These are things where we have to tune into that intuition and think, “Okay, what is my body telling me? What am I supposed to be doing?” But long labor, you guys, kind of sucks sometimes to have to keep going and keep going but at the same time, it's so amazing that your body can do that and is doing that. We have to trust that. We have to trust that process and trust our intuition. Katie: Yeah, and I have to say my first labor was 48 hours and I had the C-section. It's a trauma and this one was 45 hours and it was super intense the entire time basically for at least 38 hours of it I would say, but I can barely remember it or even connect to it anymore because I was just so happy to have the VBAC. I always had this attitude that it's just a day for me or a few days that it's going to be tough, but it's going to be so great afterward and that's really the attitude that I had. For me, that's been true. Postpartum is always hard, but I have so much more resilience this time and I really had that attitude that “I can do it. I can do hard things,” and I can. Meagan: You can. Yes. I love that you pointed that out. Yeah, it's a few days but it's a few days that led to this cute little baby that's joining us today on the podcast. Well, we will make sure to have the links for those two blogs that we mentioned and the study. I just want to say congratulations. Amazing job. Katie: Thank you. Meagan: Really good job of advocating for yourself. To the point of having a doula, even when those doulas aren't speaking out loud for you, they have this space that they hold that makes you feel like you can and then they support you and rally behind you. I love that you mentioned that because I mean, even with myself with my own birth as a doula at that point, having doulas, I truly felt like that, like I was able to have the extra voice that I wanted to speak. It came out so I'm so happy that you had your doula and I'm so happy for you and congratulations again. 1:08:56 Doula supportKatie: I just wanted to mention too with my doula if she ever hears this, she was with us for 38 hours and just– Meagan: Oof, so long. Katie: We had a contract. There was an exchange of money, but at the same time, I would have understood if she had said, “I've been away from my own children for so long. I need to go check on them.” She really stayed with us and helped us that entire time. It has just been the biggest gift that somebody would set aside their own needs to make this difference in our family. I don't know– I wasn't very good at expressing that to her. I feel like in the moment, I didn't have the words for it, but I hope if there are any other doulas listening, the work that you are doing makes such a huge difference. Meagan: I love that. Thank you for sharing. Katie: I also wanted to say thanks to everyone who has ever shared a story about actually having a uterine rupture because listening to those stories, they all always mentioned that they felt that something wasn't right and having heard those stories really gave me the confidence to say, “Things aren't right. I need to get my baby out.” I know it's scary, but if anyone is planning a VBAC, I think it's important to also hear those stories as well because it really empowered me to get the help that I thought I needed and to stand up and advocate for that. Meagan: Yeah, I love that you touched on that because those stories, even with repeat C-section stories, are really hard to listen to or allow in your space when that's not what you are wanting, but a lot of those times, if you can find the space to join in on those episodes, they really do bring a lot of education as well. I think if it does end in a C-section or something like this, it can also bring some validation and healing weirdly enough by knowing these episodes. Katie: Yeah, I agree. Meagan: Yeah.ClosingWould you like to be a guest on the podcast? Tell us about your experience at thevbaclink.com/share. For more information on all things VBAC including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Meagan's bio, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.Our Sponsors:* Check out Dr. Mom Butt Balm: drmombuttbalm.comSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-vbac-link/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Ann Bracken has published three poetry collections, The Altar of Innocence, No Barking in the Hallways: Poems from the Classroom, Once You're Inside: Poetry Exploring Incarceration, and a memoir entitled Crash: A Memoir of Overmedication and Recovery (Charing Cross Press, 2022). She serves as a contributing editor for Little Patuxent Review and co-facilitates the Wilde Readings Poetry Series in Columbia, Maryland, and she's a frequent contributor to Mad in America's family section. She volunteers as a correspondent for the Justice Arts Coalition, exchanging letters with incarcerated people to foster their use of the arts. Her poetry, essays, and interviews have appeared in numerous anthologies and journals, her work has been featured on Best American Poetry, and she's been a guest on Grace Cavalieri's The Poet and The Poem radio show. Her advocacy work promotes using the arts to foster paradigm change in the areas of emotional wellness, education, and prison abolition. This interview focuses on Once You're Inside as well as Crash: A Memoir of Overmedication and Recovery. Crash is the story of Helen Dempsey and her daughter Ann who both fall victim to the same regimen of overmedication at the hands of the mental health system. Helen struggles with intractable depression and initially turns to self-medication with alcohol, but finds herself unable to recover despite numerous drugs, hospitalizations, and electroconvulsive therapy. Ann vows to build a different life for herself, but eventually descends into the pain of a mysterious migraine and intractable darkness lasting for many years. She was severely overmedicated with opioids and psychiatric drugs and then Methadone, DHE-45 injections, Migrant nasal spray (for headaches) and injecribele Demerol (for really bad days) once she was off opiates. To keep her out of depression (maintenance), she was prescribed Wellbutrin, Elavil, Topamax, and Valium; Ann crashes her car twice. It took her 4 months of energy healing to discontinue the pain meds and two years later, about a year to get off of psych drugs. Because traditional medical treatments have failed her, she challenges her doctors' advice and discovers ways to heal the source of her physical and emotional pain without drugs. The question of why her mother never got well continues to haunt her long after her mother's death until she finds the missing puzzle pieces she'd searched for all her life stashed in a dusty box in her sister's attic. You can find more about Ann as well as her books and other writings here.  You can learn more about Megan Wildhood at meganwildhood.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Ann Bracken has published three poetry collections, The Altar of Innocence, No Barking in the Hallways: Poems from the Classroom, Once You're Inside: Poetry Exploring Incarceration, and a memoir entitled Crash: A Memoir of Overmedication and Recovery (Charing Cross Press, 2022). She serves as a contributing editor for Little Patuxent Review and co-facilitates the Wilde Readings Poetry Series in Columbia, Maryland, and she's a frequent contributor to Mad in America's family section. She volunteers as a correspondent for the Justice Arts Coalition, exchanging letters with incarcerated people to foster their use of the arts. Her poetry, essays, and interviews have appeared in numerous anthologies and journals, her work has been featured on Best American Poetry, and she's been a guest on Grace Cavalieri's The Poet and The Poem radio show. Her advocacy work promotes using the arts to foster paradigm change in the areas of emotional wellness, education, and prison abolition. This interview focuses on Once You're Inside as well as Crash: A Memoir of Overmedication and Recovery. Crash is the story of Helen Dempsey and her daughter Ann who both fall victim to the same regimen of overmedication at the hands of the mental health system. Helen struggles with intractable depression and initially turns to self-medication with alcohol, but finds herself unable to recover despite numerous drugs, hospitalizations, and electroconvulsive therapy. Ann vows to build a different life for herself, but eventually descends into the pain of a mysterious migraine and intractable darkness lasting for many years. She was severely overmedicated with opioids and psychiatric drugs and then Methadone, DHE-45 injections, Migrant nasal spray (for headaches) and injecribele Demerol (for really bad days) once she was off opiates. To keep her out of depression (maintenance), she was prescribed Wellbutrin, Elavil, Topamax, and Valium; Ann crashes her car twice. It took her 4 months of energy healing to discontinue the pain meds and two years later, about a year to get off of psych drugs. Because traditional medical treatments have failed her, she challenges her doctors' advice and discovers ways to heal the source of her physical and emotional pain without drugs. The question of why her mother never got well continues to haunt her long after her mother's death until she finds the missing puzzle pieces she'd searched for all her life stashed in a dusty box in her sister's attic. You can find more about Ann as well as her books and other writings here.  You can learn more about Megan Wildhood at meganwildhood.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/medicine

Ann Bracken has published three poetry collections, The Altar of Innocence, No Barking in the Hallways: Poems from the Classroom, Once You're Inside: Poetry Exploring Incarceration, and a memoir entitled Crash: A Memoir of Overmedication and Recovery (Charing Cross Press, 2022). She serves as a contributing editor for Little Patuxent Review and co-facilitates the Wilde Readings Poetry Series in Columbia, Maryland, and she's a frequent contributor to Mad in America's family section. She volunteers as a correspondent for the Justice Arts Coalition, exchanging letters with incarcerated people to foster their use of the arts. Her poetry, essays, and interviews have appeared in numerous anthologies and journals, her work has been featured on Best American Poetry, and she's been a guest on Grace Cavalieri's The Poet and The Poem radio show. Her advocacy work promotes using the arts to foster paradigm change in the areas of emotional wellness, education, and prison abolition. This interview focuses on Once You're Inside as well as Crash: A Memoir of Overmedication and Recovery. Crash is the story of Helen Dempsey and her daughter Ann who both fall victim to the same regimen of overmedication at the hands of the mental health system. Helen struggles with intractable depression and initially turns to self-medication with alcohol, but finds herself unable to recover despite numerous drugs, hospitalizations, and electroconvulsive therapy. Ann vows to build a different life for herself, but eventually descends into the pain of a mysterious migraine and intractable darkness lasting for many years. She was severely overmedicated with opioids and psychiatric drugs and then Methadone, DHE-45 injections, Migrant nasal spray (for headaches) and injecribele Demerol (for really bad days) once she was off opiates. To keep her out of depression (maintenance), she was prescribed Wellbutrin, Elavil, Topamax, and Valium; Ann crashes her car twice. It took her 4 months of energy healing to discontinue the pain meds and two years later, about a year to get off of psych drugs. Because traditional medical treatments have failed her, she challenges her doctors' advice and discovers ways to heal the source of her physical and emotional pain without drugs. The question of why her mother never got well continues to haunt her long after her mother's death until she finds the missing puzzle pieces she'd searched for all her life stashed in a dusty box in her sister's attic. You can find more about Ann as well as her books and other writings here.  You can learn more about Megan Wildhood at meganwildhood.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/poetry

Ann Bracken has published three poetry collections, The Altar of Innocence, No Barking in the Hallways: Poems from the Classroom, Once You're Inside: Poetry Exploring Incarceration, and a memoir entitled Crash: A Memoir of Overmedication and Recovery (Charing Cross Press, 2022). She serves as a contributing editor for Little Patuxent Review and co-facilitates the Wilde Readings Poetry Series in Columbia, Maryland, and she's a frequent contributor to Mad in America's family section. She volunteers as a correspondent for the Justice Arts Coalition, exchanging letters with incarcerated people to foster their use of the arts. Her poetry, essays, and interviews have appeared in numerous anthologies and journals, her work has been featured on Best American Poetry, and she's been a guest on Grace Cavalieri's The Poet and The Poem radio show. Her advocacy work promotes using the arts to foster paradigm change in the areas of emotional wellness, education, and prison abolition. This interview focuses on Once You're Inside as well as Crash: A Memoir of Overmedication and Recovery. Crash is the story of Helen Dempsey and her daughter Ann who both fall victim to the same regimen of overmedication at the hands of the mental health system. Helen struggles with intractable depression and initially turns to self-medication with alcohol, but finds herself unable to recover despite numerous drugs, hospitalizations, and electroconvulsive therapy. Ann vows to build a different life for herself, but eventually descends into the pain of a mysterious migraine and intractable darkness lasting for many years. She was severely overmedicated with opioids and psychiatric drugs and then Methadone, DHE-45 injections, Migrant nasal spray (for headaches) and injecribele Demerol (for really bad days) once she was off opiates. To keep her out of depression (maintenance), she was prescribed Wellbutrin, Elavil, Topamax, and Valium; Ann crashes her car twice. It took her 4 months of energy healing to discontinue the pain meds and two years later, about a year to get off of psych drugs. Because traditional medical treatments have failed her, she challenges her doctors' advice and discovers ways to heal the source of her physical and emotional pain without drugs. The question of why her mother never got well continues to haunt her long after her mother's death until she finds the missing puzzle pieces she'd searched for all her life stashed in a dusty box in her sister's attic. You can find more about Ann as well as her books and other writings here.  You can learn more about Megan Wildhood at meganwildhood.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/drugs-addiction-and-recovery

Elex Michaelson, joins the show from Beijing, China // Tim and Mark share back surgery stories // Mark T gets a Demerol shot and feels amazing // Paris Hilton Fires back at 'Sick' Criticism Over Her Infant Son's Head Size

He was a powerful, wealthy New York real estate attorney that seemed to have it all. But his addiction to Demerol and OxyContin would cost him his marriage, finances, and his legal career. He was disbarred and had nowhere to turn after his release from prison. Rather than let it bring him down, he began focusing on helping counsel drug addicts and white-collar criminals. Hear this amazing story of redemption and perseverance. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ryan-christopher-horn/support

Darren Prince, International Best Selling author of his memoir Aiming High, is a prominent sports and celebrity agent and global advocate for addiction/mental health recovery. Through his agency, Prince Marketing Group, he represents icons Magic Johnson, Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, Jerry West, Dominique Wilkins, Chevy Chase, Charlie Sheen, Denise Richards, Carmen Electra, and many others as well as having worked with the late Smokin' Joe Frazier, Muhammad Ali and Evel Knievel. As a leading authority in this space, Prince's insights have been featured in WSJ, NYT, USA Today, CNN, Fox and Friends, Chris Cuomo, Tucker Carlson, “On Purpose” podcast with Jay Shetty, Extra TV, Dr. OZ and many other top media outlets. Darren has experienced what life is like in the celebrity world but also seen the dark reality of addiction through his own personal struggle with opiates. With over 14 years of sobriety, it's now Darren's mission to help others avoid and break free from addiction and mental health struggles. He had a God awakening on July 2, 2008, and believes in a spiritual higher power and that anyone can turn their bottom into a new beginning. Connect with Darren here: https://officialdarrenprince.com/ Summary Introduction to today's episode. 0:42 How did you end up with addictions? 1:36 The turning point in his life. 6:39 It's better now than it was then. 12:24 Where's the drugs when the drugs wear off? 16:32 The miracle of calling out to god. 21:03 The power of choice. 25:09 Finding your purpose in life. 29:05 The importance of taking care of your health. 35:44 Getting a call from the White House. 39:01 Darren's message 45:22 Intro Guy 0:00 Your journey has been an interesting one up to hear you've questioned so much more than those around you. You've even questioned yourself as to how you could have grown into these thoughts. Am I crazy? When did I begin to think differently? Why do people in general appear so limited in this thought process? Rest assured, you are not alone. The world is slowly waking up to what you already know inside yet can't quite verbalize. Welcome to the spiritual dough podcast, the show that answers the question you never even knew to ask. But you the answers to questions about you this world the people in it most importantly, how do I proceed now moving forward? We don't even have all the answers but we sure do love living in the Question Time for another decade of spiritual dub with your host Brandon Handley. Let's get right into today's episode. Brandon Handley 0:42 One Hey there Spiritual Dope I'm on here today with Darren prince. He is an international best selling author of his best of his memoir. Aiming High is a prominent sports and celebrity agent and global advocate for Addiction and Mental Health Recovery. There was agency Prints marketing group who represents icons Magic Johnson, Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, Jerry, West, Dominique Wilkins, Chevy Chase, all these guys are greats. Right? And, you know, I didn't meet him getting autographs or anything like that. Darren, I met recently at an event with Brandon Novak and Novak house. And I think that's somebody that you're fairly close with, through addiction and recovery. So I said, You know what, I don't want to miss this opportunity to chat with somebody and share your story about all that you're doing. It's so great out there in the space. So Darren, Thanks for Thanks for coming on today. Darren Prince 1:36 Thanks for having me. Brandon Handley 1:38 Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, let's let's just kind of dive right into it. You know, you You're, you're well known you've done. You've worked with all these greats. But you've started like, with an addiction at a pretty young age, right? You started with an addiction at a pretty young age, and it caused a lot of havoc in your life. And now you've kind of translated that and transmute it into something good let's start at the beginning man like how did you end up with with some addictions Darren Prince 2:09 I you know, I grew up you would have thought just a normal childhood which I'd say for the most part i i had great loving mother and father and sister but I was always verbally to use for things so called Special Ed and small classrooms and back then, which probably more add whatever I was interested in, I gravitated to them most of the stuff I didn't. And I think just that did a number of my psyche and my self confidence, my self esteem. So at 14 When I was in sleepaway camp, and I had terrible stomach pains one night, the nurse gave me the scream liquid and having no idea what it was for the pain I took it and walking back to the bunk within a minute I felt like Superman like all those feelings of inadequacies and low self worth and self esteem. I knew I felt just as good as everybody else just as popular just as smart and went to bed then I think nothing of it. But I did all the activities that camp that next day, and I remember just lying in the bunk bed next night obsessing on that feeling and I wanted more of and I did that for a couple of weeks until mom and dad came up with visitation day and found that I was taking liquid Demerol. Yeah, I don't know what is Demerol and emeralds in OBS general problem most likely something that gives you a hospital like more but heavier opiate and back then the opiate epidemic wasn't anywhere near but you know, it was today. And you know, I had a way about me to assist innocent kid that was just in a lot of pain. And you know, she was probably just trying to come a relief every night or I was getting his bed stomach cramps and just, you know, played it to the hill just like I did when I had my wisdom teeth removed a few months later and my mom gave me these white pills that were called extra sent by cannons and that same feeling came back and you know, when I saw the bottle had two pills left I put on the crocodile tears fry it and said I've got to go back to the dentist have a bad infection. I know it's something's wrong and you know, panicked as a loving mother took me back and gave her another dozen bills, whatever it was. Brandon Handley 4:15 Yeah, it's crazy. It's crazy to us and it's such a young age. Right. And those are like those are some that was your thing, right? Like kind of like Demerol and opiates and Darren Prince 4:27 cocaine, ecstasy, you name it. Sure. And I he became an age and opiates were the ones that taught me up and it took me straight to the bottom. Brandon Handley 4:37 Sure, sure. Let's let's walk our way into the agents. Phase two. Right. So here you are. Age 14, you're kind of you're already like, you know, a script chaser. Right. But you've also got some cool things going on. You may mention that you're you were in like these quote unquote special ed classes. You know, you need a little bit extra attention to get through teaching you how to chip on your shoulder. But that actually led you on to something kind of cool. Right? Talk a little bit about that. Darren Prince 5:06 Yeah. So I started a mail order baseball card company long before the internet boom, and became nationally recognized, doing trade shows all over the country. First person, I think in the state of New Jersey, I have a cell phone, it was called Bell Atlantic, it was in a big leather carrying case with a battery pack, the phone cost me about $3,500. That's how tough we were to get about $3 a minute to use the phone. And the dumb idiot that wasn't going to go anywhere in between class was going into his locker room dealing with stockbrokers and a bunch of guys from ESPN. Were buying from me some of the big commentators that were big collectors and I would just broker deals of it. I had an incredible network database of dealers around the country, I was advertising because trade shows I would go to the best convention to get the best location. So I was spending 1000s a week on advertising myself, I became a very well known figure in the baseball card hobby and the boom of the 80s. So for any collectors that are listening now, it actually started in the 80s, which is why there's an industry there is today and by Tom, I'm 16 years old man, I'm probably making a quarter of $1,300,000 Ask us globally mean anything to me, you know, I came home from school. And it was about, you know, the hustle of laying out my ads for the next week and filling orders and hiring. You know, some of the so called friends that were were calling me, idiot and dumb. They were now calling me boss at 16 and 17 years old. And you know, and then from there, eventually I sold that company in 19. I dropped out of college, my freshman year of Bridgeport and went full steam ahead into the memorabilia business. So it's booking autograph signings from Muhammad Ali magic chevy chase to Frazier. Pamela Anderson. And by the time I was 24, built, built that business had some legal issues. And it was kind of at this turning point in my life where first time I ever had some financial difficulties and magics dip on my side and said, Hey, I know about making mistakes he had he was coming up with his HIV announcement, the anniversary of that was November 7 on Monday. And what do you want to do now? And because of my dad giving me the inspiration of explaining that to you know, like, not what you know, we work with the most iconic people in the world. You know, go speak to magic, you supported you and first client for my agency. Brandon Handley 7:33 That's pretty that's pretty awesome. I love that. Well, give me a moment here. Like how did we translate from, you know, in first of all, like, I'll just in my mind, I'm thinking like, mail order catalog. I thought you were just I thought you were just going in and setting up setting up the tables doing the shows you were. Darren Prince 7:51 Yeah, but we had a big Yeah, I have people taking orders. We're going on clothing and buy the stuff on the weekend, sell it during the week and knew exactly what I needed to find on a weekend to follow orders, mark it up and make a profit and get it out next week. Brandon Handley 8:05 That's awesome. And you were making what you're making? This is a what is the 80s? Is that right? Like mid 86. So I mean, I'm just gonna I told my son right now he's 10. And he's already feels like he's done with school. And I told him like, you know, when he makes his first million, feel free to drop out, right? Like, you know, go ahead. So, so you go from you go from this card business bit, and it's working out really well for you, you sell it how do you make the translation over into, you know, signatures like what? Darren Prince 8:34 What happened, and it's funny because one of my agents here Matilda was telling her the story older I think the sexiness and the coolness of being around like some of the biggest stars that were doing these autograph signings at conventions, it drew me to it. And, you know, again, that insecurity brokenness, like no cards are cool and making money but the cards, and I kind of just more or less went into the autograph signing thing, because I was like, wow, I've an opportunity to book my first autograph signing with Muhammad Ali, the most recognized human being on Earth. And, you know, for somebody with low self esteem and you know, was always high and to be around that environment. It was just unbelievable. And then I just think my appetite grew. From there it was same sort of thing. Well, autograph signings are kind of cool and hanging out with them but I won't be this autograph fucker for shinies I want to do big things. I want to do endorsements commercials, you know, when that's how that evolved. Brandon Handley 9:28 You wanted to level up and this whole time you know, you're you're you're popping pills, right? You're you're doing whatever. Darren Prince 9:35 You're on the autograph signing era, which the company was called prints of cards. That was the same name as the the big card company. You always partying whatever it was you name it, I did it. But when I became an agent, I learned real fast with magic when a morality clauses when the lawyers put together an agreement I was like, Alright, I gotta play this straight. Sciatica had anxiety and hey, like any good drug out If you junkie, I played it to the hell, you know how easy it was to get any script that I needed when I'd get them on the phone with Joe Frazier or bring him a Magic Johnson signed jersey or go like this guy's got it all together and a lot of pain, go get an MRI, go get an x ray, let's see how we can fix you. Let's do medication management. And for the first five, six years, man of my ancient life, you know, it worked really did. I became a rock star with networking. But I also say like this, like what was once living to us turned out to using to live. Yeah, and I just don't know when it turned. And I do remember that night I lost my superpower. So I remember when the oxycottons didn't work at an example, Joe Frazier in Dallas, Texas, and probably for a good six or seven years. I was trying to chase that high after that. Yeah. Brandon Handley 10:52 And you talk a little bit about this insecurity and brokenness, right. Like where do you feel like that stemmed from a little bit that was encouraging. Darren Prince 11:00 Like, I can't blame my mom and dad for it. And my mom and I came from a family with a lot of love. You know, my dad had tough love bugs. That was my biggest supporter. My mom gave me way too much. I think some people could understand that because that cause anxiety, it'll leave the house and I'll be around them all the time. And you know, those two were on there's too much and she was she overwhelming. With love were a kind of, you know, like I said, causing excess amount of anxiety with the over coddling knowing that I was special ed and need special attention. And I think it just can be very uncomfortable and how to deal with life. If I was in, you know, attached to her at home with her and my dad, and we get homesick a lot if I'd sleep over at friend's houses or birthday parties or weekend getaways. I remember it just a horrible feeling in my stomach just not being comfortable being away from mom and dad. And you know, you take all that into the real world with the verbal teasing and you don't speak up about those words a dumb an idiot I think using the word that begins with our from mentally challenged, I heard all these things. And when you absorb that, and those developmental years, guess what, you start believing it especially now put it out. And I didn't have the courage to speak up. Brandon Handley 12:14 Yeah, and the 80s You know, I grew up in a suit. Like they weren't kind. They were not. They like yeah, now I think so it's, you know, gratefully for my children a lot. It's better, right as different than than what it was then. But there was there was very few teachers really stopping that from happening to right. Oh, hell, it could be the teachers. Darren Prince 12:37 Back then, like I had a teacher. I won't mention her name, which she's not even alive anymore. US history. 60 kids in the class. I remember like yesterday, and you know, it's a level of psychological trauma, nothing that you know, it's something I've been healed from but you remember it. And she bought the first 90% of the class their test. And I'm in the bath with for six kids. My friend John Angelo gave squirrel joy. I'll never forget my crew, Carmen. And we called ourselves the our only group. People can figure out what word I mean. joking around about it. But again, I'm actually taking this in Stoke, right? Handed everybody else their tests. She's shouts in front of the entire class, I'll get to you guys in the back row with your test in a minute. Let me just take care of everybody else first. And even the tone was speaking to us in a way that we're less than we're not as smart or not as good. And you remember that? Yeah. Here we are. 40 something hours later, and I'll never forget it. Brandon Handley 13:43 For sure. So when you're when you're, you know, drugging when your pill pop and when you're drinking. You're trying to forget that piece of who you are. Darren Prince 13:54 I'm trying to forget that piece of who you are. But I'm also there's a great revelation on Jay Shetty. He's a dear friend of mine. I was at his place on Sunday that I made it to the top. But I'm looking backwards at all the people that said I wasn't going to make it. Usually when you get to the top or somebody to fake top there's a lot of smoke and mirrors still it I didn't feel worthy of being at the top of the industry around the biggest stars in the world. And so my thing was always look backwards. Look at me look at the dumb ugly one to one no doubt that I'm Swanee one that wasn't going to make it look, I mean, I look at it, you know, and it was that way when I was 16. I remember when I would just go to bed at night laughing because my dad was like, you're making more money than most of your friends fathers that are that are lawyers that have real crown like the bed like, you know, celebrating this and Brandon Handley 14:53 what kid wouldn't right at that age for sure. That makes sense. Darren Prince 14:57 And that was all that deep rooted. insecurity that that verbal teasing and just that feeling of less than and, you know, my mom thought it was funny sometimes when she would hear me on the phone like buy and sell this person backwards and forwards and she thought it was hilarious, but it came from a deep place of insecurity and resentment. And I was like, How funny is that this guy is going to go to college mom for the next four years paying off loans for the next 10 years when he gets out, and already have more millions put away and she'd be like, I'm so proud. It wasn't like a corrective thing. I was just, you know, so I think all of that though, when I looked back, it was just such a deep level of brokenness and inadequacy that I just always had approved. And then now here I am at the top of the industry with magic and you know, Ali and Frazier and you know, Pam, Pamela Anderson and Chevy Chase and smokin Joe Frazier. So it's a recipe for disaster, man, you know, and the luck started coming. And I started developing and working out and the girls start comping left and right. I'm just frickin doing whatever the heck I gotta frickin do to uphold this image that my entire class is like, holy shit. Darren prince made it bigger than every single one of us is this world famous agent that's on the sideline of the Superbowl and, you know, backstage passes and walk in the red carpet at the MTV VMAs and all these big award shows, and I just ate it all up. I thought that's what what my calling was meant to be. And, you know, I need I needed a lot of driving force. I needed the expensive sports cars to be driving an Acura NSX, souped up at 21 years old that cost me $200,000 First person to buy a house and you know, the jewelry and the diamond Rolex is and now I look now and this is me. I could go on buy a new Rolex tomorrow. It's not what makes me happy. Brandon Handley 17:00 Sure. For sure. Sure. Well, let's get there. Right, like so where where's the drugs wear off? Right? You realize you'd lost your superpowers on one night, right? You go to pop the oxys and they're not doing what you need them to be doing? What happens then you panic. I mean, what where's it all got panicked. Darren Prince 17:21 I went down to this corporate event in the conference room this ballroom and I couldn't figure out for the life of me what was going on. And the next day the same thing happened and I'm in Florida by myself two days later, and I found a different way to ingest it. That gave me a little bit of a buds I started snorting my oxys my Percocet and my bike and it's, you know, I kind of mostly live that way. For another four or five years had an overdose and Las Vegas came back after that overdose finally in New Jersey, and called an addiction psychiatrist told me I was an opiate addict put me on Suboxone, but never go to a therapist and lie to him like I did because he didn't hit a nail. I was taking Xanax and Valium and mood stabilizers and antidepressants and anxiety. Every anxiety pill that I can get my hands on and snorting Ambien the frog went to bed at night and still drinking a couple of days a week and Mike Mike died awakening came on July 1 As you heard that I yeah, my Uncle Steve made the rest in peace in his own girlfriend Andrea. I was just sick and tired of being sick and tired at the jumping off point. My ego was too big. I'm too important to go to rehab I can't lock myself up for 30 days and she just came into my condo at the time I never met her and it was a godsend. She's like, I've never met you but are you okay? And I told her I told her everything I never had such an honest conversation but the human in my life and I just felt drawn to her. And she looked at me and said devalue an advocate below so manage by see that she could be related to you are powerless and said yes. And she because all this started looking at all the photos on the walls with all the celebrities and awards and different things that I've gotten because none of this means anything because you don't mean anything to yourself. Do you realize that the disease of addiction does not discriminate it doesn't matter for from Park Avenue or park bench or if you've gone to Yale or jail and that broke my soul. And here I am the so called Big Time super agent broke down and cried and she goes it's okay on each because I just celebrated five years sober last week. pulls out a five year coin at her pocket. And she goes Do you want to get sober he wanted to anything that takes us at anything she because you have to put this before everything in your life and occur what it is if you lose the business, you don't want to lose your life but you can do this and I can show you the SOP period so right and was beautiful life. And yeah, she put me on a 36 hour detox plan and that next night was seven o'clock on a Sunday night July 2 I came back from the gym I was living at the Caroline building. I was married man and I came back from the gym. It's my third workout at the gym clinic do everything I can to get the dopamine going and the endorphins and came up I called them I said I can't frickin do this. I'm going to call the doctor I gotta get whatever we got to get my ankle struck Yellin on the other end and said, It's the goddamn disease talking of time, kick the crap out of it. You've been doing this since you were 14 years old. He was in recovery as well. He was back in recovery. He struggled for years until he passed and I said I can't frickin do this because you have to get yourself to a damn meeting, put your hands up and tell these people who are sick and suffering you need help and I hung up the phone ran in the bathroom, I shut the door I'm going from medicine cab and looking for Klonopin or some other non narcotic anxiety meds, take the craving away and out came to Vikings. I don't want to pull bottles, which was just shocking because Simona and on my axe, we spent hours going through other medicine cabinets two days before mine 36 hours before when Andrea said you got to get them all out of the house. You know, I'm weaning them off Suboxone. And I thought it was the gap that that is exactly what I need a man that bloods that God moment in that split second just when I needed. And the miracle happened because I thought on my knees for the first time in my life. I never called up to God like this before. And I've never done it since I pray every single night to him now. And I said God, take the money, take the notoriety of the business, I don't care, I need a single day of freedom to feel like little Darren when I was a young kid again, I'll do whatever it takes. If you take me out of hell. I will spend one day at a time the rest of my life using my platform take another jet with the exact words that I said. And it was like a lightning bolt. Because their shoulder was literally felt like somebody had a blowtorch on it. And I heard in this year as a voice. Say I'd got you and you're ready. And I stood up. And this hand opens and I flushed the opiates left in the living room on to computer there's no Uber back then. And I searched 12 step meetings near me and I found a church. So little ways away in the upper 80s Because it was late at night on Sunday had had an 8pm meeting and jumped right in a taxi cab and I looked up on this gorgeous summer, July 2 2008. I said to myself, Oh my God, for the first time of my life, I wanted to stay sober. More than 100 Get Hired What the heck just happened and I walked into a church basement 150 to 200 addicts, alcoholics that were at once to a hopeless state of mind and later send anybody new coming back sick and suffering or struggling and Sam went right up. And I know, he lifted it. And I came playing in front of a roomful of strangers. And it just came out. I said, I'm sick, I'm suffering. I'm suicide. Amazing life. And I didn't know why I'm doing this myself. But I need you guys help. And, you know, in that moment, I had to get to desperation. And I was crying out to get the power of choice back in my life and these people but it doesn't spiritual brothers and sisters, right after I said that, which was so key, came over to me and started kind of talking to me intimately in a soft tone voice not to disrupt the meeting. And they said, You're in the right place. We've been where you've been. Keep coming. You know, if you aren't what we have, do what we do. Take the car out of yours, put it in her mouth. We will love you before you ever learn how to love yourself. And then the one that was just magical, they said, keep coming to AAA. And don't worry about if you get it, because if you keep showing up. It's gonna get you nice. And that was that I felt in that room during that hour man. A connection that I never felt in my life. Ever Brandon, it was just I've heard things like I do that. Oh my God, that's my oh my god. And it was like, it was like just to add a body experience where no therapist, no drug. I literally felt it was almost like the dark side of me clearing out of my body. Yeah, immersed and obsessed with me and nothing can be for my in person meetings. I did the 99 date. I eventually got my sponsor Steve Delaval who just celebrated 35 years. You know, and once I hit that, probably six month mark because, you know, you're doing pretty good. He goes, I just got to tell you. You want to keep this gift, right? I said yeah, he goes over doing stuff. We're gonna wrap up the steps probably by the end of the first year. I'm not rushing, you throw it because your drug addiction wants to rush, your substitute, Rush. But once we get there, you want to keep this gift that I'm giving you. You better be prepared to give it away. I'd others. And once I started doing that, after that one year more hope and recovery began to heal on the Cleon. Brandon Handley 25:09 I love this and like, I think that, you know, if I looked at this through, you know, part parts of this to just general spirituality, you that part where you, you flushed down the pills, right? You opened yourself up to receive, you know, the higher power, right? You let it come and through and through you, you surrendered, like, you're like I can't do like, I'm not doing this life anymore. And you recognize this like power of choice, I love that you bring up the power of choice, you realize that? Maybe you that had been taken away from you for a moment, were because of your addiction. Right? So being able to say like, I want that back in my life. Yeah. Tell me a little bit about your what? You know, for somebody that's not familiar with step work. Tell me Tell tell the group a little bit about it. Because I think that one part of it, and I'm not a stepper there. And so I just happen to be familiar with the space. And I've gone through the steps without doing the steps, right. So it's really cool to see, like, oh, wow, what I did is in alignment with this thing. So tell the audience a little bit about it. If they're not familiar, Darren Prince 26:30 you have the 12 steps. I actually emailed my girlfriend, Nicolette them a couple of weeks ago. She's young and like anyone at any age, really, but especially young is working on our own clearing and healing and stuff. And my whole point to her was everybody can use these every single day. Yeah, alcohol is only mentioned in the first step for a reason to reason over 212 Step organizations around the globe with an adapted from a built up even talked about created on June 10, in 1935. You know, it's about meeting a powerless, that life has become unmanageable, whatever error that might be. It's about kind of coming to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore you to sanity. It's about taking your own personal inventory. It's about making amends to the people that you've harmed along the way. But also in a way that you don't farm them or others, it's about continuously taking your personal inventory. And when you're wrong, promptly admitted, no matter what area of recovery, you might be in or healing. You have to be vigilant every single day. And then, you know, it's about maintaining that constant contact and whatever that area of recovery or healing that you've attained and achieved giving it somebody else. Yeah. That is the magic. That's what has given me the self esteem. Yeah, that adult due respect I love them to death their dear family friends at this point, magical Ric Flair. Charlie Sheen, Chevy Chase criminal electorate, that young, beautiful people, they never gave it to me. I got it from my spiritual brothers and sisters. And I get it every time I give this away to somebody because I have a God given gift. And I've kept my word. Anybody that works with me sees it. There's not a single day that goes by I still might not get to in person meetings as much as I used to. I'm doing that more I'm still doing zoom meetings, but there's not a single day that I'm not doing something connect with somebody in recovery. You know, I'm on the board of Banyan treatment centers I do whatever I can to scholarship people there. I've gotten people to oaks recover. I've gotten people to know facts house using funds that I've raised from my aiming high foundation, but the greatest thing in the world because I'm not just giving them an opportunity to get a new life I'm helping every single human in their life. The benefit of this person getting their life back. And it's the greatest feeling in the world. I could lose all the money tomorrow and lose the business tomorrow. We don't live in this beautiful place in Brentwood, but I found me found me and the heartbreaking part about all that I've ever lost like I said, it's everybody that's so near and dear to me that I do what I can to take care of and make their lives better financially. I might not have that but Darren Prince could have be all good. I mean, you're gonna speak and at the same Darren friends that was paying found his purpose. Right Brandon Handley 29:33 now. I love that and kind of what you're talking about. There's your, your scene like that image where, you know, one one match strikes and lights and other right. That's what you're doing is helping others to light themselves up and see kind of the truth of who they are the power, the connection that they've got. Darren Prince 29:53 But that when that just one gets finished. I've had so many that have been just mine Long when I see the lights come on in somebody's eyes. Yeah. Brandon Handley 30:08 I mean, that's, that's me. That's when you realize kind of what your purpose is right? Darren Prince 30:11 Obviously with my dear friend Jen Cohen last night just a huge podcast habits and hustle one of the top 10 Business podcasts in the world. There's Mark Cuban, I just know, helped her out. She got him and she said Gary Vee and Eric Thomas and she did a podcast that was out in the Middle East. These guys reached out to Scott Bo Hopkins, for me and her oddly, we had no idea I went to first she went the second I had the entire crew, including the whole, in tears multiple times to the interview, because he had something similar not to drugs in the alcohol, but he understood the brokenness, he understood the looking back, Spencer, the host, and she goes, You have no idea when I got there. I was like, why am I here? While they're talking about is Darren's don't like he had every single one of us in tears. Like, he took us to a different level of accountability and recognizing either flaws or what we've been through, because I think that's what God wants, wants me to do. You know, I'm not afraid to tell people at all mistakes I've made and continue to make, and my character flaws and my character defects because it's a free feeling. Yeah, liberation for 99% of this world. I think it's smoke and mirrors, and everybody's got something out there trying to cover up. You know, me my background Brandon Handley 31:33 right here. I'm trying to cover up my background right now. Darren Prince 31:39 I'm like, Man, I don't know if you put on a little bit of weight to try to buy, just to just to be able to have that for the first time of my life and this type of being made and said, I stomach. I'm not perfect, better quality mistakes lashed out. And this mouth can get me in trouble or texting or emailing. But I'm way better than I've ever been. I tell people try to say what you mean mean what you say don't say we try to scam people, instead of you being understood. I think in the heat of an argument for anybody listening, and you're about to open up your big fat mouth. Don't engage. And it's better to feel alright. And right. If you're 100%, right. The strength is keeping your mouth shut. Don't send that text don't send that email. Because in five or 10 minutes, whatever you're about to explode about forgotten like that. And that's how you build your spiritual relevancy built discipline that to yell at change of character defects to staying in alignment to manifest to your higher self. And I've gotten so good at that again, not perfect. Yeah. But filthy her will hurt me with my mom a handful of times. It's not easy. Sure. My girlfriend, I'll tell you but I am so much better than I've ever been. I'm aware of it. I'm vigilant. I have to weigh out. Take a deep breath. Which is why I'm looking forward to working with you. Be fun battered i Yeah, it could be Brett. Is this worth it was also in recovery. We say we're not doormats. Occasionally. My sponsor stabbed a laptop, my it things have to come out a certain way. Get out. But y'all know if you're right and wrong when you're in recovery. If you have that emotional hangover, there has been times I've had to put people in their place. I'll hang up the phone, go on with my day, not even think twice about it. Sure. Oh, my gosh, I know that it was something that had to be done. So people can understand the way I expect things to be done. Brandon Handley 33:43 For sure. Right. Yeah. I mean, I like that. Not being a doormat part, I think, um, could you help, maybe see, to be of service but not a servant. Right? Because I think a lot of us, especially when we find that we want to be of service, right and go out there. We contend to let ourselves be taken advantage of but again, become more of a servant than off service. Explain a little bit of that, that difference there. Darren Prince 34:11 I think there's a huge difference when I say you got to become selfish, to be selfless. And the truth is, again, we're all trying to better ourselves. We're trying to feel better about ourselves, not externally, internally. So if you allow yourself to not be of service, but be assertive, and you're still not in a place to live in your higher self, you're you're a yes person and you're being told what to do. You're not living the life that you want to live, you're not standing your ground and you know, living the purpose for life, and you have to speak up. You know, sometimes people say, Oh, I'm not motivated by fear. Now that fear is a great motivator. And if you're in a place where uncomfortable, speak up, because the more you express yourself, that's where the growth comes in. But if you allow help people to keep shitting on you and mistreating you, if it's your girlfriend, boyfriend, husband, wife, sister, co worker, what's not gonna do, you're gonna frickin go home and just feel like crap, that's gonna just blow out your self esteem. You know, if the situation's not right, or Hodgson, I'll sit down and talk about it, go to therapy, do whatever you got to do, don't turn a blind eye to it. If you're in a relationship, same thing, if there's a co worker, that that you're not getting along with that, that's just bringing out that bad energy every time you see them, to pull them aside and say something, you know, it's Life's too short. People don't realize at any age, that history teacher that I had, it can happen in your 30s, in your 40s, or 50s. And it's a lot harder to get rid of when you get older. You know, our lives get so busy and so crazy that if you if you take it in, and you don't do something about it, at our age is man, health issues, mental health issues, physical, emotional, spiritual, not worth it. Brandon Handley 36:05 You're all torn up, we're all torn up. This time you say you listen, so you wrote a book called aiming high, you put you put a lot of this information in there. And you've also taken that book and the AMI high notion and you've created a foundation out of that, you want to share a little bit about that, you know, again, kind of going from, you know, this, this center into St. You're, and you know, for those of you that don't know to step 12, is what we taught what you brought up right, Darren Prince 36:34 giving it a spiritual awakening as a result of the six steps. Yeah, we've tried to carry this message to other alcoholics and people that are sick and suffering to practice and all their principles all their affairs. Brandon Handley 36:45 Sure. And so you're doing this now, in part through your aiming high foundation, you will share a little bit about what that group does Darren Prince 36:55 for the foundation combat when I wrote my book in October of 2018, aiming high, which Anna David was my publisher, Chris McGinnis, my brilliant writer, I gotta give her all the glory, even though she gives it to me. She's the one that wrote the masterpiece, within a week and a half became an international bestseller in England, Canada, Australia, and the US. And, you know, we got like the Amazon award and all these great accolades that came from it. But number it was ego driven. I mean, I just knew this was God. You know, given my purpose, and my dad passed you earlier, I told him my in the hospital, I was blessed that he added me back for eight and a half years sober. And I said, if I'm going to touch the world, I'm like this experience of what I had to deal with the past 32 days. And of course, it was 32 days, the last step after we went into the hospital, and our algorithm was Magic Johnson shirts, a number from the Lakers, and so urban like one by Israel, and I thought that was beautiful. And I just looked at him and I was like, you know, I never felt so comfortable during the most uncomfortable time in my life. Like, above up there with Joe and Muhammad, grandma, grandpa, Uncle Joe uncle, and I see you're gonna look down as the daddy, I'm going to touch the world. Not only with this experience, but with this gift, because I need people to understand that you can get food the roughest times in life and not have to drink not after drug not after. And it just took my spirituality to a whole nother level, for sure. And to be able to hold his hand say goodbye. And just He's crazy. I call them GMCs my friend Bruce are that passed away was so near and dear to me, my spiritual brother, couple of years ago used to call them GMCs got managed coincidences. But then two weeks, I got a call that I was going to be honored at New Jersey's largest drug and alcohol rehab center. I invested a ton of money and time into being a professional speaker. I knew this was just going to be a big moment. Not just for me, but to really carry the message to the general public and try to help people and then I went so fantastic. literally the next day to rehab got a call because the extreme that on Facebook from Dr. Oz's executive producer that they want on Dr. Oz The next day was Charles Schwab area when city went on Dr. Oz talked about recovery with Darryl and do an incredible job themselves. And literally right after Dr. Oz I got a call from Roanoke. Perhaps it was Donald Trump's executive assistant forever I think she's still got them Donald Trump is a dear friend from Celebrity Apprentice from having Dennis Rodman on their brand new Roderick a bunch of clients. I did a bunch of work with them. I got to see a different side zone because it was a sweetheart loyal always do an ad to the rehab center gal is that and they want to me at the White House. Wow. Frickin things for him to sign this $8 billion opiate epidemic Bill, you know, to start talking to teens around the country and I'd say you know, this is unbelievable. And then my dad always wants me to write a book Brandon and I just I didn't Feel comfortable writing about the HMI. I always take a lot of my stories out there between me and my my loved ones that I foster my clients myself and I met Anna David on Instagram one day, a few months after that. And I guess she saw something about, you know, a hashtag recovery and the White House and opiate epidemic. And somehow we linked up and I saw her that December of 2017, which was probably about eight or nine months after my dad passed and talking or just checking in with you, because your story is unbelievable, because you know, I'm in recovery. I was like, I had no idea. Because I've been in recovery, I read a couple of best selling books, I think it's time you write one. Because I have the angle. I know you said your dad always wants to do right when she goes take people on a fly on the wall journey of what it's like to be the agents most iconic stars of all time, like you went deep into health care side. And we looked at each other with tears. I said, That's it. That's powerful. That's hot. And so anyway, when the book came out, and I did so many speaking engagements, and I noticed that there was opportunities, very limited. And that short window of people that actually had such a deep connection with there was high school kids Did someone come over to me put their hands up during the q&a, where I knew I had an opportunity right then and there to help. There was adult audience, Gallows corporations, where people were just, they had that moment of clarity. And I'm like, I need to start a foundation. And because if I can grab somebody, and their lights come on in that moment, and they can afford it, and I could say, I could help you, right? Go home, pack your bag of a car company get you, it's gonna take you treatment center tonight, to check your work to get the life you deserve. And that's how even high Foundation came about. Brandon Handley 41:52 That's awesome. That's awesome. So I mean, you you you've gone from, you know, this kind of this broken, scared person, even though you had massive success came crumbling all down. And now you know, you've rebuilt yourself. And I always always look at spirituality is you recognize the truth of who you are personally, right? Like, I mean, you see the core of who you are. And you're looking now to help others to find that in themselves through AAA and through your foundation through the work. Darren Prince 42:23 And my friend Jen and I were laughing last night, I would say I didn't, I didn't get sober writing, you hide and make money. I didn't do it to build my brand, which I think just by default, you know, business is better than ever. I am a consultant with Ben and I help people, you know, get a, you know, get in there when I can't afford it. i I'm part of a it's an incredible group now bridge therapeutics that has this revolutionary 100 time better suboxone that hits the system, and 10 seconds when suboxone when I was on, it took 15 minutes. And I'm a voice for them. And I know it's gonna, you know, get people off methadone. And like, all these blessings that I've been a part of, because, you know, I've had that I've had the foundation in my business. But, you know, like Jay Shetty, and I was talking about now I had no idea that a byproduct was just the agency life. God knew all along the values ready. You know, Hong Kong, and he says an expression, he came into testimony for the back of my book that was so powerful and said, you know, July 2 2008, brother us God for the blessing. And he said, you've come to me correct. Now it's time to make your blessing to others. Brandon Handley 43:43 Yeah. Love it, man. And it's like, just like you said, you know, I was looking at, you know, the universe provides before you need the things right. So the universe kind of Gates gave you this agency and this platform so that like, when you got to this space, now you're able to leverage that to do what it is that you're doing right now. Exactly. That's awesome. There. Now what's next for you, man? What do you you know, where are you headed? What's going on? Darren Prince 44:12 I'm low on the travel for the next three weeks. Thanks, God me, my girl, her mom and my mom. Both of our moms are flying out for Thanksgiving just laying low. We have so much great business stuff going on. But you know, for me the stuff that really gets me excited is recovery. Get back out there and speak and again and you know, write my next book, which should be next year, raising whatever money I came from our foundation like I said bridge therapeutics, you know, I just can't wait to get this thing out to all the treatment centers and people that are suffering and you know, Banyan would probably have another you know, gala coming up for Banyan next year fundraiser. I just that's the stuff that really gets me excited. I mean, I got my dog on a personal override and I still up on my life. It's football season. Hopefully my Los Angeles chargers can turn Turn it around their records, okay, but they stink, they're all banged up and injured. So I do what I can to get my own personal enjoyment of time to check out and you know, with my girl and her dog and, you know, work out five days a week, still taking care of myself and nice. That's it. But I think, you know, it all comes into alignment when I put this first and when I help people. Brandon Handley 45:22 Yeah, I love that too, you know, that this is first for you. And I think that that's very profound. And hopefully that's something that some others take away as well. Man, I appreciate you coming in here. Like I said, we kind of bumped into each other Novak's house. And I you know, wanted to have you on Bill to share this story with some other people. I appreciate you being on World Darren Prince 45:44 Cup on Saturday. What's that? We're gonna wake up on Saturday. Brandon Handley 45:49 That's right. 100% Yeah, man, I'm looking forward to it. I you know, I think it'd be even. That's exciting. That's exciting for me that you're interested and the work that that I've been doing over there has been just kind of so makes me feel good, right? Kind of like the way it's what you're talking about. You can go there and get some people to see and connect with themselves and put some type of gap in between this anxiety that are feeling right and let go everything around them and just being able to do that for a moment, especially as they're making this transition from off the street. Some of these guys. I mean, these Darren Prince 46:29 are fresh. Exactly. Brandon Handley 46:31 Give them that for a moment. Man. This last one was super powerful, very excited. But again, man looking forward to us this coming week and we can and this has been a lot of fun. Darren so thank you. Thanks for where's that some people to find out more about you? How can they contribute? How where can people go to Darren Prince 46:48 follow me on Instagram at agent underscore DEP. The Foundation website is aiming high foundation dot work. Got my own personal site Official Darren prince.com. And for people that are intrigued by the agent life and whatnot, the business side is print marketing group.com Awesome. Thanks, Dan. All right. You got it. Excellent. I Intro Guy 47:15 really hope you enjoyed this episode of the spiritual dough podcast. Stay connected with us directly through spiritual dove.co. You can also join the discussion on Facebook, spiritual dough, and Instagram and spiritual underscore Joe. If you would like to speak with us, send us an email Brandon at spiritual dove.co And as always, thank you for cultivating your mindset and creating a better reality. This includes the most thought provoking part of your day. Don't forget to like and subscribe to stay fully up to date. Until next time, be kind to yourself and trust your intuition. Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Download the cheat: https://bit.ly/50-meds  View the lesson: https://bit.ly/MeperidineDemerolNursingConsiderations    Generic Name meperidine Trade Name Demerol Indication moderate to severe pain, sedation Action Binds to opiate receptors in the CNS and alters perception of pain while producing a general depression of the CNS. Therapeutic Class Opioid Analgesic Pharmacologic Class opioid agonists Nursing Considerations • may cause alterations in mentation, hypotension, constipation, nausea, vomiting • assess BP, pulse, and respiratory rate prior to administration and frequently during administration • use caution if patient is receiving MAOIs • Narcan (naloxone) is the antidote for opioid agonists • can cause seizure • may increase pancreatic enzyme levels • assess bowel function

One of the biggest questions you might ask yourself before you have your baby, is this: "How will I handle the pain of labor?". You have choices. That is the first thing I want you to focus on. After that I want you to be educated on what causes the pain and how you can lean into it, prior to utilizing your pain management plan. Labor pain is not a pain that you should fear, it is a pain that is necessary to bring you the baby. During birth, there are pretty much 3 common options for pain control: Analgesics, Anesthetics, Nitrous Oxide, and Unmedicated options. Today we talked about the first three options which all fall into the medicated pain management options. Analgesics include IV narcotics such as Nubain, Stadol, Morphine, Fentanyl (which works the best in my opinion), and sometimes Demerol. Analgesics do not take the pain away, rather they lessen the pain, and still allow you to move somewhat freely. They cross the placenta and affect the baby, for this reason, they can not be given later in active labor. Nitrous Oxide is another option for pain relief. It does not eliminate the pain. is administered through a face mask during the contractions. Once you remove the mask, the effects are almost gone immediately. Many women love this option as it allows movement throughout labor. I have found that some women love it and some women hate it. An epidural is the most favored option for pain management during labor. It is considered an anesthetic and if it works properly will eliminate the pain. I teach my students to not solely rely on it being the savior of the day, as there are many times an epidural might not work out. Always have a backup plan. I hope this episode helped you understand pain relief options during labor. I would be so grateful if you hit subscribe and write a review!! Resources: https://offers.labornursemama.com/insider-tips (Take my free birth workshop now!) https://labornursemama.com/door (Ready to be empowered & Prepared for Birth, Take a Birth Class!) https://labornursemama.com/pregnancy-weekly-update (Grab a Free Pregnancy/Postpartum Checklist Bundle ) Connect w/ Trish: https://www.instagram.com/labor.nurse.mama/ (Come hang with Trish on Instagram) For more pregnancy & birth education, subscribe to The Birth Experience on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. https://labornursemama.com/about-us/privacy-policy/ (Privacy Policy!)

Candace Plattor, a family addictions counselor and therapist is helping not just the addicts but also their families who struggle with them. She draws from her experience as an addict to uncover the reality of loving someone with an addiction. Her book, Loving an Addict, Loving Yourself: The Top 10 Survival Tips for Loving Someone with an Addiction, shows the addict's family how to stop the cycle of pain and chaos. Don't miss There's so little help for the families of addicts who struggle and suffer right along with them. How Candace started helping the families of addicts. The third tip of 10 tips for strategies for loving somebody with an addiction. About Candace Palttor Candace Plattor, author of Loving an Addict, Loving Yourself: The Top 10 Survival Tips for Loving Someone with an Addiction, knows from personal experience what it means to be an addict. Within a year of being diagnosed with Crohn's Disease in 1973, she found herself in the throes of prescription drug addiction.  Her Crohn's Disease diagnosis came at a time when the medical community had a very limited understanding of the disease and how to treat it. As a result, the treatment included some very addictive medications such as Valium, Demerol and Codeine, which she took faithfully for a number of years. Additionally, she discovered that marijuana took away a lot of her physical pain and helped her escape from feelings of powerlessness, hopelessness, and isolation. In no time at all, she became a daily pot smoker and had one more addiction to deal with. And when she ran out of pot, she abused alcohol. After more than 14 years of abusing substances, she reached “bottom” in 1987. Thus began her journey of recovery and self-discovery. In Loving an Addict, Loving Yourself: The Top 10 Survival Tips for Loving Someone with an Addiction, Ms. Plattor draws from her experience as an addict, as well as from the stories of those she continues to help in her practice, to uncover the reality of loving someone with an addiction. All too often, people with an addicted loved one in their lives will neglect themselves in an attempt to “help”. But, as Ms. Plattor points out in her book, this is a lose-lose situation that doesn't help the addict at all. Instead, loved ones must make their own needs a priority and learn to focus on their own self-care. Website: https://lovewithboundaries.com/ (https://lovewithboundaries.com/) About About the Host: Michelle Abraham - Podcast Producer, Host and International Speaker. Michelle was speaking on stages about podcasting before most people knew what they were, she started a Vancouver based Podcasting Group in 2012 and has learned the ins and outs of the industry. Michelle helped create and launched over 30 Podcasts in 2018 and has gone on to launch over 200 shows in the last few years, She wants to launch YOURS in 2022! 14 years as an Entrepreneur and 8 years as a Mom has led her to a lifestyle shift, spending more time with family while running location independent online digital marketing business for the last 9 years. Michelle and her family have been living completely off the grid lakeside boat access for the last 4 years! Check Us Out on: Join our facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/MyPodcastCoach (https://www.facebook.com/groups/MyPodcastCoach) Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/AMPLIFYOU.ca/ ( https://www.facebook.com/AMPLIFYOU.ca/) Twitter:https://twitter.com/YouAmplif ( https://twitter.com/YouAmplif) Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/amplifyou.ca/ ( https://www.instagram.com/amplifyou.ca/) To Join our FREE Podcasters Tool Kit:https://bit.ly/PodcastToolKit ( https://bit.ly/PodcastToolKit) For More Podcast Training -http://www.mypodcastcoach.com/ ( )http://amplifyounetwork.com/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this...

No matter which way you may be leaning in terms of pain meds during labor, it's important to know all your options so that you can make an informed decision. In this episode of Yoga|Birth|Babies, I speak with Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist, Rachel Salem, about all your options for pain medicine during labor. Rachel shares the difference between a “walking” epidural and a standard epidural, how epidurals are administered and dispels the myth that you need to hurry up and get an epidural before it's “too late”. She also explains the pros and cons of narcotics like Stadol and Demerol.   Support Our Sponsors: Hello Fresh: America's #1 meal kit! Go to HelloFresh.com/ybb14 and use code ybb14 for up to 14 free meals AND 3 free gifts! Boober: Looking for a lactation support, birth doulas, mental health therapists, and postpartum doulas. Use the code PYC to get 10% off your first service at www.getboober.com Don't forget to grab your FREE guide, 5 Simple Solutions to the Most Common Pregnancy Pains HERE  Get the most out of each episode by checking out the show notes with links, resources and other related podcasts at: prenatalyogacenter.com If you love what you've been listening to, please leave a rating and review! Yoga| Birth|Babies To connect with Deb and the PYC Community:  Instagram & Facebook: @prenatalyogacenter Youtube: Prenatal Yoga Center Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Got shot in a drive by and hospitalized. I was given Demerol after I was operated on to remove the bullet, and unfortunately, I liked it - a lot

In today’s Patreon-fueled shout-out: The Rivanna Conservation Alliance is looking for a few good volunteers to help out on Clean Stream Tuesdays, a mile and a half paddle and clean-up to remove trash and debris from popular stretches of the Rivanna River. Trash bags, trash pickers, gloves, and hand sanitizer/wipes will be provided, though volunteers will need to transport themselves to and from the end points. Kayaks for the purpose can be rented from the Rivanna River Company. Visit the Rivanna Conservation Alliance's volunteer page to learn more about upcoming dates.On today’s show: An update from the University of Virginia Health System on concerns about the Delta variantA quick preview of the General Assembly special session on MondayPiedmont Housing Alliance has submitted two rezoning proposals in CharlottesvilleFor the past three days, the Virginia Department of Health has reported over a thousand new cases of COVID-19 each day, with 1,178 new cases listed today. The seven-day percent positivity has increased to 5.1 percent and the seven day average for new cases has increased to 869. On June 30, those numbers were 1.6 percent and 172 respectively. Since June 1, there have been 18,462 cases reported. Of that amount, there have been 757 hospitalizations and 79 deaths. Of those cases, 97.1 percent are in people who are not fully vaccinated. Of those deaths, all but 5 were of people unvaccinated. The increase is likely due to the prevalence of the Delta variant. The Washington Post reported yesterday that the Centers for Disease Control had an internal analysis that the variant is perhaps as contagious as the virus that causes chickenpox. Dr. Patrick Johnson is an infectious disease specialist at the University of Virginia. “The Delta variant seems to create larger amounts of virus in the upper airways in patients that it infects and that makes it more possible for people who have the Delta variant to infect other people,” Dr. Jackson said. “And unfortunately, vaccination, while it is protective, is less protective against ongoing transmission than we were hoping.”  Dr. Jackson said vaccination still offers protection against COVID symptoms getting worse. “So one place that we see this quite clearly is from the United Kingdom,” Jackson said. “They had quite a significant number of surges from the Delta variant but really a very modest increase in the number of deaths from COVID-19 even with those increased cases.”Is it time to consider booster shots for COVID-19? Dr. Jackson said the global supply of vaccines needs to be factored in as those public health decisions are made.“I think one consideration about giving third doses to everyone in an age category is that even if you are purely U.S. centric, at some point we need to acknowledge that low rates of vaccination around the world are a problem for us,” Dr. Jackson said. “The more SARS-COV-2 replicates in other parts of the world, the more variants we are likely to see.” Eric Swensen is a public information officer for the UVA Health System who said tis morning that about 80 percent of their staff are vaccinated.“Beginning on Monday for people on our staff who are not vaccinated, they will be subject to mandatory weekly testing so that’s how we’re handling that moving forward,” Swensen said. The curve over the last 90 days has not been flattened. Source: Virginia Department of HealthOn Monday, the General Assembly will convene to fill judicial vacancies and to approve the spending of $4.3 billion in federal funds from the American Rescue Plan Act. Governor Ralph Northam has spent this week outlining his proposals for the money and here’s that list courtesy of a legislative report from the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission. $250 million for the Rebuild VA program$50 million for the tourism industry, which may or may not include funding for agencies such as the Charlottesville Albemarle Convention and Visitors Bureau$53 million for the Industrial Revitalization Fund, including the Virginia Main Street program$250 million for upgrading ventilation systems in public schools$411.5 million for clean water initiatives$935.6 million for the Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund and to increase capacity at the Virginia Employment Commission$485 million in investments for the behavioral health system$114 million for public safety initiatives $111 million for financial aid for collegeDelegates and Senators will not be allowed to suggest amendments to the proposals. Both Houses convene at noon on Monday. (schedule)The Piedmont Housing Alliance has filed two applications to rezone two properties on Park Street in the city of Charlottesville for below-market housing projects. The nonprofit entity is working with Park Street Christian Church on a proposal to build 50 units for seniors behind existing church buildings. They’re also working with the Monticello Area Community Action Alliance (MACAA) to rezone that agency’s property at 1025 Park Street for 65 below market units, 20 market rate townhomes, and 4,700 square feet of commercial space to allow MACAA to continue to operate on the site. There are community meetings for both rezoning proposals on August 10 at 5:30 p.m. either virtually on Zoom or in-person at the Charlottesville High School library. In both, the request is for Planned Unit Development. The concept plans for both were created by BRW Architects. Charlottesville City Council denied a previous rezoning for the MACAA property in November 2017 that would have seen construction of a 141-unit assisted living facility on the site. (Read a Charlottesville Tomorrow story from then)Credit: BRW ArchitectsA Charlottesville dermatologist has been sentenced to 12 months probation and home confinement on three counts of using her Drug Enforcement Agency registration number to acquire Demerol. According to a release from the United States Attorney’s office for the Western District of Virginia, Dr. Amalie Shaffner Derdeyn pled guilty to the charges in March, which included using the registration numbers of other physicians. A German company that owns the manufacturer of the pesticide Roundup has agreed to stop selling the product to residential customers in the United States beginning in 2023 in order to limit its legal liabilities. Bayer purchased the company Monsanto in June 2018 and two months later a jury in San Francisco awarded $80 million in damages to a man who had claimed the active ingredient of glyphosate was the cause of his cancer and that the risks of using the product were not sufficiently labeled. That award was eventually reduced to $21 million on appeal but that was just one of thousands of lawsuits about Roundup. Bayer plans to appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Even if Justices do not select the case or uphold the verdict, the replacement of glyphosate will happen in 2023 according to a July 29 post on Bayer’s website.“The company and its partners will replace its glyphosate-based products in the U.S. residential Lawn & Garden market with new formulations that rely on alternative active ingredients beginning in 2023, subject to a timely review by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and state counterparts,” reads the press release. “This move is being made exclusively to manage litigation risk and not because of any safety concerns.The company will continue to sell Roundup to professional companies and the agricultural sector.  Before you go! If you’d like to ensure continued production of the newsletter and continued research into the community, please consider making a monthly contribution through Patreon. There are a few tiers that you can take a look at, and for one more month you can get in on the shout-out action for $25 a month before that price increases for new patrons. If you have questions, please drop me a line. This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at communityengagement.substack.com/subscribe

As a kid, Darren was teased for his speech and learning disabilities. In high school, he got into trading baseball cards. He loved the statistics and having all the info on all the cards, and became the guy his friends would go to for sports info. He loved being that guy for his friends, and this gave him self-confidence. He eventually started going to trade shows and started making big money. It eventually turned into a mail-order card trading empire, which was the beginning of his early wealth. He went to his dad and asked him for 8-9k in insurance for his collection. That’s when he knew it was serious. He became a local celebrity entrepreneur, appearing on the Sally Jessie Raphael show. When he came back home, even with all this money, all this fame, he still felt like the kid in the back of the room. One time at sleepaway camp when he was 14 years old, he had stomach pains. He went to the nurse & got a clear green liquid, and felt on top of the world. He was laughing, talking and was the life of the party. He learned to fake his pain to get this green liquid, it turned out to be the opiate Demerol. Shortly after this is when he started becoming a full-blown drug addict. He learned how to manipulate his mother and father to get more pills. It all came to an end when he was 21 years old, he was arrested 4 times in 6 months. The judge let him go through a small counseling & recovery 1-year outpatient program. 2 days after leaving the program, he was involved in an auto accident because he & his friend were taking Xanax and drinking. After he went through recovery again, he planned a fly-fishing trip with his dad. After a deep heart to heart conversation, His dad gave him the confidence he needed to start his own talent agency. He named it Prince Marketing Group and Magic Johnson, Mohammad Ali, Joe Frazier, Dennis Rodman, and others were some of his first major clients. Even though he was still broke at this time, these first major clients gave him the credibility to become a “super-agent.” Even at this time in his life, he was sniffing Oxycontin, Ambien & Percocet’s every day. All of a sudden, those pills became his kryptonite, and he became suicidal. He felt lost, he even took out his own life insurance policy to support his family, in the event of his sudden death. On July 2nd, 2008 everything changed. He had a moment of clarity and decided to change for good. He got in a uber that night, and went directly to the closest AA meeting in the area, and hasn’t looked back since. He made a spiritual pact with himself and God, that if he got sober, that he would devote his life to getting others out of the darkness. This was the birth of the Aim High Foundation. In 2017, Darren lost his father due to an unexpected aneurism. He had a conversation with Terry Bollea (Hulk Hogan) told him to go get some time with his dad, to say goodbye, and ask his father if he wanted to keep fighting. His father said he was ready to go, but Darren reassured him that he was going to stay on his path to recovery, no matter what. Since then, Darren has spoken to kids, adults & everyone that needs to hear that they are not alone on their road to recovery. The best-selling author of "Aiming High" his autobiography and founder of the Aiming High foundation has continued to help all kinds of people, his life’s goal now is to devote his time and resources to help as many people as possible become and stay sober. This is Darren Prince in his own words on Knockin’ Doorz Down. For Carlos Vieira's autobiography Knockin' Doorz Down https://www.kddmediacompany.com/ For 51FIFTY use the discount code KDD20 for 20% off! https://51fiftyltm.com/ https://www.facebook.com/51FIFTYLTM https://www.instagram.com/51fiftyltm/ https://twitter.com/51fiftyltm For Manscaped use the code KDD for 20% of at Manscaped.com For more on the Knockin' Doorz Down podcast and to follow us on social media https://www.kddmediacompany.com/podcast https://www.instagram.com/knockindoorzdown/ https://www.facebook.com/knockingdoorsdown/ https://twitter.com/kddmediacompany https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUSJ5ooBFqso8lfFiiIM-5g/ For more information on the Carlos Vieira Foundation and the Race 2B Drug-Free, Race to End the Stigma and Race For Autism programs visit: https://www.carlosvieirafoundation.org/ https://www.facebook.com/CVFoundation/ https://www.instagram.com/carlosvieirafoundation/ For more on Darren Prince https://aiminghighfoundation.org/ https://www.facebook.com/darrenprince https://www.instagram.com/darrenprince https://twitter.com/darrenprince

Introduction. By 2019, opioids were killing approximately 50,000 US citizens a year, up from 8,000 in 1999. This is more deaths than firearms (33,000), breast cancer (41,000), HIV (15,000), or motor vehicle accidents (37,000). In 2018-2019, the total fatalities exceeded our combined combat deaths in Iraq, Vietnam, and Afghanistan. Until recently, prescription rather than street opioids caused the most deaths. The per capita fatalities differ in each state, suggesting that local factors such as enforcement, economics, and education may contribute. Street opioids and prescription opioids are chemically identical. This class includes heroin, which is illegal, plus morphine, methadone, Vicodin, fentanyl, and Demerol, which all have recognized medical uses, but are also sought illegally. OxyContin (oxycodone) is another prescription that has the street name of "Oxy.” Purdue Pharma, the patent owner, told the world it was safe. They distributed it widely and made billions of dollars. They marketed it with free samples, the same method the drug cartels use, but the dealers, to their credit, never claimed their product was harmless. LINKS TO LEARN MORE:Listen to another podcast about my whole book Butchered by Healthcare at: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1300429/6572743I have an author website RobertYohoAuthor.com. Go to the book's web page if you want to order it or read the over 50 five-star reviews: https://www.amazon.com/Butchered-Healthcare-Doctors-Corrupt-Government-ebook/dp/B08FVMK5GY/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=robert+yoho&qid Please review it here: Amazon.com/review/create-review?&asin=B08FVMK5GY. I appreciate you for taking the time, and I will read your review. This is a big favor for me—thanks… NEWLY AVAILABLE FOR BETA READING: The Secret Story of Hormones: Miraculous Treatments for Fatigue, Cancer, Heart Disease, Depression, Alzheimer's, Impotence, and Diabetes—and How They Were Stolen From UsDownload your copy at https://dl.bookfunnel.com/pffhxv9lt6  Please give feedback at yoho.robert@gmail.com. Here is a patient video from the cover: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mWTi-CtTV1ISupport the show (https://paypal.me/dryohoauthor?locale.x=en_US)

We used to have a name for sufferers of ADHD. We called them boys.AnonymousBackground: For opioids, the deaths, addiction, and social destruction are the drug industry's fault—there is no controversy. There is now an anemic effort to fine and sometimes imprison a handful of people who were partly responsible for the death of more individuals than most wars. There is no consensus, however, for the closely related situation of amphetamines and similar stimulants, possibly because there are only 10,000 US deaths a year. Doctors who are in the pockets of manufacturers still proclaim with straight faces that amphetamine-class prescriptions are worlds apart from the same drugs used for abuse. They say that we are under-medicating despite close to universal usage. Physicians promote prescription stimulants for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and other syndromes. Classroom misbehavior gets kids a quick prescription these days. Fidgeting, squirming, interrupting, forgetting, and being disorganized are the symptoms. For adults, the criteria are inattention, hyperactivity, impulsivity, and other similar issues. This has made ten percent of our children and many adults “legitimate” drug candidates. American psychiatrists now treat ADHD with at least fifty prescription medications (listed on drugs.com). These include antidepressants, stimulants, and even anti-virals. Most are FDA Schedule II, the category that includes cocaine, Demerol, and other drugs considered the most hazardous. (Schedule I drugs have no accepted medical use.) Antidepressants and milder Schedule IV stimulants such as Provigil are also used.LINKS TO LEARN MORE:Listen to another podcast about my whole book Butchered by Healthcare at: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1300429/6572743I have an author website RobertYohoAuthor.com. Go to the book's web page if you want to order it or read the over 50 five-star reviews: https://www.amazon.com/Butchered-Healthcare-Doctors-Corrupt-Government-ebook/dp/B08FVMK5GY/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=robert+yoho&qid Please review it here: Amazon.com/review/create-review?&asin=B08FVMK5GY. I appreciate you for taking the time, and I will read your review. This is a big favor for me—thanks… NEWLY AVAILABLE FOR BETA READING: The Secret Story of Hormones: Miraculous Treatments for Fatigue, Cancer, Heart Disease, Depression, Alzheimer's, Impotence, and Diabetes—and How They Were Stolen From UsDownload your copy at https://dl.bookfunnel.com/pffhxv9lt6  Please give feedback at yoho.robert@gmail.com. Here is a patient video from the cover: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mWTi-CtTV1ISupport the show (https://paypal.me/dryohoauthor?locale.x=en_US)

Demerol is usually injecting into the vein, muscle, or under the skin. It should only be used as directed by your doctor. https://recoverypartnernetwork.com/drug/opioid/demerol-addiction

Lynn Corbitt grew up quickly. A mother at 13 and addicted to alcohol, pills, powders, and IV drugs she over-dosed three times. Lynn's journey to sobriety was long and challenging. She had to write her own playbook for success, and teach herself how to be a mother. Now Lynn lives in grace and has dedicated her life to her hard-earned sobriety, motherhood, and helping others in their recovery at the Southeast Delta Rehabilitation center in West Helena, Arkansas.www.dismantled.lifeanthony@dismantled.life@Lifedismantled on TwitterFollow me on InstaBuy some edible, bakeable, ridiculously delicious cookie dough from Doughp. Support the Dismantled Life podcast. Use the coupon code DISMANTLEDLIFE to get 10% off your purchase.Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/Dismantledlife)

Dr. Rosenblum Discusses: Sickle Cell Disease Crisis Types of Pain associated with Sickle Cell Disease Opiate and non opiate management   Subscribe to our mailing list * indicates required Email Address *       References https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6294061/

It's pretty evident that our economic system is fortified by keeping the average living organism dumb and sick. Force fed to fatten the liver, we choke down beer like good stewards who appreciate the small escape that a laugh and a cheap buzz affords, giving into the tactful marketing with the same blind trust we have for politicians and corporate CEOs.   Don't question authority.   There's no need. Because your very own beach paradise awaits with only the simple turn of a bottlecap and push of a squeezed lime.    Here are the steps. Click the television remote control (aka the hypnotic spinning spiral). Reach for the beer. Drink the beer. Grab your phone. Order the pizza. Eat the pizza (you are becoming verrrrrry sleepy). Fall asleep with your feet propped on top of the pizza box.   Is that why your bare feet always smell like cheese?  And then there are pharmaceuticals.   Now, I was recently hospitalized for an appendectomy. After the surgery, painkillers were administered on the regular. And it felt great! Awash in euphoria, there appeared a heightened enthusiasm for things like sippy cups, Get Well Soon balloons, and other inanimate objects. “Feel free to drill a few teeth while you're here, doctor,” I delivered in the form of flattery. “I'm not a dentist,” retorted the nurse.  My new friend was wonderful and benevolent. No, not the nurse, the Demerol.   However, there was a big problem--the warm, comforting friend did not stay long. And when those synapses settled down, abandoning the heavens for a more remedial plot back on earth, the natural energy balance of my body felt betrayed. The road to recovery, it now appeared, was more a battle with addiction than the healing of the physical wounds. And this is a big fucking problem. For the record, I'm not totally against drugs. I think big pharma justs need to devote more resources into research and dabvelopment.  

In this podcast I discuss the schedule of drugs and some other random drug facts! •Schedule of drugs https://www.dea.gov/drug-scheduling •Book I reference: https://www.amazon.com/Drugs-Society-Human-Behavior-Carl/dp/1259913864 Prevent access to drugs vs teaching someone the correct facts. •When schedule of drugs was created: -1970- War on Drugs began/ DEA (drug enforcement administration) was given more funding -1914- Harrison Act * 5 schedules were created - Schedule 1: Schedule I drugs, substances, or chemicals are defined as drugs with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse. Some examples of Schedule I drugs are: - heroin, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), marijuana (cannabis), 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (ecstasy), methaqualone, and peyote •1937- Reefer Madness, Targeting Hispanics with laws on marijuana - Schedule 2: Schedule II drugs, substances, or chemicals are defined as drugs with a high potential for abuse, with use potentially leading to severe psychological or physical dependence. These drugs are also considered dangerous. Some examples of Schedule II drugs are: - Combination products with less than 15 milligrams of hydrocodone per dosage unit (Vicodin), cocaine, methamphetamine, methadone, hydromorphone (Dilaudid), meperidine (Demerol), oxycodone (OxyContin), fentanyl, Dexedrine, Adderall, and Ritalin Barbiturates- CNS depressants, to use to reduce anxiety: sedative (Xanax- which is schedule 4, Ativan), Xanax and alcohol mixed would cause death due to short respiratory rate - Schedule 3: Schedule III drugs, substances, or chemicals are defined as drugs with a moderate to low potential for physical and psychological dependence. Schedule III drugs abuse potential is less than Schedule I and Schedule II drugs but more than Schedule IV. Some examples of Schedule III drugs are: Products containing less than 90 milligrams of codeine per dosage unit (Tylenol with codeine), ketamine, anabolic steroids, testosterone 18:14 - Schedule 4: Schedule IV drugs, substances, or chemicals are defined as drugs with a low potential for abuse and low risk of dependence. Some examples of Schedule IV drugs are: Xanax, Soma, Darvon, Darvocet, Valium, Ativan, Talwin, Ambien, Tramadol 24:30 Schedule 5: Schedule V drugs, substances, or chemicals are defined as drugs with lower potential for abuse than Schedule IV and consist of preparations containing limited quantities of certain narcotics. Schedule V drugs are generally used for antidiarrheal, antitussive, and analgesic purposes. Some examples of Schedule V drugs are: - cough preparations with less than 200 milligrams of codeine or per 100 milliliters (Robitussin AC), Lomotil, Motofen, Lyrica, Parepectolin 28:42- Opioids were a major cause of addiction in 1910, 1914 Harrison Act- putting taxes on drugs, Rockefeller drug laws 33:31- Alcohol and example of how it leads to wanting more. 36:24- Ketamine - strong antidepressant, horse tranquilizer Thank you for listening to my podcast! Follow me on Instagram! Living.wild.with.em

Join me and Cammie Wolf Rice to get an in-depth insight into the long-raging US Opioid Crisis, causing thousands of deaths each year. Around 1/3rd of these deaths are due to Prescription Drugs alone. Cammie tells us her personal story and how she lost her son Christopher as his MD prescribed highly addictive painkillers after an operation. She feels that the US Health Care System, the Government and the Pharma Industry fail society, by not providing adequate education and warnings about the dangers of prescribed Painkillers. To fight this reality and in honor of Christopher, Cammie founded The Christopher Wolf Crusade (www.CWC.ngo) in 2018. The CWC's mission is to spare preventable deaths and save lives worldwide, by providing preventative solutions, education, and advocacy for the American opioid epidemic. Cammie warns, we all are exposed to the danger of becoming addicted to hard drugs by first taking prescription Painkillers such as Oxycotin, Vicodin, Demerol (etc.) and even Ritalin - often prescribed to children with ADHD. The stigma attached to addicts is utterly wrong – anybody can fall prey to drug addiction. About 75% of Heroin Users started their addiction by first becoming addicted to Prescription Drugs given by their MDs, often for minor ailments, she tells us. Since the start of the Covid19 Pandemic, total deaths caused by drug overdoses has shot up by 30% in some US states. Each year Prescription Opioid Misuse costs the US economy almost 80bn USD, according to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). The system has to change and the spotlight is on Policy Makers, Big Pharma, Education for Medical Professionals, but also on Patients themselves, to become less trusting towards any kind of prescription from their Medical Doctors. More about Mentorit.TV: http://youtube.com/mentorittv More about CWC: https://cwc.ngo/ - - Road Trip by Joakim Karud: https://soundcloud.com/joakimkarud Music promoted by Audio Library: https://youtu.be/vpssnpH_H4c

Aiming High with Darren Prince Darren was at the top of his career as an agent for athletes and celebrities like Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, and Magic Johnson. However, he was hiding a secret. Darren was in the throes of a severe opioid addiction. Everything started when he was 14 years old at sleep away camp. Darren had been experiencing severe stomach pain, and the nurse gave him a liquid green substance that turned out to be Demerol. He lied about his stomach pain and returned to the nurse every night for more. Darren would continue to chase the freedom and comfort that opiates gave him for the next 24 years. His addiction came to a head around the time that he helped coordinate the reconciliation between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, two of history's most iconic athletes. Darren was instrumental in bringing these two nemeses together, yet minutes earlier he was snorting pain killers in his hotel bathroom. After an overdose in the early 2000's Darren started looking for help which lead him to a 12 Step program. Today Darren is 11 years sober. He is the author of the best selling book, "Aiming High" and continues to represent some of the biggest names in sports. You can learn more about Darren, his speaking engagements, and his book by visiting OfficialDarrenPrince.com Do you want to take your recovery to the next level? Sobriety Engine is an incredible free online community where you can find a ton of great tips, tools, and support from other men and women in recovery. Visit SobrietyEngine.com to join today. If you're ready to get fit and start living a healthier lifestyle while supporting your sobriety then you can learn more about having Jonathan as your personal fitness and nutrition coach at RCVRHealth.com

Lesli Downs started experiencing headaches at the tender age of 8. By the time she was 16 she was those headaches had progressed to full fledged migraines, and she was officially diagnosed after she blacked out in the bathroom at school. Her migraines frequently required her to get Demerol shots, which would knock her out for 3 days. Once after a bad flair up the cocktail of drugs her doctors gave her put her in a coma for 8 hours. As she aged her headaches got progressively worse, but after her son was born the pain went through the roof. She found herself in a cycle of being prescribed more and more drugs as her health declined and her body became dependent upon the opioids she was taking. In 2016 she decided enough was enough and opted to use cannabis to treat her pain and wean herself off the opioids she'd been taking for untold years. With the help of cannabis she's been able to keep her headaches in check and completely rid her life of pharmaceutical drugs. Full show notes can be found at www.cannabishealsme.com/89 Help us get these stories out to more people! Become a Patron http://www.patreon.com/chmpodcast Rate/review us on your podcast app Tell THREE people about the show every week --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

10 years ago, Gerry Powell was living the American Dream. He had just sold his company for $94 million, owned 5 houses, 20+ cars and 2 planes. But he wasn't happy. While his life looked like a dream from the outside, he was hooked on Demerol, was an alcoholic and suicidal. After several failed rehab attempts, his life didn't change until he was introduced to the plant medicine ayahuasca. Fast forward to today and Gerry is living a life of peace, happiness and prosperity in Costa Rica after founding the world's highest rated resort which happens to center around the plant medicine and spiritual healing that changed his own life. Tune in to hear the conversation he and Kris had while Kris was at a retreat at the world reknown Rythmia! Time Stamps From a drug addict to nearly committing suicide to winding up on ‘the moon’. Gerard shares his fascinating background to where he is today [0:45] Not as advertised: The experience that is Rythmia [10:20] How being ‘woke’ is a scam [13:36] The miracle of changing your perspective [15:24] Making the case why you should visit Rythmia [18:01] The details of his first ayahuasca experience? [20:06] Why he believes love is trying to keep us from slaughtering each other [21:14] The concept of being ‘split’ + the value of relationships, family and connection [23:35] Why they believe the medicine takes care of the past. The benefits of stem cell therapy [30:00] How is ayahuasca different from other psychedelics? [36:35] Does he have any plans for expansion? [38:55] Where to go if people want to visit Rythmia? [41:30] Featured Guest: Gerard Armond Powell Website Instagram Facebook Related Links/Products Mentioned Sh*t the Moon Said: A Story of Sex, Drugs, and Ayahuasca - Book by Gerard Powell Rythmia The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who've Lived the Longest. National Geographic Books - Book by Dan Buettner Lightning Speed Healing Hack or Overpriced Fad? What You Need To Know About Stem Cells How Adult Stem Cells Can Help Stop Pain and Reverse Aging Rythmia Life Advancement Center - TripAdvisor People Mentioned Dr. Jeff McNairy Chris Cavallini Laird Hamilton Wim Hof Joe Rogan Dave Asprey Ben Greenfield Episode Sponsors BiOptimizers is HOOKING YOU UP! They want to give you a FREE bottle of their Kris approved P3OM Probiotics. As with all BiOptimizers products they are extremely high quality and a great formulation. All you have to do is go to P3OM.com/KrisFree to claim your free bottle. Hurry! This offer is only good while supplies last. It is nearly impossible to consume a high enough amount of greens. That is why I turn to Organifi to fill in the gaps. Check out their amazing tasting Greens formula and get 20% on Organifi.com if you use the code GETHIN at checkout. This episode is also brought to you by Laird's Superfood. Laird's just launched an amazing new product in time for winter: hot chocolate with functional mushrooms! It uses all natural ingredients, including all 4 MCT isolates, a blend of reishi, chaga, and maitake mushrooms, and of course, their signature Aquimin extract. Use code GETHIN20 for 20% off your total purchase at LairdSuperfood.com One of the many reasons I train so hard is so that I can look awesome and that goes beyond the gym to my personal care routine as well. That is why we are hooking you up with 20% off the high quality skin care products at VisualChemistrySkin.com. Just use the code KRIS20 at checkout to claim your discount. Connect with Kris Instagram: @krisgethin

While Jimmy is gone on a much needed and deserved sabbatical for six months to rest and recuperate, we will be bringing you the best of the best from the vast archive of shows that Jimmy has accumulated over the last 15 years. We also will be airing shows from his wildly popular JIMMY RANTS live show that originated on Instagram Live and now resides at JimmyRants.com.   “This has been a very sad chapter in the story of modern medicine.” Dr. Anna Lembke   Opioid addiction has become a very serious problem in the United States alone as a whopping 16,000 people die annually from overdosing on painkillers such as morphine, methadone, Buprenorphine, hydrocodone, and oxycodone using the name brands OxyContin, Percocet, Vicodin, Percodan, Tylox and Demerol. And 75% of people who are addicted to heroin got their start on one of these seemingly innocuous pain medications they were prescribed by their well-meaning doctor attempting to help them recover from an injury or surgery. This is something an assistant professor at Stanford University School of Medicine, psychiatrist and addiction medicine specialist named Dr. Anna Lembke has seen so often as a pattern in her own patients dealing with opioid addiction that she wanted to sound the alarm on this growing epidemic in an alarming new book that is rocking the medical community called Drug Dealer, MD: How Doctors Were Duped, Patients Got Hooked, and Why It’s So Hard to Stop. Listen in as Jimmy and Dr. Lembke discuss all the statistics regarding opioid prescription prevalence and the correlation with the increased drug addiction, why most doctors who get their patients addicted don’t know what to do about it, the lack of help from insurance companies to pay for recovery, the millions who have to cope with this out of no fault of their own, the misguided cultural paradigm that demands a pill solution to every health problem, the role of the pharmaceutical companies in this epidemic, the problems in the Affordable Care Act that give precedence to pills, procedures, and patient satisfaction over wellness, and the broken healthcare system that needs to be completely overhauled and fixed in order to resolve this problem that isn’t going away anytime soon. This is one of the most explosive interviews on a hot topic we’ve had in a while. Please share it with anyone taking prescription pain medications or dealing with opioid drug addiction.

James English, The Anything Goes Show Ep73. 10 years ago Gerry Powell had just sold his company for $94 million dollars. He had 5 houses, 20 plus cars, and 2 private planes. He achieved the American dream but He was hooked on Demerol, was an alcoholic and was suicidal. Not even the top addiction rehab in the world could free him from his pain. A friend introduced gerry to an African plant and in one night I was healed from a lifetime of suffering. Today He is happy and free. Driven by the ease of awakening through the plant Medicine ayahuasca, and now Gerry Has decided to make it his life’s mission to show others there can be a shortcut to happiness. Rythmia

"I'm not a thought leader, I'm not woke, I'm a guy that's a cheerleader for a plant." I'm so happy to introduce you to Gerry Powell, today's guest on NION Radio. 10 years ago, Gerry had just sold his company for $94 million dollars, had 5 houses, 20 plus cars, and 2 planes. He had achieved the American dream but was hooked on Demerol, was an alcoholic and was suicidal. Not even the top addiction rehab in the world could free him from his pain. But when a friend introduced him to an African plant, in one night he was healed from a lifetime of suffering. Today, Gerry is happy and free, and driven by the ease of awakening through plant medicine versus conventional routes, he has made it his life’s mission to show others there can be a shortcut to happiness. Being the founder and organizer of the Rhythmia event, I got to spend a lot of time around Gerry Powell during my time there, and he has given me so much in my own journey with my life and spirituality through plant medicine. Listen in to learn how Gerry began working with plant medicine, what Rhythmia has done for him and others, and how he uses data to improve the event. You can Subscribe and Listen to the Podcast on Apple Podcasts. And please leave me a Rating and Review! "Anytime you have a date with divinity, you are changed." Some things we learn in this podcast: How Gerry went from successful but depressed to a fully changed person through plant medicine [5:52] Why Gerry doesn't consider himself a thought leader [12:19] What inspired the development of Rhythmia [14:55] What our experiences with plant medicine can teach us about our world [17:41] Why Gerry doesn't feel bad about not leaving Rhythmia for months at a time [21:36] The feeling of being merged and how it changes everything you experience in your life [29:16] Why having a near death experience often changes people in the same way that plant medicine does [36:27] Why some people are okay with doing it once, while others come back again and again [39:07] What Gerry means by everybody getting their "miracle" [44:23] How the data that Gerry is collecting is being used to create a better experience for every Rhythmia event [48:46] How Rhythmia's team is maintained to keep their ceremony as good as it can be [52:17] Links Mentioned: How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence Sh*t The Moon Said: The Miraculous and Mystical Journey of Gerard Armond Powell Dying To Be Me: My Journey from Cancer, to Near Death, to True Healing Connect with Gerry Powell on Rhythmia's website | Facebook | YouTube | Instagram

The King of Cannabis, Cannamillionaire Arby Barroso. Arby Barroso is the co-founder of Green Roads World and co-host of Cannabis Life Radio. Arby suffered from arthritis of the hip which landed him in the hospital. This prevented him from playing football and resulted in multiple surgeries. As he said goodbye to the hospital, he was greeted with prescription pain meds like Morphine, Demerol, Percocet, and other pain medications. As time went on, Arby became addicted to the legally prescribed pharmaceuticals. He knew that this way not a way to continue on in life and began researching alternative ways to heal and treat his pain. He took a leap of faith and moved his family out to Colorado to immerse himself in the CBD industry.

Recordareis que habíamos dejado de citar a uno de los grupos que también tuvieron una enorme importancia en el prestigioso grupo que denominamos “de vanguardia”. Esta banda no es otra que Jethro Tull. Jethro Tull fue una banda de rock progresivo británica, que comenzó su andadura a finales de 1967, hasta su separación en el 2014, siendo uno de los grupos de rock más longevos. Desde sus inicios, este grupo ha vendido más de 60 millones de copias de sus más de 30 álbumes, siendo uno de los grupos con mayores ventas de la historia del rock. Siempre ha sido liderado por el cantante y flautista escocés Ian Anderson, que es el autor de prácticamente todas las canciones del grupo, y de hecho el grupo se ha comportado siempre como el apoyo de este músico, y es que es el único que ha estado en toda la historia de la banda desde el primer disco, y solo el guitarrista Martin Barre se le acerca, estando en el grupo desde el segundo. La banda logró mucha popularidad en la primera mitad de los años setenta con álbumes emblemáticos en la historia del rock como Aqualung y Thick as a Brick, y con el tiempo llegó a convertirse en un grupo de culto. Hemos escuchado el corte que da título al disco, Agualund. Oiremos ahora Thick as a brick, otra delicia de canción, perteneciente al disco del mismo título. La música de este grupo, encuadrada en el rock progresivo, constituye una mezcla muy original de blues, folk inglés y hard rock, con pinceladas de música barroca, música medieval inglesa e incluso renacentista. El grupo desarrolla además una vertiente dedicada a originales canciones acústicas de difícil clasificación. En su sonido, destaca de forma particular la flauta de Ian Anderson, tocada de una forma magistral, que ha sido y sigue constituyendo una de las inconfundibles características de la banda, así como el sonido desgarrado de la guitarra eléctrica de Martin Barre, finamente entrelazado con el de la flauta de Anderson. Vamos a pararnos por un momento en una serie de solos de este magnífico guitarrista: Martin Barre a la guitarra. Bien, no? Una grandísimo instrumentista. Durante algunos años, el grupo incluyó también, al mismo tiempo, dos brillantes teclistas, con lo que obtuvo un sonido de particular colorido y dimensión: los maestros John Evan y David Palmer. Este último realizaba además los arreglos orquestales. La participación del sobresaliente bajista y cantante John Glascock, -fallecido en 1979- dotó a la banda de un timbre muy personal, con una segunda voz y un excelente apoyo vocal y armónico. La formación también ha utilizado una gran variedad de instrumentos, barrocamente combinados, en su mayoría tocados por el propio Ian Anderson, como el laúd, la mandolina, la balalaica, el saxofón, la armónica, la gaita, el acordeón y diversas clases de flautas. Salvo contadas excepciones, todos los temas interpretados por el grupo han sido compuestos por Ian Anderson, auténtico líder y factótum del grupo. Anderson es un personaje camaleónico, tanto en su aspecto como en su capacidad para reinventar continuamente su propia música, lo cual ha permitido a Jethro Tull mantenerse joven a pesar de los años. Los despedimos con otro de sus éxitos: Nothing Is Easy En esta época, y alejándonos ya de esta vanguardia, se dio un fenómeno de mercadotecnia que alumbró a una serie de grupos “fantasma” o que, por lo menos, no se regían como bandas al uso sino que servían fielmente a los intereses exclusivos de las discográficas. Lógicamente eran grupos comerciales a más no poder. Uno de ellos, que en España tuvo una buena acogida, fue Ohio Express. Este grupo estadounidense se creó a finales de la década de 1960, editó multitud de sencillos de éxito en sus orígenes, entre los que destaca Yummy Yummy Yummy. Tras su separación en 1970, el grupo ha vuelto a estar activo de forma esporádica. Aunque el nombre hacía referencia a un "grupo", es más realista considerar a Ohio Express como una marca empleada por la compañía discográfica Super K Productions para hacer dinero rápido. Otro de estos grupos que alcanzó el éxito en la época y que pertenece a la misma categoría de “Grupos Fantasma” son The Monkees. The Monkees fue una banda de rock formada en 1966 en Los Angeles y fue creada originalmente para una serie de televisión del mismo nombre en la cadena NBC. Los miembros de la banda fueron seleccionados entre más de 500 jóvenes (entre los rechazados estaban músicos que después fueron famosos como Stephen Stills, ya que los productores estaban más interesados en crear un producto comercial que tener músicos con talento que tocasen o compusiesen música). El espectáculo contaba con un sentido del humor irreverente, muy similar o más bien copiado al de "A Hard Day's Night", la primera película protagonizada por The Beatles; además de esto sólo dos de ellos eran músicos y el resto aprendió a tocar sobre la marcha. A partir del disco Headquarters ya podían tocar los instrumentos sin organizar ningún desaguisado en la grabación y así lo hicieron. Desgraciadamente para ellos salió a la venta el álbum de The Beatles, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band y fueron desplazados del número 1 después de sólo una semana. Además emprendieron junto a Jack Nicholson el proyecto de la película "Head", que fue un desastre; su programa fue cancelado y al poco tiempo Michael Nesmith, el único miembro de la banda con algo de talento, la abandonó comprendiendo que para sus creadores los Monkees sólo habían sido un producto y nada más. Curiosamente en esta época The Monkees rechazó grabar "Sugar Sugar" y la compañía, al ver la posibilidad de negocio con esta canción, creó un grupo de dibujos animados llamado The Archies, basado en la tira cómica Archie con cuyo nombre se publicó la canción. "Sugar Sugar" fue el mayor éxito de 1969. En su origen, los Archies tampoco tenían discos, porque su distribución se hacía a través de un especie de acetato integrado en el reverso de las cajas de cereales para el desayuno, que podía recortarse y reproducirse en un tocadiscos. Su mayor éxito: el citado Sugar Sugar. Pero el acontecimiento mundial del momento fue el regreso del Rey, la vuelta de Elvis Presley. A principios de 1968, cuando el cantante ya había vuelto de su aventura militar, estaba atravesando una crisis personal y profesional, y es que ni su vida privada ni su carrera pintaban nada bien. De los ocho sencillos que lanzó entre enero de 1967 y mayo de 1968, solamente dos figuraron en el top 40, y ninguno de éstos logró posicionarse más arriba del puesto número 28. Pero… la televisión volvió a salir en ayuda de Elvis. El día 3 de Diciembre de 1968 se emitió un programa, anunciado simplemente como Elvis, donde se presentaba a Presley cantando con una banda frente a una pequeña audiencia, convirtiéndose en la primera actuación en vivo del artista desde 1961. Interpretó varias de sus canciones en un estilo desinhibido semejante al de sus primeras interpretaciones de R&R. El show fue el más visto de la NBC en esa temporada y logró atraer a un 42% del total de la audiencia. Elvis había vuelto. Esta canción, If I Can Dream fue especialmente escrita para la ocasión. Empujado por el éxito del especial del regreso, Presley se sometió a una severa serie de sesiones de grabación en el American Sound Studio, que al final llevaron a la creación del aclamado álbum From Elvis in Memphis. Estrenado en junio de 1969, se convirtió en su primer álbum no inspirado en alguna película y surgido de un prolífico período en los estudios de grabación en ocho años, por lo menos. El álbum incorporó el sencillo «In the Ghetto», lanzado en abril y que alcanzó el tercer puesto en el pop chart —el primer éxito top ten no gospel de Presley desde «Bossa Nova Baby» en 1963. Y es en este momento cuando Elvis Presley aterriza en Las Vegas con gran éxito. En su debut, Presley se subió al escenario sin ninguna presentación. La audiencia de 2.200 personas, entre las cuales se hallaban varias celebridades, le dio una ovación de pie antes de que cantara siquiera una nota. Vamos a escuchar su famoso alegato a la ciudad del vicio: Viva las Vegas. Su mayor éxito en listas fue Suspicious Minds que fue número uno, convirtiéndose en el primer tema pop de Presley en alcanzar tal logro en los Estados Unidos en más de siete años, aunque también el último. El 21 de diciembre de 1970, Presley llevó a cabo un osado encuentro con el presidente Richard Nixon en la Casa Blanca. En esta reunión el cantante presumió ante Nixon de patriotismo y manifestó su desprecio hacia la cultura hippie y su devoción a las drogas. Además, le dijo a Nixon que la banda inglesa The Beatles, cuyas canciones cantaba regularmente en sus conciertos durante esa época, eran un ejemplo de lo que él concebía como una tendencia «anti-estadounidense». Paradójicamente se da la circunstancia de que Presley había tenido un encuentro de unas cuatro horas con la banda, hacía más o menos cinco años. Al enterarse de dichas declaraciones, Paul McCartney dijo luego que él se sentía confundido y decepcionado al respecto. Y más paradojas del divo, por esa época publicó un disco de canciones navideñas en el que destacaba una muy buena versión del obsceno blues de Charles Brown “Merry Christmas, Baby” Aunque Elvis ya no era un fijo en las listas de éxitos, algún material grabado con anterioridad logró colarse en el top five del country chart. Los más sonados fueron «My Boy», que se convirtió en un número uno del género y «Moody Blue» que fue, a su vez, número dos del mismo ranking. No obstante, su grabación más aclamada por la crítica de esa época fue el clásico del soul «Hurt». El divorcio de Presley ocurrió el 9 de octubre de 1973. A partir de entonces, comenzó a enfermar cada vez más constantemente. Hacia finales de 1973, fue hospitalizado en estado semicomatoso por los efectos del abuso en el consumo de Demerol. Según su médico, el doctor George C. Nichopoulos, Presley «sentía que al obtener los medicamentos, las drogas realmente, de un medico no se sentía como el adicto común que tiene que salir a la calle a conseguirlas». El periodista Tony Scherman escribió que, a principios de 1977 «Elvis Presley se había convertido en una caricatura grotesca de su elegante y enérgica forma de ser. Un tanto pasado de peso, directamente gordo, y con su mente trastornada por la medicación que diariamente ingería, era casi incapaz de sacar adelante sus breves conciertos». En Luisiana, el intérprete estuvo en el escenario menos de una hora y «le resultó imposible, en todo momento, saber donde estaba». Incluso, no pudo presentarse en el Baton Rouge; aquí ni siquiera fue capaz de levantarse de su cama del hotel donde se hallaba. Sus fans empezaron a dejar de seguir sus actuaciones, decepcionados por la gran cantidad de cancelaciones. Pero todo esto a Elvis le importaba nada: su mundo ahora se hallaba confinado casi por completo a su cuarto y sus libros de espiritismo». Su último concierto se dio en el pabellón Market Square Arena, en Indianápolis, el 26 de junio. El libro Elvis: What Happened?, coescrito por tres guardaespaldas que habían sido despedidos un año antes, se convirtió en el primer testimonio detallado de los años en que Presley fue un drogadicto. Tras su publicación, el cantante quedó hecho polvo e intentó sin éxito evitar su lanzamiento ofreciéndo dinero a la editorial. Por entonces ya sufría de diversas enfermedades: glaucoma, hipertensión arterial, daños en el hígado y megacolon. En todas ellas, Presley presentaba un cuadro médico serio, causado y agravado por el consumo excesivo de drogas. Una tarde, su asistente lo encontró inconsciente en el suelo del baño. Los intentos de reanimación fueron en vano. La muerte del cantante se hizo pública oficialmente a las 15:30 en el Baptist Memorial Hospital. Elvis Presley falleció en Memphis a la edad de 42 años, a causa de un Infarto agudo de miocardio. El funeral del artista fue todo un despropósito. Miles de personas se reunieron afuera de Graceland para observar el ataúd abierto. Uno de los primos de Presley, Billy Mann, aceptó 18.000 dólares a cambio de una fotografía exclusiva del cadáver de Presley; la imagen apareció en la portada del siguiente ejemplar de National Enquirer, convirtiéndose en el número más vendido de todos los tiempos. Alden, su asistente, exigió 105.000 dólares al Enquirer para publicar su historia, pero tuvo que reducir la cantidad al romper su acuerdo de exclusividad. Presley no le había dejado nada en su testamento. En pleno funeral, un automóvil arremetió contra un grupo de curiosos, matando a dos mujeres e hiriendo de gravedad a una tercera persona. Aproximadamente, 80.000 personas participaron en la procesión hacia el cementerio de Forest Hill, donde Presley fue enterrado al lado de su madre. Pocos días después, «Way Down» alcanzó los primeros puestos de las listas de popularidad pop y country. Y esto ha sido todo por hoy. Triste la condición de los famosos que no saben o no pueden asumir sus vicisitudes. Su reinado podría haber sido mucho más feliz. En fin, no es nuestro caso. Y a todos vosotros, recomendaros encarecidamente la escucha de la radio, de esta radio. La hacemos para vosotros con mucho cariño y con gran placer. Volvemos la próxima semana con más música, más músicos y más historias. Hasta entonces… BUENAS VIBRACIONES.

Recordareis que habíamos dejado de citar a uno de los grupos que también tuvieron una enorme importancia en el prestigioso grupo que denominamos “de vanguardia”. Esta banda no es otra que Jethro Tull. Jethro Tull fue una banda de rock progresivo británica, que comenzó su andadura a finales de 1967, hasta su separación en el 2014, siendo uno de los grupos de rock más longevos. Desde sus inicios, este grupo ha vendido más de 60 millones de copias de sus más de 30 álbumes, siendo uno de los grupos con mayores ventas de la historia del rock. Siempre ha sido liderado por el cantante y flautista escocés Ian Anderson, que es el autor de prácticamente todas las canciones del grupo, y de hecho el grupo se ha comportado siempre como el apoyo de este músico, y es que es el único que ha estado en toda la historia de la banda desde el primer disco, y solo el guitarrista Martin Barre se le acerca, estando en el grupo desde el segundo. La banda logró mucha popularidad en la primera mitad de los años setenta con álbumes emblemáticos en la historia del rock como Aqualung y Thick as a Brick, y con el tiempo llegó a convertirse en un grupo de culto. Hemos escuchado el corte que da título al disco, Agualund. Oiremos ahora Thick as a brick, otra delicia de canción, perteneciente al disco del mismo título. La música de este grupo, encuadrada en el rock progresivo, constituye una mezcla muy original de blues, folk inglés y hard rock, con pinceladas de música barroca, música medieval inglesa e incluso renacentista. El grupo desarrolla además una vertiente dedicada a originales canciones acústicas de difícil clasificación. En su sonido, destaca de forma particular la flauta de Ian Anderson, tocada de una forma magistral, que ha sido y sigue constituyendo una de las inconfundibles características de la banda, así como el sonido desgarrado de la guitarra eléctrica de Martin Barre, finamente entrelazado con el de la flauta de Anderson. Vamos a pararnos por un momento en una serie de solos de este magnífico guitarrista: Martin Barre a la guitarra. Bien, no? Una grandísimo instrumentista. Durante algunos años, el grupo incluyó también, al mismo tiempo, dos brillantes teclistas, con lo que obtuvo un sonido de particular colorido y dimensión: los maestros John Evan y David Palmer. Este último realizaba además los arreglos orquestales. La participación del sobresaliente bajista y cantante John Glascock, -fallecido en 1979- dotó a la banda de un timbre muy personal, con una segunda voz y un excelente apoyo vocal y armónico. La formación también ha utilizado una gran variedad de instrumentos, barrocamente combinados, en su mayoría tocados por el propio Ian Anderson, como el laúd, la mandolina, la balalaica, el saxofón, la armónica, la gaita, el acordeón y diversas clases de flautas. Salvo contadas excepciones, todos los temas interpretados por el grupo han sido compuestos por Ian Anderson, auténtico líder y factótum del grupo. Anderson es un personaje camaleónico, tanto en su aspecto como en su capacidad para reinventar continuamente su propia música, lo cual ha permitido a Jethro Tull mantenerse joven a pesar de los años. Los despedimos con otro de sus éxitos: Nothing Is Easy En esta época, y alejándonos ya de esta vanguardia, se dio un fenómeno de mercadotecnia que alumbró a una serie de grupos “fantasma” o que, por lo menos, no se regían como bandas al uso sino que servían fielmente a los intereses exclusivos de las discográficas. Lógicamente eran grupos comerciales a más no poder. Uno de ellos, que en España tuvo una buena acogida, fue Ohio Express. Este grupo estadounidense se creó a finales de la década de 1960, editó multitud de sencillos de éxito en sus orígenes, entre los que destaca Yummy Yummy Yummy. Tras su separación en 1970, el grupo ha vuelto a estar activo de forma esporádica. Aunque el nombre hacía referencia a un "grupo", es más realista considerar a Ohio Express como una marca empleada por la compañía discográfica Super K Productions para hacer dinero rápido. Otro de estos grupos que alcanzó el éxito en la época y que pertenece a la misma categoría de “Grupos Fantasma” son The Monkees. The Monkees fue una banda de rock formada en 1966 en Los Angeles y fue creada originalmente para una serie de televisión del mismo nombre en la cadena NBC. Los miembros de la banda fueron seleccionados entre más de 500 jóvenes (entre los rechazados estaban músicos que después fueron famosos como Stephen Stills, ya que los productores estaban más interesados en crear un producto comercial que tener músicos con talento que tocasen o compusiesen música). El espectáculo contaba con un sentido del humor irreverente, muy similar o más bien copiado al de "A Hard Day's Night", la primera película protagonizada por The Beatles; además de esto sólo dos de ellos eran músicos y el resto aprendió a tocar sobre la marcha. A partir del disco Headquarters ya podían tocar los instrumentos sin organizar ningún desaguisado en la grabación y así lo hicieron. Desgraciadamente para ellos salió a la venta el álbum de The Beatles, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band y fueron desplazados del número 1 después de sólo una semana. Además emprendieron junto a Jack Nicholson el proyecto de la película "Head", que fue un desastre; su programa fue cancelado y al poco tiempo Michael Nesmith, el único miembro de la banda con algo de talento, la abandonó comprendiendo que para sus creadores los Monkees sólo habían sido un producto y nada más. Curiosamente en esta época The Monkees rechazó grabar "Sugar Sugar" y la compañía, al ver la posibilidad de negocio con esta canción, creó un grupo de dibujos animados llamado The Archies, basado en la tira cómica Archie con cuyo nombre se publicó la canción. "Sugar Sugar" fue el mayor éxito de 1969. En su origen, los Archies tampoco tenían discos, porque su distribución se hacía a través de un especie de acetato integrado en el reverso de las cajas de cereales para el desayuno, que podía recortarse y reproducirse en un tocadiscos. Su mayor éxito: el citado Sugar Sugar. Pero el acontecimiento mundial del momento fue el regreso del Rey, la vuelta de Elvis Presley. A principios de 1968, cuando el cantante ya había vuelto de su aventura militar, estaba atravesando una crisis personal y profesional, y es que ni su vida privada ni su carrera pintaban nada bien. De los ocho sencillos que lanzó entre enero de 1967 y mayo de 1968, solamente dos figuraron en el top 40, y ninguno de éstos logró posicionarse más arriba del puesto número 28. Pero… la televisión volvió a salir en ayuda de Elvis. El día 3 de Diciembre de 1968 se emitió un programa, anunciado simplemente como Elvis, donde se presentaba a Presley cantando con una banda frente a una pequeña audiencia, convirtiéndose en la primera actuación en vivo del artista desde 1961. Interpretó varias de sus canciones en un estilo desinhibido semejante al de sus primeras interpretaciones de R&R. El show fue el más visto de la NBC en esa temporada y logró atraer a un 42% del total de la audiencia. Elvis había vuelto. Esta canción, If I Can Dream fue especialmente escrita para la ocasión. Empujado por el éxito del especial del regreso, Presley se sometió a una severa serie de sesiones de grabación en el American Sound Studio, que al final llevaron a la creación del aclamado álbum From Elvis in Memphis. Estrenado en junio de 1969, se convirtió en su primer álbum no inspirado en alguna película y surgido de un prolífico período en los estudios de grabación en ocho años, por lo menos. El álbum incorporó el sencillo «In the Ghetto», lanzado en abril y que alcanzó el tercer puesto en el pop chart —el primer éxito top ten no gospel de Presley desde «Bossa Nova Baby» en 1963. Y es en este momento cuando Elvis Presley aterriza en Las Vegas con gran éxito. En su debut, Presley se subió al escenario sin ninguna presentación. La audiencia de 2.200 personas, entre las cuales se hallaban varias celebridades, le dio una ovación de pie antes de que cantara siquiera una nota. Vamos a escuchar su famoso alegato a la ciudad del vicio: Viva las Vegas. Su mayor éxito en listas fue Suspicious Minds que fue número uno, convirtiéndose en el primer tema pop de Presley en alcanzar tal logro en los Estados Unidos en más de siete años, aunque también el último. El 21 de diciembre de 1970, Presley llevó a cabo un osado encuentro con el presidente Richard Nixon en la Casa Blanca. En esta reunión el cantante presumió ante Nixon de patriotismo y manifestó su desprecio hacia la cultura hippie y su devoción a las drogas. Además, le dijo a Nixon que la banda inglesa The Beatles, cuyas canciones cantaba regularmente en sus conciertos durante esa época, eran un ejemplo de lo que él concebía como una tendencia «anti-estadounidense». Paradójicamente se da la circunstancia de que Presley había tenido un encuentro de unas cuatro horas con la banda, hacía más o menos cinco años. Al enterarse de dichas declaraciones, Paul McCartney dijo luego que él se sentía confundido y decepcionado al respecto. Y más paradojas del divo, por esa época publicó un disco de canciones navideñas en el que destacaba una muy buena versión del obsceno blues de Charles Brown “Merry Christmas, Baby” Aunque Elvis ya no era un fijo en las listas de éxitos, algún material grabado con anterioridad logró colarse en el top five del country chart. Los más sonados fueron «My Boy», que se convirtió en un número uno del género y «Moody Blue» que fue, a su vez, número dos del mismo ranking. No obstante, su grabación más aclamada por la crítica de esa época fue el clásico del soul «Hurt». El divorcio de Presley ocurrió el 9 de octubre de 1973. A partir de entonces, comenzó a enfermar cada vez más constantemente. Hacia finales de 1973, fue hospitalizado en estado semicomatoso por los efectos del abuso en el consumo de Demerol. Según su médico, el doctor George C. Nichopoulos, Presley «sentía que al obtener los medicamentos, las drogas realmente, de un medico no se sentía como el adicto común que tiene que salir a la calle a conseguirlas». El periodista Tony Scherman escribió que, a principios de 1977 «Elvis Presley se había convertido en una caricatura grotesca de su elegante y enérgica forma de ser. Un tanto pasado de peso, directamente gordo, y con su mente trastornada por la medicación que diariamente ingería, era casi incapaz de sacar adelante sus breves conciertos». En Luisiana, el intérprete estuvo en el escenario menos de una hora y «le resultó imposible, en todo momento, saber donde estaba». Incluso, no pudo presentarse en el Baton Rouge; aquí ni siquiera fue capaz de levantarse de su cama del hotel donde se hallaba. Sus fans empezaron a dejar de seguir sus actuaciones, decepcionados por la gran cantidad de cancelaciones. Pero todo esto a Elvis le importaba nada: su mundo ahora se hallaba confinado casi por completo a su cuarto y sus libros de espiritismo». Su último concierto se dio en el pabellón Market Square Arena, en Indianápolis, el 26 de junio. El libro Elvis: What Happened?, coescrito por tres guardaespaldas que habían sido despedidos un año antes, se convirtió en el primer testimonio detallado de los años en que Presley fue un drogadicto. Tras su publicación, el cantante quedó hecho polvo e intentó sin éxito evitar su lanzamiento ofreciéndo dinero a la editorial. Por entonces ya sufría de diversas enfermedades: glaucoma, hipertensión arterial, daños en el hígado y megacolon. En todas ellas, Presley presentaba un cuadro médico serio, causado y agravado por el consumo excesivo de drogas. Una tarde, su asistente lo encontró inconsciente en el suelo del baño. Los intentos de reanimación fueron en vano. La muerte del cantante se hizo pública oficialmente a las 15:30 en el Baptist Memorial Hospital. Elvis Presley falleció en Memphis a la edad de 42 años, a causa de un Infarto agudo de miocardio. El funeral del artista fue todo un despropósito. Miles de personas se reunieron afuera de Graceland para observar el ataúd abierto. Uno de los primos de Presley, Billy Mann, aceptó 18.000 dólares a cambio de una fotografía exclusiva del cadáver de Presley; la imagen apareció en la portada del siguiente ejemplar de National Enquirer, convirtiéndose en el número más vendido de todos los tiempos. Alden, su asistente, exigió 105.000 dólares al Enquirer para publicar su historia, pero tuvo que reducir la cantidad al romper su acuerdo de exclusividad. Presley no le había dejado nada en su testamento. En pleno funeral, un automóvil arremetió contra un grupo de curiosos, matando a dos mujeres e hiriendo de gravedad a una tercera persona. Aproximadamente, 80.000 personas participaron en la procesión hacia el cementerio de Forest Hill, donde Presley fue enterrado al lado de su madre. Pocos días después, «Way Down» alcanzó los primeros puestos de las listas de popularidad pop y country. Y esto ha sido todo por hoy. Triste la condición de los famosos que no saben o no pueden asumir sus vicisitudes. Su reinado podría haber sido mucho más feliz. En fin, no es nuestro caso. Y a todos vosotros, recomendaros encarecidamente la escucha de la radio, de esta radio. La hacemos para vosotros con mucho cariño y con gran placer. Volvemos la próxima semana con más música, más músicos y más historias. Hasta entonces… BUENAS VIBRACIONES.

Pull on your skant and replicate a pile of Demerol as we look at the enduring vision and appeal of TNG! Writer and "Behind the Bastards" host Robert Evans joins the show to talk about Star Trek: The Next Generation and how it still hits the spot, over 30 years past its debut. We talk about Robert's sci-fi past, the optimism at the heart of TNG and Trek, leaning into your permissive utopia vis-a-vis more sex and drugs, the themes future Treks should be covering, the state of journalism in the 24th century, Herzog's cry for "adequate images", and how Trek can get us out of the predicament we're in.Plus, we discuss the dearth of sci-fi comedy, why mankind built cities to throw bigger parties, whether utopian art is any good, the state of the sex toy market in the 24th century, "Rolling with Troi", the perils of a new boss, silent orphans in dark rooms, Aaron wonders if TNG is an alternate universe, and Robert remembers mowing lawns for the Emprah!Picard better be dropkickin' some dudes in his new show!Catch up with Robert around the Web!http://www.twitter.com/iwriteokhttp://www.twitter.com/bastardspodhttp://www.behindthebastards.comhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pEV2_XiUFkListen to Robert's new podcast, It Could Happen Here!https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/it-could-happen-here/id1449762156?mt=2&ign-mpt=uo%3D4Contribute to Robert's GoFundMe for his audiobook, The War on Everyone!https://www.gofundme.com/the-war-on-everyoneGet Robert's book, A Brief History of Vice, on Amazon!https://amzn.to/2FEEcWSSuit up with our Trek T-shirts!https://www.teepublic.com/user/justenoughtropeJoin our crew on Patreon and get access to our new Voyager recaps!http://www.patreon.com/eistpodClick through our Amazon link on enterprisingindividuals.com to support the show!http://www.enterprisingindividuals.comhttps://www.amazon.com/?tag=jet01-20&linkCode=ezFollow us on Twitter and Facebook for Trek news and updates!http://www.twitter.com/eistpodhttp://www.facebook.com/eistpod

Pull on your skant and replicate a pile of Demerol as we look at the enduring vision and appeal of TNG! Writer and "Behind the Bastards" host Robert Evans joins the show to talk about Star Trek: The Next Generation and how it still hits the spot, over 30 years past its debut. We talk about Robert's sci-fi past, the optimism at the heart of TNG and Trek, leaning into your permissive utopia vis-a-vis more sex and drugs, the themes future Treks should be covering, the state of journalism in the 24th century, Herzog's cry for "adequate images", and how Trek can get us out of the predicament we're in.Plus, we discuss the dearth of sci-fi comedy, why mankind built cities to throw bigger parties, whether utopian art is any good, the state of the sex toy market in the 24th century, "Rolling with Troi", the perils of a new boss, silent orphans in dark rooms, Aaron wonders if TNG is an alternate universe, and Robert remembers mowing lawns for the Emprah!Picard better be dropkickin' some dudes in his new show!Catch up with Robert around the Web!http://www.twitter.com/iwriteokhttp://www.twitter.com/bastardspodhttp://www.behindthebastards.comhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pEV2_XiUFkListen to Robert's new podcast, It Could Happen Here!https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/it-could-happen-here/id1449762156?mt=2&ign-mpt=uo%3D4Contribute to Robert's GoFundMe for his audiobook, The War on Everyone!https://www.gofundme.com/the-war-on-everyoneGet Robert's book, A Brief History of Vice, on Amazon!https://amzn.to/2FEEcWSSuit up with our Trek T-shirts!https://www.teepublic.com/user/justenoughtropeJoin our crew on Patreon and get access to our new Voyager recaps!http://www.patreon.com/eistpodClick through our Amazon link on enterprisingindividuals.com to support the show!http://www.enterprisingindividuals.comhttps://www.amazon.com/?tag=jet01-20&linkCode=ezFollow us on Twitter and Facebook for Trek news and updates!http://www.twitter.com/eistpodhttp://www.facebook.com/eistpod

Dr. Julia Spinolo is a Doctor of Nursing Practice and Reiki Master who offers energy healing, intuitive coaching, and spiritual guidance. She combines her knowledge of science based medicine and energetic healing modalities to help clients return to their centered selves. We're talking about best practices for energy healers. If you are a Reiki Master or a practitioner of another healing modality, this is a great set of ethical guidelines. And if you are considering energy healing as a client or patient, we talk about the positive attributes you should be looking for in a practitioner, common red flags you might want to be aware of, and what kind of expectations you should have about outcomes. GUEST LINKS - JULIA SPINOLO juliaspinolo.com Resources (Research) Medical Girl Mystical World Dr. Julia Spinolo's Show MENTIONED ON THE SHOW Don't Fear Placebos Akimbo: a podcast from Seth Godin HOST LINKS - SLADE ROBERSON Slade's Books & Courses Get an intuitive reading with Slade Automatic Intuition FACEBOOK GROUP Shift Your Spirits Community BECOME A PATRON https://www.patreon.com/shiftyourspirits Edit your pledge on Patreon TRANSCRIPT Julia: I was working as a college professor and going on about life. Had my terminal degree. Thought that life was good, had a great house, had a great husband, great marriage, and then I was diagnosed with breast cancer. This was almost four years ago, which threw my world upside down. So I went through having a double mastectomy and then months of chemotherapy and then recovering. And luckily, turned out fine. Everything is fine. I'm still doing fine. But I just did not feel like myself. I got my energy back but my mind was very foggy. Had classic chemo-brain, which is where you feel like you're in a constant fog and you can't connect your thoughts or you forget things and I'm one of these very meticulous people that are on my game all the time. I'm very on the ball and I just wasn't myself. My husband, funny enough, is an oncologist. He looked at me and he said, "Well maybe this is your new normal." I was like, "No, I'm not going to let this be my new normal." So I started looking at other ways besides western medicine to see if I could start to feel better. So going back in my history, I've always been kind of a metaphysical child. I have always been interested in having psychic readings. I had my first psychic reading when I was 12. I had my aura saged at 18 on a mountaintop, and I've always been kind of connected to that world. So anyway, I go to a group meditation and they were offering pranic energy healings afterwards. I was like, you know what? I'm just going to try this to see. I had no expectations whatsoever, but I heard that it was good. People really raved about it so I'm like, why not? So I'm sitting there with no intention of what's going on. Let's just see what happens. So I had this 15 minute pranic energy healing done and it was almost immediately that I felt clear. My thoughts were... It was like the fucking light bulb came on and I was just elated. And I just fell into this. I said, "I gotta learn more about this. I know that I can do this. I'm a healer already being in medicine, because that's what we do. We help heal people and we're going to go into that later in our discussion. But as I said, I know that I can do this. So I did. I started studying, actually I looked at different modalities. I looked at pranic energy, of course you have tai chi, accupuncture, accupressure, all of that is energy work. There are so many different modalities, but reiki really resonated with me. So I studied for months and became a reiki master and really started doing that work. During this work with the energy, I did a lot of self healing and a lot of work on myself. That self work is very key for any practitioner because you've got to be right with yourself before you work with anybody else. So I did. I did a lot of healing on my own. Studied the energy work and then started seeing clients. That's how I got into this and now that's what I solely do full time. I use my medical expertise in conjunction with the energy work, because really it's all connected. The body is connected to our energy. People that have these physical manifestations, there's some root cause of what's going on and that's basically what's going on energetically. And some people are like, well what do you mean? So my thought is that everything is energy. Our cells are made up of cells that are vibrating at different frequencies that make up our different organs. But also the things that we can't see, such as our thoughts, our prayers, that kind of thing, all of that is energy. What I look at is, this is a classic example. I'm fortunate to work with a primary care group, so I'm introducing this energy work into primary care medicine, which is so freaking cool. But basically people will come to me because I'm the last resort, which I really wish it wouldn't be like that. But unfortunately, it is. Because it's like, they can't figure out what the hell is going on with me. Can you help me? Because it is. So I'll do case studies. I had a woman who was coming in and she was having all these stomach ailments and she had the battery of tests and everything was coming out fine. Everything. I mean, she had ran a gamut of tests, doctors are scratching their heads like, you know, this is just how it is and here we're going to give you this medicine that's gonna help with these symptoms, and unfortunately with western medicine, we do. We kind of shrug and be like, "Well, there's a drug for that. Let's give you that and see how you do." I'm more of like, okay, what's really going on here? So she comes to me and we start talking and kind of digging down deep. It comes across that she's had really shitty relationships where her ego, her self-esteem, was just shot. When that happens, that tells me, okay, where the energy of our self esteem is in our solar plexus, which is right in our belly, the centre of our belly. So after we went through this, and the healing that she went through, and me giving her the tools to do the self-care, keep her where she's in alignment. Because it's not just me doing the work. It's a two-way street here. The client needs to be giving the input in. Somebody doesn't come to me, I'll wave my hands around them or wave a magic wand and POOF, they're done. It doesn't go like that. So they've got to do that work too. So we work together and I mean, this can take time! It can take months of meeting and working through this. Sometimes you integrate with a therapist, if there's something that I'm not comfortable with, I definitely use other resources to help with patients. And she got to where her symptoms went away because she felt better about herself, and it wasn't... It was so rewarding to see her, that look on her face and she doesn't have to take the medicine now and she feels great about herself. I kind of went on a little tangent there.. Slade: Well let me ask you something. Let me take you back for a minute. Because I remember, I mean, you and I are friends and we talk a lot. We've had conversations about this stuff. And you told me, at one point, that you were skeptical about this type of work itself. So I'm interested, what was it that, what was the skepticism that you had and what changed for you around that? Julia: Because with my background, I was trained in evidence-based medicine. So I needed to have a number of studies to convince me that this works. That's what medicine is. That's how trials are done. We do these trials. Okay, what was the most effective treatment for this plan? So that's how we plan our course for patients. That's what I was thinking, well if this stuff works, where is the stuff out there that's proving it? And when I started looking at this, I did, as a researcher at heart, I started researching this and you know what? There is stuff out there. People don't look for that. They're like, people get uncomfortable because it's something that we can't see. It's something that's not measurable. The only thing that's really measurable is the effects on how the person feels. But also if you look at their blood pressure, for example, if they have high blood pressure, they're taking the medicine and it's not working, they go to have energy work. The thing is that the practitioners are not keeping record of that. And there's nothing that goes back to say, "Yeah this works." We're only going by word of mouth. I really strongly advocate to have that data to show, yes, this does work. That gives it the validity that it needs, that people really need to show, like, yes, this can work. Slade: So when you were researching, you said one of the things that you were most drawn to was reiki. Was that because there was more research around reiki that convinced you? Julia: You know, that's a really good question. I chose reiki because it just resonated with me. I like the flow of it. I like the teachings of it. I like that you can take what it has and you can make it your own. There's some energy modalities where you have these rules and regulations. You've gotta do it this way, that step kind of thing. You have some of that fluidity with reiki, so that's what really got me into it. But then when I started looking into the research, it was kind of like a confirmation. Yeah, this is the stuff that I really like and I can use to support the work that I do. Slade: So I know you. I know you immediately went and read a bunch of brainy stuff about this, so, I want to know in layman's terms the highlights for us. Tell us. What are some of the scientific studies that back this up? Because you're right. A lot of people don't even go and investigate it that much, but you've investigated it. So tell us what you'd found out. Julia: Well there's a lot. If people wanted to know the statistical information, like the p-values and that good stuff, that nerdy stuff, they can go to my website which will tell them at the end of the show, under Offerings, there is a tab for Resources. Slade: Okay. Julia: And that has a lot of studies in there. There's more that I could put in there, but I don't like to overwhelm people. But it has like the gist of it, just for people to say like, "Okay, this stuff really does work." So to answer your question, there are studies that have statistically significant results in patients that have acute coronary syndrome, which is heart disease. They that have received reiki have a reduction of anxiety and perceived stress. This is all measurable results. This one was really cool for me. People that received, and these are just patients in the study, patients in this study who received reiki before their colonoscopy. After they received reiki, they required less Demerol, which is pain medication, after the procedure than patients who did not have any energy healing. So that's significant, especially with our opioid epidemic and our addiction to pain medication. So that's a plus in my book. Patients that had mild Alzheimer's Disease had an increase in mental functioning and improved memory and their behavioural problems had lessened. Cancer patients who received reiki reported less fatigue and anxiety, and I'm a testament to that, which significantly improved their quality of life. And this is a really cool thing because a lot of hospitals are now implementing energy work into their practices in the hospital. So they're actually taking nurses and having them go through reiki training to help not only their patients, and have their patients more comfortable, but also they're using it on their staff to prevent burnout. And healthcare professionals who have received reiki treatments have a reduction of burnout symptoms, which is compassion fatigue. But also it increases their focus and their problem-solving skills, which is a benefit to patients because they make less mistakes. Yeah, so it's not just for the patients. It's for the patients. It's for everybody. For the primary care group that I work with, I work with the staff and the patients, because I believe that the environment needs to be healing for the patients. Because that's going to radiate off of them. If they're feeling good, it's going to radiate out. And when those patients come in to that office, they're going to feel like, hey, I'm supported, it feels good here, I know that they're here to help me. So it's a win-win. I know that you have questions about placebo, so I can hold this one study for you while we talk about that, or if you want me to talk about that now, I can. Slade: Let's go ahead and talk about placebo because I've been studying it from more of a marketing angle and I'll speak to that. But talk to me about placebo, because I think it has kind of a dirty word and I think we can change the connotation about it. But talk to me about that in the studies. Julia: Okay. So just to say that, initially when I started this is, because it wasn't my intent to get better with having this chemo brain, so as a placebo, I was kind of on the fence with it. Was I, did I really think this was going to kill me and well maybe it is. And people chalk it up to placebo. Let me say something about the placebo effect. The thing is, is that if it works, it works. Period. If the patient feels better, whether or not it's placebo or not, if they're feeling better, it's kind of like, Who cares?? They're feeling better. A lot of times, with us, we have to make it make sense to us. We need to have that statistical data for some of us. We need to have that word of mouth that somebody says to us. If somebody says it's placebo effect, it doesn't necessarily mean it's all in their head. Now I'm gonna give you this study where reiki was done on newborn babies who were born to mothers that had substance abuse problems. So these babies were at risk for detoxing, having abstinence syndrome, which, when these babies received reiki... First of all, reiki does not cause any harmful effects across the board, which is good. So it didn't show any bad effects for this. But when these babies, they don't know anything about placebo or what's really going on, when these babies had the reiki, it showed that their heart rate decreased that correlated to the peaceful state of relaxation. So explain that to me. Slade: Right. Because they can't, they don't have the consciousness for the placebo effect to work. Julia: Correct. Slade: Well, I want to say something about placebo that really, the reason why I got really interested in this, and I'll try to find the episode and link to it for everyone so they can hear him talk about it, but Seth Godin, who is basically like a marketing expert, he did a whole show about placebo and about owning the fact that if your placebo effect is effective, then it's still valuable. You know what I mean? Julia: Right! Slade: That there is something to be said for, like when somebody takes your course and they pay money to come to a classroom, well maybe they could do some of that work on their own. But part of what the workshop does is it gives them accountability, it creates a time frame and structure to learn whatever it is. All of those things are reinforcing to maybe a goal that they have. But there's also a placebo effect around the mind-body connection. The thing is that the mind-body connection is for real. So if someone's saying something to you can activate your own mind-body connection, then so be it. You know what I mean? There's nothing wrong with it. So yeah, it is really interesting though to look at and compare those results that are outside of placebo. That's when we go, "Oh crap... this person didn't even know it was being done on them." I think there have been lots of studies around prayer that have those kind of results, right? Julia: Yeah. And let me tell you, there's been studies done. There's a few that I have on my website that deal with sham reiki, which is a double blind study, which means, here I'm getting all nerdy on you, but what that is is they came in. They did a group of patients that had reiki that was done by trained, attuned practitioners. And then they had a group of patients that were "treated" with people that didn't know anything about reiki. They just came in and told them that they were a reiki person and waved their hands over them. So, this is going to get rid of our placebo effect here. So listen to this. So in this study, it statistically significantly showed that the patients that received the actual reiki was far more effective than the people that had received the sham reiki, without them even knowing it. So there's something to it. Slade: Yeah. Julia: There's something to it. Slade: Absolutely. Julia: Because it kind of debunks that placebo effect. Because of these patients that did n'o know if they were getting a true reiki practitioner or a sham reiki person. They didn't know. Slade: That's fascinating. Julia: It was REALLY fascinating. Slade: I'm so glad that you have all these resources already in one place, because there are people who will want to dig into the details. We'll just link straight to that and let them see the sources that you're pulling from. One of the reasons why I wanted to talk to you is that you do both have the medical credentials, you're ethically conscious about your reiki practitioner, you are super informed about these studies and this information. And just to be honest, when you heard me criticizing some of the aspects of energy healing and kind of going off about it, what were some of the things that went through your head that you wanted to just like shout out in defense. Julia: Well, I think that there are standards that need to be set. I mean, definitely, you know, having some ethics to the work that we do. So I'm going to address what we as energy healers need to really think about going into this work. Can we start with that first? Slade: Yeah, absolutely. That'd be great. Julia: Let's just say we'll call this the "best practices" for energy healers. This is just not for people that do reiki, but any energy modality. I think this is across the board for all energy healers or people who identify themselves as energy healers, lightworkers, what have you. The big thing is, always ask for permission to work on people. I've heard horror stories where I've heard of people being worked on when they didn't give permission, like they received distance healing from somebody. That's totally not okay. Always ask permission. Can I give you a story, a personal story? Slade: Yeah! Absolutely. Julia: I love telling stories. This was a few years ago when I was just starting my business. I had somebody that was interested in talking with me, maybe joining as a practitioner with my business. My intuition was very cautious, let me just see how it goes. We ended up having lunch and I left the meeting nice. During the meeting, she wanted to kind of like, gasp, "I want to read you, I want to do this. Can I read you now? Drop the veil", and all these theatrics and all that stuff. I was like, whatever lady. Because I've had psychic readings forever. I grew up with this stuff. So I'm like, nothing you tell me is going to, "Ohmygod!" People love that. Let me just shock the shit out of somebody. And I was like, okay... So anyway, after the lunch and everything, I was like, well that's cool. I'll keep her as a contact person, but I don't necessarily think that I'm going to work with her. At any rate, later on in the day, my stomach was feeling kind of queasy and I was like, maybe it was something I ate that's going on. Let me take another side note here. Okay, so there are things that happen with our energy, and some of it can be emotional or physical things. This doesn't discount bacteria or viruses or anything, so when people get sick and they're like, gasp, "Your energy is off." Well, maybe your energy was low enough to be susceptible to that, but stuff happens. We still get sick. People that are at high-vibe still get sick because viruses do occur, so I want to make that clear. Anyway, so my stomach wasn't feeling good, so I sent her a text and said, "Hey, are you feeling okay?" She's like, "Yeah." I said, "Oh, well that's good!" I said, "My stomach was feeling a little upset. Maybe it was just the sushi that I had, some bad sushi." Just write it off as that. She was like, "Oh no, I know what it was." And I'm like, "What was it?" And she said, "I felt that you needed energy work done so I did a bunch of work on you. People have these kinds of symptoms when I work with them, they have stomach pain or ailments and stuff like that." I lost it. "Oh no you didn't." Because you have a start to your session and an end to your session. And that's it. Anything that comes after that, like if somebody walks out my door and we're done, we're done. So this outside of let-me-heal-you or let me work on your Higher Self, that does not fly with me. So I went all over her, and I said, "Ethically, that was just a big no-no. You don't do that." She's like, "Well I'm just trying to help you. I'm trying to do what's best for you." I'm like, "You don't know what's best for me." So we really got into it. She could not understand why that was not okay. Slade: Can I tell a story too about this? Julia: Oh please! I love story time. Slade: So the whole permission thing. Anybody that's worked with me around Automatic Intuition and my mentoring knows that I'm a stickler for this. I know that there's a lot of great TV about mediums walking up to strangers in line at the butcher and reading them. I've been doing this now for like 13 years and I cannot tell you how many hundreds of emails that I receive from people telling me that my guides have communicated with them and they have a message for me. And I'm like, "Yeah, right." Julia: Okay! Slade: It's kind of a little bit insulting, you know what I mean? It's just like telling somebody, you know, that you've undressed them with your eyes or something. It's an invasion of privacy. It's also not going to be super effective if people don't have your permission and your involvement because like you said, you're not doing something AT someone. You're facilitating something that's happening within them. I know that the best readings for me is when somebody is really participating and it feels like a conversation more than me sitting in a turbin just spouting stuff out. Those styles of readings, like you said, the drama and all that stuff... I mean, there may be people who do really excellent readings with all that, but one of the things that I really want to always pound home is this idea that this stuff shouldn't make you feel bad. It shouldn't make you sick. It should be practical. And it should be empowering. And it should make you feel peaceful and hopeful and all of that stuff. So if somebody's coming at you even with just social energy boundary issues, we'll put that in the red flag category. But anyway, so... Julia: We're going to go through some red flags today in a little bit, but yeah, that was just one. Kind of piggy-backing off of that is keeping good boundaries. We as practitioners need to be respectful of other people's boundaries, and when they come to see you, again, at the end of the session, that's the end. Some people say, gasp, "Well their grandmother came to me afterwards." And I was like, "Good! If they make another session with you, you make a note of it and tell them then." Also, and this is kind of like the Hippocratic Oath where it's always do good and no harm. Always come with that good heartfelt intent. Oh, here's a big one. Check your ego. When something is going on and you want to send reiki, whether it's to a person or to a population or that kind of thing, you want to question your ethics. You want to ask yourself, Why am I doing this? Are you doing it out of a true sense of help or are you doing it for your ego? And how you can do that is, are you really truly there to help or are you looking for the accolades and the money in your pocket. So really check yourself before you do that. What is my intent here? Is it really because I care or do I want the recognition to say, I healed this person, and to brag about it? And don't do any help unless it's okay with the person. Again, going back to ask the person. But also not guaranteeing that you're going to fix them. Nobody fixes anybody. Even in medicine, we don't fix people. It's called practicing medicine for a reason. We practice it. We try to look at the best practices that have been used with these patients in these certain populations or certain diseases. It does not necessarily mean that we fix them. If it helps with that, yay. That's great. But as far as fixing people, no. So when people claim "I cured this", or "Don't do that treatment and only come to me from now on", that's part of our red flag category too. So really watch yourself and check in. What am I doing this for? Am I trying to fix this person? Am I using all the resources available that can be applicable for this person? Really check in with yourself. The other thing that I want to say is for people to do that self work on themselves. They need to do those self healing practices. They need to practice what they preach. Are they taking good care of themselves? Are they checking in? Are they having energy work done by other practitioners and that self care? Because if they're not able to take care of themselves, if they're gonna be like a martyr and wave their magic wand and fix everybody, and then they get so exhausted and compassion fatigue, they did that to themselves. So they really need to have those moments of where they're doing their self care. So those are my best practices for energy healers. Slade: I know that we definitely have a lot of people in our listening audience who are coming to this as peers. They're listening to this conversation because they ARE reiki practitioners. Like you said, even if you are a practitioner, you still want to be on the receiving end sometimes, and there may be people listening to this show who've maybe never had a reiki treatment, or a session with an energy healer. So let's flip it a little bit and look at it from the perspective of if you're looking to be a client, what are some of the things that you're looking for in choosing a practitioner, and maybe that includes some of the red flags as well. Talk about that. Julia: Okay. First of all, for people that are looking into it, they need to have an open mind of what all of this is. A lot of people will come in to be a skeptic, "Oh, I just want to figure out what this is about to debunk people", and that's just, who knows what's going to happen for that, so have an open mind. Look for your intent of what you are seeking energy healing for. The other thing is, a lot of people when they're in desperate need of help, they're going to clamour around and get so many different people involved. So if too many therapies can be, you know, they're like, the more energy work I have from different practitioners and different modalities, the best. Well people have to be patient with that to see how each modality works for them. Because I have some people say, "Well I just left my accupuncturist and I came here and then I'm going to go do yoga after I go to do this." That's too much. Do one at a time. Do one every couple of weeks or whatever. People try to get that fix. Being healed like, fast, and it just doesn't happen. Also, I want to advise people to really trust their gut. Go with that intuition of like, if somebody gives you bad vibes, or you're kind of questioning it, you're looking at their website and it doesn't really resonate with you, don't go see that person. Look at word of mouth. Your friends, what they say. Look at the testimonies on people's website and see if you really like what you read. You want to avoid anybody that says that THEIR way is the RIGHT way. Again, looking at people saying that they can cure you. That's a big red flag. So watch out for that. People that say that you ONLY need my services. You don't need to see that person. Or you don't need to go to that support group. People that kind of monopolize on that. That's something that people need to watch out for. Slade: Well here's a good point that just occurred to me as we were talking about this. So kind of trying to grab all the stuff and do everything at once. I'm gonna do yoga, I'm gonna get acupuncture, I'm gonna go to my massage therapist, and I'm gonna have reiki. That's all too much. Partly because you can't really judge then which thing is being the most effective. Julia: Correct. Slade: You know, if you break them down and do them one at a time, then you have a better sense of which one's working for you. Julia: Yeah. Slade: BUT, by the same token, you need to have supportive therapies and treatments and experiences of different kinds. For instance, you need to have actual medical treatment if it's a medical issue, in addition to energy work. And then maybe you do need something that's a support group that's more of a social experience. So that's an interesting thing that just came to me as we're talking about this, to be able to discern the difference between having a lot of different avenues of support versus doing all the things at once. You know what I'm saying? Julia: Right. I mean I do that with my... I refer out with my clients all the time. If there's something that I'm not comfortable doing, I refer them out. And I know the people that I refer them to are trusted individuals that are highly qualified to do what they do. For example, I had a gentleman that, we were talking and he realized that he had a problem with alcohol. So I referred him to this great therapist and a support group that he could have. I mean, I wasn't going to sit there and say, "I'm going to be your support..." I'm not able to do that and I can't provide that for him. I'm not going to give him false hope. Slade: Listen, I have sent more people into therapy and 12 step programs as an intuitive than I probably even would've been able to as a therapist. Julia: Yeah! And I do! I refer them to, you know, if they have something that's going on with their thyroid they say, or whatever, I'll give medical referrals. It's like I'm the go-to point. "Here. Let me guide you this way." I'm kind of like a guide for a lot of people. Slade: Yeah. Julia: They come in and they're all like, "This is what's going on." I'm like, "Okay. Let's see what I can do. If I can't help you or if this doesn't work for you, then let's go here. Here's my list of recommendations here." And go from there. Another thing that I wanted to mention for people that are looking at energy healers. If they come across energy healers and they are talking about clients and not keeping confidentiality, you know, identifying information, if they're talking about people using their names and everything, they're definitely gonna be talking about you. So you wanna make sure that your practitioner has a confidentiality clause in their policies and their procedures to make sure they ensure that for their clients. That's happened before. Because if they're talking about other people, they're definitely going to be talking about you. The last thing that I want to say with researching energy healers for people is that if they go into a session and the practitioner's like, "Well, for us to do this, you're going to have to pay me more money." I've been advised that I should be doing packages for people and it just kind of rubs me the wrong way. Because sometimes one treatment is good enough for that client and they can come back in six months or a year from now. Maybe that one treatment is enough for them, so that's something that I'm kind of like on the fence about. But anybody that locks you in to get that more money coming in. Now I'm honest with people. If they come in and see me and I feel they need a couple more sessions, I'll be like, "You know, I think you may need to see me in a couple of weeks. Let's see how this does. Let's see how you feel", that kind of thing. There's no pressure or obligation for them to give me money to help them, you know what I mean? Slade: Yeah. And I want to say something about that for other practitioners and other professional intuitives. Whatever it is that you're doing as a practice, people often ask me about bundling services and bundling sessions, the only place that I really officially bundle sessions is when I'm going to be mentoring somebody and training them in this work. And I let them know upfront, this pricing is based off this number of sessions with me. So that's something that... There is no you do one session and then, "Oh, actually, in order to complete your training, you need three more." I don't do that. I will say this too. I don't really want clients that need to talk to me once a month. Because then I worry about their dependence on the work that I'm doing for them. Julia: Yes! Slade: Versus their personal empowerment. And I also know that there's a certain type of person, and I'm one of them, who needs a really good session once every six months. And then I'm good. Julia: Yup! Slade: I've got a To-Do list coming out of that session and I'm on fire to go and work on it. So leave me alone and let me go do what you just taught me to do and see what I can do on my own. If I do run into a client who really just, they like to talk to me once a season or twice a year or whatever that is, I do create special pricing and packaging for them off the books. It's not on the website. It's kind of more like a secret deal for your best clients kind of thing. It usually involves a discount, not additional money. It's usually like, you know what? If you're going to keep coming to me every year on your birthday, you don't need to be paying as much as everyone else. I think that, when you would consider paying for bundling, like I'm going to go ahead and pay for three more sessions up front, it's as if you already had a couple with that person and you like them so much, you're already booking more booking more booking more. And then the option of doing a bundle is just a logical discount for you. That would be a great time to do it. Julia: Yeah. Like I said, I'm on the fence about that but for people to promote it, I don't know. We'll see. Maybe I'll change my mind. Slade: It shouldn't be the exit speech before you leave. Julia: Yes! Or if people say, some people say, "You have this curse. BUT I can get rid of that curse for you." Slade: Ohmygod. Julia: If you take this feather and this herb and pay me $600. That's what gives us a bad rep! All that stuff gives us such a bad rep, because of the shady stuff that happens. Slade: Well, and I have people all the time that come to me with this idea that they've been cursed or hexed by somebody else. I had a lady try to tell me that there was a man in France that she'd never met before who had cursed her for six years. And I was like, "Okay...." First of all, I do believe, I want to speak to this a little bit because I think it speaks to the idea of energy healing or working on people at a distance. I believe that we can do everything within the bubble of our own mind-body connection. I believe that you can absolutely curse your damn self. You can totally put a spell on yourself and screw yourself up. I do believe that you can make choices that you have to unravel somewhere down the road. You're like, Uh, yeah, that wasn't the best idea. But the idea of somebody being able to project magical energy at you from France and screw up your life is not something that I believe is possible unless you take that on board. In order for you to believe that you're ex-boyfriend is cursing you because he's stalking you, making your life miserable, well there's a part of your consciousness that is open to him and is taking on that belief. This gets to the idea of people doing distance healing on someone without their permission. I just don't, flat out, believe it works. Julia: So are you saying that you don't believe distant healing works? Or... Slade: I do believe distance healing works when the other person is engaged, like we were saying. Julia: Yes. Slade: When it's a dialogue. When you're facilitating their self healing, it is a conversation like you and I are having right now. We're both showing up to this. We're open to each other and we're communicating back and forth. But I can't get an interview out of you by just willing it to be so while you're down in Atlanta having coffee. That's not... I don't know. I mean there may be studies that can prove it wrong. I have seen really interesting studies around people being prayed for, that didn't even know they were being prayed for, and did not believe in prayer, who still reported miraculous healing and all that kind of stuff. So I believe... Here's the thing. I believe everything a little bit and I'm open to something until it's been debunked. But my personal feeling when I encounter somebody who says that they are removing curses for people, or that they're healing someone without their knowledge or permission. My first thought is like, meh, that's probably not very effective. It's probably just not working. Julia: It's called classic manipulation. Yeah. Classic manipulation there. Slade: Well, you have to be aware of the manipulation for it to work on you. You know what I mean? Julia: Yeah. Slade: I mean, you have to be at least having a conversation with somebody over the phone, you have to be reading an email from them. In order for somebody to manipulate you, you have to be open to that information coming in. I don't think somebody can manipulate you or curse you or heal you if you're going about your business and you've never even heard of them before. I just don't think it happens. Julia: No, I agree with you on that point. I do. Slade: That's a little rant. A little tangential rant. Julia: That's okay. You go on. This is your show. You do what you want to do. Slade: Ohmygosh. Okay, is there anything else that we feel like, oh, I know something we can say about choosing a practitioner. Julia: Yeah. Slade: One of the things that's so cool about this show in this format, is it allows people to listen to us and maybe you do look at somebody's website and well, her website's pretty and she's got some testimonials. Look here's a link to an interview she did. I'm going to go and listen to her. I'm going to listen to her talk to someone else. I'm going to watch a video. I'm gonna watch her TV show. It allows people to resonate with you and to evaluate how they feel about you. I can't imagine why you'd want to hire somebody that you didn't get a good vibe from. But I have heard time and time again that people are booking sessions with me because they listen to the podcast and they feel like they speak my language. There's something about that that we really can't control. It's happening at a level we may not even be conscious of. So, like you said, trust your gut. Be open to the fact that you have the option in a lot of cases to even talk to this person on the phone and do a free consultation or something. You know, interact with them a little bit. If they're not responsive in email, if they're weird on the phone, don't work with them. There's tons of other people out there that you would rather be working with. Julia: Umhmm. Absolutely. Slade: So. Julia: So. Slade: What do you hope to contribute to the greater conversation about spirituality and health and wellness, east meets west medicine, all that good stuff? Julia: All that good stuff. I would like for people to have an open mind, to say anything is possible, but I love seeing what I'm doing now with bringing the, where western trained physicians are bringing me in to do this eastern part of healing for their patients to have that whole well-rounded care. So what I would like to see is that, not that one is bad and the other's... Or like one's crazy and the other one is pill pushers or whatever. There's a happy balance between the two. And then really just for people to do that self-exploration and see what truly resonates with them. Slade: You have a television show that's kind of this whole concept. Tell us about that. Julia: I do! I have a... I'm just wrapping up my second season of Medical Girl Mystical World at the Lighter Side Network. It's wonderful. The network itself has over 400 shows on there with different hosts. But it's really having that mind-body-spirit, that wholesomeness, it's like feel good TV. We talk about that and I've always had people on my show where it peaks my curiosity of, let me learn more about that. That's the thing. I can't judge something when I don't know about it. You know what I mean? So I have. I've had people that do crystal healings or people that do numerology or astral projection. That kind of thing. Because these are the things I don't know enough so I want to educate myself on there so I can make informed decisions about how I want to do things. So it's my inquiring mind. Finding these people and just learning about what they do. Slade: And we're going to link in the show notes because you have a free promo where people can get three months of access to the network. Tell us about that. Julia: Yeah, so if you go to https://www.juliaspinolo.com/ If you look at the link that says "Medical Girl Mystical World", if you click that and subscribe to my email, it will give you that code where you get three months. So you can check it out. Check out my show and the other shows too. See if there's things that resonate with them. If they continue after the three months, to continue with that, it's fine. I think the monthly fee is $6.99, very inexpensive. So have them check it out. See what you like about it. Slade: Awesome. Dr. Julia Spinolo. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today. Julia: It's an honour to be here. Thank you so much for having me. Slade: Tell us one more time where we can find you online. Julia: https://www.juliaspinolo.com/ Slade: Awesome. That was great, Julia. Thanks.

Rounding out the trifecta of wonderful nurse guests this month on Maybe Medical is Flight Nurse Colleen R.! We covered how she feels you need to be able to fly by the seat of your pants to perform in her role, as well as have an emergency and critical care background. We talked about work and home partnerships and how to balance it all while supporting each other. She was extremely inspirational and I can not express my gratitude enough for her taking the time to sit down with us. Thank you Colleen!   Registered Nurses* Registered nurses (RNs) provide and coordinate patient care, educate patients and the public about various health conditions, and provide advice and emotional support to patients and their family members.   2017 Median Pay: $70,000 per year ($33/hour)   Educational Degree: Initially Associate's Degree or Bachelor's Degree   Number of US jobs in 2016: 2,955,200   10 Year Job Outlook: 15% growth, much faster then avg.   *Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Outlook Handbook, Registered Nurses, on the Internet at https://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/registered-nurses.htm (visited November 16, 2018).       Terms Covered in Episode American Nurses Association Trauma Surgery - Surgical field dealing with acute traumatic injuries such as falls, motor vehicle crashes, gunshots, blunt and penetrating injuries, etc. Pulmonology - A medical specialty that deals with diseases involving the respiratory tract. Consult - When asked to weigh in officially with your medical opinion from your specialty on a patient managed by another team. Perforated Bowel - Opening in the intestines due to trauma (knife, bullet, etc) or disease (infection, cancer, etc).  Is a surgical emergency.  Yuck. Sepsis - A potentially life-threatening condition caused by the body's response to an infection. Ventilator - To move breathable air into and out of the lungs, to provide breathing for a patient who is physically unable to breathe, or breathing insufficiently. "Coding" - What we casually use to describe a cardiopulmonary arrest in which there is a sudden loss of function of the heart or loss of respiratory function that requires immediate intervention in a life or death situation. IR (Interventional Radiology) -  A subspecialty of radiology that uses minimally invasive, image-guided procedures to diagnose and treat diseases in nearly every system or organ of the body. CVA (Cerebral Vascular Assault, Stroke) – Possible permanent damage to the brain from a loss of blood flow from either rupture of a blood vessel or obstruction from a tumor, clot, plaque, etc. MI (Miocardial Infarction) - "Heart Attack" refers to a blocked coronary artery that has caused, or is moments away from causing, irreversible cardiac (heart) tissue damage. ET (Endotracheal) Tube - A tube of varied sizes that is inserted into the trachea for establishing and maintaining a patient's airway. Choose Your Own Adventure Books ER (Emergency Room, Emergency Department, Emergency Ward, Accident & Emergency Dept) - Department that must provide initial treatment for a broad spectrum of illnesses and injuries, some of which may be life-threatening and require immediate attention that arrive unplanned by walk-in, private vehicle, or ambulance. ICU (Intensive Care Unit, Critical Care Unit, or Intensive Therapy/Treatment Unit) - Part of the hospital with the sickest patients requiring the most intervention from both staff and equipment.  May consist of intubated, sedated, and ventilated patients. Bachelor's Degree - On average four to five year University Program to pursue a degree in a specific field. Sacred Heart University College of Nursing Bridge Program - A postgraduate program that is usually shorter then traditional programs that take into account previous experience. Physical Therapist - An important medical provider and part of the rehabilitation team to help assist with treatment, recovery, and overall well being of patients with chronic conditions, illnesses, or injuries. Prerequisites - Classes you may need to take before further applying to a program.  Usually a focus on science/math for the medical field. PA (Physician Assistant) - Providers who practice medicine on teams with physicians and other healthcare workers. They examine, diagnose, and treat patients autonomously and as part of a team in all various specialties of medicine. On average a Master's level degree of education. NP (Nurse Practitioner) - A nurse practitioner is trained to assess patient needs, order and interpret diagnostic and laboratory tests, diagnose illness and disease, prescribe medication and formulate treatment plans.  They may work in a solo practice independently or they may work within part of a hospital system.  They graduate from a Master's or Doctorate level medical program. ASN/ADN - Associate’s Degree in Nursing.  Usually around two years. EMT/Paramedic - Emergency medical technicians and paramedics care for the sick or injured in emergency medical settings by responding to emergency calls, performing medical services and transporting patients to medical facilities as needed. ER Techs - Staff who in all aspects of patient care under the supervision of the Practitioners and Nursing staff.  Many have a paramedic/firefighting background. Travel RN - Nurse who travels for limited contracts working in all variety of places and roles.  On average 8 to 13 week contracts. Smart Pumps Compact Nursing States NCLEX (National Council Licensure Examination) - A standardized exam that each state board of nursing uses to determine whether or not a candidate is prepared for practice. Wake Forest School of Medicine PA Program Harborview Medical Center King County Medic One "Board & Collared" - Refers to the practice of placing a patient on scene on a very hard and rigid backboard to immobilize them and place a neck collar on them to prevent any head movement in the event of a spine injury while they are transported to the hospital.  They are incredibly uncomfortable. Intubated - When an ET Tube, or similar artificial airway, is placed, either in an emergency, where there is loss of respiratory function or planned such as in surgeries. First Responder - Generally refers to the first on scene in an event.  May be police officers, firefighters, or paramedics for example. "Packaged" - Patient is ready to be transported.  IVs are in, airway is secure if one is present, patient is strapped in, paperwork is read.  Let's roll!   EZ-IO - Used to gain access for medications or fluids when unable to get a line in a blood vessel.  Using a drill a hollow bore is inserted into the broad side of a bone.  Yeah, you drill into bone. "Push Line" - An IV that gives you access for medications that need to be administered over a short amount of time.  Pain meds, sedatives, cardiac meds, etc.   Vasopressors - Class of Antihypotensive medications that are used to raise blood pressure by contracting blood vessels.   EJ - An IV placed into the external jugular of the neck.   Central Line - Larger then an traditional IV placed into veins in the neck, chest, groin, or through veins in the arms.   EMS (Emergency Medical Services) - Services that treat illnesses and injuries that requiring an urgent medical response, providing out-of-hospital treatment and transport to definitive care.  Paramedics, Police, Firefighters, etc.   Level One Trauma Center - A Level I Trauma Center is capable of providing total care for every aspect of injury – from prevention through rehabilitation and includes teaching residents and medical students in all fields.   Med/Surg/Floor Nursing - Refers to what you would think of "general hospital patients." Those with pneumonia, new cardiac issues, skin infections, etc that do not require focal subspecialty involvement (cardiac, neuro, ortho, etc) or critical care support.   Nocturnist - Hospital-based practitioner who only works overnight.   Admit - To be brought in to the hospital for specific medical care.  Entails obtaining a medical history, making a medical diagnosis, writing orders for treatment and other diagnostic procedures, diet, activity, etc.   Post-Op/Recovery Room - The period right after surgery.   GI (Gastroenterology) - The branch of medicine focused on the digestive system.   Orthopedics - Branch of surgery concerned with conditions involving the musculoskeletal system.   Neurology - The area of medicine focused on the nervous system.  This includes the nerves, brain, and spine.   Potassium - A naturally occurring mineral and electrolyte consumed in our diet.  Involved in metabolism, hormone secretion, blood pressure control, fluid and electrolyte balance, and more.  Normal standard range is around 3.5-5mEq/L. Critical Values - Any values considered to be too high or low and requires immediate medical attention to prevent further issues. "Bagging" - The act of using a manual balloon like bag that is squeezed for each breath to a patient. "Titrate a Drip" - To adjust the flow rate or dose delivered of medication in a IV or central line. Peggy Sue - Badass Patient Advocate "Shake and Bake" - Hyperthermic Intraperitoneal Chemotherapy is a highly concentrated, heated chemotherapy treatment that is delivered directly to the abdomen during surgery. Patient Advocacy - Doing what is best for the patient in all facets of care provided. Listening to and understanding their needs. Multi System Organ Failure - A cascading domino like effect where multiple organ systems start to shut down due to injury/illness. Krista Haugen and Survivors’s Network Post Resuscitation - The fragile period after performing CPR or similar resuscitation of a patient. M&M (Morbidity and Mortality Meeting) - Where we dissect individual challenging cases to identify what other choices could have been made for possible alternate outcomes. Off-Label - Using a medication that may not necessarily be the indication that it was originally intended for.  For example Demerol that is a pain medication is excellent for post-operative rigors (shakes).  A small dose works like magic...fun! IV Fluids - Intravenous fluids are given through an IV, central line, or IO and usually consist of normal saline or lactated ringer's solution. Levophed (norepinephrine bitartrate) - Medications used to raise blood pressure in critical patients. Used to be referred to as "Leave 'em dead" as any patient sick enough to require norepinephrine to manage their shock, then they were most likely going to die.  Very commonly used nowadays. Epinephrine - Endogenous hormone that is given to patient's to treat a number of conditions including anaphylaxis, cardiac resuscitation, and bleeding.  Inhaled epinephrine is used to help treat symptoms of croup.  Is used in the ICU and cardiac unit to help maintain a high enough blood pressure.   PRBC (Packed Red Blood Cells) – Blood that is transfused after finding the right compatible blood type for the patient.   Plasma – Fluid in blood that is responsible for carrying red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets, etc. Is often used during blood transfusion to help stop the active bleeding by adding pro-clotting factors.   Credo Cube   Transfusion Guidelines Airlift NorthWest   MONA - Morphine, Oxygen, Nitroglycerin, and Aspirin are all meds that should be administered to a patient experiencing chest pain.   Emergency Nurse Association   Balloon Pumps - Intra-Aortic Balloon Pumps use a thin flexible tube that is inserted into the aorta of the heart to pump blood artificially in a heart-like fashion.   ECMO (Extra Corporeal Membrane Oxygenation) - Treatment that uses a pump to circulate blood through an artificial lung back into the bloodstream of a very ill patient.  Provides heart-lung bypass support outside of the body.  You are damn near dead at this point   Skills Lab/”Sims” - Focused area to learn new medical techniques or further practice known skills.   Society of Critical Care Medicine PFCCS - Pediatric Fundamental Critical Care Support ACLS - Advanced Life Support PALS - Pediatric Advanced Life Support Certification NRP - Neonatal Resuscitation Program ATLS - Advanced Trauma Life Support Certification   CCRN - Critical Care Registered Nurse CEN - Board Certification of Emergency Nurses Each and every episode of Maybe Medical is for educational purposes only, not to be taken as medical advice.  The opinions of those involved are of their own and not representative of their employer.  

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Personalized Medicine's day job goes well, at least to start. The gang is distracted by how awful Google Image searches for random diseases are. An escape is planned and executed. Ramirez starts sounding more gravelly as Michael forgets what his original voice was. Rosalind and Charles meet on a dusty highway, and then there is a cliffhanger, brought to you by #notallman! Featuring Robyn Reed as Personalized Medicine.

John & Colin let the bullets fly while discussing John's trip to Florida and the PGA Merchandise Show. Also: Impossebulls, Chuck D, Public Enemy, Free Music Archives, Jeremy Lopez, Lopez Radio, Orlando, Florida, Atlanta, Georgia, The Golf Swing Shirt, Apple Watch, Champion, Chance the Rapper, Under Armour, Mom Jeans, Acid Wash Jeans, PGA Merchandise Show, Ricky Fowler, Bryson Dechambeau, Padraig Harrington, Dr Ruth Westheimer, The Mental Illness Happy Hour, Paul Gilmartin, Demerol, Hawaii 5-0, Dominican Republic, Indoor Axe Throwing, Garmin Watch, AliveCor, Kardia App, Strava, Berkely University, T-Slim Insulin Pump, Type 2 Diabetes, Kareem Abdul Ja-Cock, Patty Carey Perrazo, NYC Media, NYC.gov, Half Life, Greenlight Her, NYC Women's Scriptwriting Competition.

Pamela Hadfield, co-founder of Hello MD, was on a fast track to becoming addicted to Vicodin until medical marijuana relieved her pain and broke the yoke of her addiction.Pamela Hadfield suffered from withering migraine attacks for most of her life. In her late 30s, when the severity of her migraines increased, she was prescribed Vicodin, the highly addictive resident in many of our medicine chests. Pamela used Vicodin but with trepidation. She went to work and kept her life going, but she had become a highly functional opioid addict.When she was introduced to cannabis, she was skeptical. She thought, like so many naïve patients, that MMJ was a joke. But with no other choice, she did some research and visited a dispensary in San Francisco, where she lived. After months of experimentation, she found the right cannabis dose and formula that broke the yoke of her addiction. It’s three years later, and Pamela hasn’t had a migraine since. “Cannabis is the only thing that stopped the headaches,” she told me. It also altered the course of her working life.Today, Pamela is the co-founder of Hello MD, a California-based telemedicine service that connects patients interested in medical cannabis with doctors. Along the way, Pamela has become an advocate for educating patients about using cannabis to overcome opioid dependence.Opioids (the category includes Codeine, Fentanyl, Oxycodone, OxyContin, Tramadol, Demerol, Norco, Lorcet, methadone) are killing 91 Americans per day. That is criminal. It’s even more unacceptable in light of the fact that there are dozens of recent studies indicating that cannabis can not only stop the addiction, but can also stop the pain, in most cases, more effectively than these opioids.In one recent observational study Hello MD conducted with University of California, Berkeley, 91% of patients said that cannabis helped them reduce their dependence on opioids (That’s a sky-high number -- most studies report 50-60%). Eighty one percent said that cannabis was more effective than opioids for chronic pain, which is defined as pain that continues for over 90 days. This is interesting -- opioids work best with acute pain -- they offer great relief for the first few days. But after that, they lose efficacy and can actually exacerbate the pain. After a week of opioid use, you have a 25% chance of becoming addict.Combine that with the fact that death rates from opioids are 25% lower in legal medical marijuana states and you have compelling evidence that cannabis –even as an adjunct to opioids--could be a viable solution to helping patients reduce pain and reclaim their lives without fear of addiction.Why isn’t the federal government using this information to help its people? You may think you know the answer (No, it’s not all Trump’s fault), but tune in to learn more.

On this Episode of the Way within I share the incredible story of Gerard Powell. From his Bio: He opted to try anything available to hide from himself and his “perfect” life. Most of his existence he suffered from addiction and depression, incessantly trying to fill the hole deep within, with little or no success. Ultimately, after much trial and error he found the key to true success and happiness. Today, he serves as a conscious entrepreneur, thought leader, philanthropist and public speaker on a mission to share the modalities and philosophies that transformed his life. Here is Gerard's story:    Gerard was born in Scranton.  He was kicked out of school at 17.  Went to jail.  Became a millionaire in his 20s.  Became a multimillionaire in his 30s.  Sold the company for $90 million in his 40s.  After achieving the American dream he tried to commit suicide two times.  Couldn't get his life together.  Was addicted to alcohol, injectable Demerol and cocaine. In a last ditch effort to turn things around he triad Plant Medicine... He was never the same again Please connect: web: www.thewaywithin.me email: g@thewaywithin.me instgram: @thewaywithin.me facebook: www.facebook.com/thewaywithin To subscribe on iTunes, click here: goo.gl/sykqM8

In the decade between 2004 and 2013, the number of seniors taking at least threepsychiatric meds more than doubled. And for those who live in rural parts of the country, it tripled! I'm talking about drugs such as opioids like Percocet and Demerol, antidepressants such as Prozac and Paxil, antipsychotics including the dementia med Abilify, and tranquilizers like . So why are seniors taking so many of these drugs? And -- perhaps more importantly -- why are their doctors prescribing them at this rate? It seems you can't turn on your TV or computer without a daily story about the dangers of opioids or others on this long list -- yet they're still flying off the Rx pad. Dr. Ron is a board certified physician and a Diplomate. He also is a licensed Acupuncturist. He has over 50 years of medical experience and with Dr Gerry and Dr Dan brings you a weekly program on up to the minute topics and the real story behind the headlines. The 3 doctors comprise over 150 years of experience. Check out ICNR.com for Dr Gerry Smiths new e book on Advances in Chronic Pain Treatment   Email at docronradio@gmail.com and Facebook page Dr Ron Unfiltered Uncensored.

Producer Joel Silver, director Tony Scott, and screenwriters Shane Black and Greg Hicks team up for this gridiron-set action thriller. Bruce Willis stars as Joe Hallenbeck, who was once a top-of-the-line Secret Service agent but has since become an alcoholic, flea-bag detective. While performing the chores of a two-bit shamus, he discovers his wife Sarah (Chelsea Field) is having an affair with his best friend. Joe is hired to protect Cory (Halle Berry), a stripper who has been getting death threats; Joe begins to sober up when Cory is blown to smithereens. Cory's boyfriend, Jimmy Dix (Damon Wayans), was at one time a NFL football quarterback, but was thrown out of the game for gambling and addiction to Demerol. Smelling something fishy, Joe and Jimmy begin to investigate further and discover layers of corruption in professional football circles, leading up to Sheldon Marcone (Noble Willingham), a corrupt team owner who wants to pay off legislators to legalize gambling on pro football games.

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Today we are breaking from the usual format and doing something a little different. If your patient doesn't have an adequate airway then we need to provide one. We are the experts in the emergent airway and there's a lot more to it than shouting out "20 of etomidate and 100 of suxs" like they used to do on the TV show ER. This podcast will go over why we intubate patients, how to prepare for an intubation, the commonly used medications for RSI, tricks of the trade (and maybe a war story or two), and post-intubation management. This is the first topic podcast that is a lot longer than the usual podcasts but airway is our number one priority so it deserves a little extra time. Also- for the first time ever- a bonus section on a common medical myth. Should you use the D-word for pain from cholecystitis...as in Demerol? Stay tuned after the airway podcast for why this may not be a great idea and why you should just strike Demerol from your memory.

Johnny becomes addicted to narcotics when the “rest home” gives him Demerol to wean him off alcohol. He loses his right eye in a rest home brawl. Bitter and unable to work, he sells his possessions and then borrows. Reduced to the gutter, he decides to end his life, but a friend takes him to the V.A. Hospital where a chaplain prays for him. He goes to hear a former golf student at the chapel and gives his life to Christ. He witnesses to others including his father.