Speaker 1: Paul Taylor, Welcome back to the You project, my friend.
Speaker 2: Know that we're recording. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: Yes, I did nearly get caught. Well, I did no nearly. Court.
Speaker 3: I was about to introduce show everyone, and there's this
Speaker 3: little thing that you've got to do. I mean, look,
Speaker 3: I'm no technical giant, but apparently you've got to press
Speaker 3: the button that says record before you start talking on
Speaker 3: a podcast. Usually Melissa or Tiff or someone who's smarter
Speaker 3: and better than me does that. But stupidly they gave
Speaker 3: me the control today. But fuckingly fuck we're under way,
Speaker 3: we're recording. It's been an interesting time of late on
Speaker 3: Planet Taylor. You and I have had a bit of
Speaker 3: a chat, like we've chatted on the phone a bit,
Speaker 3: but even I don't know all the story. So yeah,
Speaker 3: tell us what's been going on for you.
Speaker 2: Well, on Monday, the twentieth of January, I had urban
Speaker 2: heart surgery to correct day at birth defect what's called
Speaker 2: congenital heart defect. And I'm very lucky actually, And I
Speaker 2: think the first lesson here is you've got to be
Speaker 2: proactive about your health. And fortunately for me, I play
Speaker 2: soccer with a cardiologist and one day I was sitting
Speaker 2: with him and I said, hey, ma, I want to
Speaker 2: get the full mot that's a actually that's a British term.
Speaker 2: That's where you get your car all a big lunch.
Speaker 2: I said, what so you know, and he said, look,
Speaker 2: come and see me. We'll do the lot. So did everything, basically,
Speaker 2: did the stress test of cardiac MRI, all of that,
Speaker 2: and he came back and he, you know, talks about
Speaker 2: the plumbing, the electrics and one other thing. Can't remember,
Speaker 2: but anyway, he was going like, your heart's could ship
Speaker 2: you very fit. However, you have a bicuspid aortic valve
Speaker 2: rather than a tri cuspid aortic valve, and we need
Speaker 2: to do a little bit of investigation. So what that
Speaker 2: means is that the aorta that's the main artery, and
Speaker 2: so your left centrical pumps blood through that artery to
Speaker 2: the rest of the body in the valve, a one
Speaker 2: way valve that's supposed to have three leaves, a tricuspid
Speaker 2: mine had two leaves. And what happens over time is
Speaker 2: it doesn't shock properly, so as the heart pumps the
Speaker 2: blood out, some of it regurgitates back in right, So
Speaker 2: they had to do some further investigation and find that
Speaker 2: I had significant regurgitation. So this was that you need
Speaker 2: to get this done and now now did you but soon?
Speaker 2: And I went, let's just do it straight away?
Speaker 1: So when when did you?
Speaker 4: All?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: So the operation was January twenty? When did you get
Speaker 1: this information?
Speaker 2: I got the information about a year earlier. That's when
Speaker 2: we first noticed someone was wrong. I would have done
Speaker 2: the operation quicker, but I went and checked my health
Speaker 2: insurance and I was covered for a lot of stuff,
Speaker 2: but not aortic valve, not heart valve surgery, and it
Speaker 2: would have cost me probably fifty grand, right, so I
Speaker 2: had to upgrade my thing and in weigh it for
Speaker 2: a year. Look, the reality is there's probably, all in all,
Speaker 2: maybe a six month delay, which was fine. But by
Speaker 2: the time I ended up getting in my actually surgeon
Speaker 2: say to me, your regurgitation level was over fifty percent, right,
Speaker 2: which means that I was working on half capacity basically, Yeah,
Speaker 2: and what symptoms?
Speaker 1: What symptoms did you have a year ago? And what
Speaker 1: symptoms did you have prior?
Speaker 2: Right? So a year ago I had no symptoms whatsoever
Speaker 2: because my regurgitation was significant but not horrendous. Look, I
Speaker 2: reflecting back and probably you know, my fitness had gone.
Speaker 2: I was playing soccer, and last year, because Kira was playing,
Speaker 2: I was playing over thirty fives, right, and I'm fifty
Speaker 2: three now. But because Kira started playing on a Sunday,
Speaker 2: I then stopped playing in the and a me and
Speaker 2: of mine who was coaching another team, said hey, how
Speaker 2: about you come over and play for us on a
Speaker 2: Saturday because I know you're free. We got a lot
Speaker 2: of young boys, but they need a couple of old heads,
Speaker 2: so me and a tyrone went and played for them.
Speaker 2: So that was open the inch, right, So it was
Speaker 2: quite interesting playing against the eighteen year olds. But on reflection,
Speaker 2: you know what, I really noticed my speed was just gone,
Speaker 2: and that's the first thing to go. But actually I
Speaker 2: think the heart had a fur bit to do with
Speaker 2: that on reflection, but I didn't really start to notice
Speaker 2: overtly any symptoms. I'm proved probably November and I'm thinking,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, I'm starting to notice my exercise capacity in
Speaker 2: December and I'm thinking maybe this is psychosomatic. But certainly January,
Speaker 2: whenever I came back from the UK and was going
Speaker 2: again the CrossFit, I was.
Speaker 5: Way down, like way dying, and he said, the surgeon
Speaker 5: said to me, yeah, your regurgitation was over fifty percent.
Speaker 5: Once your regurgitation hit sixty percent or so, you start
Speaker 5: to develop heart failure.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: I'm not cardiologist, but I'm thinking of block with a
Speaker 3: congenital heart dayfection.
Speaker 1: Probably not be sprinting on a soccer field year olds.
Speaker 2: So, and it's really interesting because there's a bit of
Speaker 2: a trade off. Right. So the first thing I wanted
Speaker 2: to do, I actually, let's reflect back, and you know,
Speaker 2: some stuff that that I sort of learned was you
Speaker 2: got to be careful what you pay attention to, because
Speaker 2: what you pay attention to creates your narrative and your
Speaker 2: belief systems. Right. And as whenever my correologist told me
Speaker 2: that I had to have open heart chargery, I remember
Speaker 2: going out and getting into the car, and I sat
Speaker 2: into the car and the words of Seneca, the stoic
Speaker 2: philosopher came to me. I pity the man who has
Speaker 2: not faced adversity, because he has not faced an opponent,
Speaker 2: and nobody, not even him, knows what he is capable of. Right.
Speaker 2: So I went straight home and I wrote on my
Speaker 2: bathroom mirror worthy opponent, Right, because histoics talk about finding
Speaker 2: a worthy opponent to challenge and test you. And I
Speaker 2: wrote beside it my training program that I was going
Speaker 2: to do to really get myself on tiptop ship. The
Speaker 2: other thing that came to mind, I've got a good
Speaker 2: a guy called reg Ex, Lieutenant colonel Special Forces for Australia.
Speaker 2: He was a very, very senior guy in the First
Speaker 2: Iraq War. He was the first Australian to go into
Speaker 2: quit and I remember having a conversation with him and saying, man,
Speaker 2: how did you feel? And he said, look, there was
Speaker 2: clearly a bit of anxiety going to warris Is, but
Speaker 2: the overwhelming emotion was this perverse sense of excitement because
Speaker 2: this is what I trained for. And as I was
Speaker 2: driving home that just came into my head and it
Speaker 2: just went, this is what I've trained for, and so
Speaker 2: I've chose to view it as a challenge. And that's
Speaker 2: why I'm saying, you got to be careful what you
Speaker 2: pay attention to, because as you know, I'm doing my
Speaker 2: paid steel and resilience and particularly something called heartiness and
Speaker 2: listened to a lot of Stoic philosophy over the years,
Speaker 2: so straight away, because of all of that input into
Speaker 2: my brain. My first instinctual reaction was, this is a
Speaker 2: challenge and I need to lean into it, and I
Speaker 2: need to embrace my worthy opponent, right, and all sorts
Speaker 2: of negativity that come into your head, because obviously there
Speaker 2: is some negative stuff that comes into your head. And
Speaker 2: the fucking woul is me the whole victim mentality, and
Speaker 2: I just nipped that in the button. Then the other
Speaker 2: thing that came to mind straight away was that Carl's
Speaker 2: idea from Japanese psychology of arigamama, with things as they are,
Speaker 2: what needs to be done.
Speaker 3: Yeah, on a level, it's like stimulus response, right, So
Speaker 3: there's the thing that happens, and then there's what you
Speaker 3: do about the things that happen. So here's what I
Speaker 3: know now based on what I know now, what am
Speaker 3: I going to do now?
Speaker 1: Right? It's kind of you know.
Speaker 2: It's exactly that. And so from you know, looking at
Speaker 2: that negative and you've got to do a bit of
Speaker 2: a risk assessment, right, So so I think again, in
Speaker 2: my background in helicopters, we always did a thorough risk assessment,
Speaker 2: and I remember from my time in that you know,
Speaker 2: what's the likelihood of it happening and what's the impact.
Speaker 2: So I did all the research, you know, we decided
Speaker 2: to do something called the Ross procedure. I went and
Speaker 2: saw the surgeon. So he give me the options. Right,
Speaker 2: one was mechanical valve and you'd be on warfare and
Speaker 2: blood tinners for the rest of your life. I'm like,
Speaker 2: nah's The other one is a tavvy, which is where
Speaker 2: they just go through the thigh and they have this
Speaker 2: fucking awesome, this little sort of balloon thing that goes
Speaker 2: right up to your aota and they inflate at the
Speaker 2: valve and it pushes your own out of the way,
Speaker 2: and there's this like false valve. But he said, look,
Speaker 2: you're not going to be able to exercise at maximum
Speaker 2: capacity if you get a tavvy. And the issue is
Speaker 2: they only last for about ten years. And you can
Speaker 2: have a tavvy on the tavy on the tavy and
Speaker 2: that's you. So if you want to live more than
Speaker 2: thirty years at tavy's not your thing. And then he
Speaker 2: talked about the Ross procedure, which is is quite a
Speaker 2: rare one, but he is now the preferred one for
Speaker 2: people my age, which is more complicated. What they do
Speaker 2: is they cut out your u minary valve, which doesn't
Speaker 2: do a lot of work. Right, that's my surgeon said
Speaker 2: to me. It's under about five millimeters of mercury pressure.
Speaker 2: You know, your blood pressure one twenty over early, and
Speaker 2: that's what your aorta is under your pomonary valves under
Speaker 2: bugger all. So he says, what we do is we
Speaker 2: harvest that because it's your valve and it hasn't worked
Speaker 2: very hard, and we put that into your aorta. We
Speaker 2: cut out your aortic valve, we put your own pulmonary
Speaker 2: one in there, and then we put a donor valve
Speaker 2: into your pulmonary. He says, it's a harder, more complex operation,
Speaker 2: quite a longer recovery, but a much better prognosis in
Speaker 2: terms of long term. So I'm like, that's the one
Speaker 2: I want. And I went and researched everything to do
Speaker 2: with it. Obviously, then research the death rates less than
Speaker 2: one percent, and I thought, well, that's really reasonably good,
Speaker 2: and for somebody who's fit, I guess it would be
Speaker 2: about one in a thousand risk, which is pretty bloody low. Right,
Speaker 2: I'll take the risks, But when you're actually feaced with that,
Speaker 2: like if you were going walking out the house and
Speaker 2: they went, Craig, there's a one assize chance you're going
Speaker 2: to die today. It starts to sort of change your
Speaker 2: mentality a little bit, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll be doing door dash and over rates to
Speaker 1: my house.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But so it's like, well, okay, so what do
Speaker 2: I need to do? Right, You've got to sort out
Speaker 2: all our first chat to Carly, you know, I had
Speaker 2: a life insurance policy, had the conversation with Carly about
Speaker 2: you know, what I'd like to be done with the kids,
Speaker 2: all of that sort of stuff. And then, you know,
Speaker 2: the hardest thing in all of this was then filming
Speaker 2: some videos for my kids just in case. That was
Speaker 2: definitely the hardest thing of all of it. But I
Speaker 2: think the other the real lessons for me was, you know,
Speaker 2: you've got to embrace this stuff as a challenge, right,
Speaker 2: and embrace it and focus on what you can control.
Speaker 2: And the other thing I did a shit heap of research.
Speaker 2: I've gone to see my surgeon, I'm both my cardiologists
Speaker 2: and they say, look, you need to take six weeks
Speaker 2: off work, like six weeks get away. And started looking
Speaker 2: into it and it said, like everybody's fucked for six
Speaker 2: weeks and I looked into it, about ninety five percent
Speaker 2: of people they end up anemic right because of your Yeah,
Speaker 2: a lot of people are low aren't going in because
Speaker 2: of the heart issue. But then you lose a shit
Speaker 2: heap of blood, right, and they have to thin your blood.
Speaker 2: So they operation's pretty frigging amazing what they do. So
Speaker 2: they cut your chest open with a saw, fries it open,
Speaker 2: and then they clamp your heart and they bypass it, right,
Speaker 2: so all the blood gets bypassed from your heart so
Speaker 2: as they can work on it, and then they thin
Speaker 2: it and it goes through like a false lung that
Speaker 2: oxygen nets it, and then they bring it back in
Speaker 2: on the other side so as it goes around your body, right,
Speaker 2: which is fregging amazing stuff. But what end up is
Speaker 2: you lose for a bit of blood and they have
Speaker 2: to thin your blood, so you end up with bugger
Speaker 2: all iron. Right, So part of my thing was I
Speaker 2: need to get my iron up right, and I'm so
Speaker 2: glad I did. Right. So my hemoglobin levels which are
Speaker 2: supposed to be one thirty to I think one seventy
Speaker 2: or something like that host operation. Five days post operation,
Speaker 2: they were down at about ninety then and then about
Speaker 2: ten days ago they were about one hundred and seven. Wow,
Speaker 2: So I'm glad that I did that stuff. I also
Speaker 2: did some research and found that there was a pro
Speaker 2: prebiotic that you could take, which I had the order
Speaker 2: from the UK, that massively improved your gastro intestinal function,
Speaker 2: because that's another reason, because your guts are just screwed
Speaker 2: because you know, they carpet bomb your gut microbiome, and
Speaker 2: obviously there's a lot of stress. So I took that
Speaker 2: pre and when I was in hospital and I restored
Speaker 2: my bilefunction within two or three days, and were they
Speaker 2: were shocked?
Speaker 1: Actually, yeah, So you know, who would have thought you
Speaker 1: and I'd be chatting about your pooing on a podcast
Speaker 1: and who would have thought that I'd be proud of
Speaker 1: you for backing one out so quickly. Well done. All right,
Speaker 1: So just to give our listeners context as we record this,
Speaker 1: it's the twelfth, So my calculations are it's twenty two
Speaker 1: to twenty three days since the operation.
Speaker 2: Correct.
Speaker 3: Clearly you're not having six weeks off work because I
Speaker 3: know you've already had enough. I'm meant to say this,
Speaker 3: you've already traveled and me doing work right, and it's
Speaker 3: not like that yesterday. That was a bit ago.
Speaker 1: So what was their kind of projected recovery for you?
Speaker 1: And how have you compared, like how has it actually
Speaker 1: worked out? Like what are you right now?
Speaker 2: So my sergeant and my cardiologis book said you got
Speaker 2: to take six weeks off work, right, and then they
Speaker 2: give you this book and it's like after four weeks
Speaker 2: you can hang washing out, don't lift anything other than
Speaker 2: one to two kilos for I can't remember it was
Speaker 2: six or twelve weeks, right, I've already done a light
Speaker 2: weight training session, but it was twelve weeks before you know,
Speaker 2: return to full function. But and they said six weeks
Speaker 2: before you can go back to work maybe light office
Speaker 2: studis if you're lucky after four weeks. And I'm just
Speaker 2: looking at that going now, and.
Speaker 1: So we're three weeks now, we're three weeks.
Speaker 2: So day seventeen, I flew to Sydney, got a tree
Speaker 2: into the to the central coast, ran a to our workshop,
Speaker 2: and then came back home in a day. So that
Speaker 2: was I hope. I sat, it's not listening to this,
Speaker 2: but I think.
Speaker 1: You just boy, did you warranty?
Speaker 2: But I you know that was my target because that
Speaker 2: that boxshot had been booked in penalties, like do we
Speaker 2: need to cancel this? And I'm like no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: not cancel it because that's my target. And so I
Speaker 2: was incrementally going, here's what I need to do on
Speaker 2: the gateway right fourteen days. I need to be doing this.
Speaker 2: On the Monday, I need to be able to record
Speaker 2: a twenty minute podcast, and then I need to be
Speaker 2: doing I need to do on the Wednesday. I was
Speaker 2: showing Tuesday two days before. I need to be doing
Speaker 2: up around ten thousand steps and so I did that
Speaker 2: and then I took an easy day on the Wednesday,
Speaker 2: traveled up. I also made it again. You know, I'm
Speaker 2: sitting I'm sitting to get to the airport out of
Speaker 2: a driver and I'm sitting in the plane. I'm sitting
Speaker 2: on the tree in it's you know, it's travel. Still
Speaker 2: a bit tiring, But I got a hotel room because
Speaker 2: I had two and a half hours. So I got
Speaker 2: a hotel room and had a sleep and that that
Speaker 2: really helped. So I did the workshop and was fine
Speaker 2: and then came home. I was tired because I didn't
Speaker 2: get home till half eleven, I think it was, and
Speaker 2: I was pretty figure tired, and I earned my bed
Speaker 2: that day, and then the next day I had a
Speaker 2: real rest day. But then Saturday I felt great. Right. So,
Speaker 2: but I have also been I've been more invested in
Speaker 2: my recovery than I think probably anybody would be. Right.
Speaker 2: I've got a red light panel. I was doing red
Speaker 2: and near infra red light therapy every single day. I
Speaker 2: was doing saunas. I started off just with five minutes
Speaker 2: because it's good for your cardiovascular system. I was also
Speaker 2: taking a Holypus supplements Klinac, which is has been clinically
Speaker 2: proven to combat inflammation and oxidut of stress. So I
Speaker 2: knew I got my seareactive protein measured right. They don't
Speaker 2: measure in the hospital because it's off the church. So
Speaker 2: she reactive protein for the listeners is a level of
Speaker 2: inflammation in the body, and my whole history was it's
Speaker 2: less than one, and they like it to be less
Speaker 2: than five. It's above five, you're in trouble, you're inflamed.
Speaker 2: Mine was fifty seven last Saturday, right, So I knew
Speaker 2: that my body was just a really low iron, really
Speaker 2: low hemoglobin inflamed like crazy, Like my resting heart rate
Speaker 2: had gone from the mid forties to high eighties. So
Speaker 2: I know, I'm just in, you know, a sympathetic state.
Speaker 2: Your body's just fighting, fighting, fighting, fighting, and so it
Speaker 2: needed all the help that it could get, you know,
Speaker 2: as well as the glinac. I was taking circumen, which
Speaker 2: is anti inflammatory. I was taking fish oil. I'm taking
Speaker 2: beef liver, which is best source of iron with vitamin C.
Speaker 2: I'm taking zinc. I'm taking vitamin D, I'm taking B vitamins.
Speaker 2: And then I actually been working with an integrative doctor
Speaker 2: and I went and got an infusion and IV of gluedocione.
Speaker 2: It's called a Meers cocktail, so glued tocione high, those
Speaker 2: vitamin C, B vitamins, zinc, and magnesium, and after that
Speaker 2: I felt fucking amazing.
Speaker 1: Tell me about through this journey cognitive function. How's your
Speaker 1: Brian going? How was your Brian going in the first week?
Speaker 2: Then I never had any issue like I was in
Speaker 2: the I was in the in the hospital.
Speaker 1: I've got a video that says otherwise, oh.
Speaker 6: Really, Ah, that was that was under the influence of
Speaker 6: a fair bit of morphine, but within by so I
Speaker 6: got out of ICU I mean I was reasonably like
Speaker 6: Monday night, I hardly remember Carly was there, oscar was there,
Speaker 6: and I might woke up and Tuesday I'm like.
Speaker 2: Were they there? And then I talked to the surgeon.
Speaker 2: Did he do the ross procedure or not? Because you know,
Speaker 2: there was still he had to check the geometry when
Speaker 2: he went in there, so you know, Tuesday it was like,
Speaker 2: yes we were there, and yes you did get the
Speaker 2: ross procedure right. So but then I see my cognitive
Speaker 2: function was fine, and I was doing some work on
Speaker 2: my PhD in hospital because I'm doing a lot of
Speaker 2: sitting around. But I had an interesting experience in hospital.
Speaker 2: You know, I've always said hospitals are dangerous places. I
Speaker 2: don't like them. I don't think they're optimal for recovery.
Speaker 2: And that was certainly the case. So I got out
Speaker 2: of icee. You I think it was here the Tuesday
Speaker 2: night of Wednesday morning. I got put in a room
Speaker 2: on Wednesday and had a fur bit of sleep on Wednesday,
Speaker 2: but did a fur bit of walking. I did I
Speaker 2: think about twelve hundred and fifty steps, which was reasonably good. Thursday,
Speaker 2: I was feeling quite good. I did over three thousand steps,
Speaker 2: and I'm thinking, actually, I'm doing quite well. I mean,
Speaker 2: the breathing was really hard, but then thirsty nights. I
Speaker 2: had a fucking night from hell. Right, So I was
Speaker 2: in this room where the rcon was super large. Right,
Speaker 2: So there's a bit of a bit of context to this.
Speaker 2: And as you know, a lot of listeners don't know.
Speaker 2: When I was in the military, I went through combat
Speaker 2: survival of Resistance to interrogation training, which was ten days
Speaker 2: of pretty hard core stuff. You know, they don't give
Speaker 2: you any food for ten days, they thrash the life
Speaker 2: out of you, and then for five days you get
Speaker 2: hunted by a hunter force in them and you think
Speaker 2: it's all over. You're introduced to the shock of capture.
Speaker 2: And then we spent twelve hours and hoo did in
Speaker 2: this room in stress positions which are fucking evil, with
Speaker 2: white noise at the volume you'd hear music in a nightclub, right,
Speaker 2: and that ever since then, kitchen fans, bathroom fans, ceiling fans,
Speaker 2: I fucking hate them. I hate them with a passion,
Speaker 2: like if there's a fire, I walk into a room
Speaker 2: and I feel a bit edgy. And then I realized
Speaker 2: the fans on the kitchen fan, I turn it off.
Speaker 2: I'm like, ah. And the only ongoing argument that we
Speaker 2: have is the ceiling fan in the bedroom because Carlie
Speaker 2: loves it and I detest it. So she would go
Speaker 2: to bed early put the ceiling fan on, and then
Speaker 2: I come to bed and I turn it off because
Speaker 2: I just can't sleep with a ceiling fan. And this
Speaker 2: thing was so loud, and I was laning there on
Speaker 2: thirsty and I'm I'm a side sleeper and you can't
Speaker 2: sleep on your side when you've had your chest cut open, right,
Speaker 2: So by thirsty, I'm starting to get like massive paying
Speaker 2: all the way up my back and neck and stuff
Speaker 2: like that. But then I'm lying trying to sleep in
Speaker 2: Thirstay night, and that fan get in my head big time,
Speaker 2: and I I'm actually, I looked at my sleep. I
Speaker 2: got not one minute of sleep on Thursday night, and
Speaker 2: I was lying there and it just it fucking really
Speaker 2: got in my head. And I'm like half the time
Speaker 2: I'm back in that room in fucking stress positions. I
Speaker 2: think the peeing in.
Speaker 3: The back and you know, it all amplified and wow,
Speaker 3: it's trauma, it's trauma, it's literal trauma.
Speaker 2: Yeah, look, I mean, Carli says, that's PTSD. I think
Speaker 2: it does a disservice to people who have reaped real PTSD,
Speaker 2: but it's I would describe it as very unpleasant memories.
Speaker 2: And it took it back there, right. Some people might
Speaker 2: be listening to this going do this fucking PTSD, but
Speaker 2: you know, not outread just stuff. But it really it
Speaker 2: just fucking warned me up like a spring. And Carli
Speaker 2: in on the Friday and she's like, Jesus, I've never
Speaker 2: seen you like this. And she actually said to me,
Speaker 2: You've got to channel your siege. And she thought I
Speaker 2: was going to bite her head off, and I went, oh,
Speaker 2: fuck it, right, because my gremlin is running the show.
Speaker 2: So for those who are not familiar with this me
Speaker 2: and call, you have this concept of siege in gremlin gremlins,
Speaker 2: that negative thing in your head, all the negative self talk,
Speaker 2: blah blah blah, everything that's negative, and siege is your
Speaker 2: best version of you. And she actually joted me out
Speaker 2: of that because I was. I was, I was in
Speaker 2: a ship state on Friday. I was going to check
Speaker 2: myself out and all sorts of stuff. I'm like, I
Speaker 2: got to get out of here. I have to get
Speaker 2: out of here, and she's just like, pull your fucking
Speaker 2: head in and be your siege. So they ended up
Speaker 2: and I went and saw them and said, can we move?
Speaker 2: Can we move rooms? And they moved me to another
Speaker 2: room which was a shit a little better and that
Speaker 2: was really helpful. But then and on Saturday, the plan
Speaker 2: was that I was going to get home on Saturday,
Speaker 2: and then the cardiologists came to see me and he said, look,
Speaker 2: I don't like your home because he said, look, you've
Speaker 2: had a little bit of VT ventricular attack acardia, and
Speaker 2: which is normal, and you know it's only a problem
Speaker 2: if you hit thirty seconds. Mine were two seconds. There
Speaker 2: was just a couple of little things, he said, But
Speaker 2: your rejection fraction, because they did an echo, was only
Speaker 2: about forty percent right, and they like.
Speaker 1: Mind people, what just explinds people? Rejection fraction?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's when you when your ventricle contracts, like
Speaker 2: how much of the blood actually gets out and around
Speaker 2: your body. And mine was at forty a typical one.
Speaker 2: Most people walk around fifty to seventy percent, right, and
Speaker 2: they like it postop to get to sixty. So they said, look,
Speaker 2: you'r's a bit low. It's understandable because you've had the
Speaker 2: Ross procedure, which is more traumatic. But given the those
Speaker 2: two things, he said, I want to put you on
Speaker 2: this drug ammy of their own right that will just
Speaker 2: kill off those little taki cardias and just give you
Speaker 2: the best chance of recovery and you can go home tomorrow.
Speaker 2: And I rather stupidly and didn't ask what you should
Speaker 2: ask on every medication, What are the side effects? What
Speaker 2: are all the side effects? High often those side effects?
Speaker 2: And if there's bad side effects, is there any alternative treatment? Right?
Speaker 2: So I got a dose of the drug Sorday afternoon
Speaker 2: or Saturday evening, and then on Sunday another one. And
Speaker 2: I woke up Sunday and I was feeling shit harsh,
Speaker 2: so I'm like, fuck, I've gone backwards here, and then
Speaker 2: Cardi was was there, her and Oscar visiting me, and
Speaker 2: then they left and I hardly get out of bed,
Speaker 2: and I thought I need to get up and move
Speaker 2: because they tell you need to move. And there was
Speaker 2: this walk that I was doing lots of down to
Speaker 2: the fish tank back down and I was kind of
Speaker 2: doing and laps, so I thought I'll just walk there.
Speaker 2: I walk slowly and I was walking. I was really
Speaker 2: struggling to walk, and my breathing was labored. And I
Speaker 2: got to the fish tank and I sat down and
Speaker 2: I'm like, fuck, I'm I'm screwed. And this this guy
Speaker 2: walked past me and he went, are you okay? And
Speaker 2: I went, nah, I'm not okay, and he said, okay,
Speaker 2: let me go and get a chair, and he got
Speaker 2: a chair, and that's when I twigged this, this is
Speaker 2: the drug. It's just wipe man. And I told him
Speaker 2: he was obviously a senior medical guy, and I just went,
Speaker 2: I'm not taking that tug again. And he brought me
Speaker 2: back and he said to the nurse, call, call the cardiologist,
Speaker 2: stop that medication, and let's get him in the bay.
Speaker 2: I'd get him monitored. And then it really hit me.
Speaker 2: It so this drug on me, on their own is
Speaker 2: a sympathetic nervous system suppressant. But I had a bad
Speaker 2: reaction to it. It dropped my heart rate low, dropped
Speaker 2: my blood pressure, and I was being monitored and my
Speaker 2: breathing fuck. I was struggling to breathe. And I was
Speaker 2: lying in bed Saturday night and I was frigging her
Speaker 2: or something. I think this was. It was herrndous and
Speaker 2: I was in pain. I could hardly breathe, and I
Speaker 2: was trying to move and then get up, and it
Speaker 2: was fucking so people, and I'm just like, you just
Speaker 2: got to get through this. She just got to breathe.
Speaker 2: They came and they did an EKG on me at
Speaker 2: four in the morning, and the nurse was like, ooh,
Speaker 2: this has changed. And then I'm just trying to just
Speaker 2: say and get through the morning, doing all my breath work,
Speaker 2: trying to control it. And then I managed to get
Speaker 2: some sleep and I woke up and I thought I
Speaker 2: actually started to feel a bit better. And she came in.
Speaker 2: My heart rate had gone back up, my blood pressure
Speaker 2: gone back up. She checked my EKG and she said, oh,
Speaker 2: you're back to normal. Man. So then the cardiologist came
Speaker 2: in and he said, look, sorry, that clearly didn't work
Speaker 2: out as planned. He said, the good news is that
Speaker 2: your VT's all gone. And he said the bad news
Speaker 2: is you've obviously had a reaction to that drug. So
Speaker 2: you're not going home today because we need to observe you.
Speaker 2: And I went, incorrect, I'm going home.
Speaker 1: She did, Can I just can I pause you?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: In the middle of the night because the first night
Speaker 3: you had no sleep. All the second night so you
Speaker 3: had zero minutes sleep. And then when you're when the
Speaker 3: shit hit the fan and you got to the fish tank.
Speaker 1: And you're rooted in the and then you were in
Speaker 1: agony and you couldn't breathe. And did you at any
Speaker 1: moment think is this it?
Speaker 2: No? No, I didn't because I knew I was being monitored.
Speaker 2: I knew I was having a reaction to the drug.
Speaker 2: I'd looked the drug up at that stage on a
Speaker 2: drug data piece. I knew that it peaked three to
Speaker 2: seven hours afterwards. But then I started reading the fucking
Speaker 2: side effects. Twenty percent of neurological issues, twenty percent of
Speaker 2: pulmonary issues, seventy percent of people who are on it
Speaker 2: long term have to come off it because of the
Speaker 2: side effects. Right now, it's normally used for people with
Speaker 2: life threatening arrhythmias. But you know, he decided to use
Speaker 2: it on me. I've heard a cardiologist said he used
Speaker 2: a sledge hammer to crack a knot. But you know,
Speaker 2: it is what it is. I get the reasons that
Speaker 2: he did it, and I didn't give many shit. I
Speaker 2: was just like and he was apologetic. I just went,
Speaker 2: I'm done, I'm out of here, because I looked at
Speaker 2: my sleep as well. I had in five days, I
Speaker 2: had a total vie at our sleep track of my sleep,
Speaker 2: and I'm.
Speaker 1: Like, that's that's going to kill you without mesurgery.
Speaker 2: Well, that's exactly my thing. I'm massively sleep deprived. I
Speaker 2: cannot fucking sleep in this hospital. They've give me sleeping
Speaker 2: tablets didn't work. I'm like, I've got insomnia. I've got
Speaker 2: industrial insomnia here that is massively driving inflammaus in an
Speaker 2: oxyd of stress in my body. I know all the
Speaker 2: negative effects of sleep. The food is shit in this place.
Speaker 2: It is so low protein. You know protein as you
Speaker 2: know you need more protein when you're sick. I ordered
Speaker 2: steak and it was about fifty grams of steak. And
Speaker 2: then the next night I ordered pron linguini. I thought
Speaker 2: I'd get some seafood. There was two fucking prawns on it.
Speaker 2: There would have been about five grams of protein in
Speaker 2: the main meal. I'm like, and the ox there's no
Speaker 2: fresh air in this place. I'm not outside in nature,
Speaker 2: you know. If I go home, I'm out looking at
Speaker 2: the water. I mean in a great environment, I can
Speaker 2: release all of my back and all of that stuff.
Speaker 2: I'll get sleep. So I'm just like, I'm out of here.
Speaker 2: I'm like, you guys have lost the right to be
Speaker 2: in control of my recovery. That was my view, and
Speaker 2: my surgeon didn't take it too well. We had a
Speaker 2: bit of a robust conversation, so we said, and I
Speaker 2: just said to him and he had his run and
Speaker 2: I said, you done and he said yeah, and I said,
Speaker 2: I'm out of here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you said, thanks for your feedback.
Speaker 2: So I was.
Speaker 3: My man had a heart attack and he's a diabetic,
Speaker 3: and he was I don't know, three or four days
Speaker 3: post top open art surgery and I'm in standing next
Speaker 3: to him and one of the catering staff brings a
Speaker 3: snack and the snack is scones and cream and jam.
Speaker 2: For an taribatic fucking love it.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, who's I'm like, oh, he can't eat that.
Speaker 3: She's like why, I go, well, he's a diabetic. It
Speaker 3: says it right there. And she's like, oh, well, I
Speaker 3: just bring what they tell me to bring. I'm like,
Speaker 3: well take that away. My man's like, shut the funk up.
Speaker 3: So Cartie was bringing in my food.
Speaker 2: Lucky enough, there was a Vietnamese across the road, so
Speaker 2: she was bringing me in a protein cheek both I hope,
Speaker 2: collagen and berries and all of that stuff. And then
Speaker 2: I was getting my food from the Vietnamese. I was
Speaker 2: getting far from across the road and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: So I didn't eat in the hospital again from I
Speaker 2: think Thursday or Friday. But I was just like, and
Speaker 2: you know, some people go Jesus, that was irresponsible. But
Speaker 2: I knew I was out of the woods. I knew
Speaker 2: I was out of the woods, and I knew I
Speaker 2: had to get out of there for my sanity and
Speaker 2: for my recovery as well.
Speaker 1: If ten out of ten is you when you're normal
Speaker 1: and healthy and fit and strong and robust like two
Speaker 1: years ago, you with no symptoms, just healthy, that's you.
Speaker 1: Ten out of ten? What do you reckon you are
Speaker 1: at the minute as we record, look.
Speaker 2: I'd say I'm probably a five, right, so normal function, talking, walking,
Speaker 2: moving around. When I get up, I'm got to be
Speaker 2: a little bit careful because my blood pressure, I had
Speaker 2: to stop my blood pressure medication, so they put me
Speaker 2: on three different heads, aspiring blood pressure medication and SGL
Speaker 2: two inhibitor the strengthen my heart and the blood pressure.
Speaker 2: I've been taking my blood pressure four times a day
Speaker 2: and it was getting really really low, so I've stopped that.
Speaker 2: So I've just got to be worry if I spring up.
Speaker 2: But you know, normal function, I can walk around and
Speaker 2: go up and down the stairs and go out for
Speaker 2: a walk. But you know, I'm doing half four walks
Speaker 2: every morning. Going up a hill is really interesting. Right.
Speaker 2: I hit one hundred and three beats a minute and
Speaker 2: I'm in zone three, right, zone three, zone four. I'm breathing,
Speaker 2: starting to breathe really heavy. That used to be one
Speaker 2: hundred and twenty two beats a minute just when I
Speaker 2: was doing that. So but that I think is a
Speaker 2: combination of my ejection fractions still not there, and my
Speaker 2: hemic globein and iron are really low. Right, So if
Speaker 2: you've got low iron and low heemic globe in, anybody who's
Speaker 2: in namic notes you've got fucking no energy and also
Speaker 2: in the cold, and that's a low hemoglobin thing as well.
Speaker 1: Right, But do you know I have anicious tsunamia? Did
Speaker 1: you know that? No?
Speaker 2: I didn't, Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I have to jet myself with a twelve.
Speaker 2: Right, okay, yeah, because I'm taking too. Yeah, geez, anybody's
Speaker 2: got any maya, I feel them, I really do. But
Speaker 2: I've got that combined with low ejection fraction. So and look,
Speaker 2: the great thing you know for me was going and
Speaker 2: doing that workshop. I did another workshop yesterday, and I reckon,
Speaker 2: I was probably ninety five percent on yesterday. Wow, so
Speaker 2: that was pretty good. I reckon, I was probably eighty
Speaker 2: percent eighty five last week, and I did a very
Speaker 2: light resistance training. Sess. I'm just I'm curling nine kilo
Speaker 2: dumbbells when I used to be doing eighteen. I'm doing
Speaker 2: twenty four kilos on the tricep push dump. But I'm
Speaker 2: just like, my body needs stimulation. I reckon, I've lost
Speaker 2: between two and two and a half keels a muscle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you'll get tell me about your your wounds, tell
Speaker 1: me about that big bloody slice and dice down there.
Speaker 1: Oh god, wow, well you know you've just made my primo.
Speaker 1: Thank you. So that looks to me like that is
Speaker 1: fuck twenty centimeters is that?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Definitely definitely, maybe more maybe so we're looking at like
Speaker 1: an eight nine ten inch scar. Everyone Wow.
Speaker 2: And then you see those two little things down there, yeah, wow,
Speaker 2: where they had tubes. So they have tubes and your
Speaker 2: dreamage tubes about as thick as your finger. And then
Speaker 2: on the I think it was on the Friday or
Speaker 2: maybe the Saturday, they pulled the tubes out.
Speaker 1: Yeah I bet that, I bet you, mother fucker.
Speaker 2: And there was a boat four or five inches of
Speaker 2: tube and are so they're pulling and it just keeps coming.
Speaker 2: It was like, that's smarted, I can tell you. And now,
Speaker 2: of course the second one hurt twice as much as
Speaker 2: the first one did.
Speaker 1: Well, you got Marcus really.
Speaker 6: You know, it's like fuck, be a Stoic, lean into
Speaker 6: it and then like fox stoicism this.
Speaker 2: I think there might have been an f ball that
Speaker 2: sneaked out for sure.
Speaker 1: Did you have any did you have any philosophical moments.
Speaker 2: Like why yes, so so pre so. You know, I'm
Speaker 2: a fan of the Stoics. I'm a fan of Memento Mary.
Speaker 2: I've got a tattoo on me. You know that's Marcus
Speaker 2: really is you know, it was all the Stoics. Remember death,
Speaker 2: Remember that you are mortal. So I've always I've always
Speaker 2: been very aware of my mortality and very grateful every
Speaker 2: day that I'm alive. But what I did deliberately was
Speaker 2: meditated on my death, and I actually think it's a
Speaker 2: really good exercise for people. I thought a lot about,
Speaker 2: not from a morose perspective, but just like, well, if
Speaker 2: this was to be it, you know, how would you feel?
Speaker 2: And my reflection, I think was I would be really
Speaker 2: content with the life that I had, but changed with
Speaker 2: a huge bit of sadness that I would not get
Speaker 2: to see my kids grow up and that I wouldn't
Speaker 2: get to enjoy my retirement with Carly. And I think
Speaker 2: the third bit of sadness for me would be that
Speaker 2: my parents would have to bury one of their children,
Speaker 2: because that is now my major goal in life is
Speaker 2: not to bury one of my children. Right. But when
Speaker 2: I reflected on it, I thought, fucking hell, I've had
Speaker 2: a good life, and I've had an action field. I've
Speaker 2: crammed a shitload in right. I had a pretty good
Speaker 2: upbringing that also prepared me for the world, you know,
Speaker 2: being brought up as an Irish Catholic and a Protestant neighborhood.
Speaker 2: I think that helped them. In university, I absolutely loved it.
Speaker 2: I did a shit heap of travel. I joined the military.
Speaker 2: I had a wonderful time in the military, but also
Speaker 2: saw quite a lot of stuff and it prepared me
Speaker 2: really well. You know, I've visited over sixty countries. I've
Speaker 2: explored consciousness in numerous different ways. I've done you know,
Speaker 2: shit poison. I've had toad poison. I've had shamanic rituals
Speaker 2: and deep in the Amazon jungle with this Italian guy
Speaker 2: thousand kilometers from the nearest road, no sat phones. Like,
Speaker 2: I've done some really cool shit in my life. But
Speaker 2: you know, just reflecting on it, it's like, well, if
Speaker 2: I do get on the other side, well, I do differently.
Speaker 2: Last time on my phone, right, even though well probably
Speaker 2: not my phone, I'm not that big of my phone,
Speaker 2: but last time watching news and sport, that's probably my weakness.
Speaker 2: I think the other thing that would that I was
Speaker 2: a bit rueful of if it had been all over,
Speaker 2: was that got so close to my PhD but didn't
Speaker 2: do it right. And I was actually trying to get
Speaker 2: it submitted before just so I might get a posthumous PhD.
Speaker 1: That's hilarious, but that's that's crossed my mind.
Speaker 3: If I die before I finished this, I'll be pissed off.
Speaker 2: But the other thing was, you know, if if my
Speaker 2: time is up, I get to see I get to
Speaker 2: go on life's last great adventure and find out is
Speaker 2: there another side? And more? All the fucking Holy Joe's,
Speaker 2: have they just wasted their lives because there's fuck all
Speaker 2: on the other you know? What is it like? So
Speaker 2: I think that's philosophically and I actually think coming out
Speaker 2: of this, everybody should meditate on their death and actually go, fuck,
Speaker 2: if I was today tomorrow, what would I really regret?
Speaker 2: And if I did get a second chance, what would
Speaker 2: I do differently? I think that's importantly do that.
Speaker 1: I think it's a really I mean, it is people. Obviously,
Speaker 1: people are scared. We're scared at times, and it's uncomfortable
Speaker 1: and it's not you know. I did an episode about
Speaker 1: three weeks ago called in the Proximity of Death and
Speaker 1: I call her my second mom.
Speaker 3: She calls she called me her fifth kid, because she's
Speaker 3: got four daughters and me and our families grew up
Speaker 3: intertwined with each other. She was very much my second mom.
Speaker 3: I was always at their house, four sisters, four pseudo sisters,
Speaker 3: and she passed away about three or four days after Christmas,
Speaker 3: and our families spend every Christmas Day together. And I
Speaker 3: left the barbecue or the Christmas lunch and I went
Speaker 3: to hospital and sat with her for an hour and
Speaker 3: it was just, without trying to be weird, but it
Speaker 3: was so fucking profound. And I'm like, I'm sitting with
Speaker 3: this person that I love, that this is it. This
Speaker 3: is the last conversation, this is the last hour that
Speaker 3: I will spend with her. And she knew that and
Speaker 3: I knew that, and yeah, it's like, oh, this, like
Speaker 3: everything else melts away like nothing.
Speaker 1: And I know this sounds cliche. I don't mean it too,
Speaker 1: but truly all that I couldn't fucking I couldn't get
Speaker 1: enough of her, I couldn't get enough of It's like
Speaker 1: that hour went really quick but really slow. And I
Speaker 1: can remember that hour more vividly than maybe any other
Speaker 1: hour I've had in the last decade. Right, Yeah, And
Speaker 1: it's just oh, and it's funny how certain I don't
Speaker 1: know situations or events or whatever, environments or can just
Speaker 1: give you a level of perspective that you seemingly can't
Speaker 1: have unless you're in.
Speaker 4: That Yes, that's right, you know, imagine if you could
Speaker 4: have that like in that Like towards the end, I
Speaker 4: was I was about to go, and her name's Ray,
Speaker 4: and she goes, you know how much I love you?
Speaker 1: And I'm like, well that was it. I was fucked right.
Speaker 3: I'm like, I'm I'm out, and I go like a
Speaker 3: sun does dismissively. Yeah, I know, like yeah, I know,
Speaker 3: like a fucking alpha male moron. And then she grabs
Speaker 3: my hand with her skinny, little cancer ridden body and
Speaker 3: and makes me look at her and then says it again.
Speaker 3: And then that was it because I knew that would
Speaker 3: never happen again, you know, and she knew that, and
Speaker 3: she wanted to make sure that I left knowing that.
Speaker 3: And what was interesting was I feel fucking she was more.
Speaker 1: Worried about me. She wasn't worried about herself at all.
Speaker 1: She wanted to sue me, at peace with it. She
Speaker 1: wanted me to be okay. And I came out of
Speaker 1: there going, fuck, I've got so much to evolve.
Speaker 3: And learn, And you know, I felt like I wish
Speaker 3: I could be a bit like her, you know, so interesting,
Speaker 3: so interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I really don't you know, that experience of really
Speaker 2: thinking about your death. I think everybody should do it
Speaker 2: and really think deeply about it, right, and think about
Speaker 2: then through that lands. Where are you spending your time? Right?
Speaker 2: You know, how much of your time is spent fucking
Speaker 2: doom scrawling? How much of your time is spent doing
Speaker 2: a shit job you don't want to do, or particularly
Speaker 2: around your your free time? Right? Are you using your
Speaker 2: free time in an optimal manner or close to an
Speaker 2: optimal manner? Right?
Speaker 3: And even turning up the volume on things that really
Speaker 3: don't matter? And you like, this is a one out
Speaker 3: of an issue. I'm making it a nine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you go.
Speaker 1: This is not a nine, you fucking idiot. This is
Speaker 1: maybe not even a one.
Speaker 3: Yes, but your get like whatever's got your attention's got
Speaker 3: your mind, has got your body, has got you. Like
Speaker 3: you are literally creating an emotional and psychological prison for yourself.
Speaker 1: Like there isn't a problem, but you're inventing one. We're
Speaker 1: so good at that, absolutely, you.
Speaker 3: Know, just plucking a problem from mid air.
Speaker 1: He tell my listeners about you and your stuff? How
Speaker 1: can they find you? And I know we're doing a
Speaker 1: co share, but for my audience, how can they find
Speaker 1: you and follow you? When by your book. He has
Speaker 1: written a fucking brilliant book, Thank you.
Speaker 2: And my book is called Death by Comfort and my
Speaker 2: second book I'm just about to start once I get
Speaker 2: my PhD submitted, but we'll keep that one on the wraps.
Speaker 2: My podcast is the Paul Taylor Podcast and website is
Speaker 2: Paul Taylor dot bisbeei z.
Speaker 1: Perfect, perfect, Well mate, it's been good. In the words
Speaker 1: of the greats, I'm glad you're not dead.
Speaker 2: That's it. Glad to be on the other side.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you're not dead. And yeah, we'll chat again.
Speaker 2: Thanks buddy, cheers, good to see you.