Ever wondered just how impactful trauma can be on the brain, regardless of its source? Join us on Murders to Music as we unravel the universal nature of trauma through our deeply personal journey. We start with a harrowing chapter from 2005, where my wife and I faced an unimaginable crisis during her pregnancy. Discover how a life-threatening complication escalated into a dramatic helicopter transfer to Anchorage, Alaska, and the emotional rollercoaster that followed when our unborn son's survival hung in the balance.
Our story continues with the miraculous journey of our son, Justus, who was born with Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia (CDH). From makeshift medical transport solutions in Alaska to specialized care at Emanuel Hospital in Portland, witness the extraordinary challenges we faced. We delve into the ongoing struggles with Justus' developmental delays and health issues, and you'll have the chance to meet Justus himself as he prepares to share his unique perspective. Through his words, we'll explore how growing up with CDH shaped his life, from hospitalizations to the impact of his condition on his physical and mental health.
In this emotional episode, we also focus on the profound mental health challenges stemming from prolonged hospital stays, particularly during the isolating months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Hear firsthand about Justus' battles with chronic blockages and underdeveloped lungs, and the pivotal role key medical professionals played in his journey. We'll also touch on how these experiences have influenced his career aspirations, shifting from nursing to EMS and firefighting. This heartfelt narrative underscores the resilience of the human spirit and the enduring power of hope, courage, and shared stories.
www.StreamlineEventsLLC.com
www.DoubleDownDuo.com
@StreamlineSEE
@DDownDuo
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Ever wondered just how impactful trauma can be on the brain, regardless of its source? Join us on Murders to Music as we unravel the universal nature of trauma through our deeply personal journey. We start with a harrowing chapter from 2005, where my wife and I faced an unimaginable crisis during her pregnancy. Discover how a life-threatening complication escalated into a dramatic helicopter transfer to Anchorage, Alaska, and the emotional rollercoaster that followed when our unborn son's survival hung in the balance.
Our story continues with the miraculous journey of our son, Justus, who was born with Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia (CDH). From makeshift medical transport solutions in Alaska to specialized care at Emanuel Hospital in Portland, witness the extraordinary challenges we faced. We delve into the ongoing struggles with Justus' developmental delays and health issues, and you'll have the chance to meet Justus himself as he prepares to share his unique perspective. Through his words, we'll explore how growing up with CDH shaped his life, from hospitalizations to the impact of his condition on his physical and mental health.
In this emotional episode, we also focus on the profound mental health challenges stemming from prolonged hospital stays, particularly during the isolating months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Hear firsthand about Justus' battles with chronic blockages and underdeveloped lungs, and the pivotal role key medical professionals played in his journey. We'll also touch on how these experiences have influenced his career aspirations, shifting from nursing to EMS and firefighting. This heartfelt narrative underscores the resilience of the human spirit and the enduring power of hope, courage, and shared stories.
www.StreamlineEventsLLC.com
www.DoubleDownDuo.com
@StreamlineSEE
@DDownDuo
Youtube-Instagram-Facebook
Well, hey everybody, welcome to the Murders to Music podcast. Thank you for checking back in. So we've had a pretty good. I mean it's been a couple of weeks since the podcast has been online. We've got a good number of downloads. That's pretty awesome. If you guys like what you're hearing here, share it with your friends, share it with your family members, and be sure to subscribe and hit that alert so you'll get notifications when we have new shows. So today's going to be a pretty awesome show. I've got a guest on with me today. We're gonna be talking a little bit. He's a pretty special guy, but before we get to him, let's kind of tell the story a little bit about where we are. So we're gonna take this back to Now.
Speaker 1:This falls into the trauma category. Your brain doesn't know trauma, what the source of it is. It doesn't know if it's a traffic accident or if it is a marital issue or if it is a sexual abuse issue or a physical abuse issue. All your brain knows is trauma and there's a trauma response to that. And oftentimes I think people discredit themselves when they feel like they haven't been traumatized in their life or when they. You know, it's always a comparison, especially when I start talking to people about going out of law enforcement with PTSD, it always seems to be a comparison. Well, I mean, hey, something happened to me, it's not as bad what happened to you, but and they go into it. And I think that we shouldn't get caught up in this comparison game, because my pile of crap is no different than your pile of crap. They're both piles of crap and they stink. So the brain doesn't know the difference. The brain doesn't know the difference if the trauma is something you're experiencing today, currently actively, or if this is a triggered response and you're in a safe place.
Speaker 1:Oftentimes, in the situation I'm in now, I find myself where I'm no longer at work. At work I'm no longer in a dangerous situation. Yet I see circumstances and it brings me right back to where I was before and the brain starts releasing those chemicals and we start thinking and feeling the same way that we used to back in the day, and sometimes even worse. And I think that's because we've been conditioned to that response, that fight or flight response, that way that we used to protect ourselves, and our brain goes back into that sympathetic nervous system that I spoke about, that flight, fright, flight, fight or freeze. Sorry about that Bunch of Fs. You try saying it, don't laugh at me, you try saying it. So our brain goes back into that circumstance and the trauma could be from any source. And I say that because, as I'm going through therapy, coming out of law enforcement no-transcript I'm not the kind of person that is going to roll over and wet myself. When something bad happens, I'm going to hit it head on, face on, and I'm going to deal with it. And sometimes we see trauma as just something that you know comes our way. It's just another bump in the road, but when you turn around and look back, it was probably pretty significant In this case.
Speaker 1:I'm going to take you back to 2005. So, 2005, I was a police officer. I had been a police officer for three years. I had seen my share of things. My partner had been killed in the line of duty. That was traumatic, but I had moved on. I thought and 2005, I realized that we're going to have a baby, a little baby boy.
Speaker 1:And at about 36 weeks and three days into the pregnancy, we I don't say we my wife had a headache. So we took her to the fire department. She had really high blood pressure. From there. We had to go to the doctor's office in Soldotna, alaska, and it was determined that she had protein in her urine and needed to go to Anchorage for some advanced medical care because of where she was in her pregnancy. So advanced medical care because of where she was in her pregnancy. So she got on a helicopter, left home with a headache, got on a helicopter and went up to Anchorage, alaska, went to Providence and met with I flew up on a commercial airline. We met with the doctor that evening about six o'clock and at this point everything in the pregnancy had been going good. She had a little bit of bleeding third trimester bleeding but it wasn't anything that anybody seemed to be concerned about.
Speaker 1:And you have to understand I need to paint the picture the town that we were living in it was two towns back to back. Combined total population was about 15,000 people and it was a relatively small hospital. That we were was our main hospital where we'd planned on delivering. So they don't see a lot of trauma. They don't see a lot of high risk and when they do, they ship it off to other places. They don't see a lot of high risk and when they do, they ship it off to other places.
Speaker 1:So we get to Anchorage and it's about 6 o'clock at night and we meet with the perinatologist high-risk baby doctor pre-birth and he comes in and he takes a look, puts an ultrasound on. We're there for high blood pressure and a little bit of protein in the urine. He takes a look at the ultrasound and he says you know, has anybody mentioned the long umbilical cord? No, has anybody mentioned the heart being displaced? No, has anybody mentioned a mass in your baby's chest? Has anybody mentioned a mass in your baby's chest? No, all right cavity. Or your baby could have what's called a CDH congenital diaphragmatic hernia. Either way, expect your baby to live about 30 minutes and then die. I don't see your baby sustaining life based on the condition of its organs.
Speaker 1:And you need to come to my office tomorrow morning to have a follow-up ultrasound. Have a good night and that is about how much bedside manner that this doctor had. So my wife and I find ourselves in just absolute fear, despair. We just got told that our first child was likely not going to live past 30 minutes. We knew this was going to be a C-section, so we knew that she was going to be more likely under anesthesia and maybe not even get to see our child and maybe not even get to see our child. So that night, needs to say, was very little sleep.
Speaker 1:We the next morning we went to the doctor's office and had the ultrasound. During that ultrasound you can read people's body languages and during the ultrasound we could read in the body language of the uh ultrasoundologist whatever they're called uh, that maybe things weren't good. And we asked the question well, what are you seeing? And obviously they say we can't tell you the doctor, I'll have to read the ultrasound. So then the doctor comes in and tells us that our baby has a congenital diaphragmatic hernia, cdh. So with that information we're armed and we go out and we start searching the interwebs what is a CDH? And we see that a CDH has a very low probability of sustaining life. High mortality rate. I don't know what the numbers were back then, but eight out of 10, seven out of 10 die. And essentially what happens during a congenital diaphragmatic hernia is when God develops us.
Speaker 1:We have an upper and a lower chest cavity, abdomen. It's divided in half by the diaphragm. Congenital diaphragmatic hernia means that there's a hole in the diaphragm and portions of the guts, the spleen, the liver, the intestines. Portions of the guts sleep up through that hole during utero in utero and take up the cavity that is intended for your heart, your lungs and the life-sustaining organs. Well, if this happens early in utero, when the guts get up inside that upper cavity where they don't belong, then your heart and lungs won't develop. Therefore you don't sustain life. If it gets up there late in utero, then it can collapse. The lungs. The problem with that is imagine baby's lungs being like a thin balloon with a small layer of hydraulic oil in them. Once those lungs, they stick together and they're very fragile. So trying to reinflate them is often just as dangerous as the situation itself. So that's what we're facing.
Speaker 1:We're not sure when our son's going to be born, but we know that it's likely going to be a rough set of circumstances. We start rallying the troops and we bring our friends around. A dear friend of ours basically took over my life, keith, he and Stephanie are amazing people and during that time he took over my bills, he took over my house, he took over everything. Because we knew that we were on a really really long, hard road. Everybody gathered around us at the hospital. Each day we were having biophysical profiles where essentially they would disturb, poke the baby and then watch the response. If the baby responded, the baby got to stay in. If the baby showed signs of distress, it was time to take the baby. So we were in the hospital two days, two and a half days, something like that and the baby started to show signs of distress. So it was determined that we were going to have emergency surgery. Well, up until this point we had worked with the same doctor and he was going to be there while his bedside manner sucks. He was very, very good and he was going to be there for us during our birth and do the operation and be right there to take care of our baby or pass the baby off to the next set of hands. Well, he was off that day and somebody else we didn't know was filling in. So I threw a little bit of a fit and we got. We got one of our doctors come in. I believe he even came in. Dr Asada came in from his day off to help with the surgery.
Speaker 1:When Stacey went back to get prepared for the C-section, she knew that this was an opportunity. If she had to put her under general anesthesia, she was likely never going to see her child. So when they gave her the epidural it wouldn't take. So they poked her again and again and again. She was poked 12 times with the epidural. I couldn't imagine doing it once, but she did it 12 times. Finally, her and the nurse prayed that it would take because they knew what the outcome might be. The epidural took and we were able to proceed with the c-section. What general anesthesia meant was if for some reason the epidural wouldn't have taken, then I wouldn't have been able to go in during the to the operating suite.
Speaker 1:And we've all got stories about our kids being born and tragic things. And again, this is not a comparison. Mine isn't necessarily worse than yours, I just want to tell you my story. So when our son was born he had the nuchal cord. He had the cord wrapped around his neck seven times and he was a dark, dark shade of gray, very little electrical heart activity, was not breathing on his own and did not get to come to my arms, went straight through the window into the neonatal intensive care unit. From that point the doctor came around into the suite and got me and told me that things didn't look good. I went into the NICU and the first thing he did was show me an x-ray and the x-ray showed about a third of one lobe of lung. Everything else was collapsed and there was a bunch of organs up in that chest cavity where they shouldn't have been.
Speaker 1:It's about 11 o'clock, it's about 1030 at night. Now, um Stacy is drugged in the operating room. I am a hundred feet away, on the other side of a wall in the NICU, and my son is about 50 feet away from me under an isolate. So they take me over to my son and his name is justice. They take me over to my son and his name is Justice. They take me over to Justice and, uh, he is about five pounds. He is about he's smaller than my hand. So he's 10, nine inches long. 10 inches long. And at that point, uh, his oxygen saturations were down in the twenties, he was not exchanging oxygen and it's tough to live without breathing as we're sitting there. His oxygen levels jumped up into the 80s and there was a glimmer of hope and they said you know what, if he is going to survive, we need to get him to Emanuel Hospital in Portland, oregon for ECMO.
Speaker 1:Ecmo is essentially, in layman terms, a heart-lung bypass machine. They pull the blood out. They do 80% of the work that the body would do with the blood and they pump it back in, and that is to give your heart and lungs rest and time to heal. Ecmo is not life-saving, I mean, it's not life support. They'll unplug you. At the time it was two weeks. If you weren't better in two weeks then they took you off the machine.
Speaker 1:So Justice got packaged up to go to Portland Oregon. It was about midnight. Stacy was able to wake up and come in there and touch him and that was it. And then she had to go back. And then the flight crew arrived and said that I couldn't go with them on the airplane and said that I couldn't go with him on the airplane. And you know, I've never been so emotional that I just wanted to destroy everybody and everything around me. And in that moment I was filled with rage and anger. And the part that really upset me is the nurse. I you know. She said you can't go with me. I said I have to go. My son's dying. There's a chance he's not going to make it. And she says I know how you're feeling, but you can't go. And I know how you're feeling, pissed me off and I wanted to tear the place up and I had the cognitive thought that if I do, I'll lose my job and I can't support my family, which is probably the only thing that kept me in check that night.
Speaker 1:So they packaged justice up. They don't have a high frequency vent, which essentially gives remember that balloon and hydraulic oil I spoke about A high frequency vent gives small puffs of air to keep the lungs inflated at a partial level, so there's no big expansions or contractions. It just keeps a cushion of air in the lungsated at a partial level, so there's no big expansions or contractions, it just keeps a cushion of air in the lungs. They did not have a high frequency vent to put him on for transport, so they had to make something work. And it's a little rough when you know your son is critical, you know, and essentially they're breaking out the duct tape. So they get him packaged up and then they realize the weather is too bad in Sitka, alaska. They have to land for fuel but they can't land because of the weather. So they decide they're going to take him the next day when the weather clears. Well, the next day the weather clears, they load Justice up, I get on to an Alaska Airlines flight and he flies off to Portland. I fly off to Portland.
Speaker 1:When I arrived in Portland, a friend of mine another police officer friend had called ahead told him who I was and I was picked up at the gate by the airport police. I was put into a police car and I was. And I was picked up at the gate by the airport police. I was put into a police car and I was ran with lights and sirens to Emanuel Hospital. When I got to Emanuel Hospital I arrived before my son did.
Speaker 1:He flew into Hillsboro and about five minutes later, after I was there it seemed like five minutes, I don't know how long it was my son arrived, arrived and he was in an isolate and they were doing CPR. He had died in or out and they were resuscitating him. That is a shitty thing to see. I remember the nurse, kathy, who was giving him CPR. It sucked but they got him back and we were in a room called the Ladybug Room at Emanuel Hospital. The Ladybug Room is for the highest-risk patients. It's for the patients that need multiple nurse to patient care. Three kids max can be in the ladybug room and it's a large room. Justice was in there. He was the sickest baby at Emanuel Hospital for about a month and a half. A lot of other babies around him were dying. Justice was living minute to minute. For the first week they couldn't do surgery on him because he was too fragile and if there was a slightest noise, a fan kick on in the room. It set all of his stats and monitors out of control because of the physiological response that he had to that stimulus.
Speaker 1:I remember going to bed one night. Just before I went to bed they said hey, it's not looking good, we're probably going to put them on ECMO tonight. You need to go see what ECMO is. So they took me up to the ECMO suite and I saw other patients on ECMO and they said when you wake up in the morning you know, expect Justice to be in here and you know you'll meet with the ECMO team and they'll explain to you what's going to happen. So I go to bed, a lot of praying. The next morning I wake up, I go out and Justice is still where he was the night before, without ECMO. So I talked to the nursing team and they said that he had stabilized overnight and he had stabilized. So another day goes by, they determined that he is healthy enough for surgery. So they take him in and do a surgery and that starts about two months of healing about two months of healing.
Speaker 1:Then we were able to take him back to Alaska. Well, you have to understand that as a baby, this sick, you don't know how to eat, you can't poop, your guts don't work, you don't have a suck reflex. So there's a lot of therapy that has to go with this. So we took him back home and that's where we lived for the next five years. During that five years, justice continued to grow. He was slower in growth than a lot of his peers. He was slower in growth than his brother, who was 16 months younger than him, is 16 months younger than him, is he was, uh, developmentally delayed and that's what we were living with for five years. He was failure to thrive at times. Uh, we went to the hospital and they actually he was gray, very limp, uh, malnourished malnut because he wouldn't eat, and they actually called the CPS on us and notified them because they thought that he was abused. We were on vacation when that occurred in Phoenix, arizona, and we ended up extending our vacation because we had this very sick child. Well, it became too much to extend vacations and travel and fly. We would have done it, but it was very clear we needed to make a move and do something different, which is how we ended up in the Portland Oregon area in 2010, when he was five years old. We were closer to his medical team, closer to the doctors that knew him best, and little did we know that was going to save his life again a few years later.
Speaker 1:I've got Justice with me on the show today and we're going to talk to him a little bit about his experiences with CDH, with the trauma earlier. I started this with trauma and this is a trauma. This whole thing is traumatic, but as I'm coming out of law enforcement trying to face my devils, I didn't think of this as trauma. I thought this is a bump in the road that you hit head on and you just push through because that's what you do. Your brain doesn't know the difference. My pile of shit is no different than your pile of shit. They're both stinky. Don't sell yourself short on what your trauma might be.
Speaker 1:Let's welcome Justice to the show. What your trauma might be, let's welcome justice to the show. And, uh, yeah, this is welcome justice. Do I have applause? Do I have applause? I do this? There, he is right there. That was fun, wasn't it? All right, all right. So this is my, that's my son, justice with us. So we're going to talk just a little bit, jay, thanks for being on the show. Buddy, yeah, um, I just want want to talk a little bit. You've kind of heard how I set us up here. I want to talk. What is your earliest memory of and I don't want to say cdh, because you know what that was but your earliest memory where you knew maybe you were different, uh, or there was something different about you compared to the others, or or was there one?
Speaker 2:um, I mean, I've always had the scars, you know, and that's something I've. It's been normal to me. I think the first time I really realized it was like five or six, when I was old enough to realize and like, compared to my brother, like we look different physically. You know, I have scars, I have tons of scars, tons of other things on my stomach that just aren't normal due to surgery and just the way I was developed and whatnot. Um, so I think that was a big one of like noticing, like just visually comparing.
Speaker 2:Um, I knew I was different there and then, like you're talking about earlier, when I went to the hospital for the first time, like due to complications, after like it, when was that? I was like?
Speaker 2:2013 was my first blockage realizing that like my, the sickness that I had when I was born is going to and can cause, like problems even now, you know, and that was all due to scar tissue, which I never really thought about until it happened. And it's like, well, now I got scar tissues and it's going to cause problems and it sucked. So that was the first time I really realized that, like, not only did I see it, but it had effects that weren't normal Blockages and everything else that would come later.
Speaker 1:So tell me about that. You mentioned that 2013, after we were down here, and a blockage. Can you kind of explain to me, explain to everybody, what that is all about and what causes the blockage?
Speaker 2:why you have one. Yeah, so in 2013, I had my first abdominal blockage, um which basically um the scar tissue from my original surgeries that you talked about earlier that I had as a baby um scar tissue grows beneath the scars in your wherever they're. Wherever they are in your body, um, it kind of just floats around and it it wraps around my intestines and kinks them off, um causing a blockage.
Speaker 2:Uh, so if I eat food or drink water, nothing filters through and it gets blocked up and it grows and it grows and gets inflamed and it hurts, um, and so the first one I had in 2013 we were out camping and I don't know where we were somewhere in washington, I think um and my stomach started to hurt really bad. I thought, oh, it's stomach bug, whatever, it'll go away. And it kept getting worse and worse. I kept eating and that started to catch the pattern of, like, hey, when I eat, it gets worse. You know, and I remember talking to you guys that night about my stomach hurting. I remember throwing up and that being a scary thing. So at that point I was like nine years old. I hadn't really thrown up that much, that violently before. So the blockage yeah, it keeps running your intestines and blocks any food from digesting, and the more you eat, the more upset your stomach gets.
Speaker 1:So, and I think it's important for everybody to understand, the reason that he has so much scar tissue is, remember, the guts were up in that upper chest cavity, in that upper space. Well, when he, when God designed him, it was designed to have, you know, all those guts down in that lower abdomen. But because this happened during your in utero, those guts were up in that chest cavity, so his abdomen did not form to the correct size. So when they did the surgery to repair it, they essentially pulled all the guts down from the chest cavity and shoved them into his abdominal sack. And they're putting 10 pounds of crap into a five pound sack and then nothing lays in there the way that it's intended to. Everything is just shoved in and that's called intestinal malrotation.
Speaker 1:So the organs aren't in their correct place. They're close but not correct, and the intestines are just kind of shoved in in this, you know, spaghetti nest of stuff and uh, that is why he has that scar tissue there and because they manipulated and touched everything, that's what caused the scar tissue. So let's talk a little bit about um we'll. So I want to touch back on what you were saying about your brother earlier, and things were. Was there ever any a time in your earlier life prior to 13, where you felt uh scared because of your condition or anything like that?
Speaker 2:Um, no, I think I mean if I I'm sure there was, but I don't really remember any of them.
Speaker 2:Um and like for a while I didn't really know what it was, but I don't really remember any of them. And like for a while I didn't really know what it was and I was little and didn't really understand why I looked the way I did or why I had the scars or whatever, until I was older and could really understand it. And, like I said, I don't think I could really understand what was happening until I was in the hospital again and it was explaining to me, hey, these things and it kind of showed what you went through. And hearing mom talk to doctors about my history and that's really when I first learned about like my medical history was when mom was reciting it back to the doctors about new doctors are like, hey, this is what he has and this is why, and telling them the story, that's the first time I really heard my own story because, like before that, I don't remember really hearing it or knowing why I looked the way I did.
Speaker 2:I remember looking the way I did and think it was different.
Speaker 1:So how many blockages have you had?
Speaker 2:Well, 12, 13, something like that. I've had one like every six months from like third grade to ninth, and then I've had a couple since then like smaller ones. But ninth grade we'll get to that later, I'm sure, but that was the big one.
Speaker 1:So sometimes the question is asked you know, why don't they just do surgery and fix this? Well, it's a slippery slope to do surgery because, remember I said, manipulation is what causes the scar tissue. So if they go in to remove some scar tissue or realign things or reposition things, then there's a chance they're going to create more scar tissue, which is just going to increase the problems that he's having. So from a parent point of view and from a doctor, medical team point of view, we have to assess this to determine are we going to go in and do surgery? Is it worth it? Is the risk worth the reward, or are we going to just cause more problems and find us back here At one point, you know, we were really questioning that he had pancreatitis at the same time that he had a blockage.
Speaker 1:So we could tell during that time that there was something different. This was probably blockage number five or six. Yeah, that was pretty early on. There was something different about this and we couldn't tell exactly what it was. But they ended up determining it was pancreatitis and there was no reason to do a surgery there. So we're going to jump. So this continues, this lifestyle continues. How has it changed you Justice as far as things you can do and the way that you live your life? Are you limited from doing things anything like that?
Speaker 2:Um, I think the big one is my lungs. Um, I talked about earlier like my lungs weren't really developed when I was born and they never really developed fully, even after I was born. So my stamina I'm running or doing sports or whatever as a kid and even like through high school and stuff was like the one thing I really felt was like man, I'm not getting as much share, like this is affecting me and my breathing a lot more than my brother, you know. It's like we were at the time pretty much the same amount of physically active people and it was affecting me a lot more. I'm like this really sucks. Um, so that was the one bit thing that really feel like changed me or limited me, which was like my ability to breathe, I guess, sometimes when I really exert myself.
Speaker 1:But that's kind of it and, yeah, that's really it okay, so this goes on growing up and then let's talk about 2020. Yeah, the day that the world shut down. So 2020, what happened? Tell me how you got to the hospital and then we'll get into what happened when you were there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so a little backstory real quick. A normal blockage Before 2020, I'd had like 10 of them or something like that, something crazy, so they become a routine. I've had a couple hiccups, like finger titus was just another thing to throw into the mix, but generally they all, they all look the same. I'd feel the feeling which I got really good at reading, um, and I would wait at home till I threw up. Once I threw up, that's kind of the final sign that yep, things are going up instead of down and it's time to go to the hospital.
Speaker 2:I go to the hospital, get a bunch of pain meds, get an IV and basically bed rest for a week. I would lay in bed, get IV fluids I got to keep myself awake, electrolytes and whatnot, but I was not eating anything in my mouth. I'd basically just lay in bed until the pain went away and I would start at that point slowly introducing food again. So I start with Jell-O and Gatorade, and then it would be pudding, and then it would finally be like brownies and then slower food up until normal food. Once I ate normal food and I pooped, I went home.
Speaker 2:That was the routine and that lasted about a week at a time. So 2020, I felt the feeling again.
Speaker 1:'m like all right, blockage number, real quick, what? What is the feeling you're feeling when you say you felt the feeling what? What are you feeling um?
Speaker 2:cramps, crampy, and it's in the same spot every time, and that's another thing we look for is where is it at that? You're feeling pain and that's why pink?
Speaker 2:your ties are so different? Because in a different spot, and that's what the concerning part was but you feel these really bad cramps in the same spot, um, and when you eat they get worse. You get nauseous. Um, it was like a test. I do whenever I feel this crappy feeling, I'm like all right, I'm going to eat toast and drink some water If it gets really pissed off and I know this is water, um, so you can look for it like that. Um, but you just I've learned the feeling and it said, yeah, cramps and pain that doubles you over.
Speaker 2:I remember, like, just laying in bed, fetal position, knees in my chest, like just in pain, I was nauseous and that's kind of when I knew. So that's the, that's the feeling I looked for and at that point I would tell my mom hey, I have a blockage, let's go to the hospital and do it again. You know, and that was routine. So in 2020, that happened again. I was a freshman in high school and this is pre-COVID 2020, this is February of 2020. February 13th, I think 15th, something like that. Anyway, february of 2020.
Speaker 2:I remember going to the hospital for a blockage. I got in there, they did x-rays, yep, got a blockage, pain meds, maybe bed rest. That was the thing. Um, that's kind of the last I remember of it, unless I look back at videos. At that point, from what I've been told, um, is I wasn't getting better. You and mom saw that I was getting a lot worse instead and that was obviously concerning you know, and. But when, um, yeah, I wasn't getting better, a week had gone by, a week and a half, whatever it was, it's like all right, it's getting worse, not better. I'm gonna figure out why.
Speaker 2:Um, and that's kind of the last I remember, because at that point I was so much in pain, I was on so many medications that, unless I'm sure there's videos of my mom's recorded and stuff with me, with friends coming visiting or whatever, unless I watch those videos, I don't remember being there. Um, I don't remember going to surgery. I remember part two of my surgery, like actually going into surgery, um, for some reason, but that's kind of all I remember, until I remember waking up in the ICU after. I remember that because I was super, super scary. I didn't know where I was, it was dark, it was like nighttime, I think I don't know it was nighttime. It was dark in the room. I remember waking up facing a wall in the dark and freaking out. But yeah, the time before that I really don't remember a lot of the hospital visit prior to.
Speaker 1:So I'll fill you in on some details, I'll fill the listeners in. So that one was different. Justice set it up perfectly. We got so good at blockages. We knew in my clockwork, we knew what the routine was going to be, what the medical approach was going to be, what the resistance to surgery was going to be. We knew all of that. Stacey and I did so. Then we have this blockage in February. Now into March, and it's not getting better, it's getting worse.
Speaker 1:Justice is going downhill quickly, losing weight. He's already underweight but he's losing weight. He is not responding to the medical treatment and he literally looks like he's dying in the bed. He's weak, he's getting very weak, he is getting non-responsive and it is very, very scary to sit here and watch your son deteriorate in front of you. We have the privilege of being with him on these 10 or 12 prior blockages and all of his other medical history where he has the same medical team but they're not watching him day to day. So that's when we had to become an advocate for him and talk to that medical staff and say, look, there's something different. And he had a surgeon who she's retired now, but she had been a surgeon for 30 years.
Speaker 2:Wasn't she in my first surgery as a kid, like as a baby?
Speaker 1:No, she wasn't. Oh yeah, I can't remember his name Christian Swami, swami, swami was, but no. So she was there. She was kind of resistive to the surgery. Dr Swami was there. Dr Swami was actually Justice's surgeon, one of his surgeons during his initial birth surgery, and has followed him and now has performed other surgeries on him, as you know a young teenager or an older teenager, an adult. So we've had the same doctor literally for 19 years.
Speaker 1:So anyway, back to Justice, circling the drain in the bed, we finally talked them into doing a surgery. They took him back. They took him back and even as we were going through the surgical suite doors, the doctor was trying to talk us out of it and said you know, we can, just we may cause more problems, but there was a definite push and there was a definite you know, I don't say voice from God, but it was divine intervention. We know we need to do surgery. So they took him in and what was supposed to be a couple hours surgery ended up being six or eight hours. They found that he had perforated his intestines, he was septic and there was sepsis or fluid leaking out inside, but that fluid was leaking into a fold of a scar tissue clump, so it was just slowly trickling into his body and killing him. They said that had they not done surgery, he likely wouldn't have survived that night.
Speaker 1:So, um, that was 2020. Uh, so talk about COVID shutting down the world. You got this kid that's coming in to March 13th of 2020, when the world shut down, which is also his birthday. And now he's sick, he's circled the drain, he's nearly died, he's got surgery. Now they shut down. Covid shuts down the world and nobody goes back to school and there's this isolation and insulation that he has from society. So, with that justice, how did that affect, uh, your mental health at all? Did it change you? Can you tell me a little bit about that?
Speaker 2:that affected me, affected me a lot. Um, I didn't leave the hospital until middle of april, so I the world had been shut down for almost a month by the time I had left. Like I said, the world shut down March 13th 2020. Um, at least here. Um, school got let out, never went back, um, so I got out, like April 11th I think, so it's almost a month by that point.
Speaker 2:So I, and even, like, like I said, in the times in the hospital after the world shut down, the hospitals did too, you know, no visitors, I think it was limited to two a day, and both my parents counted as visitors. So mom was staying with me 24, seven, so there was one. And then dad wanted to come too, so there was two. I had a girlfriend at the time who was not my girlfriend now, but she wanted to come visit.
Speaker 2:My siblings wanted to come visit, friends wanted to come visit, and nobody could, and that was kind of the start of the mental health decrease, I guess, feeling alone in a way. Obviously, I'm very thankful you and mom were there, but I think having that friend support too is also really, really important, especially as a freshman in high school, and I feel like that kind of, was taken away from me due to COVID and everything else. But then, even coming out of that because I'd had such a hard time in the hospital, I was really looking forward to being able to see friends. I got out, um, I didn't really. I don't really think I realized the extent of the world shut down before I got out because I thought, oh you know, I'll be able to see friends and stuff still and it'll be fine or we'll hang out. And then I got out kind of excited to see friends and whatnot. And then it's like that also didn't get to happen because I didn't realize the extent of the world being shut down um so no, friends family
Speaker 2:which was great to my siblings again, who I hadn't really seen in that whole month. Maybe the one choice over facetime calls, but that's kind of it. Um, yeah, no friends even after I got out, and that was the start to a very kind of hard mental health period of my life that lasted like one of the 2021, I think, like it lasted a solid year after that where, yeah, I felt, like I said, isolated and kind of alone. I was still healing. I got out of the hospital with open incision still, so I still had some medical stuff at home even after the fact, and so I was kind of excited to see friends and get out and it's never got to happen. Yeah, it caused a lot of mental health stuff.
Speaker 2:That changed me and, like looking back on it now, my personality changed a lot, which is good and bad, I don't know. It made me more serious and kind of more. More. I'm a firstborn, so I was a rule follower before the fact, but, like now, it's like I take life a little more seriously, being that close to dying in 2020, and I don't do them things. I don't do things that I think are unsafe, you know, and I'm really hesitant and very cautious about what I do do.
Speaker 2:Um, you said do do. Yeah, I almost laughed at it. Um, but like I'm really like cautious about what I do and what I do with friends or my brother or whatever, like, oh, let's just do this thing. I'm like that's kind of dumb. I don't want to get hurt, I don't want to do that, I don't want to. You know, I value my life a little more. That made me a little more serious overall as a person and I don't know that could be a bummer or it could be a good thing. I don't know. You want, I want to look at it.
Speaker 1:Let me ask you this With your experience with your CDH and everything you've been through, is there anything positive that has come out of it? Do you have any positive memories surrounding the CDH and your treatment or your medical stuff?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I learned a lot about myself through it. I learned a lot about my story. Like I told you earlier, I didn't know my story until I was in those situations where mom was telling people about it and I kind of picked it up and heard it a million and a half times. You know, it's like all right, I know my story is now um, so that was a good thing. I my pain tolerance is kind of the side thing went up a lot. You know, I went through a lot and my pain tolerance is up.
Speaker 1:That's not eating for like 14 days straight. That'll do it my record was 23, um 2020.
Speaker 2:I went 23 days 23 days without eating food, um. So for those 23 days I was only on heavy fluids, which was enough to kind of keep me awake, that like electrolytes and stuff in them they're just saline, so salt water, which gave me enough to stay awake energy, but I was still super drowsy. So, yeah, 23 days with no food or water by mouth, um, what would you say?
Speaker 1:your best memory is of that time of 2020, just the hospital just your entire medical path journey um, best memory, I don't know.
Speaker 2:I feel like there's a couple like mom being there. I'm obviously very, very, very, very, very grateful for and you and the siblings and everyone else that was coming and checking on me so real quick backup.
Speaker 1:Justice hasn't spent a day in the hospital, that's that his mom stacy hasn't been there, yeah, so every single day leave.
Speaker 2:She only leaves my room to go get food because I can't eat. That's the only time she leaves my room is like when I'm. You know, if you you go 20 days without eating food and then smell a Starbucks sandwich and tell me you don't want to eat it, you know that's the only time she'd leave my room is like to go get food. So she didn't make me feel sick and she'd come right back and be in the room the entire time. So yeah.
Speaker 1:So on the medical side of things, what's your medical look like now? What are your fears concerns? Future fears concerns when are you at medically now? Are you stable or what's going on?
Speaker 2:Like I said, I've had a couple blockages since 2020 that have been way less severe since that surgery. I've been able to catch them early, like I talked about. I know the feeling. The feeling is still the same. I've caught them early and I've been able to catch them early like I talked about. Like, I know the feeling, the feeling is still the same. I've caught them early and I've been able to deal with them at home. Um, I went back to the hospital like a month or two after 2020 surgery and stuff for a blockage that was a little more severe again, I think july of 2020, um, but I haven't been back to the hospital since, I don't think I've been lost, like three or four of them at the house and I just do the same thing I would at the hospital.
Speaker 2:You know, just bed rest, don't really eat with my mouth and I just sip Gatorade until it goes away in the last couple days and then I'm back to work or school or whatever. For as far as future fears go, it's obviously the fear of it coming back and the perforation or another blockage that's more severe. Another one is, in general is passing on to each of my kids. That's more of a way future fear but like, it's obviously thought in my mind and you know I don't want that to be a thing, but it is. You know, I know the likelihood of that happening isn't super high. It's probably a little higher, but I know realistically it's still not super high. But that's a fear or just a thought in the back of my head. That's not going to stop me from having kids. That's something I really, really want but it is still a thought and a fear in the future. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Hopefully you take care of them better than the animals. Okay, anyway, all right, awesome. Speaking of, has there been anybody in your medical staff staff, your medical team, that's been influential with you, anybody like that, anybody that sticks out? You've had lots of doctors, lots of nurses along the way. Does anybody stick out as being influential, influential?
Speaker 2:um, swami and zigman have been my two biggest ones. Swami is my surgeon we talked about earlier, and Zigman was another doctor on my team that I specifically interacted with a lot in 2020. And, like I said, post-op, when I got out of the hospital, I still had some stuff going on and he helped me a lot. He was my main doctor out of the hospital after the fact that helped me get the rest of my stuff figured out. So I spent a lot of time with him and Swami, but also Hendrix she was the other doctor that was the surgeon in that surgery in 2020. Just, I spent a lot of time with them. You know, I talked to them every morning, every day, a couple times, but then, like nursing staff in general like I'm going to get to this later, but nursing staff played a big part in not only my, obviously medical path but also my future career choices. Um, what you're gonna get to that now, do it later go ahead.
Speaker 2:Um, for a while I was. For most of my life I was pursuing nursing as my career because of my medical, my medical past, you know, and like my thought behind it was, I've learned so much and gone through so much medically that I want to give that back but also use what I went through as a way to help kids in my shoes. So I want to specifically go to pediatrics and work with kids in the hospital.
Speaker 2:And that was my goal all the way through high school, through middle school. I decided that at a very young age that's kind of what I wanted to do, and recently it's kind of changed. I went to almost finished a year of college in nursing school. But you're a cop, you were a cop. My boss has been drawn to the first responders and I have always wanted to help people. So recently it's been kind of switched to EMS and firefighting, um, and to me I just check some more boxes because I still get to give back and help people daily, you know, and help people in their worst days, like I was going to do as nursing anyway. Um, it helps more of a variety of age groups, more than just kids, but it's still helping people in their worst days, which I'm very drawn to.
Speaker 2:And also first responders. You know I grew up around them with you and your friends are all different. All your friends were cops for a while. You know I was always around that and firefighters and neighbors are firefighters. Some of your best friends are firefighter chiefs and whatnot, and so I've always been drawn to that. Cop was never on the table for me, which is fairly obvious. Um, but yeah, firefighter, and I'm going to emt school right now.
Speaker 1:Um, I'm almost done with it do you want to go on to paramedic? And that's defford yeah, that's the.
Speaker 2:That's the plan. Um, yeah, I finished emt school and work as an emt for a bit. Go back to paramedic school, finish that firefighting, become a firefighter paramedic would be my goal.
Speaker 1:Excellent.
Speaker 1:So if anybody out there is hiring firefighters or paramedics, let me know. Let him know. All right, he needs to start paying me back. At some point he's going to start to pay me back for all the money I've spent on him. So here's a little fun fact for you City of Kenai, alaska, when he was born in 2005,. When he was born in 2005, the insurance was so high. Blue Cross, blue Shield dropped the entire city insurance coverages because we were spending so much money on justice. I didn't know that His bills were so high. They dropped the entire city that following year and I think we have a whole hospital named after us somewhere. Anyway, well, hey. So that's kind of the story.
Speaker 1:So, to bring this back around, we spoke a little bit about mental health with Justice and the traumas. This was a trauma for me. This is a trauma for him. So now Justice moving forward, when we spoke about future fears, the one thing he said was the fear of it coming back or the fear of it passing along to his kids. So you know, when he starts to have kids, and you know there's going to be that, and you know there's going to be that fear there, that's going to be that trigger, that psychological trigger. Uh, justice has been to therapy. Uh, you know, and we 2020.
Speaker 2:I went to therapy for like a year almost and it helps a lot.
Speaker 1:So we're going to wrap this up, but I just wanted to kind of tell the story of Justice, how he got here, you know. The other thing we didn't even talk on is what it's like. Yeah, I didn't want to do it today, but you know what it's like to be a law enforcement kid and grow up in a house with a law enforcement dad who, you know, at times can be a jerk and make really poor decisions and at other times is well, I'm pretty awesome. But you know we didn't even talk about it. That's another show for another day. That's a lot more trauma there. But as far as the medical stuff goes, you know, I just want to bring that back around to that mental health. It affects everybody, young, old, all of us and we can all learn from each other.
Speaker 1:This is a journey that Justice has been on. It's a journey I've been on with him, the journey his mom's been on and the family's been on. Our journey might be a little bit different than yours, but I guarantee there's some parallels there. So you know justice is going to take what he's been through, use it to help others in the future and, just like I said the other day. I don't believe God gives us pain without purpose and justice to found his purpose. So, jay, thank you so much for coming on and chatting. Thank you, guys, for sticking around. This one's a little bit longer, but I hope you enjoyed it. Please like, subscribe, hit the alert so you know where to come up with new ones. Give me some feedback on this, guys, and put it in the comments. There's some live chats out there on some of the podcast groups. Send me some messages, let me know what you're thinking. Let me know what you want to hear about.
Speaker 2:One more thing. If you have any questions for me, comment. I will answer them too totally, or reach out to him, however you want to do that. If you know us personally, um, and I'd love to be a part of that.
Speaker 1:If you don't, I mean, here's the email. Aaron at streamlinedjcom. This is and this has been a little bit heavy stuff. It's about getting to know me, but streamlinedj is my company, streamlined events, Streamline Events and Entertainment. Aaron A-A-R-O-N at streamlinedjcom, Shoot me an email, ask me some questions, give me some feedback. Until next time, guys. Thank you guys. So so much for sticking around. We love you guys. See you on the next show.