Speaker 1: Welcome to the Good Stuff. I'm Jacob Schick and I'm
Speaker 1: joined by my co host and wife, Ashley Shick.
Speaker 2: Jake is a third generation combat Marine and I'm a
Speaker 2: gold Star granddaughter. We work together to serve military veterans,
Speaker 2: first responders, frontline healthcare workers, and their families with mental
Speaker 2: and emotional wellness through traditional and non traditional therapy. At
Speaker 2: One Tribe Foundation, we.
Speaker 1: Believe everyone has a story to tell, not only about
Speaker 1: the peaks, but also the valleys they've been through to
Speaker 1: get them to where they are today.
Speaker 2: Each week, we invite a guests to tell us their story,
Speaker 2: to share with us the lessons they've learned that shaped
Speaker 2: who they are and what they're doing to pay it
Speaker 2: forward and give back.
Speaker 1: Our mission with this show is to dig deep into
Speaker 1: our guest's journey so that we can celebrate the hope
Speaker 1: and inspiration their story has to offer.
Speaker 2: We are thrilled you're joining us again.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Good Stuff.
Speaker 2: Today, we're joined by our very close friend and brother,
Speaker 2: Michael Kurnell. We have wanted to have Mike on the
Speaker 2: podcast since day one, no doubt, but making it happen
Speaker 2: hasn't been as easy as just scheduling an interview.
Speaker 1: Reason being he's in a big fight right now, a
Speaker 1: fight for his life, and he is battling this marine
Speaker 1: brother of mine was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer
Speaker 1: almost three years ago, which has now spread to his liver, lungs,
Speaker 1: lymph nodes, and stomach wall. He just told it was
Speaker 1: inoperable and incurable and life expectancy was short. But today
Speaker 1: he is here with us, very much alive. He is
Speaker 1: truly an inspiration and the epitome of a warrior. This
Speaker 1: isn't an episode about being sick. It's very much an
Speaker 1: episode about truly living. We are better people for Mike's
Speaker 1: presence in our lives, and we are so grateful that
Speaker 1: he is here with us and able to share his
Speaker 1: story with you.
Speaker 2: This was truly an amazing conversation with Michael, and we
Speaker 2: wanted the episode to just jump right into a story
Speaker 2: about the time time we all traveled to Ireland together.
Speaker 2: So here we go.
Speaker 3: Enjoy I loved Ireland. It's such a good time there,
Speaker 3: such a good time.
Speaker 1: Think good, Sharon Gurlsby.
Speaker 2: We're going to get into that.
Speaker 4: But they wouldn't let you pour. You do not the
Speaker 4: yank pull a fucking pine, like you don't tell him no.
Speaker 2: So the backstory on that. Real quick, we were in
Speaker 2: Ireland with Gabby and Michael Carnell his first trip over
Speaker 2: the Pond to the Emerald Isle, and we were in
Speaker 2: the beautiful village of Kinsale, which we've talked about on
Speaker 2: this show before. When we had Danny Manning on Carney
Speaker 2: has this thing. What's your thing about pouring a pine?
Speaker 4: It just it just it started.
Speaker 3: When I graduated high school, my father took me to
Speaker 3: New York to go and watch the Red Sox and
Speaker 3: Yankees play at old Yankee statey before they tore it down.
Speaker 3: I don't know, maybe he just felt like, look, I
Speaker 3: can't really get you into the everyba, but let's see
Speaker 3: what we could do right.
Speaker 4: And there was this.
Speaker 3: Back called Tommy Makom's Irish Pavilion. Tommy Makam is a
Speaker 3: famous Irish singer. So my dad walks up to like
Speaker 3: the guy at the door. He's like, hey, look, you
Speaker 3: know I'm gonna take my son and real quick, he's
Speaker 3: got to use the bathroom.
Speaker 4: We're just here for his graduation. Guy's like, I don't care.
Speaker 3: Whatever, Lets me and I go have a beer with
Speaker 3: my dad at a bar for the first time, and
Speaker 3: I was like, this is pretty cool. You know.
Speaker 4: I'm like drinking butt heavy whatever.
Speaker 3: I didn't care, trying to stand in the background so
Speaker 3: nobody can see me. But the next day we wake up,
Speaker 3: when we go back, he's like, I just want to
Speaker 3: try and get a picture. So we walked behind the
Speaker 3: bar and just talked to the box and he was
Speaker 3: straight off the boat too, like a shameless o'lardi or whatever.
Speaker 3: I mean, he was talking to hell's how you doing.
Speaker 3: My dad talked to him and he's like he looks around.
Speaker 3: He's like, give me are some went behind the bod
Speaker 3: and let me hold the bottle of Jamison portoglass or somebody.
Speaker 3: And then that's just kind of how it started and
Speaker 3: then became this thing of whenever I travel, I try
Speaker 3: to let them let me go behind the bond or pining.
Speaker 3: Nine times out of ten they don't care. When we
Speaker 3: were there, it was just right post COVID, so they
Speaker 3: were like most of the guys like I don't care. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, because the first place was a trumpt I
Speaker 3: went on so that they had like where we had
Speaker 3: breakfast at. But then there was like a bar that
Speaker 3: was out on like the first tea right there, Gaby,
Speaker 3: noone walking around.
Speaker 4: We stopped.
Speaker 3: We just figured we'll grab some of drink or whatever,
Speaker 3: and there was nobody in there, and I just asked again.
Speaker 3: He was like another little sixteen seventeen year old famous
Speaker 3: old Larry just in there and he's like, ah, I'm
Speaker 3: not really supposed to do this, but sure, go ahead,
Speaker 3: started poring pints and then it was everyby on Ireland
Speaker 3: like I'm gonna pour pint as many times as i can.
Speaker 3: So so then.
Speaker 2: We get to can Sale, which we know a lot
Speaker 2: of people there, and now you're family to everyone and
Speaker 2: can Sail. This amazing village in Ireland that we love
Speaker 2: so much.
Speaker 3: Was the White Something there was the White House, the
Speaker 3: White House, the Frowley is the White House great place.
Speaker 2: So they had a little special reception with Irish veterans
Speaker 2: there in their back room and then Mike's like, hey,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go pour some pints and
Speaker 2: so he leaves. Well, he comes back a little while
Speaker 2: later and he's like, yeah, they wouldn't let me next door.
Speaker 3: You can't come back here, no way, there's nobody come
Speaker 3: back here and pour pints and I'm all right, my bad.
Speaker 4: Sorry.
Speaker 2: Well, what they didn't know is that we were with
Speaker 2: the great Sharon Crosby, one of the greatest humans on earth.
Speaker 2: And Sharon immediately stands up and says, nope, come with me,
Speaker 2: and so next thing I know, they're gone.
Speaker 1: Fort not exactly how she said either, she said it
Speaker 1: was a lot more colorful.
Speaker 3: Than there's a few fom you're not gonna tell the
Speaker 3: Stephan Yank and he's not gonna pour a pint behind
Speaker 3: the bar, just the way she did it to him,
Speaker 3: like you fucking not telling him he's not pouring a pipe.
Speaker 3: And then she's like, you know what, as a matter
Speaker 3: of fact, I'm going next door. Will you make sure
Speaker 3: he finishes poorn his pint? Michael, when you're done with
Speaker 3: a point, you come next door to me. I walk
Speaker 3: all they and there's Sharon and like four women and
Speaker 3: they just absolutely loved me, and they just like threw
Speaker 3: me behind the bar and just said it born points.
Speaker 3: And then the next day she sent me a message
Speaker 3: on Facebook. She's like, you're good to go, and she
Speaker 3: listened like fteen different like they all know you're coming
Speaker 3: and just drop my name.
Speaker 4: I was like, I love you.
Speaker 2: The next thing i know, we're still sitting at the
Speaker 2: White House. Gabby looked at me at one point she's like,
Speaker 2: is he good. I'm like, oh, he's with Sharon. He's fine.
Speaker 1: He may to Scotland.
Speaker 4: Those women were having fun with me.
Speaker 2: They're on the train to Dublin. But no. But next
Speaker 2: thing we know, we're getting this picture of this big
Speaker 2: American plaque with Carnie and like five Irish women, you know,
Speaker 2: flank on either side.
Speaker 3: My belt buck will like tucked in and everything. One
Speaker 3: of our friends, Ryan James, made fun of when he
Speaker 3: saw that picture. He's like, would you just graduate boot camp?
Speaker 2: Great times? Great times in Ireland.
Speaker 3: It was an absolute blouse. I mean it was a
Speaker 3: dream come true. I mean that was always one of
Speaker 3: those as a kid. I mean, my mom hasn't even
Speaker 3: been and she's always wanted to go, you know, and
Speaker 3: I'm like, look go, I'm like, especially now she's just
Speaker 3: tired and everything else.
Speaker 4: But back then, like move and it was all COVID.
Speaker 3: She was all like worry and she had heart disease
Speaker 3: and cancer and everything else. I mean, it wasn't like
Speaker 3: the greatest time for her to be doing traveling. But
Speaker 3: now they're retiring again for the second time in the
Speaker 3: move to Hiltonhead, so they're more up to doing more
Speaker 3: traveling and getting now, which is really good for them
Speaker 3: so well.
Speaker 2: And part of the reason we decided to take that
Speaker 2: trip and thank you Jake for making that happen, was
Speaker 2: that we went to you about three years ago almost
Speaker 2: and said, what's your bucket list? And you know we're
Speaker 2: here sitting today in your office at your home. How
Speaker 2: are you feeling today?
Speaker 3: I look at in two ways, you know, physically every
Speaker 3: day is it's it's a battle, you know. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's it is what it is when you get diagnosed
Speaker 3: with stage four cancer that it doesn't matter what it
Speaker 3: is though, whether it's your stomach with it, your feet
Speaker 3: with it's your arm. I mean, it's it's cold outside now,
Speaker 3: so that the medicine I have makes my bones really cold.
Speaker 3: The wrapping my hands and fingers is a thousand times
Speaker 3: was worse than it's been. I knew it was gonna
Speaker 3: get like to that with the winter coming up, and
Speaker 3: it makes walking, you know, difficult. I gotta usually cane
Speaker 3: half the time, or I'm grabbing the kids like get
Speaker 3: me here, hold on on my falling over. Mentally, I'm
Speaker 3: blessed to be able to wake up every single day,
Speaker 3: you know, I mean I realized that we're all living
Speaker 3: in the bar or time.
Speaker 4: I think you said that before.
Speaker 3: We're all living in the ball of time, and sometimes
Speaker 3: you look at the hourglass and something. You know, maybe
Speaker 3: my sin's is a bit less than everybody else's. But
Speaker 3: I'm happy that I got to wake up today. And
Speaker 3: like I tell people when they're like, I'm having a
Speaker 3: rough morning or whatever, I'm.
Speaker 4: Like, dude, you woke up today.
Speaker 3: The devil's already pissed off it you're so don't worry
Speaker 3: about it, right, you already tagged one thing for the day.
Speaker 4: Just keep going.
Speaker 3: That's kind of how I mentally, even in the morning,
Speaker 3: tell myself I do it, Just get up and then
Speaker 3: make myself get up and get going for the day.
Speaker 3: So you know, it's fifty to fifty physically okay today
Speaker 3: and mentally yeah, I'm squared on.
Speaker 4: So yeah for the most part.
Speaker 3: You know, to put glasses on and then you'll blur
Speaker 3: and I can't think anymore.
Speaker 1: You just wrapped up your one hundred and thirtieth round
Speaker 1: a chemo why only one thirty?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I know you.
Speaker 3: That's a funny question people ask some time, like, oh,
Speaker 3: so was that your last one honeymoon?
Speaker 4: You have to go? I'm like, no, I have no idea,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 3: I'm like when they when they tell you inoperable and curable,
Speaker 3: you keep going. And you know, people are like, oh,
Speaker 3: chemo so bad. I had to do two rounds of chemo.
Speaker 3: I'm like, don't keep in the room because we through tongue.
Speaker 3: At the same time, I'm like, I've been through one
Speaker 3: hundred and thirty rounds of chemo and it's been one
Speaker 3: hundred and thirty different feelings every time. So once I
Speaker 3: was like, I've been through this like twice or three times.
Speaker 4: I get it. It sucked, it does I go.
Speaker 3: But you know, you get to the extent that I'm
Speaker 3: at now, and you know, my body at a couple
Speaker 3: of way times starts to deteriorate, right, I mean, there's
Speaker 3: so much you can take this before you know your
Speaker 3: body breaks ound. Like I said, the neurapathy and all that,
Speaker 3: but it is what it is. Like if I could
Speaker 3: do one thirty one and they say you're done, let's
Speaker 3: do it. If they tell me I got to do
Speaker 3: you two hundred and fifty before I get finished. All right,
Speaker 3: well let's go for two fifty. You know, I'm not
Speaker 3: trying to break any chemo records, that's for sure.
Speaker 1: Well, as long as you get to keep wearing those
Speaker 1: Grandpa sweaters like that.
Speaker 4: Dude, thank you? When do you talk about grandpas sweater?
Speaker 4: This thing is one.
Speaker 3: We're good to go because money, I could wear this
Speaker 3: out and probably what the hell you want to.
Speaker 2: Do, certainly in a pub in Ireland.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I definitely we.
Speaker 2: Have wanted to have you on the Good Stuff since
Speaker 2: day one. I mean you were literally one of the
Speaker 2: first people we put on our list of people that
Speaker 2: we wanted to have on this show, mostly because of
Speaker 2: that mindset that you just talked about. You know, you
Speaker 2: don't want to break any records, but not to glance
Speaker 2: over the weight of the fact that you've had one
Speaker 2: hundred and thirty rounds of chemo, but your mindset is unbelievable.
Speaker 3: It's hard because just like anybody, you can have a
Speaker 3: good day in a bad day, right in the mindset
Speaker 3: of trying to say.
Speaker 4: Positive all time.
Speaker 3: One of the things they first told us when I
Speaker 3: got diagnosed in and they give this like big book
Speaker 3: of like this cancer book, like the avc's dictionary whatever.
Speaker 3: And this has been a few times since then. My
Speaker 3: wife felt like, where's that book? Were you go back
Speaker 3: and find it because there was something in there that
Speaker 3: was important.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: But one of the things they tell you, like at
Speaker 3: the beginning, is like you got to get rid of negatiory. Yeah,
Speaker 3: get rid of toxicity. Theeasings are not good for somebody
Speaker 3: who has cancer. You don't need stress in your life.
Speaker 3: I'm like, well that's everybody, right, I mean, who needs
Speaker 3: any that kind of stuff in their life. So it
Speaker 3: just became this thing of trying to figure out between
Speaker 3: my wife and I in the beginning, because when I
Speaker 3: found out at first was a culture shock.
Speaker 4: It was a what are we gonna do? Like we
Speaker 4: didn't prep for this, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was doing great at work and the kids
Speaker 3: are good and everybody's healthy except for me apparently. But
Speaker 3: even when they came and they said you have cancer,
Speaker 3: I was like, all right, well cool, everybody gets cancer,
Speaker 3: like what kind? And they were like stage four. It's
Speaker 3: like oh, so we went right to the end and
Speaker 3: then like stage four being like, oh is a bee?
Speaker 3: I didn't even know, I thought it was just numbers.
Speaker 3: I'm like, so the bee is what like bad? I
Speaker 3: just remember sitting with with Gabby, my wife, a couple
Speaker 3: of days later on the on the bed, reading through
Speaker 3: the book, and just like I was still trying to
Speaker 3: wrack everything in my head because I'm a problem solver.
Speaker 3: That's just what I do. If there's an issue, I
Speaker 3: figure it out. And I attacked it. I go after
Speaker 3: and solved the problems for everybody. And I couldn't figured
Speaker 3: this out. I could have wrapped my head around it.
Speaker 3: I was like, what am I going to do? And
Speaker 3: the best thing that happened to me, outside of having
Speaker 3: Gabby trying to confidence all the time, was I had
Speaker 3: a friend from work who called me up and said,
Speaker 3: I heard about your diagnosis. I want to give you
Speaker 3: a few days to go ahead and think about it,
Speaker 3: but let me tell you a story real quick. And
Speaker 3: he said, my mom had exactly what you have. And
Speaker 3: He's like, and all should do is eat water, burger
Speaker 3: and drink large day coachs every day. And I could
Speaker 3: tell you exactly I was. I mean, we were in
Speaker 3: the old house. I was in the kitchen. I know
Speaker 3: exactly where's because they stopped once he told me that,
Speaker 3: and he was like, and I want to let you
Speaker 3: know that.
Speaker 4: Sho's still here today.
Speaker 3: I was like, all right, so this can be done
Speaker 3: because doctors don't give you that this could be not
Speaker 3: a problem. Michael, yeah, stays four beat cancer, going cancers,
Speaker 3: fantastatized to your liver.
Speaker 4: Not a problem.
Speaker 3: This is gonna be issuing And they're like, so, sir, yeah,
Speaker 3: in opera and cariable for a reason. Na, that's what
Speaker 3: it means. And I remember when the doctor told me. Originally,
Speaker 3: like I slammed the chair on the floor and I
Speaker 3: was like, we're gonna to rewrite that because that doesn't
Speaker 3: work for me. But getting that news from that friend
Speaker 3: just kind of put the positive attitude in my mind, like,
Speaker 3: all right, somebody's done this before, somebody's beat this before,
Speaker 3: and if I'm gonna be negative, it's.
Speaker 4: Not going to be good. You know, it's going to
Speaker 4: just beat me down.
Speaker 3: I've been into the rooms before and seen the cancer
Speaker 3: patients that just look like they're like they're never coming back,
Speaker 3: like that's it, that's their last appointment, and they're gonna
Speaker 3: go to hospice whenever they're gonna go home. And they're
Speaker 3: going to pass out that night and not wake up
Speaker 3: the next day. And you know, I walk in the nurses,
Speaker 3: They're like, outside of the two times I lost my
Speaker 3: mind in there, they they're like, we love you. You know.
Speaker 3: I walk into the iPad, I'm laughing half the time.
Speaker 3: I'm cracking jokes Eve. When I don't feel good. It's like,
Speaker 3: if you know I'm not gonna make it through life,
Speaker 3: we don't keep it light. That's just Marines too, right.
Speaker 3: I Mean, we bust on each other so much, but
Speaker 3: it's like it's out of absolute love. So if we
Speaker 3: don't keep that positive attitude of mindset and the one
Speaker 3: step mentality, you know, and keep moving forward because.
Speaker 4: It doesn't matter what what a Marcus throw.
Speaker 3: I watched this interview within the other day and he's like,
Speaker 3: ninety percent of what was in the movies not what
Speaker 3: really happened. And he tells the stories like I was
Speaker 3: on a rock for like a day, crawling from the
Speaker 3: Taliban they do where it was they were shooting you know,
Speaker 3: RPGs at me, and they were throwing rockets and grenades
Speaker 3: and everyone else down on me.
Speaker 4: And he's like, I just kept moving.
Speaker 3: I just kept moving He's like, I knew there was
Speaker 3: this lake in front of me, and I need to
Speaker 3: get some water, so I just kept moving. It's like,
Speaker 3: it's just one of those mentalities in your head. If
Speaker 3: you just keep that one step forward mentality, if you
Speaker 3: could take it, and no matter if you.
Speaker 4: Get a crawl and you get to walk, you're gonna run.
Speaker 3: However you make it, you make it, and then strind
Speaker 3: yourself with a good support system, people like you guys,
Speaker 3: people like the Aboard, people like the Turners, people have
Speaker 3: all these non profits that we do work with her.
Speaker 3: As you said, you shrond yourself with good people, by default,
Speaker 3: you become a better person. So all these great people
Speaker 3: have taught me so many things that have changed my
Speaker 3: mentality over years to try and be paused.
Speaker 4: And plus I got three kids.
Speaker 3: And I'm getting older, I'm mature and trying to teach
Speaker 3: them the right things life and be positive.
Speaker 2: So your mindset and how hard you've battled over the
Speaker 2: past three years, I mean, I'm speechless. I really don't
Speaker 2: have the words to how consistent you've been with this mindset.
Speaker 2: No days off from your deciding to live.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, it's a Navy seal thing. When no
Speaker 3: days off, right, that was something hitty to day. I
Speaker 3: was like, I say, somebody, yeah, I'll be like, it's
Speaker 3: been three years.
Speaker 4: I'm like, I don't get a break it.
Speaker 3: Everybody gets a Friday night, Saturday, Sunday. Like I don't
Speaker 3: get that. I get to go to bed sometimes in
Speaker 3: a great mood and wake up absolutely miserable and be
Speaker 3: miserable all weekend. But then it's so horrible the summertime,
Speaker 3: right because with this medicine stuff. I'm like, I went
Speaker 3: to my oldest daughters soccer game and walking from the
Speaker 3: car to the field to set up a ten with
Speaker 3: a lows bucket that has a fan that blows ice
Speaker 3: to watching her game at one hundred and ten degrees whatever,
Speaker 3: and then packing it all up and get back in
Speaker 3: the car. And I looked in my awaye and I go,
Speaker 3: I'm done, and she's just looking like it's eleven o'clock
Speaker 3: when I'm like, I'm done for the day. Like I
Speaker 3: don't make any of the plans we're going home. I'm
Speaker 3: gonna sit on that couch and I'm not moving, like
Speaker 3: I just collapsed.
Speaker 4: It's just it gets you.
Speaker 3: And I'm still learning that with my limits as it's
Speaker 3: becoming more and more difficult to do things. But I'm
Speaker 3: also that stubborn marine in my head, like I don't
Speaker 3: care what.
Speaker 4: This is telling me. I'm going to make it. I mean,
Speaker 4: I had a goal.
Speaker 3: I always wanted to run the Boston Marathon, and a
Speaker 3: couple months who I texted to of my cousins and
Speaker 3: they both have done it, one of them on college nurse,
Speaker 3: and I was like, hey, I just want to get
Speaker 3: your opinion on this before I actually start thinking about it.
Speaker 3: I go, I can't do the training right now because
Speaker 3: it's too hot in texta cycle, but once the cools,
Speaker 3: that should be good to go. I said, what do
Speaker 3: you think about running the marathon? She was like absolutely not.
Speaker 3: She was like if as my cousin, I would love
Speaker 3: to see you come up here and run the marathon,
Speaker 3: and if you do it, I'll be the first one
Speaker 3: standing there on the sidelines cheering.
Speaker 4: You want.
Speaker 3: She's like as a patient, she's like, no, you probably
Speaker 3: gonna make it a mile. She's like the dehydration all that.
Speaker 3: She's like, you're just gonna be killing your body. And
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, okay, thanks for because she's like, no,
Speaker 3: I want to see you do it. I was like, well,
Speaker 3: you basically told me I can. And my other cousin's like, nah,
Speaker 3: you could do it. He's brother. He's like, I definitely
Speaker 3: believe you could do it. I'm like me too, right,
Speaker 3: I could do it. And then I go for a
Speaker 3: walk to the mailbox and like whoa, you know.
Speaker 4: I come back and I'm like, you know what I mean,
Speaker 4: that marathon might be a little bit harder.
Speaker 3: I mean, I might do five hundred and walks the
Speaker 3: nail to watch before we can get doing the marathon.
Speaker 2: So that's one of the things I remember. It carry
Speaker 2: the Load, which is our our annual Memorial Day walk,
Speaker 2: what we all do together. You were out there midnight march.
Speaker 1: I think it's important to say that it's its own nonprofit,
Speaker 1: that we once Tris Beneficiarias and the Depth Train Foundation,
Speaker 1: a bunch of other really great organizations, and that you know,
Speaker 1: we've been doing this together for I mean, I think
Speaker 1: since we've known each other.
Speaker 3: Yeah, over a decade, yeah, over a decade years years
Speaker 3: this year twelve years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, I mean just the midnight march. You were
Speaker 2: out there with your cane and big old chain around
Speaker 2: your neck.
Speaker 1: Got to get the swhite equity in and that was
Speaker 1: actually the first one we did silent. I'm sure you
Speaker 1: remember before we started, and I spoke and then asked
Speaker 1: David to say, if you.
Speaker 4: Were yelled at people and told them shut up and
Speaker 4: we're not talking, I was like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I was angry. Yeah, I was angry. I
Speaker 1: mean it was, uh, it's zero dark, so yeah, it
Speaker 1: was yeah. But you know, and I needed and I
Speaker 1: was honest about it. I said, I need this too.
Speaker 1: I need to heal too. And I think that we
Speaker 1: owe it to them, those that were honoring to just
Speaker 1: shut your souper cooler while we're doing this. We're not
Speaker 1: playing music, we're not We're just gonna walk. We're gonna
Speaker 1: start together, we're gonna finish together. And if you have
Speaker 1: a problem with it, and I do remember saying that
Speaker 1: you can walk right out the same gate you walked
Speaker 1: in and nobody left. I mean there's like two hundred
Speaker 1: people there. It was all tears and everything, and it
Speaker 1: was that was a spiritual moment man, that hour and
Speaker 1: a half, for hour forty whatever it took, because it
Speaker 1: wasn't you know, because one lap is what seven seven
Speaker 1: miles I think, or something like that. And then and
Speaker 1: I you know what I really distinctly remember about that
Speaker 1: walk was the dog tags.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Terry Burgess, thank you.
Speaker 1: Terry wears on his pack the whole time, and all
Speaker 1: you heard was the clink, clink, clink, because he wears
Speaker 1: all the dog tags of Brian's unit that that they lost,
Speaker 1: not just Brian's. And it was the clinking was like
Speaker 1: it was almost like marching the cadence like we do
Speaker 1: in the Marines. It was just that clink clink, and
Speaker 1: I just remember thinking like it was just different. Then,
Speaker 1: you know, at one point I did have to run
Speaker 1: up to the front and tell him like, hey, got
Speaker 1: slow it down a little bit. We got a couple
Speaker 1: of stragglers. And then I remember the first time I did,
Speaker 1: and he looked at me, and the guy was like, seriously,
Speaker 1: I know what.
Speaker 4: We have to slow you know?
Speaker 3: It was it was different than the typic character. Look right, yeah,
Speaker 3: you know It's different than I'm gonna get out there.
Speaker 3: I'm a march around with everybody. I'm gonna see his hand,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna take a thousand photos kissing babies the whole
Speaker 3: nine yards. Right, do you see so and so? Do
Speaker 3: you see so and so. Yeah, yeah, you're so excited
Speaker 3: for that day to go see every buddy and to
Speaker 3: be a part of the event that's obviously bigger than ourselves.
Speaker 4: And I always.
Speaker 3: Genuinely look forward to it, even if I'm out there
Speaker 3: at night and I'm walking around and it's one hundred grees,
Speaker 3: I said, I still love it. The quiet thing was different,
Speaker 3: and it gave you that moment, like to really take
Speaker 3: that time to reflect.
Speaker 4: Like why are we really here?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 4: Like we all know why we're really here.
Speaker 3: And I don't think it really hit me until on
Speaker 3: the way back. My buddy, uh John, who one of
Speaker 3: my old neighbors. He had a couple of friends at
Speaker 3: that period that we were walking. Just that time frame,
Speaker 3: there was like six signs in there with his friends
Speaker 3: were all on those signs.
Speaker 4: So like he sees the first one, he stops.
Speaker 3: He puts the hand on like he'd already done, you know,
Speaker 3: like eighteen miles that day, but he stayed to do
Speaker 3: it at night, and seeing him touch the last one
Speaker 3: and like how emotional he was about it that I.
Speaker 4: Was like, all right, you got it. But like I
Speaker 4: hope this quiet part and.
Speaker 3: This reflection gave you that time to really heal from
Speaker 3: what you're still, you know, having a hard time with
Speaker 3: I mean we also do right, sorry cursing, but that's
Speaker 3: who I am.
Speaker 2: You've dropped like twenty f bombs up to this point.
Speaker 3: You're good, good? Then, all right, this is the good
Speaker 3: guy the podcasting. We're not gonna put the thing at
Speaker 3: the bottom with an explicit language.
Speaker 1: Well, so the good news about that is is that
Speaker 1: it with a lot of our guests like okay, well
Speaker 1: you know, what can we do or can't we do?
Speaker 1: Them like talk as if you want your children to
Speaker 1: hear it? So for you problem at all? Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: nothing they could hear where they were like, well, dad.
Speaker 4: I tried to get better. I really have.
Speaker 3: But you know, the words and Irish, I know, but
Speaker 3: that is part of my language. I'm like, I don't
Speaker 3: use oz, but I have.
Speaker 4: I used the F word like it's like tomorrow, Like
Speaker 4: there's no tomorrow.
Speaker 2: So let's take it back to Boston. Tell us about
Speaker 2: your upbringing. Was what made you even want to become
Speaker 2: a United States Marine?
Speaker 3: It was weird growing up in Boston. My mom is
Speaker 3: one of six, my dad's one of six. You know,
Speaker 3: I have a huge Irish Catholic family, you know, and
Speaker 3: out of six of them, you know, on both sides,
Speaker 3: I think only one had three kids. The rest were
Speaker 3: all like four, five, six, So I have massive amount
Speaker 3: of cousins, right, I mean, like the family text thread,
Speaker 3: sometimes I'm like, I got to mute it because I'm like,
Speaker 3: there's this the one hundred people on here.
Speaker 4: I don't care. I know the Patriots are lose in
Speaker 4: right now.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: I had great aunts and uncles. I really did because
Speaker 3: of the age. Both of my parents actually were the
Speaker 3: second or the third oldest in their families, so they
Speaker 3: were older then, like even and I have aunts and
Speaker 3: uncles who are only like ten or fifteen years older
Speaker 3: than me, so you know, they were kind of my
Speaker 3: brothers and sisters or whatever. When I was a kid,
Speaker 3: they were my babysitters. They you know, it took me
Speaker 3: to the beach, they did all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3: So I had a good, decent upbringing. And then we
Speaker 3: got to like middle school age, my parents were divorced
Speaker 3: and became a broken home and just one of those
Speaker 3: things that bouncing back and forth between houses is be
Speaker 3: pre cell phones and text messaging and all that stuff.
Speaker 4: So I was the oldest, So I was.
Speaker 3: One communicating the messages all the time. Nobody was happy.
Speaker 3: People do whatever message they got, so it never turned
Speaker 3: out the way they wanted. But I remember a conversation
Speaker 3: with my father one day driving down the road, and
Speaker 3: he just like he asked me what I wanted to
Speaker 3: be when I got older. I was still a kid,
Speaker 3: like a professional hockey player playing for the Brumin's just
Speaker 3: like everybody else from playing for the Red Sox whatever, right,
Speaker 3: which dinnis hilarious City says I. You know, I thought
Speaker 3: I was playing for the Boston Red Sox. It didn't happen.
Speaker 3: You wear a helmet sometimes you just suck.
Speaker 4: It up, right.
Speaker 3: That's just part of life, and it's the way it works,
Speaker 3: and all our dreams work out the way.
Speaker 4: We want to. But I went to a good high school.
Speaker 3: I felt that's where I started to learn who I
Speaker 3: was as a person. Because being a kid from a
Speaker 3: broken home and having to deal with these conversations all
Speaker 3: the time, and the arguments and the fighting and the divorce.
Speaker 4: I was a very quiet kid. You guys know me.
Speaker 3: You know I've never not been quiet. I'm center for attention, loud, vocal.
Speaker 3: I got something to say. I was just a quiet kid,
Speaker 3: and I'm sure I had to do a lot of
Speaker 3: the stuff around us that made us just shut down
Speaker 3: in life. And my dad asked, He was like, like,
Speaker 3: what do you want to do in life? Where do
Speaker 3: you want to be? And I was like, I'm going
Speaker 3: to be in a big city, but it's not going
Speaker 3: to be here. And I don't know what I'm doing.
Speaker 4: If I'm not playing hockey, but I'm gonna be living
Speaker 4: in a big city, I'm being a power building. I
Speaker 4: didn't know what I was going to do. I had
Speaker 4: no dreams.
Speaker 3: It wasn't like I was like, oh, I want to be,
Speaker 3: you know, an accountant.
Speaker 4: None.
Speaker 3: Zero.
Speaker 4: To this day, I'm still like I don't even know
Speaker 4: what i want to be.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: So I graduated high school on a team soccer team
Speaker 3: that my soccer coach was a drill sergeant the army,
Speaker 3: and hated that guy for four years. Hated him. He
Speaker 3: came out first day of try out. He had all
Speaker 3: the stuff that the evenrinker uses for marketing. He was
Speaker 3: like paying his week to sleep.
Speaker 4: In the body, blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 3: All this stuff and no matter what we do, you
Speaker 3: guys are going to be the most athletic and fitteam
Speaker 3: out here. No team will run you off the field ever.
Speaker 3: If they do, we'll be running. And I'd never been
Speaker 3: in shape like that. I mean I could probably run
Speaker 3: three miles in fifteen minutes at that point in time.
Speaker 4: I mean it was just we were so that's all
Speaker 4: we did was run.
Speaker 3: We ran from school to practice instead of taking cause
Speaker 3: the seniors could take a car to practice. Well, our
Speaker 3: senior year, we left the cars in school. We were like, no,
Speaker 3: this is how we doing it for four years, is
Speaker 3: how we're going.
Speaker 4: To keep doing it.
Speaker 3: We're going to run to school. We got this team
Speaker 3: behind us. And we knew our freshman year too, as
Speaker 3: a kid who goes man. We're seniors, you know, there's
Speaker 3: nobody stopping us. And we went the night before training
Speaker 3: camp started a bus to bus. Seniors and some of
Speaker 3: the juniors that have been on the team before were like,
Speaker 3: let's see something different. Let's sleep at the field before
Speaker 3: double sessions start. Some of the guys was like, why,
Speaker 3: you know what, This sounds like the dumbest idea, But
Speaker 3: the coach is gonna show up and we're already there,
Speaker 3: so we're already a step ahead of him before the
Speaker 3: season starts, even though this guy watched this play all
Speaker 3: summer and everything else. But I left school and I
Speaker 3: went to college, and I got the party card of
Speaker 3: college down pretty good, four point zero. It was to
Speaker 3: go in to class part that I struggled with my
Speaker 3: first semester. I went to class. Second semester. I half
Speaker 3: went to class third semester. I think I went to
Speaker 3: class to like I'm signing me, like I'm dropping this class,
Speaker 3: and I knew I was gonna be doing something different,
Speaker 3: so I think I went and saw my mom for
Speaker 3: Christmas that year, and when I came home, my dad
Speaker 3: was like, hey, your report card came in the.
Speaker 4: Mill and I was like really.
Speaker 3: He's like, yeah, we're not gonna do that right now,
Speaker 3: so we'll have this conversation tomorrow. And I was like,
Speaker 3: all right, you know what I'm doing and he said, well,
Speaker 3: I'm joining the military. And he was like it just
Speaker 3: like floored him, Like you're not joining the military. I
Speaker 3: was in the military. You're not supposed to be in
Speaker 3: the military. You go to you go to schools to
Speaker 3: be better than me. I'm like, it's not gonna work out.
Speaker 3: I hadn't even seen the recruit yet, right, I'm just
Speaker 3: telling him this. So like next day I'm down taking
Speaker 3: the bus to go see the recruiter, walk and see
Speaker 3: the RECRUI recruiter. I'm like, hey, everybody to join the
Speaker 3: boot camp. He's like, awesome, we have as late entry
Speaker 3: program used. It takes about a year. Bus a test,
Speaker 3: you get a pass and everything else. And I was like,
Speaker 3: you have to understand. I go, I gotta leaven.
Speaker 4: Like two weeks. He was like, two weeks. I go.
Speaker 3: Well, One, when my father finds out that I'm joining
Speaker 3: the Marine Corps not the Army, he's gonna kill me,
Speaker 3: all right. And it's because he wants me to go
Speaker 3: to school and I don't want to go to school.
Speaker 4: I go.
Speaker 3: And number two, my twenty first birthdays in three weeks,
Speaker 3: so you can't get me out of here before my
Speaker 3: twenty first birthday. I'm gonna stay and then I'm gonna
Speaker 3: go talk to like the army recruiter. He was like
Speaker 3: all right, hold on. Second, he's like, well, you passed
Speaker 3: the drug test. And I was like I think so,
Speaker 3: and he's like okay, let's get that s great away.
Speaker 3: Number one okay, let's get you past the drug test.
Speaker 3: And went took a drug test to pass that took
Speaker 3: the ASVAP. He's like, dude, you basically put your name
Speaker 3: on the paper. That's it. That's all you basically get
Speaker 3: it to do. I scored like a nine something or
Speaker 3: whatever the score was. And he came back. He's like,
Speaker 3: your score came in. You did great. He's like, what
Speaker 3: do you dreams? Your goals you have about like being
Speaker 3: the rinkle, what do you want to do. I was like,
Speaker 3: I thought you guys just blew stuff up. He was like, oh,
Speaker 3: three fifty one. I was like, I have no idea
Speaker 3: what it was not realizing, Like the MS chart is
Speaker 3: on the board behind me, right, with nine hundred jobs
Speaker 3: that I could have been in your traffic controller, right,
Speaker 3: I could have picked any job in the world to
Speaker 3: teach me something to have a skill. When I get out,
Speaker 3: no play with tetan arty X and frigging TNT and
Speaker 3: everything else and learn how to play with dead cord
Speaker 3: and rockets and missiles. And I was like, well, that,
Speaker 3: I mean sounds like a lot more fun than guiding
Speaker 3: planes in anyway. And then through the recruiter calls me
Speaker 3: and he goes, you're still going to enjoy boot camp, right.
Speaker 3: I was like, yeah, you gotta shoot out on Mondays? Right,
Speaker 3: he goes yep.
Speaker 4: So next Monday, He's liked because it was Monday night already,
Speaker 4: and he goes, Nope, I'll be each house at four
Speaker 4: o'clock in the morning. I'm like, oh, he's like that
Speaker 4: could be a problem. Like, Nope, not a problem. He's like,
Speaker 4: all right, to see you zero form. I good to go.
Speaker 3: Haven't called my parents and I haven't told anybody that
Speaker 3: I'm going to boot camp.
Speaker 4: Get I'm even this far into it.
Speaker 3: I call them all up and they're like, you're an idiot.
Speaker 3: I can't believe you're doing this. You're so stupid. And
Speaker 3: I was like, whatever, get in the car or the recruiter.
Speaker 3: And that's when I actually got the best advice I
Speaker 3: think I ever got. And this is the advice I
Speaker 3: give every recruit that I ever meet that's going to
Speaker 3: boot camp. Drill instructures are paid assholes. The minute you
Speaker 3: get that in your head, you are going to be
Speaker 3: good to you know. And it took me about a
Speaker 3: week or two and I was like, all right, I
Speaker 3: get it. I got the game. It's it's all mental.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, you never fast enough. You never quick enough
Speaker 3: even if you are, somebody else isn't, So why rush.
Speaker 3: Just get there as quick as you can, you know,
Speaker 3: whether it's getting up in the morning, going to chow
Speaker 3: I mean I've had chow er, I've sat down, They're
Speaker 3: like everybody up. I'm like, I didn't even get a bite.
Speaker 3: I'm like, gotta be kidding me. I'm like, I wasn't
Speaker 3: like done, no rats or double rats running. I was
Speaker 3: just I was in the back of the line because
Speaker 3: it was a squad leader. And then somebody messed up.
Speaker 3: So by the time I got to chance get my food,
Speaker 3: I'm like literally taking a plastic sports trying to shove
Speaker 3: down eggs, powdered eggs to the trash barrel.
Speaker 1: Then God forbid you take a drink at your water
Speaker 1: with one hand.
Speaker 3: Oh no, man, you're I remember being at Paras Island
Speaker 3: and we were we had pet one morning and it
Speaker 3: hit me and I was like, this is what I'm
Speaker 3: supposed to be doing. You know, at the time, all
Speaker 3: reading was what you know, rifle training, drill, working out,
Speaker 3: you know that kind of stuff. Nomenclature. You weren't you
Speaker 3: weren't in the field day.
Speaker 1: You weren't learning like you were doing basically treading marines.
Speaker 3: But I knew there was just one day running around
Speaker 3: the track out there for PT.
Speaker 4: I just remember it's something to me. I go, this
Speaker 4: is what I want to do. I love this.
Speaker 3: I'm like, I get up and I'm working on im, Like,
Speaker 3: I feel great. I wish I could still do it today.
Speaker 3: I wish I could get up. Its still run here
Speaker 3: and I hate running. Well, kid, wasn't one of those
Speaker 3: things that like.
Speaker 4: A lot of people are like, oh, it's horrible, it sucked.
Speaker 3: I'm like, I didn't think it was that bad. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 3: it sucked, but I knew I had thirteen weeks. Just
Speaker 3: deal with it. It's all mental. I mean, the crucible
Speaker 3: was the most difficult thing that you did the entire
Speaker 3: time there. And getting your own instructor to come up
Speaker 3: and shake your hand and hand to put an eglobe
Speaker 3: and anchor in your hand is one of the most
Speaker 3: just honorable achievements ever made in my life. Yeah, I'm like,
Speaker 3: it did something that people were free to do well.
Speaker 1: Very few yeah done, very few accomplished up.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, did y'all do it post crucible or did
Speaker 1: y'all do it?
Speaker 3: We were like the third Crucible thirteen third phase they
Speaker 3: had gone through the Crucible.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but so did y'all do the e g A
Speaker 1: the Warriors breakfast, the sending of the ego globe maker
Speaker 1: post crucible or did y'all Okay, you did all? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's when we did it.
Speaker 4: Why you are now?
Speaker 1: No? No, no, no, I've heard yeah, simplatoons wait till graduation days, simpleton.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, yeah, we came all all money, dirty
Speaker 3: anything because it was pouring the entire time we were
Speaker 3: there too, so we were all right, they planned it
Speaker 3: on that right, we're gonna have this week?
Speaker 1: Did it ain't rain and we ain't training?
Speaker 2: The marine now control mother nature?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: So how did that training physically, mentally, emotionally, How do
Speaker 2: you feel like that's contributed to the battle that you're
Speaker 2: in right now?
Speaker 3: I think that being in the Marine Corps is giving
Speaker 3: me everything that I have today. I wouldn't be who
Speaker 3: I am without the Marine Corps, with the time that
Speaker 3: I spend with the guys that I serve, with the
Speaker 3: times that I've spent with the guys that I didn't
Speaker 3: serve with you know, the people I've met outside of
Speaker 3: the Marine Corps, the whole legacy of what the Marine
Speaker 3: Corps is like, you can't mess out because there's so
Speaker 3: many historical people that have gone before you that. I mean,
Speaker 3: my first year in the Marine Corps, I was in Okinawa,
Speaker 3: right and there was an incident in Okinawa where there
Speaker 3: was a murder or something like that that had happened,
Speaker 3: and we had this brief from the Marines that were there.
Speaker 3: But then like the State Department came down and see
Speaker 3: is the Japanese version of the State Department came down
Speaker 3: and time.
Speaker 4: To talk to us. We weren't they when it happened.
Speaker 3: We got there like two weeks afters and they were
Speaker 3: just like tension on the island is high. You can't
Speaker 3: mess up. And you're like, well, a good thing. We
Speaker 3: going for jungle warfare training. We're not gonna be sitting
Speaker 3: out here at the bars and the strip clubs and
Speaker 3: everything else all that long.
Speaker 4: We're gonna be open in the woods, so we'll stay
Speaker 4: out of trouble.
Speaker 3: But it's just one of those things that I think
Speaker 3: that mentality that I learned from the Marine Corps, which
Speaker 3: is just this attack attack attack mentality has definitely been
Speaker 3: one of the things that helped me when it came
Speaker 3: to this fight that I have now, because trust me,
Speaker 3: is twenty days when I wake up and I'm like, dude,
Speaker 3: for this, I can't do this today, I'm like, I'm
Speaker 3: just and I have to sit there and remind myself,
Speaker 3: you know, the whole I watched a lot of videos
Speaker 3: to get motivation, you know, and some of it is
Speaker 3: you know, hey, you missed a thousands in the shuts
Speaker 3: you don't take or you know, I need something like
Speaker 3: that in the morning to get me to wake up,
Speaker 3: or the picture I have appeared, you know, keep going.
Speaker 4: Like it gets me up in the morning.
Speaker 3: All right, here we go and then once them up,
Speaker 3: you know, and this she never get in my head, right,
Speaker 3: And then I think the Marine Corps mentality is always
Speaker 3: going to be in any marine because we are who
Speaker 3: we are for a reason. We're wired differently than everybody else.
Speaker 3: And when people are like, oh, marine's ray holes and
Speaker 3: blah blah, like, no, we're confident, we're cocky, we're self centered.
Speaker 4: We know that we've owned it. You made fun of
Speaker 4: us and told us to crayons.
Speaker 3: We owned that and now you're mad at us that
Speaker 3: we actually enjoy eating crayons to make you look like
Speaker 3: an idiot. You don't understand. Marines are just built differently.
Speaker 3: We always find a way. And even with my diagnosis
Speaker 3: that I have right now, the doctor could say whatever
Speaker 3: they want. I made a video of me last time
Speaker 3: with endi interest and I'm like, hey, it doesn't matter
Speaker 3: if they.
Speaker 4: Say there's shrinkers or if there's growth. It is what
Speaker 4: it is.
Speaker 3: We'll figure it out and we'll keep moving in the
Speaker 3: next direction. I'm like, it doesn't matter what they tell me.
Speaker 3: They tell me that doctor told me once a couple
Speaker 3: weeks ago, She's like, you've already exceeded what your life
Speaker 3: expectancy was supposed to be. Like, I know, I told
Speaker 3: you guys, you don't know me. So it's one of
Speaker 3: those things. I just I just had this dog mentality
Speaker 3: of not I'm not going to give up.
Speaker 4: I mean, even in the days that.
Speaker 3: Suck, you know, I just got to get up, Give
Speaker 3: me some water, give me some sugar, you know, and
Speaker 3: just like stayway with the sugar, might get me your
Speaker 3: Panta whatever, mountain.
Speaker 5: Dude, something, let's talk about Gabby Angel.
Speaker 4: I wouldn't be here today without her. You want to
Speaker 4: start getting me crying?
Speaker 2: Man, I don't want to start getting you crying.
Speaker 1: Okay, So here's the thing. Nobody's trying to get anybody
Speaker 1: start crying.
Speaker 4: Yeah no, I'm good today.
Speaker 2: But what a support system you and your entire family,
Speaker 2: like you have all five been battling and the rest
Speaker 2: of us who call you know you're our brothers.
Speaker 3: So it was hard, right, So is January twenty twenty one.
Speaker 3: I go to the hospital and they tell me, I,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 1: What led you to the hospital? Like the wait? So
Speaker 1: what happened exactly the.
Speaker 3: Whole twenty twenty COVID thing. I started having some pain
Speaker 3: on my side, and there was a couple of times
Speaker 3: I had blood in my stool, which is like red
Speaker 3: flag you're supposed to be. But I was like, all right,
Speaker 3: maybe I ate too much.
Speaker 4: Food or you know whatever. It wasn't like a constant
Speaker 4: thing right back, was certain.
Speaker 3: I mean I attributed a lot of the problems I
Speaker 3: was having to just stress getting older, not working out anymore,
Speaker 3: not taking walks, blah blah blah. So there is a
Speaker 3: place in Frisco that's called the float Spot because there
Speaker 3: have been to a bit of like these huge ebsence
Speaker 3: all tanks. Right, I sold Gabby On Saturday, I go,
Speaker 3: I'm going to go do one of those float spots.
Speaker 3: That should suck everything out of me. I should start
Speaker 3: feeling better, hopefully by the time I get home. I
Speaker 3: came back home and I was feeling worse. I go,
Speaker 3: that's it. I go, I'm done. And I hate hospitals.
Speaker 3: I just don't do doctors. I don't do hospitals.
Speaker 4: I'm stubborn man.
Speaker 3: Right, And I go in and you know, of course
Speaker 3: it's due to COVID. So the doctor comes into the
Speaker 3: room and he's got like a blue et outfit on
Speaker 3: with a tube hanging behind him, right, Like.
Speaker 1: I think it's important to tell the audience that it
Speaker 1: wasn't an actual ETV. It was the people that were
Speaker 1: wearing the bio hazard. Yes, yes, you're right, okay in front.
Speaker 3: It's funny because like the doctor comes in all suited up,
Speaker 3: the RN is sitting there, she's just got like a
Speaker 3: paper mask. Right.
Speaker 4: I'm like, you look at the tube and you're like, okay,
Speaker 4: what's going on.
Speaker 1: Somebody's not communicating with somebody, you know.
Speaker 4: Something we don't know yet.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So he just the meeting was like, your simptoms
Speaker 3: are basically telling me you have COVID, but we'll do
Speaker 3: a blood test. And I go, it's not COVID. He's like,
Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure it is. And I'm like, I'm pretty
Speaker 3: sure it's not. So because it was COVID. During that timeframe,
Speaker 3: you couldn't leave the hospital. You were put in a
Speaker 3: separate wing to the hospital. So I got wing in
Speaker 3: the hospital. I call Gaby like, hey, I got COVID.
Speaker 3: I can't leave for like three days whatever. I wake
Speaker 3: up one morning in the hospital and this is a
Speaker 3: doctor standing there and he was like, I work.
Speaker 4: In oncology, and I just want to let you know.
Speaker 3: We're going through your blood work and everything else and
Speaker 3: a peer as you have blockage in your colon, we
Speaker 3: want to get checked out. And we've done some blood
Speaker 3: work on your liver. What it looks like right now
Speaker 3: is that you have multiple swimmers.
Speaker 4: You have cancer.
Speaker 3: And I was like, okay, so not COVID. He's like, yeah,
Speaker 3: I gus, we just got the viowel after the sea.
Speaker 4: Wrong, okay, no big deal? All right, all right, cool,
Speaker 4: everybody gets cancer? Like what kind? And how long?
Speaker 3: He's like, well, run a cool one to ask. We
Speaker 3: run a few tests, and then a couple of days
Speaker 3: we'll meet again and we'll we'll sit down and talk.
Speaker 3: And I was like, all right, cool. So I had
Speaker 3: like no idea. It was like stage four right, Like
Speaker 3: it's just like you have cancer. And I'm telling game
Speaker 3: like this sucks, but like, you know, my mom had cancer,
Speaker 3: she beat my dad had cancer, she'd be We've we
Speaker 3: know people would be in cancer before, right. I'm like,
Speaker 3: all right, so I should should be all right, hopefully
Speaker 3: caught this early enough.
Speaker 4: And then we go into his.
Speaker 3: Office to go talk to him and he's like okay,
Speaker 3: so oh. They go through the book the whole time.
Speaker 3: I'm like, can we get to the answer. Like, I'm like,
Speaker 3: what's the number? What's stage?
Speaker 1: Man?
Speaker 3: News like you have stage four. I was like whoa, whoa,
Speaker 3: that's that's not good. He's like, yes, you're gonna be
Speaker 3: doing chemo. When I was like, okay, so like when
Speaker 3: am I starting keemo? He's like right right now, like
Speaker 3: you're when we're done here, you're walking into the room,
Speaker 3: you're starting quemo.
Speaker 4: Like are you serious? He was like yeah, So they
Speaker 4: already knew I had cancer, so they had a medical
Speaker 4: port imported or implanted when I was knocked out for
Speaker 4: like the colon oscary or whatever.
Speaker 3: So then I gotta come home and figure out, like,
Speaker 3: all right, I have stage four cancer.
Speaker 4: In the first three.
Speaker 3: Months, I didn't get out of bed. I mean I
Speaker 3: was in bed. I was waking up, I was taking pills.
Speaker 3: I was seeing what was on TV. I was checking
Speaker 3: everybody in the house, looked at the food, doing this
Speaker 3: looks disgusting. Go to bathroom, lay down, all sleep, wake up,
Speaker 3: do it again the next day and back then. Oh,
Speaker 3: it was horrible because I was on so much medication.
Speaker 3: I have the cold sweats every night, like two three
Speaker 3: times a night. I'm waking Gabby up, like we gotta
Speaker 3: change the sheets I got. I need help, like because
Speaker 3: I'm just so drugged up.
Speaker 4: And I didn't know.
Speaker 3: I mean, I was taking what I was told to
Speaker 3: take because they're doctors. Looking back on it now, I
Speaker 3: wish I was more like, know this, know that we're
Speaker 3: trying to do things healthy as well.
Speaker 4: But knowing the pills, I never looked at like them
Speaker 4: oun like the opioids and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 4: But here we are now three years later and more
Speaker 4: in control. Of how it works. It is what it is.
Speaker 4: But yeah, that's how I found out. It was a
Speaker 4: good tay. It was a nice, beautiful January day.
Speaker 2: I mean, but here we are three years later and
Speaker 2: you are still battling and you are beating cancer because
Speaker 2: you're still here.
Speaker 3: So I had a hard time in the meeting with
Speaker 3: like trying to figure out what to say about like, yeah,
Speaker 3: I have cancer, where I was like, I made a
Speaker 3: joke a couple of times, like I never should up
Speaker 3: because they didn't for the kids who, like I was
Speaker 3: dealt in THEA certificate and I have stage four. I
Speaker 3: had a cousin who works on college and she was like,
Speaker 3: you need to stop saying stuff like that. She's like,
Speaker 3: you need to remind your stuff that you're living with cancer.
Speaker 3: You're not dying from cancer. And I was like it
Speaker 3: was an instant switching my head, like I never thought
Speaker 3: about it that way. And I'm sure you've run into
Speaker 3: this reforms. Your boys have been out there when you've
Speaker 3: been speaking that you're into a moment or whatever and
Speaker 3: you're speaking and you don't realize sometimes they're they're there
Speaker 3: and you're saying things Like when I was saying things
Speaker 3: like death certificate or whatever, Like I didn't take into
Speaker 3: account with like what those words really meant to my
Speaker 3: kids or to Gabby or if they thought that I
Speaker 3: was given up. I was just it was years later,
Speaker 3: I mean just now just thinking around, like I can't
Speaker 3: believe that I I did that back then, like it
Speaker 3: was a couple of weeks ago. I've ever telling on
Speaker 3: a friend of words return like we're not saying that anymore,
Speaker 3: Like I get it, And it gets to point across
Speaker 3: as but you know, has his comment about bad words
Speaker 3: give you spells and good words give you blessings and
Speaker 3: things like that, So why talk negatively about sometime when
Speaker 3: we can talk positively about It'd be like he's still
Speaker 3: living with it as opposed to he has a dathifficcate.
Speaker 3: We all have a deus ctificate exactly. It's just a
Speaker 3: matter of when is going to get the mail.
Speaker 2: So what are Michael Carnell's words to someone who's.
Speaker 3: Battling, man, It's never quit, never give up. Because a
Speaker 3: lot of these cancer groups I run a part of that,
Speaker 3: are online, and a lot of them are great because
Speaker 3: there's people who have been in your situation.
Speaker 4: Before, who.
Speaker 3: You know, you may have a question about this treatment
Speaker 3: that they're going to give you, or you're having this
Speaker 3: problem and today, or you can't figure this out or whatever,
Speaker 3: and somebody on there seems to know like, Hey, I've
Speaker 3: been through this before. This is what we had to
Speaker 3: deal with this even like so this is this group
Speaker 3: is called the Colon Town Group, right because it's colon cancer.
Speaker 3: But then they have like fifteen different groups or forty
Speaker 3: different groups or stuff like that side of it. One of
Speaker 3: them the military group and these guys and they're like, hey,
Speaker 3: I'm men, have a hard time with my pack deck.
Speaker 4: How do I get this paperwork file? So you know
Speaker 4: this people give advice.
Speaker 3: Well, there's one that's part of it's called Man Up
Speaker 3: Cancer that is really good people with a lot of
Speaker 3: good stuff in there. But there's a lot of negativity
Speaker 3: sometimes too. People are like, I'm on round this. You know,
Speaker 3: my life is horrible.
Speaker 4: I hate this. I'm sick all the time. I'm tired
Speaker 4: of this.
Speaker 3: And you know, I get on there sometimes i make
Speaker 3: my post and I'm like I'm on a round and
Speaker 3: round thirty and no matter what happens, I'm still walking
Speaker 3: out of here at the end of day. And I'm
Speaker 3: gonna keep pausitive attitude and just keep moving forward. So
Speaker 3: I feel sometimes people give up on themselves two months
Speaker 3: that they don't want to have. And this is the
Speaker 3: thing I've talked to the doctors before too. I'm like, look,
Speaker 3: I understand you guys have MD if your neighbor, there's
Speaker 3: a reason why it's called practice in medicine, right, I said,
Speaker 3: But at the same time, was it I was just
Speaker 3: gonna say something they see that was a cheymo bringer
Speaker 3: just kicked in.
Speaker 1: No, it's fun.
Speaker 2: Jks TBI brain. So yeah, and I'm just forget no.
Speaker 2: So I'll tell the doctors.
Speaker 3: I'm like, the one thing that you guys can do
Speaker 3: is you can reacharge and you can come up with
Speaker 3: hypotheses and theories and everything else.
Speaker 4: I said. The thing you guys don't hate into account
Speaker 4: is human spirit, just even the faith the person has himself.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: You could be as religious as you want to, you
Speaker 3: still get cancer, and you could pray all the time
Speaker 3: and hope those prayers are answered. But if you don't
Speaker 3: have faith in yourself that you can believe something. That's
Speaker 3: why I look at doctors. I'm like, yeah, you didn't
Speaker 3: think I was going to be here a year ago
Speaker 3: and I'm here. Let's take that as a stacking a win.
Speaker 3: So when I get to days, I see her and
Speaker 3: she's like, your numbers are down, they look really good,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, high five.
Speaker 4: She's still kind of awkward to me. My uncle is
Speaker 4: not like, she doesn't really do high five, but she's
Speaker 4: she's been awesome, you know, and she's got me to
Speaker 4: this point.
Speaker 1: So let's get back to Gabby. You took a job
Speaker 1: with the Dollar Stars.
Speaker 4: She was an ice girl for the Dallas Stars Kiss.
Speaker 4: So what is an ice girl?
Speaker 2: Ice girl? Not an ice girl.
Speaker 3: So they would go on ice and they clean the
Speaker 3: ice in between the So in the NHL, if they
Speaker 3: have three five minutes or three TV timeouts per period
Speaker 3: and just supposed to be every five minutes fifteen ten five,
Speaker 3: right turn those TV timeouts, the ice crops would come
Speaker 3: on the ice wave, Hey how you doing, And.
Speaker 1: They do it in full body robes with hoods on.
Speaker 4: Pretty much, and then they had shovels.
Speaker 3: Then they would pick up the snow around the ice,
Speaker 3: which would just you know, maybe he wants us off
Speaker 3: the ice because it causes friction on the pocking slows
Speaker 3: to puck down and everything else, so try to keep
Speaker 3: it as clean asmon as possible. And I got stationed
Speaker 3: fourth com clearly by accident, but I had a friend
Speaker 3: who was here and he introduced to somebody else and
Speaker 3: they were like, oh, you like hockey and I was like, yeah,
Speaker 3: I've been playing stuff like four years old. And they're like,
Speaker 3: do you want a job with the stars? Don't work security? Like,
Speaker 3: I don't want to be dudes sitting around in her jacket.
Speaker 3: Just let me read your jiggot. I'm like, I don't
Speaker 3: want to do that, and they're like, just come on
Speaker 3: out and tell us what you think. So the first
Speaker 3: night was out there and I was signed to work
Speaker 3: with Ice Girls, and I walked around with my now
Speaker 3: wife at the time all night long. At the end night,
Speaker 3: went back in the room with some of the guys
Speaker 3: and they have like the pictures you know that the
Speaker 3: Ice Girls sign all the time to pass out to
Speaker 3: fans or whatever, and one of the guys was like,
Speaker 3: out of all the girls in here, which one do
Speaker 3: you like the best? And I actually pointed to Gabriella
Speaker 3: and yeah, you did. After that, like it just seemed like,
Speaker 3: you know, we would go to like they had the
Speaker 3: bar at the Jack Daniels Club at American All and
Speaker 3: said we'd always go up after the fans would leave
Speaker 3: his stuff and then we'd be able to go up
Speaker 3: there and go get a drink or whatever and see
Speaker 3: our friends or whatever. And I saw Gabby and she
Speaker 3: came out to me. She put her hand on me,
Speaker 3: and she was like, we should go out some time.
Speaker 4: And I was looking us like this girl putting her
Speaker 4: arm on me before.
Speaker 3: I'm like, I've been going to all these events for
Speaker 3: like a year, chasing her around, showing up talking, You've
Speaker 3: beck in full conversation with her. She'd be like, I
Speaker 3: gotta go to the bathroom and then never come back,
Speaker 3: and now now I'm supposed to put her arm on
Speaker 3: me and we should go oh sometime.
Speaker 4: I'm like, this is so, what'd you do?
Speaker 3: We actually spent that entire night talking and then I
Speaker 3: walked it back to the Parking garage and then we
Speaker 3: set up a time to go out a date. She
Speaker 3: had tickets for a Raiders game, so she's like, I
Speaker 3: want to a Raiders game. So our first eight was
Speaker 3: her take me to a Raiders game. And I don't
Speaker 3: think the Rangers have ever hit so many.
Speaker 4: Home runs in one direction. All right.
Speaker 3: We were like in left field every two minutes, there's
Speaker 3: a ball hit at us. I was like, this is
Speaker 3: a bad spot, right, Like we're talking the whole time
Speaker 3: and just trying to make sure we don't get hit
Speaker 3: in the head.
Speaker 2: That is a beautiful love story.
Speaker 3: I chased her around for a year and then she
Speaker 3: finally let me take her on a date, and then
Speaker 3: we moved in. We started dating in September of Oh man,
Speaker 3: oh three, September O three. Yeah, because you deployed No.
Speaker 3: Four And we started doing in September, and I think
Speaker 3: it was like November. I had to call her up
Speaker 3: and I was like, hey, I go on, we just
Speaker 3: got some news over here today.
Speaker 4: She's like what.
Speaker 3: I'm like, we're deploying. She has no idea what that
Speaker 3: really means. She's still so new to the marine, like
Speaker 3: she didn't have been to a rinkle ball yet. All right,
Speaker 3: And I'm like I'm deploying and she's like, okay, go ah,
Speaker 3: I wonder if you can help me out with something.
Speaker 3: I go, my lease ends in February. We're leaving at
Speaker 3: the end of February. I'm not going to get in an
Speaker 3: apartment to put my stuff in storage. I go, if
Speaker 3: I pay half your rent, can I just can I
Speaker 3: leave my stuff? A year, all I had was a
Speaker 3: couch like a TV, my clothes. I didn't have anything
Speaker 3: at the time. I was twenty three, twenty four years old, right,
Speaker 3: I had no money barely. I mean I think I
Speaker 3: still use solo cups. I didn't even have a regular
Speaker 3: cup in my apartment, right, So she's like, yeah, no problem.
Speaker 3: When we came back from deployment, she picked me up.
Speaker 3: We hung out that day, and then she took me
Speaker 3: home home.
Speaker 4: I've never left. I've never been asked if I want
Speaker 4: to live with her. Here we are twenty years later.
Speaker 2: I always be clothed and always that's brilliant. Yeah, twenty
Speaker 2: years and three.
Speaker 4: Beautiful children, very well behaved children that I couldn't ask for,
Speaker 4: literally anything better. I mean, parenting is one of those things, right,
Speaker 4: we're always trying to figure out. And I had this thing,
Speaker 4: I had written down that and of course now I
Speaker 4: don't have the glasses, so I can't even know we
Speaker 4: are here.
Speaker 3: We are, But when it came to the kids, that's
Speaker 3: kind of what earlier about what we don't pay attention
Speaker 3: all the time.
Speaker 4: What they here.
Speaker 3: We're always saying the things that we say, and things
Speaker 3: like I said, like death certificate or whatever, and what
Speaker 3: I go through and what I look like, less side effects,
Speaker 3: the pain, et cetera, blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: Go.
Speaker 3: There's somebody else's watching me and paying attention. That's learning
Speaker 3: and growing. And I feel guilty all the time because
Speaker 3: I don't want my kids to grow up no one.
Speaker 4: Their dad was sick all time.
Speaker 3: Lean came home from school every day and I was
Speaker 3: on the couch watch the TV under blankets, drink of tea,
Speaker 3: looking miserable, you know. Or sometimes when I go in
Speaker 3: and the epykmo in the side effects her, you know,
Speaker 3: things like when my face breakout. I'm like, I don't
Speaker 3: want to go anywhere with my kids because I want
Speaker 3: them to be embarrassed because I look like the way
Speaker 3: that I do. I think one of the good things
Speaker 3: is our oldest daughter's soccer team.
Speaker 4: There's like six of them that're been together for like.
Speaker 3: Eight years, so we know them all very well. But
Speaker 3: she's with such a good group of parents, and we've
Speaker 3: been with them for a few years now that they
Speaker 3: know what's been going on with me, and they know,
Speaker 3: like when I'm not there when it's one hundred and
Speaker 3: twenty degrees outside because I can't be in the heat,
Speaker 3: and I might have to miss the gaming with her
Speaker 3: because it's too cold. And having people like that in
Speaker 3: our lives that just extends our support system and people
Speaker 3: who can help us out has been immensely helpful. I mean,
Speaker 3: I can't thank the parents of the teams that we
Speaker 3: have around us that have helped us out big time.
Speaker 2: It's beautiful. And I think the kids don't see maybe
Speaker 2: what you're feeling. I think they see eat their father
Speaker 2: fighting because you're a warrior and that's what you've continued
Speaker 2: to do for three years.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's so just it just it's hard to
Speaker 3: rapper on your head sometimes, you know. I mean Nick
Speaker 3: asked me the other day and he's like, do you
Speaker 3: have problems talking about death? I was like, dude, in
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety eight, when I settled in a yellow contract,
Speaker 3: I accepted death a long time ago, you know. And
Speaker 3: I went to a private school, so I grew religious
Speaker 3: and I accepted it a long time ago for myself.
Speaker 3: If I was singled right now and somehoppen as a
Speaker 3: car accident, Like I don't everybody sit here and feel
Speaker 3: bad for right with Gabby and the kids and anything else.
Speaker 3: My old goal, you know nowadays, making sure that they're
Speaker 3: all taken care of. You know, not that nobody does,
Speaker 3: but if it was for you coming to me that day,
Speaker 3: like hey, apparently had been nominated from all of our friends.
Speaker 3: They have this conversation you have to have you have
Speaker 3: to have ah and you we're gonna hook you up
Speaker 3: with a lawyer and everything else. I was like, you know,
Speaker 3: things like that, you don't You don't prep for when
Speaker 3: you're forty three years old and you're taking like I
Speaker 3: got a great career.
Speaker 4: Things are taking off from me, My kids are doing well.
Speaker 3: I'm living kind of the American dream, and I'm having fun.
Speaker 3: And then all of a sudden emergency break and you're like, yeah,
Speaker 3: I guess what. All that fun it's all done and
Speaker 3: over with that that's no longer a part of your life.
Speaker 3: It's one of those of like, yeah, I have to
Speaker 3: sit down and you have to figure it out. You're like, oh,
Speaker 3: I goa do big boys stuff. Now I gotta do
Speaker 3: a will.
Speaker 4: Damn.
Speaker 3: You know, it's it's tough to put that stuff in,
Speaker 3: but it was nice to have it done and behind
Speaker 3: us because we don't have to think about it anymore.
Speaker 3: We know what's gonna happen with everything, what will happen
Speaker 3: with the kids, what will happen with you know. I
Speaker 3: mean obviously we're not talking like that. It is just
Speaker 3: something that's gonna happen. But we're just yeah, we're more
Speaker 3: prepped today than we were before and trying to just
Speaker 3: enjoy life every single day. That's the thing is, there's
Speaker 3: so many people where they're like you enjoying them, Like, yeah,
Speaker 3: I have good.
Speaker 4: Days and bad days ago, but I'm living it, you know.
Speaker 1: And that's the thing is, it doesn't matter what that
Speaker 1: looks like, right, And I think that it's important, you know,
Speaker 1: with Jack and Jmo, the being from really young to
Speaker 1: getting older and older and they would ask me about
Speaker 1: the scars and you know this and how did that happen?
Speaker 1: And I used to be concerned about, well, you know,
Speaker 1: when I walk into the daycare, are they gonna be like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's my dad with a robot leg and you know,
Speaker 1: whereas now I just couldn't possibly care less, you know,
Speaker 1: because it's easy to show them living when everything's great,
Speaker 1: that's easy. Yeah, doing it's hard, but doing it now, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like you're showing them what grit with grace looks like.
Speaker 1: And you're showing them And that's why I just wholeheartedly disagree.
Speaker 1: And I think that's very much societal thing that's been
Speaker 1: pushed on you. On that mindset of like, well, you know,
Speaker 1: if I'm breaking out and I don't want to go
Speaker 1: and I'm afraid they're going to be embarrassed, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that's really societal. Like I feel like if
Speaker 1: we didn't have all that shit out there, you would
Speaker 1: never cross your mind.
Speaker 4: Probably not.
Speaker 1: I think it's so important to say that what you've
Speaker 1: shown them for the past three years is so much
Speaker 1: more valuable than anything they're gonna get in the classroom,
Speaker 1: anything they're gonna get on a soccer field or from
Speaker 1: a game experience or gaming experience. I just truly believe
Speaker 1: that what you've done has been it's been like I
Speaker 1: sit in awe of you, and I don't do it
Speaker 1: with and you know me, like, I don't say that lightly,
Speaker 1: Like there's not a whole lot of people like wow,
Speaker 1: I'm just blown away because I don't do that. I mean, man,
Speaker 1: probably because it's pretty hard to blow me away. I
Speaker 1: mean unless you're thought but bro with you, it's been
Speaker 1: I think that your kids, your wife, your family, your friends,
Speaker 1: just motivating to think about you. And it's motivating like
Speaker 1: anytime I feel like shit and I don't want to
Speaker 1: do another call or do this thing, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: come on, guy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I appreciate that. Man. I mean, it means a lot.
Speaker 4: It's specially coming from you. I've learned a lot from
Speaker 4: you over the years.
Speaker 3: And I said this once before, somebody has said I
Speaker 3: wouldn't waste cancer on anybody. Obviously it's a horrible, miserable disease.
Speaker 3: But some way it's been a blessing. And just guys,
Speaker 3: it's me, Gabby and I a thousand times close to
Speaker 3: each other. Even we're arguing about stuff, we don't argue
Speaker 3: like when we were younger, you know, like oh ah,
Speaker 3: you used to stay down with your friends, do long
Speaker 3: and blah blah blah. I'm imad agin you for nine
Speaker 3: days and I talk to you and whatever. Now she's
Speaker 3: mad at me, and the next morning she wakes up,
Speaker 3: she's like, how can.
Speaker 4: I help you?
Speaker 3: You know, and it's we've learned more about mutual love
Speaker 3: and respect. It's deeper for us now than it was before.
Speaker 3: But even with the kids, it wasn't like I ignored
Speaker 3: the kid that we didn't go to things in them,
Speaker 3: because we went to every event that they had, every
Speaker 3: game they had, We been to it.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: I appreciate it more now because they go to those things,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, you know what, not everybody woke up
Speaker 3: today and not everybody's getting to see this. So I'm
Speaker 3: blessed with being able to wake up and me pissing
Speaker 3: off the devil every day. And even if it feel
Speaker 3: bad or I look bad, I love going to watch
Speaker 3: the kids play and being at their stuff goes maybe
Speaker 3: me sooner thinking in one way about like I don't
Speaker 3: want them feeling bad that I look like this or
Speaker 3: they think of me like this. When they get older,
Speaker 3: hopefully they remind themselves that I was always there, you know,
Speaker 3: I was always making it to the games. And I
Speaker 3: hope in God and pray all the time that we
Speaker 3: do something right with the kids, because it's like parenting is.
Speaker 3: I don't care what book they give you, it makes
Speaker 3: no sense whatsoever. You know, we love our kids so much.
Speaker 3: We just try to figure it out all the time
Speaker 3: the best we can. I guess, Kevin, I've always had
Speaker 3: the mantra, will we'll figure it out, And you know,
Speaker 3: they've fit a hard time with it. I mean, they
Speaker 3: gotta they gotta go through this stuff too, you know,
Speaker 3: they got to deal with a seeming like that. But
Speaker 3: also like when they go to school, I don't know
Speaker 3: if they bring it up. Like we've talked to the
Speaker 3: teachers and let them know, you know, we when it
Speaker 3: was one time a teacher sent us a message that
Speaker 3: lex was having a hard day, and.
Speaker 4: I talked to her about it.
Speaker 3: But I'm not there, so I don't know what is
Speaker 3: being said during the day during the class. I mean,
Speaker 3: there shouldn't be something that prop as a topic of conversation,
Speaker 3: but you know, it kid be and then they could
Speaker 3: affect them a big time. I had to call the
Speaker 3: coaches and stuff like that, tell them, like I just
Speaker 3: need you to know they may come to practice of
Speaker 3: a game today and be off because I'm off all right,
Speaker 3: or I'm in the hospital, like when it's I had Nationals,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm like I'm in the hospital.
Speaker 4: So she's in Virginia Nationals, and I'm like that I
Speaker 4: had to have waited on her.
Speaker 3: I had to have had an impact on her, even
Speaker 3: though I talked to her every day and told her
Speaker 3: I'm good to go.
Speaker 4: Don't worry about it. I'd be fine. I'll be home
Speaker 4: when you get here.
Speaker 3: Try to keep a positive I was like, I know
Speaker 3: she had a hard time yet excited for being at
Speaker 3: such a large event as she was at for herself,
Speaker 3: such a huge ecompete for their team to go to
Speaker 3: Nashville and be four than forty one other teams to
Speaker 3: get there, and I felt bad because I wasn't there.
Speaker 3: I was like, this sucks, but you know, we got
Speaker 3: more Nationalist going on this week, so hopefully I make
Speaker 3: up for it.
Speaker 2: So go to a little bit warmer weather. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 2: Michael Carnell to echo everything Jake said. You truly inspire us.
Speaker 2: You motivate us on the daily. We're just so privileged
Speaker 2: that we've got you as a brother in our life
Speaker 2: and we get to be in such close contact. But
Speaker 2: thank you for coming and being so willing to share
Speaker 2: your story to inspire so many other people. I love you.
Speaker 3: You all are family to us been I mean the
Speaker 3: both asion you know that Avid for years. It was
Speaker 3: funny when Nick asked me, He's like, how long you
Speaker 3: known Jake. I go, I don't know, ago a long time.
Speaker 3: And then he asked me, he's like, when did you
Speaker 3: you remember when you met him? I was like, yeah,
Speaker 3: I was like, we were at our friend's house. We were
Speaker 3: at doing Max house, and you walked up the door
Speaker 3: and you said, I just got the phone with Bobby G.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, what the how do you know Bobby G?
Speaker 3: And like everybody there looked at me, all like, well,
Speaker 3: how do you know Bobby G. I'm like, I'm from Boston.
Speaker 3: There's only so many Bobby G's in Boston.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you guys got in a fight.
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay the first time we met. Yeah, we were
Speaker 4: at a hotel party in high school. Never spoke a
Speaker 4: word to each other, just look at each other. All
Speaker 4: of a sudden, he jumps on the bed. We start brawling,
Speaker 4: no reason whatsoever.
Speaker 1: Another marine. So, with our brothers and sisters that have
Speaker 1: served and deployed, you know, do you have any words
Speaker 1: of advice to them about getting checked out?
Speaker 4: Absolutely? I mean nobody came up to me and told
Speaker 4: me there was a thing like that. I need to
Speaker 4: go get checked out.
Speaker 3: And this sounds like an immature adult, like I should
Speaker 3: have been responsible and known, but I didn't or I
Speaker 3: just didn't pay attention.
Speaker 4: It's extremely important. I mean with the.
Speaker 3: Pack tackets out there now, there's so many things that
Speaker 3: are out there the VA will help out with. When
Speaker 3: it comes to people who are dealing with cancer. The
Speaker 3: thing is you got to get checked out.
Speaker 4: You have to. And you know, a Coleen Ausby is
Speaker 4: like sometimes it's uncomfortable and it's you know, it's embarrassing
Speaker 4: to want to go ahead and talk about whatever, but
Speaker 4: it's it's an hour or two out of your day.
Speaker 3: You go ahead, you get checked out, and then you
Speaker 3: get the rest of your life of knowing I have
Speaker 3: no problems, or you find it early enough so that
Speaker 3: you go ahead, go ahead and take care of So
Speaker 3: take the time, make the appointment, whether it's with the VA,
Speaker 3: whether it's your primary care doctor. It just get a
Speaker 3: cancer screening. I know, like I said, I'm trying to
Speaker 3: work on an event in March.
Speaker 4: We could do it here.
Speaker 3: But please take the time and get to a cancer
Speaker 3: screening and just make sure you take care of yourself
Speaker 3: because it works your ass off. To gets where you're at,
Speaker 3: you might as well go ahead enjoy the rest of
Speaker 3: your life. So get checked out.
Speaker 2: Michael, Is there anything else you want to say to
Speaker 2: anyone that's listening?
Speaker 3: Man? You know, I mean I could see it all
Speaker 3: day and thank all kinds of people forget me, you know,
Speaker 3: to where I'm at.
Speaker 4: You guys are a part of that group.
Speaker 3: And you know, you say the thing all the time
Speaker 3: about keeping you know, circle of small by design, and
Speaker 3: I've really taken that into into our lives over the
Speaker 3: last couple of years, about the people we really want
Speaker 3: to trust and have around and who know what's going on.
Speaker 3: You know this, you guys as Ray as if A
Speaker 3: bores Is, you know, from Carlo Steve and you know
Speaker 3: people up in Massachusetts.
Speaker 4: And but that's it, like the rest of us. Like
Speaker 4: I'm not trying to hide anything for anybody. It's just a.
Speaker 3: Matter of I go through what I go through. And
Speaker 3: I think the first year that I was diagnosed, it
Speaker 3: was very public and everybody want to know, and it
Speaker 3: was a thousand questions. It's a million emails and text
Speaker 3: messages and everything else. I loved all the support, But
Speaker 3: then it came to like year two, and I was like,
Speaker 3: all right, I'm done, Like let me, let me live
Speaker 3: my life and and.
Speaker 4: Try to figure it out. So there there's a million.
Speaker 3: Of people that I all the people involved, all the
Speaker 3: nonprofits that we've found work with before, and I could
Speaker 3: send a spitter all day they talk about it. There
Speaker 3: was one this is This is a quote that I
Speaker 3: really like and I keep it around.
Speaker 4: And it's about an old Cherokee. He may have heard
Speaker 4: it before. It's about Cherokee and wolves.
Speaker 3: And the story it goes that there's an older man
Speaker 3: he's taking out of his grandson and they're talking about life.
Speaker 3: The old man explains to the grandson that not all
Speaker 3: the people in this life, you know, they they're struggling too.
Speaker 4: There's a fight for them to go to. And the
Speaker 4: struggle consists for two wolves.
Speaker 3: So one manifests itself to negativity, you know, bad energy,
Speaker 3: and he's anger, he's sorrow, he's inferiority, he's all that's evil.
Speaker 3: The other wolf with joy, he's capassion, he's faith, he's truth,
Speaker 3: he's loved, he's.
Speaker 4: All that's good in this world.
Speaker 3: So the grandfather and the grandson said there for a
Speaker 3: little while, and the grandson asked him. He's like, well,
Speaker 3: which one that wins. He's like, whichever one you feed.
Speaker 3: So we talk about love and appreciation for everybody else.
Speaker 3: I feel that the more we feed that to ourselves,
Speaker 3: the more we put that out there in the.
Speaker 4: World, the better everybody else would be.
Speaker 3: The man with all this other crap going on in
Speaker 3: the world today, going back to the Bible, like you
Speaker 3: love your neighbors, stuff like that, I just feel that
Speaker 3: if we just started treating each other a little bit better,
Speaker 3: eaching every day, it's going to make a big impact,
Speaker 3: and it makes an impact on the children, because hopefully
Speaker 3: my kids grow up to be, you know, good kids
Speaker 3: and not punk wise asses like I was.
Speaker 4: Having to get out of the count.
Speaker 3: So I'll leave with that and say I love you guys,
Speaker 3: thank you so much for even considering having me on
Speaker 3: for something like this. Let me bump my gums for
Speaker 3: a few minutes and hopefully gets to somebody who needs
Speaker 3: to hear and gets your day better.
Speaker 1: Not guarantee you it well.
Speaker 2: Thank you for being part of the good stuff.
Speaker 4: We love you, love it.
Speaker 1: We are so grateful Mike had the strength to dig
Speaker 1: deep today and have this conversation with us He is
Speaker 1: truly an incredible human being and we are humbled, honored,
Speaker 1: and privileged to call him brother. His life has definitely
Speaker 1: made our lives better. No matter what you're going through,
Speaker 1: keep going. Life is so short and precious, and every
Speaker 1: moment matters. You matter, Make it count.
Speaker 2: We have one episode left in season one and it's
Speaker 2: another great one. Make sure to follow The good Stuff
Speaker 2: on social media, stay up to date on The good
Speaker 2: Stuff podcast, and reach out to us on our website
Speaker 2: at The Goodstuff podcast dot com, and rate and review
Speaker 2: the show on Apple Podcasts. Thank you so much for
Speaker 2: listening to the Good Stuff. If this episode touched you today,
Speaker 2: please share it and be part of making someone's day better.
Speaker 1: Put on your bad ass caves like Michael Carnell will
Speaker 1: go be great today, and remember you can't do epic
Speaker 1: stuff without epic people. Thank you for listening to the
Speaker 1: good Stuff. The Good Stuff is executive produced by Ashley Schick,
Speaker 1: Jacob Schick, Leah Pictures and q Code Media. Hosted by
Speaker 1: Ashley Shick and Jacob Shick, Produced by Nick Cassilini and
Speaker 1: Ryan Counts. House post production supervisor Will Tindy, Music editing
Speaker 1: by Will heywood Smith edited by Mike Robinson,