November 5, 2025 • 69 mins
Tragedy struck the Ellis family when Papa suddenly had a stroke. The Ellises and the crew discuss what saved his life. Dead Ass. Watch the full video version early on Patreon! Go to https://Patreon.com/EllisEverAfter to see the After Show and more exclusive Ellis Ever After video content. And find us on social media at @EllisEverAfterPodcast, @khadeeniam and @iamdevale, @joshua_dwain @_matt.ellis, @tribbzthecool. And if you’re listening on Apple podcasts, be sure to rate, review and subscribe.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
A stroke saved.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
My father's life, and thank god we were home when
it happened, because we weren't supposed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
To be dead Ass.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
It all started with real talk, unfiltered, honest and straight
from the heart. Since then, we've gone on to become
Webby award winning podcasters in New York Times bestselling authors.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Dead Ass was more than a podcast for us. It
was about our growth, a place where we could be vulnerable, be.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Wrong, of course, but most apportly be us.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
But as we know, life keeps evolving, and so do we,
and through it all, one thing has never changed this
because we got a lot to talk about.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Yo, So quick story time? Do we do karaoke? Quick
story time?
Speaker 3 (00:51):
We were actually sitting right here, you and I, yes,
doing the podcast. That's Kaden's favorite job. She's such an
old lady. God, I'm gonna let y'all in on Kadeen's joke.
And she says it every time whenever I say you
and I, she says, I say, you.
Speaker 4 (01:12):
Know, we could be having the most serious conversation, like,
oh no, this is on gud we will be having
a serious discussion about life changing things.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
And I'm like, you know, you and I and she'd
be like.
Speaker 5 (01:25):
T Y, That's how I know we family, because that's
something I would do.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
I don't care where we are, what we're doing, what
we're talking about. Somebody else could be saying that you
know you and I be.
Speaker 6 (01:36):
Like, t Y.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
It's like a dad joke.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
That's myself. Now we have karaoke, it's like it's like.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
A dad joke. My father has the same joke.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
He always says, right if I'm like, man, I'm hungry,
he goes, I'm true.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
It iced to me too. He's been doing this since I.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Was little though, I'm true, So I'm gonna add you
to that, but I'm not gonna say me and you
were sitting right here, the entire podcast crew was here,
and Dad had come down the stairs and it was
(02:15):
like a heavy like dn't don't, don't don't. And I
remember we was looking at each other like who was
going down the stairs. They know we podcasting. So then
it was time for him to go back upstairs, and
we heard like a flute and he had stumbled right there,
and I remember but Josh said, yo, I think y'all
need to go check on Pops.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
And we was like why. He was like, yo, that's
like the second time he tripped up the stairs.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Plus when he was upstairs in the kitchen, he was
going to pick up a cup and he kept dropping it,
and then you and I looked at it.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Me and you looking at this. I'm not doing this.
Me and you looked at each other.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
And if y'all noticed there there is a podcast that's
kind of short. The after show wash was short. Yeah,
and we rushed out of here. That day, we go upstairs,
ca is just like, yo, did you take your blood pressure?
Speaker 1 (03:07):
What's going on? He was like, now, I really don't
feel that well.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
He feels I don't feel like myself.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Yeah, he said, I don't feel like myself.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
And for me, that's alarming because my father is always
like I'm good, I'm good. Like he flows through this
house effortlessly with no noise. So for him to make
any kind of noise going through the house, we're like.
Speaker 7 (03:24):
That's I we've been making that joke for the last
four years. Then he'll just pop up behind you.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Yeah exactly, he's leaving here. Yeah, Like it goes through
the house.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
So and then and we'll come back to this, but
I remember you taking his blood pressure. Mom was at tennis.
He said his blood pressure was a little high.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
It was high. I FaceTime my sister because she's like
the family nurse on call. So the minute I told
her what was happening, she was like, take him to
the er right now. And we just dropped everything and
took him. And sure enough, when I got there. First
of all, I can unpack it more when we come back,
but when I got there, sure enough, he did have
a stroke.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
So yeah, and that stroke ended up saving his life.
And when we come back, we'll talk about how it
saved his life.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
All right, karaoke time, I'm not inclined to sing Unity by.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Because we did sing that one time.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Did we? Yeah? You? And where's it going? But my
kid's favorite song right now, Dakota actually knows the whole
dance routine. I don't know if it's something that his
school made up or if it's like a TikTok thing
or what, but it's a song by Forrest Frank and
it goes like this, Lord, I need you now more
than they ever. Won't you put my heart back to
(04:40):
I searched the world to my her just to find
out your ways big always better. It's so good and
it does give me your ways better.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Yeah, it gives me chill listening to really good Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Shout out to our kids. Yeah for introducing us to
new things. That's one thing when you have children, you
get put on to the latest hip hop, the newest
fashions and what people are talking about.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
To shout out to our kids.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
And understand six seven and six you will never understand.
I'll never understand this meant for us. I was doing
homework for Colder the other day and we're doing a
book on numbers. So it's going one, two, three, four,
There was five had its own page, and just as
I turned the page, six seven was on the same page,
did a video and the kids fell out. They were
like six. Even Dacota was like six seven. I'm like,
(05:31):
what does that mean. He's like, it's on YouTube. So
clearly I got to get it together. But yeah, the
kids are great, Like when we get in the car,
they want to grab whoever's phone is connected, and then
they'll be like, I'm gonna play music. So Cairo probably
has the most diverse collection. He has a worship playlist,
he has is his trap music, he has reggae. He's
(05:51):
and it will jump around and you got drill music.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Yeah, I'm small Cairo all over all over the place.
But he understands. He understands what to listen to, what
not to listen to.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
And to listen to it around with met me in
the car, Coder, can we play ah trumpets? I'm like,
I can't play that in the car with.
Speaker 5 (06:06):
Made me bro.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
I'm going to put on the B I B L
E colder.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Don't even call it a trumpets.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
He calls it yellow diamonds look like peep because the
first words to the song is yellow diamonds look like pepe.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Bitches fly from DC on my private to Ykiki.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
The fact that my three year old knows these words
is kind of crazy, but you.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Know what, he also knows his herd.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Jesus your ways better. All right, we're gonna take a
quick break and we're gonna get back into unpacking story
time and telling you more about what happened today. My
dad had a stroke. All right, y'all, let's jump into
our favorite portion of the show, our newest portion or
no op. So we'll we got today triple. Let me
(06:56):
get my paddle right? Got their paddle?
Speaker 6 (06:58):
I got mine right? All right? Since we're talking about
medical issues.
Speaker 7 (07:02):
Today, I saw an interesting study on Instagram that I
thought Devo would be interested in.
Speaker 6 (07:08):
And maybe the other men on the show That's here.
Speaker 7 (07:11):
Study shows yes, yeah, actually they said men should ejaculate
twenty one times a month to avoid risk of cancer.
They studied Harvard let a study of thirty thousand men
over the span of nearly twenty years, and they revealed
a correlation between ejaculation and prostate health.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
See see First of all, you're welcome.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
I do know I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
I'm saying you're welcome because I'm here because yes.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
I'm here for you.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
So you're doing that for me when I'm here for you.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Ultimate display of reciprocity over here.
Speaker 7 (07:49):
And we just were talking about those three weeks a
month that Candeen's hormones are at a level area.
Speaker 6 (07:56):
So that's your three.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Weeks one day.
Speaker 6 (07:59):
Yeah, you're lying that.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
So you prepared to line that up twenty one days.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
In a row. Yeah, I mean in a row, because
I mean, you know, I have to dip and dabble
on my cycle too, so meeting take care of it.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
No way I'm getting sex twenty one days in a row.
I don't know what the world, y'all.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Think absolutely not Scotch sad days.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
You want me to live long, you know, Scotch was
that man.
Speaker 8 (08:25):
You said, you said, ain't no way of getting sex
twenty one days in a row, and case said, absolutely not.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
That's said, that's hilarious.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
That's hilarious to any one consecutive days. It's a heavy
load to lift, but we do pretty decent.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
We do good to lift. I don't triple about the
mount of sex I have, don't. I don't triple about
the man the sex half. That's not That's never been
an issue for us. We're pretty consistent.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
You know.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
If we normally go four to five times a week,
which I think is actually more than twenty one days,
if you being consistent, because there's some days where we
be we'll be really excited to see each other, you
know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
True, So the time isn't it?
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Our week is, yeah, like twenty days, my twenty days.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Our issue is never really like times.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
It's like how we get there right, you know, because
for us it's like you be going all day, you
got four kids, it's now twelve thirty.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
We both nodding off, and then it's just like trying
to fuck like that's not you know what I'm trying
trying to do this.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
I'm sometimes you want to low razzle, dazzle, you want
little spot, Nay, you want a little you know. So
that's my aim is to usually try to switch it up.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
But yeah, you know what else is funny, this is
my opponents. I sent you a video of this lady.
This lady was talking about how set like women have
to understand if you're married, right, sex is not always
going to be pleasing for you, Like sex doesn't always
have to be the most greatest sex, mind blowing sex
or being the mood all the time. And she was saying,
(09:57):
because you know, when your husband, when your husband has
things to do every single day, he don't get a
chance to say, I'm not in the mood to be protective,
I'm not in the mood to pay the bills.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
I'm not in the mood.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
So she was like, I think a lot more women
need to understand that your mood doesn't dictate everyone else's life.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
And of course women was killing her in the comments, right.
Speaker 5 (10:15):
And like in that video to food, that's what I
remember the video. You've seen a video, right, and women
don't want to always eat lunch. They gotta feel like
they're in the mood to want to eat lunch or something.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Right, And she was like, that's the biggest disparity between
men and women and sex.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
It's like men don't have to be in the mood
to have sex.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
It's something that they need, Like they can be sick
and almost dead and they still need.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Yes, you remember that time that's fever. When I checked,
it was like one oh two point eight, I need it.
Like he's never really ever had a fever. So I
was like thinking to myself, Yeah, I gotta break tonight baby.
The way he roll over with his hot ass.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
To me, trying to give me this warm wood baby.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
But then my fever come down after we could not
be you were finding me.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
But yeah, no, I just I'm gonna be honest. Though
there's not many things that get me out of the mood,
you know, Like that's why men can't understand sometimes we
be like you're not in the moved how, you know,
Like for.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Us, we just like, what are you talking about? I
have no idea, You have no idea.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
I get it, though, I do after being married this
long and being with your wife understanding your homowns and
how it works. I could understand how a woman wouldn't
want to be in a moved but the funny thing
is you have to learn that to get it. Yeah,
you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 7 (11:39):
I also feel like men don't really know how to
articulate their need for connection, and I think sex is
the ultimate way to connect with your partner. So I
can think you're not a pervert because you're married and
you want to have sex with your wife, which to me,
it spells out that you have this need for connection
with your wife in a certain way. Absolutely, But men
that just be out here fucking it and everything, I
(12:01):
feel like they are really creating like a toxic connection
with too many people in the world. I also think
this this article is said ejaculate, It didn't say have sex.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
So listen, I've been on record of saying that it
doesn't always have to be in the course.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
I'm on record than saying.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
That have I know, for sometimes he does want to
snuggle and you understand.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Your feet hurt, but your neck.
Speaker 7 (12:29):
Not even like this, don't say something else about the feet.
Speaker 6 (12:33):
We're like way too much about this podcast.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
The last couple of podcasts, you would have let this
do some stuff we heard that you would not be
winging it on vacation pod. I was like, y'all be
going on vacations together. He's like, forget it. But I
am not against getting a happy ending massage from my wife,
(12:58):
you know what I'm saying? Like that to me a
creative it doesn't always have to be inter course. And
that's another thing that I think men and women learn
need to learn to understand. Right, if you're a man
who loves your wife and understanding her cycle, has her
hormones and her needs and moves up and down, right,
you can't just come to her every day and be like, well,
it's just about fifteen minutes in need.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Sometimes you got to learn to be like, listen, she's
not in the move.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
And conversely, as a woman, if you know this is
what your man needs, it doesn't always have to be
intercourse either. You can find ways to be creative to
get the job done. If the goal is per the article.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Ejaculation, I'm in agreement with that.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
So that's that was my but that's my ob too.
Speaker 8 (13:39):
All the don't argue with the research. Man, it's there,
it's accurate. That's what it.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Is, and it was from Yale. Right. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
For me, I always say that these stats are coming out.
I know, nobody never asked me nothing about what I
think about nothing. That is a fact why I'm never
in the stats people.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
I'm not part of hundred.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
I'm going to be honest because I use stats a
lot of times. When you think about the fact that
there's eight billion people in the world and they say
that this stat comes from two thousand people, it does
make you be like, yeah, like sometimes statistics.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Work, Yeah, that's how statistic.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
But sometimes it'd be like, y'all didn't even ask us
because also statistically, how I want to know how many
black people have? They asks If you do a study
and you you interview two thousand people and none of
those people happen to be African American, how does that
relate to me? Because that also shows how the studies
that they've done to put out things that are supposed
(14:40):
to help people don't help us because a lot of
those things like like for example, drinking, like eating and
drinking dairy it never.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Ever worked for us as a people.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
But then they put out got milk ads because it
was supposed to the calcium was supposed to be good
for other people.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
You see what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
It's like we as black people also have to underst
and if we're going to look at research, sometimes let's
look at how the research affects us, not.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Just at the statistic. Well, how we were incorporated in those.
Speaker 8 (15:06):
STU When do those polls and statistics happen? It's probably
a cold call on the phone. You'll get a free
dinner to RBS or out Back steakhouse. And if you
spend twenty minutes on the phone with me and I'm
asking a series of questions and they're all not the
same topic.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
And we're not doing that, Yeah, because most of us
live in a space where we don't have time to
sit there for twenty years.
Speaker 8 (15:29):
Work at a call center, man, So you know I
had a job in college that worked at a call
center and it was crazy, Like all you got to
do is say you're gonna get this free dinner and
you got to be on the phone with me for
thirty minutes and people just answer questions however they want
to answer.
Speaker 5 (15:43):
Really, you're doing phone call times your meetings.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
I've learned a lot about you. Like they said, bro
at a.
Speaker 6 (15:51):
Lot of jobs.
Speaker 7 (15:53):
I will say that, like most other diseases and cancers,
black men are at more risk developing prostate cancer and
are at more risk of dying from prostate cancer, which
it is absolutely not a death sentence if you detected early.
Speaker 6 (16:09):
My father is a prostate cancer survivor.
Speaker 7 (16:12):
So black men make sure that no matter what you're doing,
you're getting your prostate screenings. I think starting at forty
because as you increase in age, your risk ALSCO increases.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
That is true. Both your grandfathers have ye.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
Both of my grandfathers had this, So I think I
should get six thirty times a month to make sure
that it ain't hereditary.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
And if you love me, kay, you drop it as
soon as we've done with this podcast.
Speaker 7 (16:35):
All right, So, speaking of early detection, let's move on
from the balls please, since we're talking about Papa's stroke today.
Strokes are one of those things that really require early detection,
detecting signs early, quickly, and they are survivable as long
(16:57):
as you see the signs and get to the hospital
very quickly. Now, recently there was an incident in Minnesota
where a black postal worker he was fifty years old,
was pulled over. I think he had crashed into a pole,
and when he got pulled over, he couldn't tell them
who he was, where he was going, he didn't know
his name, and they just assumed that he was under
(17:18):
the influence. They had an officer who specializes in telling
whether somebody's having a medical emergency or if they're intoxicated,
and he said, oh, it would just be a waste
of time, clearly racially profiling these men. They put him
in a celle by hisself. He's rolling around on the floor,
clearly in distress for three and a half hours before
(17:39):
they noticed that he's foaming at the mouth, he had
peede his pants. Finally they get him to a hospital.
He's hemorrhaging and he dies two days later because he
was having a struggle.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Oh my god.
Speaker 7 (17:49):
So his family is now suing the city of Egan,
Minnesota for one hundred and twenty million dollars. The Egan,
Minnesota Police Department is still saying a lay person couldn't
tell that he was in distress, even though they had
somebody who specializes in telling if someone is in distress.
And they're also looking for policy changes at the department
(18:10):
OP or no op I thought this was a super
sad story.
Speaker 6 (18:14):
And we were talking a little bit yesterday about.
Speaker 7 (18:19):
White privilege and how some people think that they don't
experience white privilege. But it's moments like this where empathy
is just not extended to black men in particular. And
this man really needed the police officers who are sworn
to help serve and protect. He needed their service, and
they gave him punishment for nothing. So I hope, I
(18:45):
hope his family bankrupts the city.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
I got on this and this is part of my op.
A story was just released about the Department of Homeland
Security releasing AI generated video of young black men saying
that ice were ready for you.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
We're putting a fifty thousand boundary on your head. Did
you see that?
Speaker 3 (19:05):
He has joy reposted about it, and I think the
families are looking to sue because now those young kids
are getting death threats. Someone pulled up the old video
was an old TikTok video where the kids were talking
about Iran and saying that they're not afraid and they
want all the smoke. They changed the words, they changed
their mouth, they changed the music and made it seem
as if these kids were talking about Ice and what
(19:27):
that does is that allows the military to bring in
lethal force to those communities. And the reason why I
brought that up is, like you said, black people in general,
because it's not just black men. There was a black
woman who was having a stroke and her family was
driving her to the hospital.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
They were speeding. The cops pulled them over.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
The young lady who was driving put her hands out
the window and said, please please, my mom is having
a stroke, and they drew guns on this whole family,
made them get out the car. And what it showed
me is that when you continue to use social media,
use these use these devices to show us is less
than human. It's easier for a police officer or someone
who doesn't have consistent interactions with people who look like
(20:08):
us to think that we are the things that they
see on these devices. And that's my opposite is like
these these devices are very dangerous because with AI, now
you can put things out and if no one knows
the difference, now you've created a target for a group
of people or a person that can lead to someone's death,
even if that man was intoxicated.
Speaker 6 (20:29):
The level of intoxication that you would have to be
at in order to not know your own name. That
still requires medical attention, absolutely right, no matter who.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
You are, because it can be alcohol.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
But that shows you it had nothing to do with
the fact that whether they cared he was toxicated, it
didn't see him as human. And since they didn't see
him as human, they treated him like cattle. They put
him in the back of the van on belief, put
him in the cell, and he sat there for three hours.
Like that's the bottom line is this is part of
the judicial system, the criminal justice system that most people
don't ever get it chance to see. And then when
(21:01):
we try to point it out, they say they were
rage baiting, and we're saying, like, no, these instances happens.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
They actually more often to us than it happened to
everyone else. This is why we're upset about it.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Of course, that struck home for me too, because my
dad actually had a mini stroke four years ago and
had the mini stroke while driving. He was he was
getting it getting home because he didn't feel well, and
he went to make a U turn and he ended
up crashing into two part cars. So imagine it's a
scenario like that and cops come and you know, give
(21:31):
my father the same ill treatment. Yeah, that's really really unfortunate.
I'm sorry to hear by that. It was a stroke
four years ago. Was a mini stroke, but a stroke.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
Nonetheless, he was making a U turn and his foot
couldn't come off of the gas, remember, and then you
know the same thing, like like going up the stairs
and come up and then he just kept the gas
kept going. He t bone the park car. So it
was It's rough, But that that's Dad really got me.
I hope they drag them too. Yeah, and not for nothing.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
I am.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
I remember growing up during stopping frisk me. You all
grew up during stopping frisk too. It seems like now
because of the heightened sensitivity towards racism, but also like
all of this push of division is giving people a
license to be more racist than they've ever been.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Like, it's crazy.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
It is crazy to watch, And everybody please be careful
if you're out there, be careful. We're not trying to sensationalize,
no division, but just keep your head on the swivel.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
You know, it's wild out here.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
All right. So let's segue, I guess, and talk about
story time, yes, and about how we detected Dad having
a stroke and everything that we had to do to
jump into action.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
You know.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Deval and I were actually not even supposed to be
in town that week. Remember that was the week we
were potentially going to Greece. Yeah, and Deval a couple
weeks before that was kind of like, hey, i just
feel like we need some time at home. I'm kind
of travel fatigued from the We had a lot going
on since the year started, so he was like, you know,
how do you feel about this trip. We must postpone
it because we had our fifteen year wedding anniversary, weren't
(23:08):
able to do anything because the boys had their track
meet in Florida. So I was kind of disappointed at first,
but I was like, you know what if you don't
really feel like going, it's not a big deal. Grea
saying going nowhere. We can go at any point in time.
So we decided to do the podcast instead to kind
of knock some episodes out so we can, you know,
have some time during the holidays and then to be home.
(23:29):
My mom away all day at a tennis tournament. I
was just thinking, after everything happened, about what if no
one was here, right, you know, what if Dad was
home by himself, right? And we've joked about getting mom
and dad a house because we're ready for our spaceback
and whatnot. We were actually in the middle of looking
for houses for mom and Dad, and that same week
(23:49):
it was like, on a Tuesday, they found a house
that they loved not too far from us. I went
to look at it on the Wednesday. That Thursday morning,
Deval was supposed to go take a look at it
because he wasn't able to go with me on Wednesday,
and Dad had the stroke that Thursday morning. So I
was thinking to myself, I'm like, maybe this is God's
way of saying, like, it's not time. Maybe we need
to push pause on the whole house thing. It's just
I'm at a point in life now where I'm just like,
(24:11):
if it doesn't work out, if the answer is no,
if things don't align, I no longer really question it.
I don't push it, I don't try to maneuver things.
I really just say to myself, there's something better. God
knows best, and I let it rock. So on this
particular day, when you know the team was here, Josh
noticed something upstairs with Dad, Matt noticed him going up
the stairs. Christa was also here and she was upstairs
(24:34):
sitting with Dad for a little bit. I'm just like,
thank god we were all here right, because had mom
been gone for the day playing tennis and Dad was
home by himself and we're traveling. The things with strokes
is that time is of the essence. Literally every minute counts.
So after facetiming my sister and she's just like, it
sounds like he's having a stroke, taken to the er.
(24:55):
I rushed him to the er. I don't wait for anyone.
My mom was like, I'll meet you there, and I
guess to the er and then me being squeamish about everything.
This is the reason why I never went into healthcare,
because I'm just squeamish about everything. I walked through the
emergency room toward this is like noon on a Thursday.
There's a girl bleeding from her head. There's a man
in the corner puking in one of those like little things.
(25:18):
I was like, I'm not going to survive this because
there's too much going on. I'm overstimulated and I don't
do bodily fluids. But I let the person at the
front has let them know that my father, I think,
was showing signs of a stroke typically in the er.
I think they go in accordance of, like, you know,
the severity.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Of what's happening.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Yeah, things like that, right, So you know, they took
him straight to the code stroke room and when he
was there, they did a couple assessments, took him in
for a cat skin. MRI ran all the exams and
turns out that he did indeed have a stroke. So
that shook us up a bit, you know, between my
brother and my sister and I of course Mom deval
the kid's scariest part about it. We talk about driving.
(25:57):
He had taken the kids to school that morning, you know,
and we rely on him a lot to take the
boys to inform their activities to and from school. And
I just thank god that he was okay taking the
boys to school and made it back home safely enough
that when things started to happen, he alerted my mom
and of course us and we were able to get
him the help he needed.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
So, to me, the miracle and everything is that if
we didn't take Pops to the hospital after having a stroke,
we wouldn't have found out that he was in heart failure. Yeah,
and we found out at that point that he had
over sixty sixty percent blockage.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Yeah, he has lots of blockage. His heart was only
functioning at like right.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
So now he's in a position where And this is
why I say, like things always happen for a reason.
And this is why sometimes when I used to listen
to a lot of Bruce Lee documentaries, and he talked
about being like water, right, and water can crash and
be a dominant for us, but water can also flow.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Up early about being in a position in life to flow.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
This is an example of being in a position in
life to flow, because when you flow with things, Hey.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
I don't feel well, let's not go on this trip.
Dad had a stroke. Oh shoot, he's in heart failure.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
Now he's in a position where he can get a
procedure to get the stints put in his heart that
can help reverse the heart failure and give.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Him more life. To me, that's why all of this
was happening.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
Yeah, us not finding the house that we were looking
for for them in that time, so they're not in
the house by themselves, them having to be here for
a couple extra months. All of that was for us
to see what was going on with Pops internally without
having x ray vision.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
That's God.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
You know what I'm saying. That's why I don't argue
with things no more. You don't get a job, you
don't get a roll, you don't get the house.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
It's like, what, there's something else on the other side
of this, Oh, for sure, let me flow with it.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Yeah, And of course we all experience, because we're human,
that brief moment of disappointment, you know, when you get
to know or something doesn't work out. But it's working
through that and just knowing that there's a bigger purpose.
I always say that God's protection read it, direction is
God's protection, So it's typically from something else. So I'm
just happy that we were able to get Dad the
hell that he needed because it could have been so
much worse. There are people who have had strokes where
(28:09):
they are unable to regain function and faculty over their body.
You know, they may be bound to a wheelchair, they
may not be able to speak. My mom's dad he
had a stroke and then had one shortly after, so
it was like a back to back stroke. We eventually
passed away, but it was heartbreaking to see him after
the first one. The extent of the stroke caused him
to not be able to speak, and I could see
(28:31):
like any time that we were with him, there was
the distress that he was in because he wanted so
badly to speak. It's like there's a portion of your
brain that you still know what's happening. You have that
cognitive function, but you're not able to actually get the
words out. And he used to try to write in
order to communicate with us, or type on a computer
to get the words out, and I could just see
the frustration in him because he almost didn't know. It's
(28:54):
like feeling like a stranger in your own body. You can't,
you know, regain those functions or it takes a long time.
Thankfully all for all the prayers. I want to thank
everyone first and foremost for all of the outpour of love.
I mean, people have been following Dad's journeys since we
posted about it, and I do believe in the power
of positive thinking and prayer, So thank you all for
reaching out for the DMS, the messages, for people sending
(29:17):
different recipes and different things that he should consume now
that he's had the stroke that will help to get
him back up and running. He's doing physical speech and
occupational therapy, and since the stroke, we all have been
banding together as a family to ensure that he, of
course feels supported and we don't want him to feel
like he's a burden. We genuinely do want him to
(29:38):
regain the functions that he's accustomed to, so that's walking
on his own, being able to eat on his own,
which he's been successful at. He's not ready to drive yet.
His physical therapist is like, you'll be driving in no time.
We were like, let's not, let's not get ahead of
ourselves old you know, yeah exactly, and I'm thinking about it.
(29:59):
Oh my goodness, is dad, you know, maybe won't be
able to drive for the foreseeable future. We have Jackson
getting his permit in like a couple months, which is
blowing my mind. It's crazy, blowing my mind. Y'all have
been around since Jackson was yay high, so it's insane.
How like the circle of life continues to happen and
the boys are holding him accountable. One thing I will say,
(30:21):
being in the house together where it's multi generational, we
have everyone taking care of each other and the boys
are so invested in Papa getting better. His occupational therapist
was here for example, and told him, in order to
regain function over his hand because his hand went numb
after the stroke, he was having a hard time texting writing,
so she has him coloring. So I told Dakota, I said, listen,
(30:44):
Papa has homework to do, so you have to make
sure when you do your homework, Papa does his homework,
and Coda, like clockwork, will come home from school and
be like, Papa, you have to do your homework. And
it's been great because I've been capturing those moments like
on my phone or Matt being hashtag fly on the
wall against the greatest candid photos, and I think those
are things that the boys will have to look back
on years from now, Like I can't wait for the
(31:06):
house to finish undergoing renovations so we can get our
gallery wall up and just show the moments that mean something.
There's a story in so many of those photos that
we have. So yeah, it's been great to see how
everyone's banded together. Cairo's on him about drinking his water,
you know, things like that.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
To me, the most important part is that we all
banded together, right, Like for me, this was a community thing, right.
We have friends and family here who noticed something, who
pointed it out to us, Very similar to with Dakota
when we felt like he was speech delayed, we noticed
he was in sane certain words properly, rather than waiting
and seeing or just shining it off and be like, oh,
it's just nothing.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
Let's be proactive.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
And a lot of times being proactive is how you
prevent things from happening.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
Strokes, for example, It's hard to.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
Recognize, but I remember my uncle Lee had a stroke
and he said he went to go turn the light off,
and every time he went to go turn the light off,
like he went to touch the light, but he couldn't
touch it, and he felt like it was his depth perception
was off. And then he started to slur a little
bit and they rushed him to the hospital. Uncle Lee
fully recovered. Now Roger's bike. But it's in those moments
where you have family that you're always paying attention to
(32:12):
each other. You know, there should be no family member
left behind. It doesn't matter how young or how old,
because a lot of times in family it's always the
youngest or the oldest that get left behind. But I
just I implore people, man, if you have people who
live with you. Elderly people or if they don't live
with you, check on them daily, like don't let it
be a day or two where like, oh I didn't
hear from so and so because that time or even
(32:34):
those hours. Could you imagine if Pop said, hey, I
didn't feel good, so rather than go back upstairs, if
he would have laid down in the back and went
to sleep for those three hours and then we're done filming, right.
This is why it's important, especially for elderly people too.
If you don't feel like yourself, say something like it
ain't cool to just go and that's not even elderly.
(32:54):
I remember when you had the headache after your postpartum
pret pleasure yea, and you were the same and told
him about to explode, I'm gonna just take a nap,
and I was like, nah, bro, yeah, check that blood pressure.
If there's anything I can tell you to get in
your house, it's a blood pressure machine.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Oh a blood pressure CUF Yeah, it's actually right.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
There, yes, but where's where's on a grad?
Speaker 8 (33:14):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (33:15):
I'll be quick to take a blood pressure, my bloo
pressure or anyone's blood pressure, because that's usually an indicator
of something potentially happening. So that's what saved my life
with after the coder.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
Yeah, boom, this is the blood pressure on Amazon. It's saved,
k and it's saved pops.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Sure did this is the machine? Right?
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Sure did? Yep? So yeah, the minute you feel like
something is off, and being accountable and knowing knowing your
people too, and knowing what's regular for them, Like we
knew that dad never makes a sound in this house
for him to be.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
Is that right?
Speaker 5 (33:46):
Who is that?
Speaker 6 (33:47):
Who is that?
Speaker 5 (33:48):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (33:50):
Right, there's no one else in the house, So that's
really good. My mom had a heart attack at fifty
four fifty five, which is super young, and she was
like she was literally working out and the heart attack
was happening while she was working.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
He shout out Dolah, shout out Dolo, and once again
community and family recognizing when someone doesn't look right.
Speaker 5 (34:08):
And saying something.
Speaker 3 (34:09):
Dolo saw moms and was like, moms, and this is
a crazy story. Moms, when's the last time you ate
in a few days? A few days because she was
working at the time, director nursed and she go work,
come home, sleep tired, get up, workout. Then he goes, well,
have you been drinking? Had a half a bottle of
water this.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Morning, right, and she had like a banana.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
Dolo said, you don't look good, go home. So then
she goes home and then Tristan is there, and.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
Tristan always goes to work, and this one particular morning,
he was starting late. He slept in and he was like,
I'm going in late today, just a random day, and
he was like, man, you don't look good. And then
my father was like, oh, maybe you need to lay down,
take a nap, and trist is like, no, I don't think.
I think you need to go to the hospital. Like
he knew at that point too. He had finished nursing
school too, so he was kind of like sharp with
(34:57):
his awareness. And she was like, if you don't go,
I'm going to call the ambulance and it's going to
be a whole scene. He literally was like that because
my mom was like, no, I'm going to take a nap.
And I remember when they got to the er.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
Then the person in the er, the doctor, said you
should thank your son because had you gone to sleep,
you would not have woken up.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
And it's like.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
Wow, and guys, it happens to all of us with
our parents my dad. Yes, my brother calls me, says
two years ago, y'all call you pops, face timing. I'm
like why, He like, he don't look good and they
not listening to me. So I called my pops. First thing,
I noticed his skin. He has brown skin, skin gray,
(35:41):
So I'm like, something ain't right. Skin hanging off his cheeks,
like hanging his next looking on sunking in. I'm like,
what's going on. He's like, I gotta use the bag.
I gotta peel like every fifteen minutes. But it's fine.
This was on a Sunday. He says, it's okay. I
got a doctor's appointment on Wednesday. I'll be fine to
Then I said, let me speak to mommy. I said, Mom,
(36:02):
what's the plan? She was just like, what do you mean?
What's the plan?
Speaker 1 (36:06):
Dad? Don't look good?
Speaker 3 (36:07):
All right, if y'alln't take him to the hospital tomorrow,
I'm flying in and I'm going to take him and
it's going to be a thing.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
My mom took him to the hospital.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
Turns out his blood sugar was so high his A
one C, which is I think once it's seven, is diabetic, right.
His A one C was something like twenty some I'm
crazy and the doctor once they took his sugar.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
I think they took him to urgent.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
Care or something and they was like, yo, you need
to go into the hospital. And they was like, well,
he has a doctor's appointment in a couple of days.
They were like, no, you need to go to the
hospital right now.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
Two seconds away from a diabetic coma.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
And they found out that he was diabetic. That's when
he ended up getting a thing in his arm. But
this is also for millennials who have those parents who
I know. Our parents was OG's. My mother and father
worked multiple jobs. They thugged it out, like we're at
that age now, but we have to start telling them
like no, sit down, or let's go to the hospital.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
And it saved my dad life. It's safe your mom
and dad.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
My mom with her swollen foot, I'll be telling her,
you know, she found out she had high cholesterol like
we had. We're at that point now where we're watching
our kids and our parents and it's important for us
to recognize the signs.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
What do you guys think it is like with parents
or just people in general, like just putting things off
and being like, oh, it's nothing is it a denial
thing that you don't want to go to the doctor
and potentially find out something is wrong, or is it
that you just don't want to be inconvenience in that moment.
Speaker 7 (37:27):
I think it is that fear you don't want to
go to the hospital and find out something else is
wrong or something is you know, gravely wrong. Luckily my parents,
my mom stays at the doctor and my stepmom makes
my dad go to the doctor because we had a
situation with my dad where he uh woke up.
Speaker 6 (37:46):
And his face, his like whole face was swollen, his lip,
he looked like he was changing back from.
Speaker 7 (37:55):
Yeah, And it just turned out he maybe his sodium
was high because he had drinks some fucking bac and
soda for some reason, and they swoll up because.
Speaker 6 (38:12):
But even that, you know, we had to kind of
force them to go.
Speaker 7 (38:14):
But I do think it's it's the fear of you know,
what else could it be, or finding out something else
because aging is a motherfucker.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
Yeah, it is.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
It really is scary, It really is.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
We can't we can't lie about the distrust between black
people and the institution.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
That is a lot of us don't. We don't trust hospitals.
Speaker 3 (38:33):
We don't trust doctors because we don't feel like they
ever represent us well. We talk about black women's mortality
rate when it comes to giving birth, it's five times
anyone else. So it's like when you get sick, the
last place you want to go to sometimes is the
doctor because you feel like the doctor is going to
have my.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
Best interest in heart.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
Also, if you don't have proper insurance, you know, like
a lot of people lost Medicare or Medicaid, So someone's
going through in a medical emergency, you go to the hospital,
the first thing I'll ask you was for your ID
and your insurance car And if you don't have insurance,
you end up getting sent to the corner. So a
lot of people are just trying to figure it out
on their own, right.
Speaker 7 (39:09):
Yeah, my mom's side of the family, they have like
some distrust in doctors. Like I've had aunts who passed
away because they didn't want to get medical treatment for
cancer or whatever. And I found out why And it's
actually the craziest thing ever. I thought my grandmother died
from cancer for the longest time, and my mom was like, no,
actually she went into the hospital for something unrelated. She
(39:32):
was a smoker, and so this doctor wanted to check
her for cancer, so he cut her open like an autopsy,
and they ended up having to feed her through a
tube because she was cut open and she choked.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
Are you kidding me? So that's like they were experimenting.
Speaker 3 (39:47):
Yes, well, my grandfather went in, remember he was having
gasherin to write this. Yeah, they went in to give
him an enema and the nurse was rough and ruptured
his wrecked them up, having end up having surgery, end
up having to live with a colossomy bag for the
rest of his life. And my father was a proud
(40:08):
Southern man. He fought in the army like he That
was hard to watch him go through that. But that's
to your point, Like sometimes as a black person you
afraid of the doctor, especially an older like that generation.
Your grandmother, my grandfather, they lived through that. You know,
they know they actually have family members who are part
of the Tuskegee experiment.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
So for them, it's like I don't.
Speaker 6 (40:29):
Trust them absolutely. So that's part of the things that
are way worse.
Speaker 7 (40:33):
And you go to the doctor who's supposed to help
you get better and they fuck you up.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
Yeah, it's like it is.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
Let me go boil my tea, you know, get some
herbs out my garden, and try to do it the
holistic way.
Speaker 3 (40:44):
And I will say this because we have a couple
of friends who are doctors. One of my friends who's
a doctor, is leaving the medical profession to start his
own practice because he said people would be surprised how
many surgeons are being quoted by doctors.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
I mean, you have to do a certain amount of surgeon.
So now they're not just looking.
Speaker 3 (41:05):
For people to treat, they're looking for people that they
can do surgeries on to reach their quota, because if
they don't reach their quota, they will no longer be working.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
And I was like, that's crazy.
Speaker 8 (41:15):
And so people get recommended surgeries even if they don't
need it.
Speaker 3 (41:18):
Yes, exactly, because the doctors are giving quotas for the surgery.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
This is not a conspiracy theorist.
Speaker 3 (41:23):
He's actually leaving the profession because he's like, yeah, I
can't work for these hospitals anymore.
Speaker 1 (41:27):
It's become a just a business.
Speaker 3 (41:28):
It's as you have a patient who I don't want
to say what type of surgeon he is because I
don't want to give away who it is. But you
have a patient that can be treated with something else,
and then the hospitals like, no do the surgery. Insurance
covers the surgery. Anesthesiologists gets paid because.
Speaker 1 (41:46):
Of the surgery.
Speaker 3 (41:47):
If you have them treated by doing something else, all
of those other peoples don't get paid. And the system
that runs doesn't work.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
Doesn't work.
Speaker 3 (41:55):
So that's why people are afraid of the doctor. If
we're being honest's become a business.
Speaker 2 (41:59):
When I was pregnant with Jackson, the first doctor that
I went to, the first obgyn, I didn't like his
bedside man or off the bat, so I was already
kind of turned off after my first and second visit.
But when I did a little deep dive into, like,
you know, his background, asking a couple of nurses who
my mom knew through the nursing industry that worked, you know,
in the same hospital as him, one of the nurses
(42:21):
literally said to my mom, he's a surgeon, and if
you're looking for a surgeon who's going to probably guarantee
her a C section, then you can stick with him,
but I rather you use this person instead. And I
ended up switching doctors because his C section rate was
something like seventy eight percent and it's just like I
understand that some people do need se sections and emergency
situations and there's no other option, but for someone as
(42:42):
a doctor to be impatient and not want to wait
labor out a bit when the mother and baby is
okay and they just quick to go for a C
section after a certain number of hours is a little ridiculous,
you know. So I understand it as well too. So yeah,
that's that's been I think a lot of people's experiences,
but mental health after witnessing such an episode. It's been
(43:05):
tough for Deval and I, I think because we're at
the phase, like we spoke about before, where we're parenting
our children that take a lot of energy and time
and focus from us, but we're also in a sense
caring for and parenting our parents. And we've realized he
and I over the past two months that there's been
(43:26):
a bit of a disconnect even with us, and we
found ourselves ourselves bickering over like random things that have
nothing to do with he and I and our marriage.
It's more so all of the extenuating circumstances around it,
and the impact of Dad, you know, being sick and
then having to juggle all the things that Dad used
to help us with, or you know, having to bring
more family into town to then help us navigate things
(43:49):
with the boys. So it's been a lot on us,
I think, mentally, physically, emotionally dealing with this since you know, September.
Speaker 1 (43:58):
For me, it's hard to.
Speaker 3 (44:01):
Watch my parents get old, watch our parents get old.
Pops is my dog, Like yeah, just when your kids asked, like,
why Pop in the hospital. Yeah, and you want to
just be like, he fine, but you don't know if
he's gonna be fine, right, That's why I panicked a
(44:24):
little bit.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
Matt remembers.
Speaker 3 (44:25):
I was telling the pops come out, you know, come
out to the park.
Speaker 1 (44:29):
I'm like, Yo, you're gonna walk with us.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
You know what I'm saying, You're gonna get in the sun.
I want to fix this.
Speaker 3 (44:34):
Yeah, I was ready to Broye. That's literally what I
went into. I went into that, I gotta fix this mold.
And you you can't fix everything, you know what I'm saying.
As a dad, you always try to fix stuff. You
can't fix everything. I'm trying to fix my father in law.
You know, when you're watching him struggle to do things
that he you know he was never fast, you know,
(44:57):
Pop saying, we talk about him floating around the house.
It was even he was never running up the stairs.
But then when you watching him and it's like he
was about to go to the stairs, but he chose
to take the elevator. Yeah, it's little things like that
that you know what I'm saying, It affects you don't realize.
Speaker 1 (45:12):
I didn't realize. It was fucking me too, just now.
Speaker 3 (45:14):
But it's like, yo, I don't want to have to
tell my kids that Pop in here.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
You know what I'm saying that to me, you talk
about mental health.
Speaker 3 (45:24):
It was hard for me to sleep a couple of
days after that saying, because I was like hospital right.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
He was in the hospital for about like five or
six Yeah, Bro and Divan. I would wake up exhausted
because it's like I'm checking my phone throughout the night,
like you just don't want to get that phone call,
like you know, something happened to him overnight. And it
was also like an eerie, like weird feeling in the
house when he was in the hospital, because I'm used
to just we'll leave our bedroom in the morning, right,
and we'll walk towards the kitchen, and he'll always be
(45:52):
sitting on the house, like literally sitting on the sofa
watching the news or whatever in the mornings or sleeping,
taking a nap. And a couple of mornings I walked
past and he's not on the sofa, and I took
actually took a picture and sent it to my brother
and my sister, and I'm like, this feels so weird.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
It does.
Speaker 2 (46:08):
Like not having that in the house.
Speaker 3 (46:10):
You know, made me realize too that you and I
never even dealt with that. We just tried to fix
everything and try to keep it moving like life was going.
But I didn't even think of I didn't even talk
to you about those days after.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
I don't think we even asked each other how we felt,
you know, because you're just trying to keep it together.
Speaker 3 (46:27):
You know who you know who his boy is, Yes,
and Cairo was. It was hard for Cairo, Yeah, because
Cairo is very aware.
Speaker 2 (46:36):
Yeah, he's of all four of them, he's like.
Speaker 1 (46:39):
In Dakota, are the two most aware of kids? Right?
Speaker 3 (46:43):
And the reason why I say aware not that Jackson
and Kaz don't know what's going on.
Speaker 5 (46:48):
They're paying close attention.
Speaker 3 (46:50):
Yes, like Kiros to walk down here and be quiet
and just looking around and see what is going on, right,
and listen, Jackson, you know.
Speaker 1 (46:57):
What I'm saying. So everybody here let me.
Speaker 3 (47:00):
So Cairo was just like, well, also, he's the one
that's into spirituality. He's the one that's always talking about
Jesus and talking about heaven.
Speaker 1 (47:08):
So he was like that.
Speaker 3 (47:11):
If Pops doesn't come out of the hospital, do you
think he's going to heaven?
Speaker 1 (47:17):
I'm like, how you explain to your nine year old that?
Speaker 3 (47:23):
So my only thing I could say was Pops is
coming out of the hospital.
Speaker 1 (47:26):
What are you talking about? You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (47:28):
But even in telling him that, I had to tell
myself that, right, you know what I'm saying, because when
for those moments where Pops typically wakes the boys up
and he does these things, now me and Kay were
tasked with waking up, taking them to the to school
in the morning, picking them up. Every time I walked
by that that living room and Pops wasn't sitting in there,
(47:50):
I was like, man, don't let me get a phone caller.
Speaker 1 (47:52):
Today's day.
Speaker 3 (47:53):
I got to explain to Cairo and mental health wise,
like that's hard, yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:58):
And you don't need to realize this that it has
on the kids when they leave the house. All of
their teachers, friends, parents, Cairo was like leading prayer every
morning in school because they were taking that to school
with them, and I didn't realize the burden that it
had on them. You know, you think that in the house,
you see them day to day and they're okay, but
(48:19):
they were carrying that weight to school with them. And
thank god they're in a school that encourages them to
speak how they feel, encourages them to pray. So they
had the entire school praying for Papa, which is also
it did work so many people they come now Dad
has been going to the football games and stuff, and
people come by and they're like, Pop, we're so happy
to see you. The kids have been we've been all
(48:40):
been praying for you. We had, you know, someone brought
over a pan of you know, bake zd for us
one night. They're like, we know how hard it is.
So the community that they have within their school environment
is really nice to watch. And it's like, man, these
kids continue to blow our minds because in moments where
we feel like we can't even process what's happening, they
show us how God shows up for us by way
(49:02):
of them, you know. So it's really nice to see.
Speaker 1 (49:04):
Shout out to all of our parents.
Speaker 3 (49:06):
Your mom after her heart attack, made vast changes, Yes,
and now she's sixty seven, played tennis two times a
day competitively too.
Speaker 2 (49:14):
She's on teams. Honey. We call her Charena Sharena William know.
Speaker 3 (49:20):
My dad made his changes, got his monitors, so now
he doesn't eat as much sugar, drink as much sugar.
Speaker 1 (49:25):
My mom's starting to walk more.
Speaker 3 (49:27):
But Pops, who never worked out a day in his life,
never every single day, now he.
Speaker 1 (49:31):
Comes down here and get on the treadmill. He come
up to me, walk.
Speaker 3 (49:35):
Today, do my little thing on my feet today.
Speaker 2 (49:41):
That's a really good impersonation to him.
Speaker 1 (49:43):
That sounds like my dog bro. I'm proud of him.
Speaker 2 (49:45):
He's been on it. Yeah, see him with his little
ot band and his little stress ball. He's like, I
feel so much better. He's like, I'm starting to feel
more like myself. And that's music to our ears, you know.
So we're happy to see.
Speaker 5 (49:56):
That Dad is walk from upstairs all the way downstairs
to go outside and back up, and he told me
I feel much better.
Speaker 2 (50:02):
No, he is looking good. He's still going to the
park with y'all his little walk and what he does
now in the morning is like when Devo's dad came
home to help us with the boys for like two
or three weeks he was here. He would still get
up in the morning and then ride in the passenger
seat with your dad and shout out to school like
my father in law. The same way. Deval has made
it a point to take care of Dad when Devo's
(50:24):
dad is here, like they rolled tight. You know, Dad
was like, I want to make some rum punch and
that was good for me because I'm like, okay, that's
something he enjoy is doing. So your dad took him
to the liquor store, the grocery store to get all
his ingredients, took him out for lunch for his birthday.
So the village has really been showing up for dad,
and it's just really great to watch, really great to watch.
(50:47):
All right, What do you think people should know about
strokes after your experience? Any other points about strokes that
we think people should know. I think the biggest thing
with strokes time is of the essence, like the moment
you or see the symptoms or that's just for yourself
too as well. We probably should have looked up stats
on like signs of a stroke. But I know there's
(51:09):
like numbness or tingling, like they happen on one side
of the body or the other. Slurred speech is another
one that is a very big indicator equilibrium off.
Speaker 3 (51:17):
Equilibrium being when I first got my certifications, I was
doing a lot of occupational therapy through Peric's speech cool.
They had a retirement home they had to deal with.
They would come in just for movement. So these are
people who were cleared already but now wanted movement. But
the biggest thing is equilibrium off and depth perception. A
lot of people noticed first that they lost balance or
(51:39):
when they saw something they tried to touch it, it
was either closer or further away than what they thought,
and it was like those were some of the first
signs that you feel like something is off, Like I
don't feel like myself.
Speaker 2 (51:49):
Yeah, yeah for sure. So if you have somebody you love,
make sure that you're checking out for signs of things
like stroke, heart attack. Heart attack is another one. You know,
pain in the chest, tighten is painting the arm, jaw, nausea.
It's good to just know these things. Yes, you know,
it's good to just know these things, especially as we
get older and we are taking care of those who
(52:09):
are older than us. I think you know it to them.
Speaker 3 (52:11):
Don't be afraid that it's a false alarm, because some
people be like, I'm not going to the doctor and.
Speaker 1 (52:17):
It's a false alarm. You'd rather be a false alarm
than it being alarm. And you still let home.
Speaker 3 (52:22):
A lot of people do that. It's like, I'm not
gonna go there, gonna be embarrassing. You just got indingestion.
You thought it was a heart attack, So be embarrassed,
but be alive.
Speaker 5 (52:29):
They never know what you could find out. That little
thing my dad had he woke up on when it
had bad blood cuts. Ended up going to the hospital
a month later. Not a month later, he ended up passing.
But in that time span we in offend it finding
out he had lunk.
Speaker 1 (52:42):
Answer.
Speaker 5 (52:44):
But it's only because the blood clots started flowing through
and his arms swalled up. Oh, it was the initial
reason we went to the hospital. He could have passed
in the house that we would have never known what
the exact reason why you.
Speaker 2 (52:57):
Guys found You guys went to the hospital because of
the swelling.
Speaker 5 (53:01):
It's almost so big. It was like, Na, you need
to go to the hospital. This is clearly a blood
clot issue. And then at the hospital is when they
did more tests to find out what's going on. That's
when they find out he had lung cancer simulated.
Speaker 2 (53:13):
At that point.
Speaker 5 (53:13):
Yeah, and then within a month got to stage four
past one cancers. It's like full acceleration. It doesn't slow down.
Once it gets to that stage is too late.
Speaker 2 (53:23):
Yeah, wow, I know urgent Care hate to see me
coming because baby, like you said, I beat it K.
Speaker 1 (53:30):
Two three times a week. All these kids.
Speaker 3 (53:32):
I don't make especially and I don't make miss I don't.
I don't wait with the kids neither.
Speaker 1 (53:35):
Yeah, Like you know your.
Speaker 3 (53:36):
Eye hurt, you had her ear Because this is just
for parents. If your child says that they had hurts
in the back of their head and they're talking at
their ear, do not wait to take them. Ear infections
turn into nasal infections, turn into eye infections, turned into
ane rhythms because of brain infections. When I took Jackson
the last time to get member, he said his eye
(53:58):
was hurting. No it was, and she was like, yeah,
it's a minor infection. But it was spread onto the
other side. She told me specifically. A week before that,
there was a young lady had a headache, right bad headache.
Mom just refused to take her to the hospital. It
was just like she always wants to come. She always
complained something. The child ended up having an eye infection
and lost the eye. The eye infection started from an
(54:20):
ear infection from going swimming. This was during the summer.
She was going swimming. She felt like she couldn't hear this.
This that the mom says, she's always complaining about something,
not for nothing.
Speaker 1 (54:29):
Some kids are sick kids.
Speaker 3 (54:30):
Some kids are And the mom brought her in and
they said the ear infection traveled from here all the
way into I think she had a tooth issue, but
you know how infections are. Once they started the head Yeah,
and the child lost the eye and she was like,
she was like, parents, bring them to the urgent care.
Don't wait, yeah, don't yeh.
Speaker 2 (54:51):
All right, y'all, Well, let's take a quick break and
then we'll come back in to do our listener letter.
So stick around, all right, let's dive into this listener letter. Yo,
(55:16):
what's good? Kadean Devell? Tell me you're from New York.
Tell me you're from New York without telling you. You're
telling me you're from New York. What's good? Kadean Devell.
Me and my girlfriend have been together for seven years
now and we have a two year old. We are
high school sweethearts, and when we met, we started as friends.
And I feel like I knew a little too much
about her and the things she did before me. There's
(55:36):
been at least two times where she's gotten caught texting
with her ex. It wasn't easy, but I got over it.
It hasn't happened since, but I feel like I sometimes
hold it over her and I can't really express enough
affection as I want to because of these things. Am
I too much in my head? Or do I need
more reassurance? Keep me anonymous? Love you guys podcast been
(55:59):
listening for some months now. Thank you so much for
reaching out there. Brother. How would you feel, baby, if
you knew too much about what I did before you?
Speaker 3 (56:09):
I mean, I know everything that you did before me.
You were never texting your exes while we were together,
so that you know that wouldn't be an issue. But
I mean, they seem like they're very very young. They've
been together since high school.
Speaker 2 (56:21):
High school, Yeah years, mid twenties maybe maybe maybe, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (56:27):
I think he has to mature a little bit and
understanding if you know everything that was happening before you,
or like that that was before you, you.
Speaker 1 (56:35):
Got to let that go.
Speaker 3 (56:36):
You can't hold someone accountable for the stuff that they
were doing when you weren't even in the picture.
Speaker 1 (56:40):
Like that, to me is just immature. Her texting her exes.
Speaker 3 (56:43):
If y'all talked about it and disgusted and you haven't
seen anything yet and you're still writing to us about it.
Speaker 1 (56:49):
You don't need more reassurance, you need more self esteem. Yeah,
that's that's what that says to me.
Speaker 7 (56:55):
Yeah, I agree, absolutely, it's not There's not much she
can do to make you feel secure when she's there
with you. She's not texting her as she's committed to you.
What else do you want her?
Speaker 1 (57:07):
Right?
Speaker 7 (57:08):
You have to believe that you're worth worthy of her love,
which is it don't sound like you are.
Speaker 2 (57:14):
Yeah. I figure out where we heard it or who
had said it, but they pretty much said it's not
your partner's job to make you feel secure. That's something
that you have to learn on your own. Fat and
that sounds like what's happening here? Because nobody also wants
to have shit dangling over their head. Like if you
go through something there's a miscommunication, or she makes a
choice to do something that you don't agree with, or
whatever the case may be, if you deal with it,
(57:36):
you talk about it, you hash it out, you squash it.
No one wants to that to be brought back up
time and time again either, because then that gets annoying.
Speaker 7 (57:43):
You're gonna keep getting on her nerves and she really
gonna text the egs exactly.
Speaker 3 (57:49):
I just never understood the point of checking somebody's phone,
Like that's just never been my thing. You know why
you're gonna find something because you don't know, and you
don't know all of these conversations and looking for something,
you can find something and make that the thing. And
now you're arguing about something that may not even be
a thing, and that's all based on what you've created
(58:10):
in your mind.
Speaker 2 (58:10):
And you caught text her texting that. I'm wondering what
the nature of the text was. Was it something that
you felt like was potentially incriminating? Were they reminiscent about
the love they had?
Speaker 7 (58:19):
Like I feel like what could you possibly reminisce with somebody.
Speaker 1 (58:24):
Who you dated for.
Speaker 2 (58:29):
Right, and I'm thinking about my high school romances. I'm like,
I thought I was so in love.
Speaker 3 (58:33):
You think about high school romances, don't get killed in him?
Speaker 2 (58:41):
You know what handed over here?
Speaker 6 (58:42):
It is here?
Speaker 3 (58:43):
You know what I just this is what I honestly feel, right,
people have rules?
Speaker 1 (58:48):
What's cheating? What's not cheating? What's this? What's that?
Speaker 3 (58:51):
I honestly feel like in order to be in a
healthy relationship, you have to be secure with yourself first,
whatever the person's rules are, because everyone's gonna say this
rule counts, this rule don't count. If you're not secure
with yourself, you can't exist in any relationship no matter
what the rules are, because you're always going to find
a reason to think the other person is doing something
outside of what you would do.
Speaker 1 (59:11):
That's what insecurities are.
Speaker 2 (59:12):
But do you think the rules are specific to the
relationship that you're in. Yes, you have to create your
own boundaries agreements within that relationship, and it can change
from relationship to your relationship.
Speaker 3 (59:23):
Absolutely, Like there's this, I guarantee you all of the
rules in our relationship are not the same in Matt
and Christ's or Josh and Ekas or Trible, like I bet.
Speaker 6 (59:32):
You everybody tribling herself.
Speaker 3 (59:42):
Stop stop we know, but I mean everybody has their own,
you know, personal thing like I don't like this and
I like this. You can't make everybody tell to make
their relationship to what society says it's supposed to look like.
But what I do know is that if you're not
secure with yourself, no matter what the rules are you
and your partner create, you're going to find issues because
(01:00:03):
them insecurity is going to start creeping in.
Speaker 1 (01:00:05):
Oh oh, she going out what she's going out with?
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (01:00:09):
It should then be like a rabbit hole of just
a NonStop I'm having to chase after and check behind her.
And it's like, no one wants to live like that
on either side.
Speaker 7 (01:00:16):
And maybe it is because I don't think that there's
anything wrong with getting reassurance from your partner, but it's
not reassurance that they're not cheating on you.
Speaker 6 (01:00:24):
If you you got to figure out what is it
that I.
Speaker 7 (01:00:26):
Feel insecure about that makes me think that my partner
might want to look elsewhere? Then let me ask her, like,
how do you feel about this thing about me? How
do you feel that I have a four inch dick?
Speaker 6 (01:00:36):
Like? Is that you know what I'm saying? Is that
okay for you?
Speaker 7 (01:00:44):
Like?
Speaker 1 (01:00:44):
You know?
Speaker 7 (01:00:45):
Is it not satisfying? Is there something I could be
doing that would make our relationship better? That's the type
of reassurance you look for, not where you're going, who're
gonna be with?
Speaker 6 (01:00:53):
Who's gonna be there? What's up with you and him?
Speaker 7 (01:00:55):
Like nore? Have your spouse or your partner reassure you
that they like who you are?
Speaker 1 (01:01:03):
That's dope.
Speaker 3 (01:01:03):
The thing is, so I agree with that man, because
me and Kay don't spend a lot of time like
you sure you didn't do this? Like you know how
much time that would waste? Absolutely if we just for
the past twenty three years? You sure you didn't do this?
Are you going to do this last week? It's like, nah, man,
I ain't got no time for that. I just want
to share my life with somebody that I can trust.
I guess that goes back to discernment. When you use
(01:01:24):
discernment and you know you've chosen the right person, you
don't constantly need assurance that person has already showed you
that they're the right person, so you don't constantly need it, no.
Speaker 2 (01:01:32):
For sure. And we had to grow through some stuff too,
Like we've been together for twenty three years, so when
we were eighteen nineteen and our twenties, like, there were
little moments where we had little spats and disagreements, but
it's like you got to talk about it, and you
have to make a decision and the choice to stay
or keep moving, you know, move on and get over it.
Speaker 3 (01:01:46):
And that's how you learn and create the relationship you want. It'sai, Okay,
you don't like this. I don't like that, right, you
don't like when you interact with other people like that.
Speaker 1 (01:01:54):
I don't like when you interact with other people.
Speaker 3 (01:01:56):
It's like you learn to learn, yes, and after you
learn it, and then the person says, oh r, I
didn't know that before, because he did say she used
to talk to her X not anymore. Maybe you told
her like I don't want you doing that. What if
they were friends? Yeah, and so now she could you know,
excommunicated the X, but you're still holding on to that.
You got to give someone time to adjust to you know,
(01:02:16):
what it is that you think that you don't want
in life.
Speaker 1 (01:02:18):
So for sure, build out whatever you want with your partner.
Speaker 2 (01:02:21):
Sounds good. Thanks for listening though, I'm glad you're enjoying
the podcast so far. All right, y'all, keep keep writing in.
If you want to be featured as a listener letter
on the show, email us at the Elisadvice at gmail
dot com.
Speaker 3 (01:02:35):
That's t h E E L L I S A
d V I C E at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:02:40):
All right, rolling on into the moment of truth today,
we're talking about popstroke and the recovery process and what
that's like, you know, caring for family members, the healthcare system.
What you got for us, babe.
Speaker 3 (01:02:52):
My biggest thing is keep your eyes on the people
you love. Yeah, answer the phone when they call. I
got a message from my boy Trey on his mom
passed last year and he said that his mom called
him and he didn't answer the phone because he was driving.
He was driving the truck. Didn't answer the phone. Two
days later, they said, he call the when he get there.
Two days later, he get a phone call from his
(01:03:14):
brother's brothers like hey, bro, you're sitting down. He's like yeah, why.
He was like Mama gone and he was like going
where And he was like she's going she passed in
a heart attack. And he said to me, Deval, when
your mom calls, answer the phone and say Mom, let
me call you back.
Speaker 2 (01:03:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:03:31):
And the reason why I say that is because imagine
your mom is calling and you can hear on the
phone and she sounds a little slurred, true, and then
you can reach out to your brother or you can
you know what I'm saying, Those little phone calls could
be a cry for help, or could be a moment
where God is trying to send you a message. And
when you keep pushing those those things away, you're missing
the opportunities to possibly save someone in your family's life.
Speaker 1 (01:03:52):
So my message is to.
Speaker 3 (01:03:53):
Just keep your eyes on the people you love, answer
them phone calls, and keep anybody close.
Speaker 2 (01:03:58):
Absolutely mine is just spend time. Spend time. I think
we always feel like time is something we have and
we don't And unfortunately, I feel like a lot of
people once they get really old or if you've lost
the loved one, the biggest thing people say is I
wish I had more time. And it's crazy, my browtech.
(01:04:23):
She was in town. She travels and she was in
town and she didn't know what had happened. With my dad,
and she came to do my brows here at the
house and we were chitting, chat chatting, you know, as friends,
and my dad walked into the room and she looked
at him and she said hi to him, and then
he walked away, and she was like, make sure you
spend time with him. And that hit me like a
(01:04:44):
ton of bricks, because I'm like, girl, what are you
trying to say? What are you trying to say? And
She's like, spend time with him. He's emotionally going through
a lot that he's not expressing to you guys.
Speaker 1 (01:04:55):
Oh wow.
Speaker 2 (01:04:56):
And I was like, girl, like, she like, what do
you know that? I don't know? You know? But she's
always kind of spoken life into me in different ways
and I appreciate that about her. And that really made
me think and stop for a second and just think,
am I really spending quality time with my dad here?
Or am I just you know, content with the fact
that he's existing in the house.
Speaker 3 (01:05:14):
A lot of times that happens. They live with us,
and now you walk by them, you don't really like
see them, Yeah, yeah, Oh Dad is there?
Speaker 2 (01:05:21):
Right?
Speaker 1 (01:05:21):
Dad? Is there right?
Speaker 3 (01:05:22):
Someone coming in can see from a different perspective something
you're not seeing because you're so used to being there.
Speaker 1 (01:05:28):
So I see what she said. Yep.
Speaker 2 (01:05:29):
So whatever message she said, God just put that on
my heart to tell you that. And I was like
sobbing at that point, but that just put me on alert.
Like my dad's getting older, family members get older, and
we should really be trying to love on each other
while we can. So that's my moment of truth. Love
on the people you love while they're here.
Speaker 5 (01:05:47):
And the theme of this episode. If you see something,
say something, don't wait.
Speaker 7 (01:05:54):
Absolutely, yeah, pay attention, I guess, definitely pay attention. Answer
the phone for sure, just to have eyes and ears
on the people you love that are getting older and
know all you can about health wellness. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 8 (01:06:16):
If I had to add anything, which for you as
a spot on, I was trying to remember this song
by j Cole Cole Love Yours m hmm. But see,
if you see something, say something like Matt said, will
probably be my takeaway.
Speaker 1 (01:06:30):
From this episode.
Speaker 2 (01:06:31):
Ye all right, y'all. Well, be sure to follow us
find us on Patreon if you have not yet, and
subscribe to the party over there because we have the
after show, which we typically film after every episode where
you get some more exclusive Lless ever After content. You
can also get more Ellis family content on Patreon, So
shout out to our Patreon gang and thank you for
(01:06:52):
following us on social media. If you have not yet,
hit the button to follow Ellis ever After on socials.
I'm Kadeen, I am.
Speaker 8 (01:07:00):
And I am Deval, I'm going to score back Ellis,
and I'm Joshua Underscore Dwayne.
Speaker 6 (01:07:05):
I'm Trips the Cool t R I B b Z
the Cool on Everything.
Speaker 3 (01:07:09):
And if you're listening on Apple Podcasts, be sure to rate,
review and.
Speaker 2 (01:07:13):
Subscribe and download Baby That Ass.
Speaker 5 (01:07:17):
The B I B l E it.
Speaker 2 (01:07:22):
Stand alone on the word Elie.
Speaker 7 (01:07:28):
Ellis ever After is an iHeartMedia podcast. It's hosted by
Kadeen and Deval Ellis. It's produced by Triple Video, Production
by Joshua, Dwayne and Matthew Ellis, Video editing by Lashan
Roe
Speaker 3 (01:09:04):
Set Face
A stroke saved.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
My father's life, and thank god we were home when
it happened, because we weren't supposed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
To be dead Ass.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
It all started with real talk, unfiltered, honest and straight
from the heart. Since then, we've gone on to become
Webby award winning podcasters in New York Times bestselling authors.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Dead Ass was more than a podcast for us. It
was about our growth, a place where we could be vulnerable, be.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Wrong, of course, but most apportly be us.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
But as we know, life keeps evolving, and so do we,
and through it all, one thing has never changed this
because we got a lot to talk about.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Yo, So quick story time? Do we do karaoke? Quick
story time?
Speaker 3 (00:51):
We were actually sitting right here, you and I, yes,
doing the podcast. That's Kaden's favorite job. She's such an
old lady. God, I'm gonna let y'all in on Kadeen's joke.
And she says it every time whenever I say you
and I, she says, I say, you.
Speaker 4 (01:12):
Know, we could be having the most serious conversation, like,
oh no, this is on gud we will be having
a serious discussion about life changing things.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
And I'm like, you know, you and I and she'd
be like.
Speaker 5 (01:25):
T Y, That's how I know we family, because that's
something I would do.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
I don't care where we are, what we're doing, what
we're talking about. Somebody else could be saying that you
know you and I be.
Speaker 6 (01:36):
Like, t Y.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
It's like a dad joke.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
That's myself. Now we have karaoke, it's like it's like.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
A dad joke. My father has the same joke.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
He always says, right if I'm like, man, I'm hungry,
he goes, I'm true.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
It iced to me too. He's been doing this since I.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Was little though, I'm true, So I'm gonna add you
to that, but I'm not gonna say me and you
were sitting right here, the entire podcast crew was here,
and Dad had come down the stairs and it was
(02:15):
like a heavy like dn't don't, don't don't. And I
remember we was looking at each other like who was
going down the stairs. They know we podcasting. So then
it was time for him to go back upstairs, and
we heard like a flute and he had stumbled right there,
and I remember but Josh said, yo, I think y'all
need to go check on Pops.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
And we was like why. He was like, yo, that's
like the second time he tripped up the stairs.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Plus when he was upstairs in the kitchen, he was
going to pick up a cup and he kept dropping it,
and then you and I looked at it.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Me and you looking at this. I'm not doing this.
Me and you looked at each other.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
And if y'all noticed there there is a podcast that's
kind of short. The after show wash was short. Yeah,
and we rushed out of here. That day, we go upstairs,
ca is just like, yo, did you take your blood pressure?
Speaker 1 (03:07):
What's going on? He was like, now, I really don't
feel that well.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
He feels I don't feel like myself.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Yeah, he said, I don't feel like myself.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
And for me, that's alarming because my father is always
like I'm good, I'm good. Like he flows through this
house effortlessly with no noise. So for him to make
any kind of noise going through the house, we're like.
Speaker 7 (03:24):
That's I we've been making that joke for the last
four years. Then he'll just pop up behind you.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Yeah exactly, he's leaving here. Yeah, Like it goes through
the house.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
So and then and we'll come back to this, but
I remember you taking his blood pressure. Mom was at tennis.
He said his blood pressure was a little high.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
It was high. I FaceTime my sister because she's like
the family nurse on call. So the minute I told
her what was happening, she was like, take him to
the er right now. And we just dropped everything and
took him. And sure enough, when I got there. First
of all, I can unpack it more when we come back,
but when I got there, sure enough, he did have
a stroke.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
So yeah, and that stroke ended up saving his life.
And when we come back, we'll talk about how it
saved his life.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
All right, karaoke time, I'm not inclined to sing Unity by.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Because we did sing that one time.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Did we? Yeah? You? And where's it going? But my
kid's favorite song right now, Dakota actually knows the whole
dance routine. I don't know if it's something that his
school made up or if it's like a TikTok thing
or what, but it's a song by Forrest Frank and
it goes like this, Lord, I need you now more
than they ever. Won't you put my heart back to
(04:40):
I searched the world to my her just to find
out your ways big always better. It's so good and
it does give me your ways better.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Yeah, it gives me chill listening to really good Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Shout out to our kids. Yeah for introducing us to
new things. That's one thing when you have children, you
get put on to the latest hip hop, the newest
fashions and what people are talking about.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
To shout out to our kids.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
And understand six seven and six you will never understand.
I'll never understand this meant for us. I was doing
homework for Colder the other day and we're doing a
book on numbers. So it's going one, two, three, four,
There was five had its own page, and just as
I turned the page, six seven was on the same page,
did a video and the kids fell out. They were
like six. Even Dacota was like six seven. I'm like,
(05:31):
what does that mean. He's like, it's on YouTube. So
clearly I got to get it together. But yeah, the
kids are great, Like when we get in the car,
they want to grab whoever's phone is connected, and then
they'll be like, I'm gonna play music. So Cairo probably
has the most diverse collection. He has a worship playlist,
he has is his trap music, he has reggae. He's
(05:51):
and it will jump around and you got drill music.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Yeah, I'm small Cairo all over all over the place.
But he understands. He understands what to listen to, what
not to listen to.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
And to listen to it around with met me in
the car, Coder, can we play ah trumpets? I'm like,
I can't play that in the car with.
Speaker 5 (06:06):
Made me bro.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
I'm going to put on the B I B L
E colder.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Don't even call it a trumpets.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
He calls it yellow diamonds look like peep because the
first words to the song is yellow diamonds look like pepe.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Bitches fly from DC on my private to Ykiki.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
The fact that my three year old knows these words
is kind of crazy, but you.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Know what, he also knows his herd.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Jesus your ways better. All right, we're gonna take a
quick break and we're gonna get back into unpacking story
time and telling you more about what happened today. My
dad had a stroke. All right, y'all, let's jump into
our favorite portion of the show, our newest portion or
no op. So we'll we got today triple. Let me
(06:56):
get my paddle right? Got their paddle?
Speaker 6 (06:58):
I got mine right? All right? Since we're talking about
medical issues.
Speaker 7 (07:02):
Today, I saw an interesting study on Instagram that I
thought Devo would be interested in.
Speaker 6 (07:08):
And maybe the other men on the show That's here.
Speaker 7 (07:11):
Study shows yes, yeah, actually they said men should ejaculate
twenty one times a month to avoid risk of cancer.
They studied Harvard let a study of thirty thousand men
over the span of nearly twenty years, and they revealed
a correlation between ejaculation and prostate health.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
See see First of all, you're welcome.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
I do know I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
I'm saying you're welcome because I'm here because yes.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
I'm here for you.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
So you're doing that for me when I'm here for you.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Ultimate display of reciprocity over here.
Speaker 7 (07:49):
And we just were talking about those three weeks a
month that Candeen's hormones are at a level area.
Speaker 6 (07:56):
So that's your three.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Weeks one day.
Speaker 6 (07:59):
Yeah, you're lying that.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
So you prepared to line that up twenty one days.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
In a row. Yeah, I mean in a row, because
I mean, you know, I have to dip and dabble
on my cycle too, so meeting take care of it.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
No way I'm getting sex twenty one days in a row.
I don't know what the world, y'all.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Think absolutely not Scotch sad days.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
You want me to live long, you know, Scotch was
that man.
Speaker 8 (08:25):
You said, you said, ain't no way of getting sex
twenty one days in a row, and case said, absolutely not.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
That's said, that's hilarious.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
That's hilarious to any one consecutive days. It's a heavy
load to lift, but we do pretty decent.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
We do good to lift. I don't triple about the
mount of sex I have, don't. I don't triple about
the man the sex half. That's not That's never been
an issue for us. We're pretty consistent.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
You know.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
If we normally go four to five times a week,
which I think is actually more than twenty one days,
if you being consistent, because there's some days where we
be we'll be really excited to see each other, you
know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
True, So the time isn't it?
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Our week is, yeah, like twenty days, my twenty days.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Our issue is never really like times.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
It's like how we get there right, you know, because
for us it's like you be going all day, you
got four kids, it's now twelve thirty.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
We both nodding off, and then it's just like trying
to fuck like that's not you know what I'm trying
trying to do this.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
I'm sometimes you want to low razzle, dazzle, you want
little spot, Nay, you want a little you know. So
that's my aim is to usually try to switch it up.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
But yeah, you know what else is funny, this is
my opponents. I sent you a video of this lady.
This lady was talking about how set like women have
to understand if you're married, right, sex is not always
going to be pleasing for you, Like sex doesn't always
have to be the most greatest sex, mind blowing sex
or being the mood all the time. And she was saying,
(09:57):
because you know, when your husband, when your husband has
things to do every single day, he don't get a
chance to say, I'm not in the mood to be protective,
I'm not in the mood to pay the bills.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
I'm not in the mood.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
So she was like, I think a lot more women
need to understand that your mood doesn't dictate everyone else's life.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
And of course women was killing her in the comments, right.
Speaker 5 (10:15):
And like in that video to food, that's what I
remember the video. You've seen a video, right, and women
don't want to always eat lunch. They gotta feel like
they're in the mood to want to eat lunch or something.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Right, And she was like, that's the biggest disparity between
men and women and sex.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
It's like men don't have to be in the mood
to have sex.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
It's something that they need, Like they can be sick
and almost dead and they still need.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Yes, you remember that time that's fever. When I checked,
it was like one oh two point eight, I need it.
Like he's never really ever had a fever. So I
was like thinking to myself, Yeah, I gotta break tonight baby.
The way he roll over with his hot ass.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
To me, trying to give me this warm wood baby.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
But then my fever come down after we could not
be you were finding me.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
But yeah, no, I just I'm gonna be honest. Though
there's not many things that get me out of the mood,
you know, Like that's why men can't understand sometimes we
be like you're not in the moved how, you know,
Like for.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Us, we just like, what are you talking about? I
have no idea, You have no idea.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
I get it, though, I do after being married this
long and being with your wife understanding your homowns and
how it works. I could understand how a woman wouldn't
want to be in a moved but the funny thing
is you have to learn that to get it. Yeah,
you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 7 (11:39):
I also feel like men don't really know how to
articulate their need for connection, and I think sex is
the ultimate way to connect with your partner. So I
can think you're not a pervert because you're married and
you want to have sex with your wife, which to me,
it spells out that you have this need for connection
with your wife in a certain way. Absolutely, But men
that just be out here fucking it and everything, I
(12:01):
feel like they are really creating like a toxic connection
with too many people in the world. I also think
this this article is said ejaculate, It didn't say have sex.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
So listen, I've been on record of saying that it
doesn't always have to be in the course.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
I'm on record than saying.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
That have I know, for sometimes he does want to
snuggle and you understand.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Your feet hurt, but your neck.
Speaker 7 (12:29):
Not even like this, don't say something else about the feet.
Speaker 6 (12:33):
We're like way too much about this podcast.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
The last couple of podcasts, you would have let this
do some stuff we heard that you would not be
winging it on vacation pod. I was like, y'all be
going on vacations together. He's like, forget it. But I
am not against getting a happy ending massage from my wife,
(12:58):
you know what I'm saying? Like that to me a
creative it doesn't always have to be inter course. And
that's another thing that I think men and women learn
need to learn to understand. Right, if you're a man
who loves your wife and understanding her cycle, has her
hormones and her needs and moves up and down, right,
you can't just come to her every day and be like, well,
it's just about fifteen minutes in need.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Sometimes you got to learn to be like, listen, she's
not in the move.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
And conversely, as a woman, if you know this is
what your man needs, it doesn't always have to be
intercourse either. You can find ways to be creative to
get the job done. If the goal is per the article.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Ejaculation, I'm in agreement with that.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
So that's that was my but that's my ob too.
Speaker 8 (13:39):
All the don't argue with the research. Man, it's there,
it's accurate. That's what it.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Is, and it was from Yale. Right. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
For me, I always say that these stats are coming out.
I know, nobody never asked me nothing about what I
think about nothing. That is a fact why I'm never
in the stats people.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
I'm not part of hundred.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
I'm going to be honest because I use stats a
lot of times. When you think about the fact that
there's eight billion people in the world and they say
that this stat comes from two thousand people, it does
make you be like, yeah, like sometimes statistics.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Work, Yeah, that's how statistic.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
But sometimes it'd be like, y'all didn't even ask us
because also statistically, how I want to know how many
black people have? They asks If you do a study
and you you interview two thousand people and none of
those people happen to be African American, how does that
relate to me? Because that also shows how the studies
that they've done to put out things that are supposed
(14:40):
to help people don't help us because a lot of
those things like like for example, drinking, like eating and
drinking dairy it never.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Ever worked for us as a people.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
But then they put out got milk ads because it
was supposed to the calcium was supposed to be good
for other people.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
You see what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
It's like we as black people also have to underst
and if we're going to look at research, sometimes let's
look at how the research affects us, not.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Just at the statistic. Well, how we were incorporated in those.
Speaker 8 (15:06):
STU When do those polls and statistics happen? It's probably
a cold call on the phone. You'll get a free
dinner to RBS or out Back steakhouse. And if you
spend twenty minutes on the phone with me and I'm
asking a series of questions and they're all not the
same topic.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
And we're not doing that, Yeah, because most of us
live in a space where we don't have time to
sit there for twenty years.
Speaker 8 (15:29):
Work at a call center, man, So you know I
had a job in college that worked at a call
center and it was crazy, Like all you got to
do is say you're gonna get this free dinner and
you got to be on the phone with me for
thirty minutes and people just answer questions however they want
to answer.
Speaker 5 (15:43):
Really, you're doing phone call times your meetings.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
I've learned a lot about you. Like they said, bro
at a.
Speaker 6 (15:51):
Lot of jobs.
Speaker 7 (15:53):
I will say that, like most other diseases and cancers,
black men are at more risk developing prostate cancer and
are at more risk of dying from prostate cancer, which
it is absolutely not a death sentence if you detected early.
Speaker 6 (16:09):
My father is a prostate cancer survivor.
Speaker 7 (16:12):
So black men make sure that no matter what you're doing,
you're getting your prostate screenings. I think starting at forty
because as you increase in age, your risk ALSCO increases.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
That is true. Both your grandfathers have ye.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
Both of my grandfathers had this, So I think I
should get six thirty times a month to make sure
that it ain't hereditary.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
And if you love me, kay, you drop it as
soon as we've done with this podcast.
Speaker 7 (16:35):
All right, So, speaking of early detection, let's move on
from the balls please, since we're talking about Papa's stroke today.
Strokes are one of those things that really require early detection,
detecting signs early, quickly, and they are survivable as long
(16:57):
as you see the signs and get to the hospital
very quickly. Now, recently there was an incident in Minnesota
where a black postal worker he was fifty years old,
was pulled over. I think he had crashed into a pole,
and when he got pulled over, he couldn't tell them
who he was, where he was going, he didn't know
his name, and they just assumed that he was under
(17:18):
the influence. They had an officer who specializes in telling
whether somebody's having a medical emergency or if they're intoxicated,
and he said, oh, it would just be a waste
of time, clearly racially profiling these men. They put him
in a celle by hisself. He's rolling around on the floor,
clearly in distress for three and a half hours before
(17:39):
they noticed that he's foaming at the mouth, he had
peede his pants. Finally they get him to a hospital.
He's hemorrhaging and he dies two days later because he
was having a struggle.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Oh my god.
Speaker 7 (17:49):
So his family is now suing the city of Egan,
Minnesota for one hundred and twenty million dollars. The Egan,
Minnesota Police Department is still saying a lay person couldn't
tell that he was in distress, even though they had
somebody who specializes in telling if someone is in distress.
And they're also looking for policy changes at the department
(18:10):
OP or no op I thought this was a super
sad story.
Speaker 6 (18:14):
And we were talking a little bit yesterday about.
Speaker 7 (18:19):
White privilege and how some people think that they don't
experience white privilege. But it's moments like this where empathy
is just not extended to black men in particular. And
this man really needed the police officers who are sworn
to help serve and protect. He needed their service, and
they gave him punishment for nothing. So I hope, I
(18:45):
hope his family bankrupts the city.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
I got on this and this is part of my op.
A story was just released about the Department of Homeland
Security releasing AI generated video of young black men saying
that ice were ready for you.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
We're putting a fifty thousand boundary on your head. Did
you see that?
Speaker 3 (19:05):
He has joy reposted about it, and I think the
families are looking to sue because now those young kids
are getting death threats. Someone pulled up the old video
was an old TikTok video where the kids were talking
about Iran and saying that they're not afraid and they
want all the smoke. They changed the words, they changed
their mouth, they changed the music and made it seem
as if these kids were talking about Ice and what
(19:27):
that does is that allows the military to bring in
lethal force to those communities. And the reason why I
brought that up is, like you said, black people in general,
because it's not just black men. There was a black
woman who was having a stroke and her family was
driving her to the hospital.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
They were speeding. The cops pulled them over.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
The young lady who was driving put her hands out
the window and said, please please, my mom is having
a stroke, and they drew guns on this whole family,
made them get out the car. And what it showed
me is that when you continue to use social media,
use these use these devices to show us is less
than human. It's easier for a police officer or someone
who doesn't have consistent interactions with people who look like
(20:08):
us to think that we are the things that they
see on these devices. And that's my opposite is like
these these devices are very dangerous because with AI, now
you can put things out and if no one knows
the difference, now you've created a target for a group
of people or a person that can lead to someone's death,
even if that man was intoxicated.
Speaker 6 (20:29):
The level of intoxication that you would have to be
at in order to not know your own name. That
still requires medical attention, absolutely right, no matter who.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
You are, because it can be alcohol.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
But that shows you it had nothing to do with
the fact that whether they cared he was toxicated, it
didn't see him as human. And since they didn't see
him as human, they treated him like cattle. They put
him in the back of the van on belief, put
him in the cell, and he sat there for three hours.
Like that's the bottom line is this is part of
the judicial system, the criminal justice system that most people
don't ever get it chance to see. And then when
(21:01):
we try to point it out, they say they were
rage baiting, and we're saying, like, no, these instances happens.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
They actually more often to us than it happened to
everyone else. This is why we're upset about it.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Of course, that struck home for me too, because my
dad actually had a mini stroke four years ago and
had the mini stroke while driving. He was he was
getting it getting home because he didn't feel well, and
he went to make a U turn and he ended
up crashing into two part cars. So imagine it's a
scenario like that and cops come and you know, give
(21:31):
my father the same ill treatment. Yeah, that's really really unfortunate.
I'm sorry to hear by that. It was a stroke
four years ago. Was a mini stroke, but a stroke.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
Nonetheless, he was making a U turn and his foot
couldn't come off of the gas, remember, and then you
know the same thing, like like going up the stairs
and come up and then he just kept the gas
kept going. He t bone the park car. So it
was It's rough, But that that's Dad really got me.
I hope they drag them too. Yeah, and not for nothing.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
I am.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
I remember growing up during stopping frisk me. You all
grew up during stopping frisk too. It seems like now
because of the heightened sensitivity towards racism, but also like
all of this push of division is giving people a
license to be more racist than they've ever been.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Like, it's crazy.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
It is crazy to watch, And everybody please be careful
if you're out there, be careful. We're not trying to sensationalize,
no division, but just keep your head on the swivel.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
You know, it's wild out here.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
All right. So let's segue, I guess, and talk about
story time, yes, and about how we detected Dad having
a stroke and everything that we had to do to
jump into action.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
You know.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Deval and I were actually not even supposed to be
in town that week. Remember that was the week we
were potentially going to Greece. Yeah, and Deval a couple
weeks before that was kind of like, hey, i just
feel like we need some time at home. I'm kind
of travel fatigued from the We had a lot going
on since the year started, so he was like, you know,
how do you feel about this trip. We must postpone
it because we had our fifteen year wedding anniversary, weren't
(23:08):
able to do anything because the boys had their track
meet in Florida. So I was kind of disappointed at first,
but I was like, you know what if you don't
really feel like going, it's not a big deal. Grea
saying going nowhere. We can go at any point in time.
So we decided to do the podcast instead to kind
of knock some episodes out so we can, you know,
have some time during the holidays and then to be home.
(23:29):
My mom away all day at a tennis tournament. I
was just thinking, after everything happened, about what if no
one was here, right, you know, what if Dad was
home by himself, right? And we've joked about getting mom
and dad a house because we're ready for our spaceback
and whatnot. We were actually in the middle of looking
for houses for mom and Dad, and that same week
(23:49):
it was like, on a Tuesday, they found a house
that they loved not too far from us. I went
to look at it on the Wednesday. That Thursday morning,
Deval was supposed to go take a look at it
because he wasn't able to go with me on Wednesday,
and Dad had the stroke that Thursday morning. So I
was thinking to myself, I'm like, maybe this is God's
way of saying, like, it's not time. Maybe we need
to push pause on the whole house thing. It's just
I'm at a point in life now where I'm just like,
(24:11):
if it doesn't work out, if the answer is no,
if things don't align, I no longer really question it.
I don't push it, I don't try to maneuver things.
I really just say to myself, there's something better. God
knows best, and I let it rock. So on this
particular day, when you know the team was here, Josh
noticed something upstairs with Dad, Matt noticed him going up
the stairs. Christa was also here and she was upstairs
(24:34):
sitting with Dad for a little bit. I'm just like,
thank god we were all here right, because had mom
been gone for the day playing tennis and Dad was
home by himself and we're traveling. The things with strokes
is that time is of the essence. Literally every minute counts.
So after facetiming my sister and she's just like, it
sounds like he's having a stroke, taken to the er.
(24:55):
I rushed him to the er. I don't wait for anyone.
My mom was like, I'll meet you there, and I
guess to the er and then me being squeamish about everything.
This is the reason why I never went into healthcare,
because I'm just squeamish about everything. I walked through the
emergency room toward this is like noon on a Thursday.
There's a girl bleeding from her head. There's a man
in the corner puking in one of those like little things.
(25:18):
I was like, I'm not going to survive this because
there's too much going on. I'm overstimulated and I don't
do bodily fluids. But I let the person at the
front has let them know that my father, I think,
was showing signs of a stroke typically in the er.
I think they go in accordance of, like, you know,
the severity.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Of what's happening.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Yeah, things like that, right, So you know, they took
him straight to the code stroke room and when he
was there, they did a couple assessments, took him in
for a cat skin. MRI ran all the exams and
turns out that he did indeed have a stroke. So
that shook us up a bit, you know, between my
brother and my sister and I of course Mom deval
the kid's scariest part about it. We talk about driving.
(25:57):
He had taken the kids to school that morning, you know,
and we rely on him a lot to take the
boys to inform their activities to and from school. And
I just thank god that he was okay taking the
boys to school and made it back home safely enough
that when things started to happen, he alerted my mom
and of course us and we were able to get
him the help he needed.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
So, to me, the miracle and everything is that if
we didn't take Pops to the hospital after having a stroke,
we wouldn't have found out that he was in heart failure. Yeah,
and we found out at that point that he had
over sixty sixty percent blockage.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Yeah, he has lots of blockage. His heart was only
functioning at like right.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
So now he's in a position where And this is
why I say, like things always happen for a reason.
And this is why sometimes when I used to listen
to a lot of Bruce Lee documentaries, and he talked
about being like water, right, and water can crash and
be a dominant for us, but water can also flow.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Up early about being in a position in life to flow.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
This is an example of being in a position in
life to flow, because when you flow with things, Hey.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
I don't feel well, let's not go on this trip.
Dad had a stroke. Oh shoot, he's in heart failure.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
Now he's in a position where he can get a
procedure to get the stints put in his heart that
can help reverse the heart failure and give.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Him more life. To me, that's why all of this
was happening.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
Yeah, us not finding the house that we were looking
for for them in that time, so they're not in
the house by themselves, them having to be here for
a couple extra months. All of that was for us
to see what was going on with Pops internally without
having x ray vision.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
That's God.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
You know what I'm saying. That's why I don't argue
with things no more. You don't get a job, you
don't get a roll, you don't get the house.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
It's like, what, there's something else on the other side
of this, Oh, for sure, let me flow with it.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Yeah, And of course we all experience, because we're human,
that brief moment of disappointment, you know, when you get
to know or something doesn't work out. But it's working
through that and just knowing that there's a bigger purpose.
I always say that God's protection read it, direction is
God's protection, So it's typically from something else. So I'm
just happy that we were able to get Dad the
hell that he needed because it could have been so
much worse. There are people who have had strokes where
(28:09):
they are unable to regain function and faculty over their body.
You know, they may be bound to a wheelchair, they
may not be able to speak. My mom's dad he
had a stroke and then had one shortly after, so
it was like a back to back stroke. We eventually
passed away, but it was heartbreaking to see him after
the first one. The extent of the stroke caused him
to not be able to speak, and I could see
(28:31):
like any time that we were with him, there was
the distress that he was in because he wanted so
badly to speak. It's like there's a portion of your
brain that you still know what's happening. You have that
cognitive function, but you're not able to actually get the
words out. And he used to try to write in
order to communicate with us, or type on a computer
to get the words out, and I could just see
the frustration in him because he almost didn't know. It's
(28:54):
like feeling like a stranger in your own body. You can't,
you know, regain those functions or it takes a long time.
Thankfully all for all the prayers. I want to thank
everyone first and foremost for all of the outpour of love.
I mean, people have been following Dad's journeys since we
posted about it, and I do believe in the power
of positive thinking and prayer, So thank you all for
reaching out for the DMS, the messages, for people sending
(29:17):
different recipes and different things that he should consume now
that he's had the stroke that will help to get
him back up and running. He's doing physical speech and
occupational therapy, and since the stroke, we all have been
banding together as a family to ensure that he, of
course feels supported and we don't want him to feel
like he's a burden. We genuinely do want him to
(29:38):
regain the functions that he's accustomed to, so that's walking
on his own, being able to eat on his own,
which he's been successful at. He's not ready to drive yet.
His physical therapist is like, you'll be driving in no time.
We were like, let's not, let's not get ahead of
ourselves old you know, yeah exactly, and I'm thinking about it.
(29:59):
Oh my goodness, is dad, you know, maybe won't be
able to drive for the foreseeable future. We have Jackson
getting his permit in like a couple months, which is
blowing my mind. It's crazy, blowing my mind. Y'all have
been around since Jackson was yay high, so it's insane.
How like the circle of life continues to happen and
the boys are holding him accountable. One thing I will say,
(30:21):
being in the house together where it's multi generational, we
have everyone taking care of each other and the boys
are so invested in Papa getting better. His occupational therapist
was here for example, and told him, in order to
regain function over his hand because his hand went numb
after the stroke, he was having a hard time texting writing,
so she has him coloring. So I told Dakota, I said, listen,
(30:44):
Papa has homework to do, so you have to make
sure when you do your homework, Papa does his homework,
and Coda, like clockwork, will come home from school and
be like, Papa, you have to do your homework. And
it's been great because I've been capturing those moments like
on my phone or Matt being hashtag fly on the
wall against the greatest candid photos, and I think those
are things that the boys will have to look back
on years from now, Like I can't wait for the
(31:06):
house to finish undergoing renovations so we can get our
gallery wall up and just show the moments that mean something.
There's a story in so many of those photos that
we have. So yeah, it's been great to see how
everyone's banded together. Cairo's on him about drinking his water,
you know, things like that.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
To me, the most important part is that we all
banded together, right, Like for me, this was a community thing, right.
We have friends and family here who noticed something, who
pointed it out to us, Very similar to with Dakota
when we felt like he was speech delayed, we noticed
he was in sane certain words properly, rather than waiting
and seeing or just shining it off and be like, oh,
it's just nothing.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
Let's be proactive.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
And a lot of times being proactive is how you
prevent things from happening.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
Strokes, for example, It's hard to.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
Recognize, but I remember my uncle Lee had a stroke
and he said he went to go turn the light off,
and every time he went to go turn the light off,
like he went to touch the light, but he couldn't
touch it, and he felt like it was his depth perception
was off. And then he started to slur a little
bit and they rushed him to the hospital. Uncle Lee
fully recovered. Now Roger's bike. But it's in those moments
where you have family that you're always paying attention to
(32:12):
each other. You know, there should be no family member
left behind. It doesn't matter how young or how old,
because a lot of times in family it's always the
youngest or the oldest that get left behind. But I
just I implore people, man, if you have people who
live with you. Elderly people or if they don't live
with you, check on them daily, like don't let it
be a day or two where like, oh I didn't
hear from so and so because that time or even
(32:34):
those hours. Could you imagine if Pop said, hey, I
didn't feel good, so rather than go back upstairs, if
he would have laid down in the back and went
to sleep for those three hours and then we're done filming, right.
This is why it's important, especially for elderly people too.
If you don't feel like yourself, say something like it
ain't cool to just go and that's not even elderly.
(32:54):
I remember when you had the headache after your postpartum
pret pleasure yea, and you were the same and told
him about to explode, I'm gonna just take a nap,
and I was like, nah, bro, yeah, check that blood pressure.
If there's anything I can tell you to get in
your house, it's a blood pressure machine.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Oh a blood pressure CUF Yeah, it's actually right.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
There, yes, but where's where's on a grad?
Speaker 8 (33:14):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (33:15):
I'll be quick to take a blood pressure, my bloo
pressure or anyone's blood pressure, because that's usually an indicator
of something potentially happening. So that's what saved my life
with after the coder.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
Yeah, boom, this is the blood pressure on Amazon. It's saved,
k and it's saved pops.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Sure did this is the machine? Right?
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Sure did? Yep? So yeah, the minute you feel like
something is off, and being accountable and knowing knowing your
people too, and knowing what's regular for them, Like we
knew that dad never makes a sound in this house
for him to be.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
Is that right?
Speaker 5 (33:46):
Who is that?
Speaker 6 (33:47):
Who is that?
Speaker 5 (33:48):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (33:50):
Right, there's no one else in the house, So that's
really good. My mom had a heart attack at fifty
four fifty five, which is super young, and she was
like she was literally working out and the heart attack
was happening while she was working.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
He shout out Dolah, shout out Dolo, and once again
community and family recognizing when someone doesn't look right.
Speaker 5 (34:08):
And saying something.
Speaker 3 (34:09):
Dolo saw moms and was like, moms, and this is
a crazy story. Moms, when's the last time you ate
in a few days? A few days because she was
working at the time, director nursed and she go work,
come home, sleep tired, get up, workout. Then he goes, well,
have you been drinking? Had a half a bottle of
water this.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Morning, right, and she had like a banana.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
Dolo said, you don't look good, go home. So then
she goes home and then Tristan is there, and.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
Tristan always goes to work, and this one particular morning,
he was starting late. He slept in and he was like,
I'm going in late today, just a random day, and
he was like, man, you don't look good. And then
my father was like, oh, maybe you need to lay down,
take a nap, and trist is like, no, I don't think.
I think you need to go to the hospital. Like
he knew at that point too. He had finished nursing
school too, so he was kind of like sharp with
(34:57):
his awareness. And she was like, if you don't go,
I'm going to call the ambulance and it's going to
be a whole scene. He literally was like that because
my mom was like, no, I'm going to take a nap.
And I remember when they got to the er.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
Then the person in the er, the doctor, said you
should thank your son because had you gone to sleep,
you would not have woken up.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
And it's like.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
Wow, and guys, it happens to all of us with
our parents my dad. Yes, my brother calls me, says
two years ago, y'all call you pops, face timing. I'm
like why, He like, he don't look good and they
not listening to me. So I called my pops. First thing,
I noticed his skin. He has brown skin, skin gray,
(35:41):
So I'm like, something ain't right. Skin hanging off his cheeks,
like hanging his next looking on sunking in. I'm like,
what's going on. He's like, I gotta use the bag.
I gotta peel like every fifteen minutes. But it's fine.
This was on a Sunday. He says, it's okay. I
got a doctor's appointment on Wednesday. I'll be fine to
Then I said, let me speak to mommy. I said, Mom,
(36:02):
what's the plan? She was just like, what do you mean?
What's the plan?
Speaker 1 (36:06):
Dad? Don't look good?
Speaker 3 (36:07):
All right, if y'alln't take him to the hospital tomorrow,
I'm flying in and I'm going to take him and
it's going to be a thing.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
My mom took him to the hospital.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
Turns out his blood sugar was so high his A
one C, which is I think once it's seven, is diabetic, right.
His A one C was something like twenty some I'm
crazy and the doctor once they took his sugar.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
I think they took him to urgent.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
Care or something and they was like, yo, you need
to go into the hospital. And they was like, well,
he has a doctor's appointment in a couple of days.
They were like, no, you need to go to the
hospital right now.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
Two seconds away from a diabetic coma.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
And they found out that he was diabetic. That's when
he ended up getting a thing in his arm. But
this is also for millennials who have those parents who
I know. Our parents was OG's. My mother and father
worked multiple jobs. They thugged it out, like we're at
that age now, but we have to start telling them
like no, sit down, or let's go to the hospital.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
And it saved my dad life. It's safe your mom
and dad.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
My mom with her swollen foot, I'll be telling her,
you know, she found out she had high cholesterol like
we had. We're at that point now where we're watching
our kids and our parents and it's important for us
to recognize the signs.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
What do you guys think it is like with parents
or just people in general, like just putting things off
and being like, oh, it's nothing is it a denial
thing that you don't want to go to the doctor
and potentially find out something is wrong, or is it
that you just don't want to be inconvenience in that moment.
Speaker 7 (37:27):
I think it is that fear you don't want to
go to the hospital and find out something else is
wrong or something is you know, gravely wrong. Luckily my parents,
my mom stays at the doctor and my stepmom makes
my dad go to the doctor because we had a
situation with my dad where he uh woke up.
Speaker 6 (37:46):
And his face, his like whole face was swollen, his lip,
he looked like he was changing back from.
Speaker 7 (37:55):
Yeah, And it just turned out he maybe his sodium
was high because he had drinks some fucking bac and
soda for some reason, and they swoll up because.
Speaker 6 (38:12):
But even that, you know, we had to kind of
force them to go.
Speaker 7 (38:14):
But I do think it's it's the fear of you know,
what else could it be, or finding out something else
because aging is a motherfucker.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
Yeah, it is.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
It really is scary, It really is.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
We can't we can't lie about the distrust between black
people and the institution.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
That is a lot of us don't. We don't trust hospitals.
Speaker 3 (38:33):
We don't trust doctors because we don't feel like they
ever represent us well. We talk about black women's mortality
rate when it comes to giving birth, it's five times
anyone else. So it's like when you get sick, the
last place you want to go to sometimes is the
doctor because you feel like the doctor is going to
have my.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
Best interest in heart.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
Also, if you don't have proper insurance, you know, like
a lot of people lost Medicare or Medicaid, So someone's
going through in a medical emergency, you go to the hospital,
the first thing I'll ask you was for your ID
and your insurance car And if you don't have insurance,
you end up getting sent to the corner. So a
lot of people are just trying to figure it out
on their own, right.
Speaker 7 (39:09):
Yeah, my mom's side of the family, they have like
some distrust in doctors. Like I've had aunts who passed
away because they didn't want to get medical treatment for
cancer or whatever. And I found out why And it's
actually the craziest thing ever. I thought my grandmother died
from cancer for the longest time, and my mom was like, no,
actually she went into the hospital for something unrelated. She
(39:32):
was a smoker, and so this doctor wanted to check
her for cancer, so he cut her open like an autopsy,
and they ended up having to feed her through a
tube because she was cut open and she choked.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
Are you kidding me? So that's like they were experimenting.
Speaker 3 (39:47):
Yes, well, my grandfather went in, remember he was having
gasherin to write this. Yeah, they went in to give
him an enema and the nurse was rough and ruptured
his wrecked them up, having end up having surgery, end
up having to live with a colossomy bag for the
rest of his life. And my father was a proud
(40:08):
Southern man. He fought in the army like he That
was hard to watch him go through that. But that's
to your point, Like sometimes as a black person you
afraid of the doctor, especially an older like that generation.
Your grandmother, my grandfather, they lived through that. You know,
they know they actually have family members who are part
of the Tuskegee experiment.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
So for them, it's like I don't.
Speaker 6 (40:29):
Trust them absolutely. So that's part of the things that
are way worse.
Speaker 7 (40:33):
And you go to the doctor who's supposed to help
you get better and they fuck you up.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
Yeah, it's like it is.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
Let me go boil my tea, you know, get some
herbs out my garden, and try to do it the
holistic way.
Speaker 3 (40:44):
And I will say this because we have a couple
of friends who are doctors. One of my friends who's
a doctor, is leaving the medical profession to start his
own practice because he said people would be surprised how
many surgeons are being quoted by doctors.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
I mean, you have to do a certain amount of surgeon.
So now they're not just looking.
Speaker 3 (41:05):
For people to treat, they're looking for people that they
can do surgeries on to reach their quota, because if
they don't reach their quota, they will no longer be working.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
And I was like, that's crazy.
Speaker 8 (41:15):
And so people get recommended surgeries even if they don't
need it.
Speaker 3 (41:18):
Yes, exactly, because the doctors are giving quotas for the surgery.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
This is not a conspiracy theorist.
Speaker 3 (41:23):
He's actually leaving the profession because he's like, yeah, I
can't work for these hospitals anymore.
Speaker 1 (41:27):
It's become a just a business.
Speaker 3 (41:28):
It's as you have a patient who I don't want
to say what type of surgeon he is because I
don't want to give away who it is. But you
have a patient that can be treated with something else,
and then the hospitals like, no do the surgery. Insurance
covers the surgery. Anesthesiologists gets paid because.
Speaker 1 (41:46):
Of the surgery.
Speaker 3 (41:47):
If you have them treated by doing something else, all
of those other peoples don't get paid. And the system
that runs doesn't work.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
Doesn't work.
Speaker 3 (41:55):
So that's why people are afraid of the doctor. If
we're being honest's become a business.
Speaker 2 (41:59):
When I was pregnant with Jackson, the first doctor that
I went to, the first obgyn, I didn't like his
bedside man or off the bat, so I was already
kind of turned off after my first and second visit.
But when I did a little deep dive into, like,
you know, his background, asking a couple of nurses who
my mom knew through the nursing industry that worked, you know,
in the same hospital as him, one of the nurses
(42:21):
literally said to my mom, he's a surgeon, and if
you're looking for a surgeon who's going to probably guarantee
her a C section, then you can stick with him,
but I rather you use this person instead. And I
ended up switching doctors because his C section rate was
something like seventy eight percent and it's just like I
understand that some people do need se sections and emergency
situations and there's no other option, but for someone as
(42:42):
a doctor to be impatient and not want to wait
labor out a bit when the mother and baby is
okay and they just quick to go for a C
section after a certain number of hours is a little ridiculous,
you know. So I understand it as well too. So yeah,
that's that's been I think a lot of people's experiences,
but mental health after witnessing such an episode. It's been
(43:05):
tough for Deval and I, I think because we're at
the phase, like we spoke about before, where we're parenting
our children that take a lot of energy and time
and focus from us, but we're also in a sense
caring for and parenting our parents. And we've realized he
and I over the past two months that there's been
(43:26):
a bit of a disconnect even with us, and we
found ourselves ourselves bickering over like random things that have
nothing to do with he and I and our marriage.
It's more so all of the extenuating circumstances around it,
and the impact of Dad, you know, being sick and
then having to juggle all the things that Dad used
to help us with, or you know, having to bring
more family into town to then help us navigate things
(43:49):
with the boys. So it's been a lot on us,
I think, mentally, physically, emotionally dealing with this since you know, September.
Speaker 1 (43:58):
For me, it's hard to.
Speaker 3 (44:01):
Watch my parents get old, watch our parents get old.
Pops is my dog, Like yeah, just when your kids asked, like,
why Pop in the hospital. Yeah, and you want to
just be like, he fine, but you don't know if
he's gonna be fine, right, That's why I panicked a
(44:24):
little bit.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
Matt remembers.
Speaker 3 (44:25):
I was telling the pops come out, you know, come
out to the park.
Speaker 1 (44:29):
I'm like, Yo, you're gonna walk with us.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
You know what I'm saying, You're gonna get in the sun.
I want to fix this.
Speaker 3 (44:34):
Yeah, I was ready to Broye. That's literally what I
went into. I went into that, I gotta fix this mold.
And you you can't fix everything, you know what I'm saying.
As a dad, you always try to fix stuff. You
can't fix everything. I'm trying to fix my father in law.
You know, when you're watching him struggle to do things
that he you know he was never fast, you know,
(44:57):
Pop saying, we talk about him floating around the house.
It was even he was never running up the stairs.
But then when you watching him and it's like he
was about to go to the stairs, but he chose
to take the elevator. Yeah, it's little things like that
that you know what I'm saying, It affects you don't realize.
Speaker 1 (45:12):
I didn't realize. It was fucking me too, just now.
Speaker 3 (45:14):
But it's like, yo, I don't want to have to
tell my kids that Pop in here.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
You know what I'm saying that to me, you talk
about mental health.
Speaker 3 (45:24):
It was hard for me to sleep a couple of
days after that saying, because I was like hospital right.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
He was in the hospital for about like five or
six Yeah, Bro and Divan. I would wake up exhausted
because it's like I'm checking my phone throughout the night,
like you just don't want to get that phone call,
like you know, something happened to him overnight. And it
was also like an eerie, like weird feeling in the
house when he was in the hospital, because I'm used
to just we'll leave our bedroom in the morning, right,
and we'll walk towards the kitchen, and he'll always be
(45:52):
sitting on the house, like literally sitting on the sofa
watching the news or whatever in the mornings or sleeping,
taking a nap. And a couple of mornings I walked
past and he's not on the sofa, and I took
actually took a picture and sent it to my brother
and my sister, and I'm like, this feels so weird.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
It does.
Speaker 2 (46:08):
Like not having that in the house.
Speaker 3 (46:10):
You know, made me realize too that you and I
never even dealt with that. We just tried to fix
everything and try to keep it moving like life was going.
But I didn't even think of I didn't even talk
to you about those days after.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
I don't think we even asked each other how we felt,
you know, because you're just trying to keep it together.
Speaker 3 (46:27):
You know who you know who his boy is, Yes,
and Cairo was. It was hard for Cairo, Yeah, because
Cairo is very aware.
Speaker 2 (46:36):
Yeah, he's of all four of them, he's like.
Speaker 1 (46:39):
In Dakota, are the two most aware of kids? Right?
Speaker 3 (46:43):
And the reason why I say aware not that Jackson
and Kaz don't know what's going on.
Speaker 5 (46:48):
They're paying close attention.
Speaker 3 (46:50):
Yes, like Kiros to walk down here and be quiet
and just looking around and see what is going on, right,
and listen, Jackson, you know.
Speaker 1 (46:57):
What I'm saying. So everybody here let me.
Speaker 3 (47:00):
So Cairo was just like, well, also, he's the one
that's into spirituality. He's the one that's always talking about
Jesus and talking about heaven.
Speaker 1 (47:08):
So he was like that.
Speaker 3 (47:11):
If Pops doesn't come out of the hospital, do you
think he's going to heaven?
Speaker 1 (47:17):
I'm like, how you explain to your nine year old that?
Speaker 3 (47:23):
So my only thing I could say was Pops is
coming out of the hospital.
Speaker 1 (47:26):
What are you talking about? You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (47:28):
But even in telling him that, I had to tell
myself that, right, you know what I'm saying, because when
for those moments where Pops typically wakes the boys up
and he does these things, now me and Kay were
tasked with waking up, taking them to the to school
in the morning, picking them up. Every time I walked
by that that living room and Pops wasn't sitting in there,
(47:50):
I was like, man, don't let me get a phone caller.
Speaker 1 (47:52):
Today's day.
Speaker 3 (47:53):
I got to explain to Cairo and mental health wise,
like that's hard, yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:58):
And you don't need to realize this that it has
on the kids when they leave the house. All of
their teachers, friends, parents, Cairo was like leading prayer every
morning in school because they were taking that to school
with them, and I didn't realize the burden that it
had on them. You know, you think that in the house,
you see them day to day and they're okay, but
(48:19):
they were carrying that weight to school with them. And
thank god they're in a school that encourages them to
speak how they feel, encourages them to pray. So they
had the entire school praying for Papa, which is also
it did work so many people they come now Dad
has been going to the football games and stuff, and
people come by and they're like, Pop, we're so happy
to see you. The kids have been we've been all
(48:40):
been praying for you. We had, you know, someone brought
over a pan of you know, bake zd for us
one night. They're like, we know how hard it is.
So the community that they have within their school environment
is really nice to watch. And it's like, man, these
kids continue to blow our minds because in moments where
we feel like we can't even process what's happening, they
show us how God shows up for us by way
(49:02):
of them, you know. So it's really nice to see.
Speaker 1 (49:04):
Shout out to all of our parents.
Speaker 3 (49:06):
Your mom after her heart attack, made vast changes, Yes,
and now she's sixty seven, played tennis two times a
day competitively too.
Speaker 2 (49:14):
She's on teams. Honey. We call her Charena Sharena William know.
Speaker 3 (49:20):
My dad made his changes, got his monitors, so now
he doesn't eat as much sugar, drink as much sugar.
Speaker 1 (49:25):
My mom's starting to walk more.
Speaker 3 (49:27):
But Pops, who never worked out a day in his life,
never every single day, now he.
Speaker 1 (49:31):
Comes down here and get on the treadmill. He come
up to me, walk.
Speaker 3 (49:35):
Today, do my little thing on my feet today.
Speaker 2 (49:41):
That's a really good impersonation to him.
Speaker 1 (49:43):
That sounds like my dog bro. I'm proud of him.
Speaker 2 (49:45):
He's been on it. Yeah, see him with his little
ot band and his little stress ball. He's like, I
feel so much better. He's like, I'm starting to feel
more like myself. And that's music to our ears, you know.
So we're happy to see.
Speaker 5 (49:56):
That Dad is walk from upstairs all the way downstairs
to go outside and back up, and he told me
I feel much better.
Speaker 2 (50:02):
No, he is looking good. He's still going to the
park with y'all his little walk and what he does
now in the morning is like when Devo's dad came
home to help us with the boys for like two
or three weeks he was here. He would still get
up in the morning and then ride in the passenger
seat with your dad and shout out to school like
my father in law. The same way. Deval has made
it a point to take care of Dad when Devo's
(50:24):
dad is here, like they rolled tight. You know, Dad
was like, I want to make some rum punch and
that was good for me because I'm like, okay, that's
something he enjoy is doing. So your dad took him
to the liquor store, the grocery store to get all
his ingredients, took him out for lunch for his birthday.
So the village has really been showing up for dad,
and it's just really great to watch, really great to watch.
(50:47):
All right, What do you think people should know about
strokes after your experience? Any other points about strokes that
we think people should know. I think the biggest thing
with strokes time is of the essence, like the moment
you or see the symptoms or that's just for yourself
too as well. We probably should have looked up stats
on like signs of a stroke. But I know there's
(51:09):
like numbness or tingling, like they happen on one side
of the body or the other. Slurred speech is another
one that is a very big indicator equilibrium off.
Speaker 3 (51:17):
Equilibrium being when I first got my certifications, I was
doing a lot of occupational therapy through Peric's speech cool.
They had a retirement home they had to deal with.
They would come in just for movement. So these are
people who were cleared already but now wanted movement. But
the biggest thing is equilibrium off and depth perception. A
lot of people noticed first that they lost balance or
(51:39):
when they saw something they tried to touch it, it
was either closer or further away than what they thought,
and it was like those were some of the first
signs that you feel like something is off, Like I
don't feel like myself.
Speaker 2 (51:49):
Yeah, yeah for sure. So if you have somebody you love,
make sure that you're checking out for signs of things
like stroke, heart attack. Heart attack is another one. You know,
pain in the chest, tighten is painting the arm, jaw, nausea.
It's good to just know these things. Yes, you know,
it's good to just know these things, especially as we
get older and we are taking care of those who
(52:09):
are older than us. I think you know it to them.
Speaker 3 (52:11):
Don't be afraid that it's a false alarm, because some
people be like, I'm not going to the doctor and.
Speaker 1 (52:17):
It's a false alarm. You'd rather be a false alarm
than it being alarm. And you still let home.
Speaker 3 (52:22):
A lot of people do that. It's like, I'm not
gonna go there, gonna be embarrassing. You just got indingestion.
You thought it was a heart attack, So be embarrassed,
but be alive.
Speaker 5 (52:29):
They never know what you could find out. That little
thing my dad had he woke up on when it
had bad blood cuts. Ended up going to the hospital
a month later. Not a month later, he ended up passing.
But in that time span we in offend it finding
out he had lunk.
Speaker 1 (52:42):
Answer.
Speaker 5 (52:44):
But it's only because the blood clots started flowing through
and his arms swalled up. Oh, it was the initial
reason we went to the hospital. He could have passed
in the house that we would have never known what
the exact reason why you.
Speaker 2 (52:57):
Guys found You guys went to the hospital because of
the swelling.
Speaker 5 (53:01):
It's almost so big. It was like, Na, you need
to go to the hospital. This is clearly a blood
clot issue. And then at the hospital is when they
did more tests to find out what's going on. That's
when they find out he had lung cancer simulated.
Speaker 2 (53:13):
At that point.
Speaker 5 (53:13):
Yeah, and then within a month got to stage four
past one cancers. It's like full acceleration. It doesn't slow down.
Once it gets to that stage is too late.
Speaker 2 (53:23):
Yeah, wow, I know urgent Care hate to see me
coming because baby, like you said, I beat it K.
Speaker 1 (53:30):
Two three times a week. All these kids.
Speaker 3 (53:32):
I don't make especially and I don't make miss I don't.
I don't wait with the kids neither.
Speaker 1 (53:35):
Yeah, Like you know your.
Speaker 3 (53:36):
Eye hurt, you had her ear Because this is just
for parents. If your child says that they had hurts
in the back of their head and they're talking at
their ear, do not wait to take them. Ear infections
turn into nasal infections, turn into eye infections, turned into
ane rhythms because of brain infections. When I took Jackson
the last time to get member, he said his eye
(53:58):
was hurting. No it was, and she was like, yeah,
it's a minor infection. But it was spread onto the
other side. She told me specifically. A week before that,
there was a young lady had a headache, right bad headache.
Mom just refused to take her to the hospital. It
was just like she always wants to come. She always
complained something. The child ended up having an eye infection
and lost the eye. The eye infection started from an
(54:20):
ear infection from going swimming. This was during the summer.
She was going swimming. She felt like she couldn't hear this.
This that the mom says, she's always complaining about something,
not for nothing.
Speaker 1 (54:29):
Some kids are sick kids.
Speaker 3 (54:30):
Some kids are And the mom brought her in and
they said the ear infection traveled from here all the
way into I think she had a tooth issue, but
you know how infections are. Once they started the head Yeah,
and the child lost the eye and she was like,
she was like, parents, bring them to the urgent care.
Don't wait, yeah, don't yeh.
Speaker 2 (54:51):
All right, y'all, Well, let's take a quick break and
then we'll come back in to do our listener letter.
So stick around, all right, let's dive into this listener letter. Yo,
(55:16):
what's good? Kadean Devell? Tell me you're from New York.
Tell me you're from New York without telling you. You're
telling me you're from New York. What's good? Kadean Devell.
Me and my girlfriend have been together for seven years
now and we have a two year old. We are
high school sweethearts, and when we met, we started as friends.
And I feel like I knew a little too much
about her and the things she did before me. There's
(55:36):
been at least two times where she's gotten caught texting
with her ex. It wasn't easy, but I got over it.
It hasn't happened since, but I feel like I sometimes
hold it over her and I can't really express enough
affection as I want to because of these things. Am
I too much in my head? Or do I need
more reassurance? Keep me anonymous? Love you guys podcast been
(55:59):
listening for some months now. Thank you so much for
reaching out there. Brother. How would you feel, baby, if
you knew too much about what I did before you?
Speaker 3 (56:09):
I mean, I know everything that you did before me.
You were never texting your exes while we were together,
so that you know that wouldn't be an issue. But
I mean, they seem like they're very very young. They've
been together since high school.
Speaker 2 (56:21):
High school, Yeah years, mid twenties maybe maybe maybe, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (56:27):
I think he has to mature a little bit and
understanding if you know everything that was happening before you,
or like that that was before you, you.
Speaker 1 (56:35):
Got to let that go.
Speaker 3 (56:36):
You can't hold someone accountable for the stuff that they
were doing when you weren't even in the picture.
Speaker 1 (56:40):
Like that, to me is just immature. Her texting her exes.
Speaker 3 (56:43):
If y'all talked about it and disgusted and you haven't
seen anything yet and you're still writing to us about it.
Speaker 1 (56:49):
You don't need more reassurance, you need more self esteem. Yeah,
that's that's what that says to me.
Speaker 7 (56:55):
Yeah, I agree, absolutely, it's not There's not much she
can do to make you feel secure when she's there
with you. She's not texting her as she's committed to you.
What else do you want her?
Speaker 1 (57:07):
Right?
Speaker 7 (57:08):
You have to believe that you're worth worthy of her love,
which is it don't sound like you are.
Speaker 2 (57:14):
Yeah. I figure out where we heard it or who
had said it, but they pretty much said it's not
your partner's job to make you feel secure. That's something
that you have to learn on your own. Fat and
that sounds like what's happening here? Because nobody also wants
to have shit dangling over their head. Like if you
go through something there's a miscommunication, or she makes a
choice to do something that you don't agree with, or
whatever the case may be, if you deal with it,
(57:36):
you talk about it, you hash it out, you squash it.
No one wants to that to be brought back up
time and time again either, because then that gets annoying.
Speaker 7 (57:43):
You're gonna keep getting on her nerves and she really
gonna text the egs exactly.
Speaker 3 (57:49):
I just never understood the point of checking somebody's phone,
Like that's just never been my thing. You know why
you're gonna find something because you don't know, and you
don't know all of these conversations and looking for something,
you can find something and make that the thing. And
now you're arguing about something that may not even be
a thing, and that's all based on what you've created
(58:10):
in your mind.
Speaker 2 (58:10):
And you caught text her texting that. I'm wondering what
the nature of the text was. Was it something that
you felt like was potentially incriminating? Were they reminiscent about
the love they had?
Speaker 7 (58:19):
Like I feel like what could you possibly reminisce with somebody.
Speaker 1 (58:24):
Who you dated for.
Speaker 2 (58:29):
Right, and I'm thinking about my high school romances. I'm like,
I thought I was so in love.
Speaker 3 (58:33):
You think about high school romances, don't get killed in him?
Speaker 2 (58:41):
You know what handed over here?
Speaker 6 (58:42):
It is here?
Speaker 3 (58:43):
You know what I just this is what I honestly feel, right,
people have rules?
Speaker 1 (58:48):
What's cheating? What's not cheating? What's this? What's that?
Speaker 3 (58:51):
I honestly feel like in order to be in a
healthy relationship, you have to be secure with yourself first,
whatever the person's rules are, because everyone's gonna say this
rule counts, this rule don't count. If you're not secure
with yourself, you can't exist in any relationship no matter
what the rules are, because you're always going to find
a reason to think the other person is doing something
outside of what you would do.
Speaker 1 (59:11):
That's what insecurities are.
Speaker 2 (59:12):
But do you think the rules are specific to the
relationship that you're in. Yes, you have to create your
own boundaries agreements within that relationship, and it can change
from relationship to your relationship.
Speaker 3 (59:23):
Absolutely, Like there's this, I guarantee you all of the
rules in our relationship are not the same in Matt
and Christ's or Josh and Ekas or Trible, like I bet.
Speaker 6 (59:32):
You everybody tribling herself.
Speaker 3 (59:42):
Stop stop we know, but I mean everybody has their own,
you know, personal thing like I don't like this and
I like this. You can't make everybody tell to make
their relationship to what society says it's supposed to look like.
But what I do know is that if you're not
secure with yourself, no matter what the rules are you
and your partner create, you're going to find issues because
(01:00:03):
them insecurity is going to start creeping in.
Speaker 1 (01:00:05):
Oh oh, she going out what she's going out with?
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (01:00:09):
It should then be like a rabbit hole of just
a NonStop I'm having to chase after and check behind her.
And it's like, no one wants to live like that
on either side.
Speaker 7 (01:00:16):
And maybe it is because I don't think that there's
anything wrong with getting reassurance from your partner, but it's
not reassurance that they're not cheating on you.
Speaker 6 (01:00:24):
If you you got to figure out what is it
that I.
Speaker 7 (01:00:26):
Feel insecure about that makes me think that my partner
might want to look elsewhere? Then let me ask her, like,
how do you feel about this thing about me? How
do you feel that I have a four inch dick?
Speaker 6 (01:00:36):
Like? Is that you know what I'm saying? Is that
okay for you?
Speaker 7 (01:00:44):
Like?
Speaker 1 (01:00:44):
You know?
Speaker 7 (01:00:45):
Is it not satisfying? Is there something I could be
doing that would make our relationship better? That's the type
of reassurance you look for, not where you're going, who're
gonna be with?
Speaker 6 (01:00:53):
Who's gonna be there? What's up with you and him?
Speaker 7 (01:00:55):
Like nore? Have your spouse or your partner reassure you
that they like who you are?
Speaker 1 (01:01:03):
That's dope.
Speaker 3 (01:01:03):
The thing is, so I agree with that man, because
me and Kay don't spend a lot of time like
you sure you didn't do this? Like you know how
much time that would waste? Absolutely if we just for
the past twenty three years? You sure you didn't do this?
Are you going to do this last week? It's like, nah, man,
I ain't got no time for that. I just want
to share my life with somebody that I can trust.
I guess that goes back to discernment. When you use
(01:01:24):
discernment and you know you've chosen the right person, you
don't constantly need assurance that person has already showed you
that they're the right person, so you don't constantly need it, no.
Speaker 2 (01:01:32):
For sure. And we had to grow through some stuff too,
Like we've been together for twenty three years, so when
we were eighteen nineteen and our twenties, like, there were
little moments where we had little spats and disagreements, but
it's like you got to talk about it, and you
have to make a decision and the choice to stay
or keep moving, you know, move on and get over it.
Speaker 3 (01:01:46):
And that's how you learn and create the relationship you want. It'sai, Okay,
you don't like this. I don't like that, right, you
don't like when you interact with other people like that.
Speaker 1 (01:01:54):
I don't like when you interact with other people.
Speaker 3 (01:01:56):
It's like you learn to learn, yes, and after you
learn it, and then the person says, oh r, I
didn't know that before, because he did say she used
to talk to her X not anymore. Maybe you told
her like I don't want you doing that. What if
they were friends? Yeah, and so now she could you know,
excommunicated the X, but you're still holding on to that.
You got to give someone time to adjust to you know,
(01:02:16):
what it is that you think that you don't want
in life.
Speaker 1 (01:02:18):
So for sure, build out whatever you want with your partner.
Speaker 2 (01:02:21):
Sounds good. Thanks for listening though, I'm glad you're enjoying
the podcast so far. All right, y'all, keep keep writing in.
If you want to be featured as a listener letter
on the show, email us at the Elisadvice at gmail
dot com.
Speaker 3 (01:02:35):
That's t h E E L L I S A
d V I C E at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:02:40):
All right, rolling on into the moment of truth today,
we're talking about popstroke and the recovery process and what
that's like, you know, caring for family members, the healthcare system.
What you got for us, babe.
Speaker 3 (01:02:52):
My biggest thing is keep your eyes on the people
you love. Yeah, answer the phone when they call. I
got a message from my boy Trey on his mom
passed last year and he said that his mom called
him and he didn't answer the phone because he was driving.
He was driving the truck. Didn't answer the phone. Two
days later, they said, he call the when he get there.
Two days later, he get a phone call from his
(01:03:14):
brother's brothers like hey, bro, you're sitting down. He's like yeah, why.
He was like Mama gone and he was like going
where And he was like she's going she passed in
a heart attack. And he said to me, Deval, when
your mom calls, answer the phone and say Mom, let
me call you back.
Speaker 2 (01:03:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:03:31):
And the reason why I say that is because imagine
your mom is calling and you can hear on the
phone and she sounds a little slurred, true, and then
you can reach out to your brother or you can
you know what I'm saying, Those little phone calls could
be a cry for help, or could be a moment
where God is trying to send you a message. And
when you keep pushing those those things away, you're missing
the opportunities to possibly save someone in your family's life.
Speaker 1 (01:03:52):
So my message is to.
Speaker 3 (01:03:53):
Just keep your eyes on the people you love, answer
them phone calls, and keep anybody close.
Speaker 2 (01:03:58):
Absolutely mine is just spend time. Spend time. I think
we always feel like time is something we have and
we don't And unfortunately, I feel like a lot of
people once they get really old or if you've lost
the loved one, the biggest thing people say is I
wish I had more time. And it's crazy, my browtech.
(01:04:23):
She was in town. She travels and she was in
town and she didn't know what had happened. With my dad,
and she came to do my brows here at the
house and we were chitting, chat chatting, you know, as friends,
and my dad walked into the room and she looked
at him and she said hi to him, and then
he walked away, and she was like, make sure you
spend time with him. And that hit me like a
(01:04:44):
ton of bricks, because I'm like, girl, what are you
trying to say? What are you trying to say? And
She's like, spend time with him. He's emotionally going through
a lot that he's not expressing to you guys.
Speaker 1 (01:04:55):
Oh wow.
Speaker 2 (01:04:56):
And I was like, girl, like, she like, what do
you know that? I don't know? You know? But she's
always kind of spoken life into me in different ways
and I appreciate that about her. And that really made
me think and stop for a second and just think,
am I really spending quality time with my dad here?
Or am I just you know, content with the fact
that he's existing in the house.
Speaker 3 (01:05:14):
A lot of times that happens. They live with us,
and now you walk by them, you don't really like
see them, Yeah, yeah, Oh Dad is there?
Speaker 2 (01:05:21):
Right?
Speaker 1 (01:05:21):
Dad? Is there right?
Speaker 3 (01:05:22):
Someone coming in can see from a different perspective something
you're not seeing because you're so used to being there.
Speaker 1 (01:05:28):
So I see what she said. Yep.
Speaker 2 (01:05:29):
So whatever message she said, God just put that on
my heart to tell you that. And I was like
sobbing at that point, but that just put me on alert.
Like my dad's getting older, family members get older, and
we should really be trying to love on each other
while we can. So that's my moment of truth. Love
on the people you love while they're here.
Speaker 5 (01:05:47):
And the theme of this episode. If you see something,
say something, don't wait.
Speaker 7 (01:05:54):
Absolutely, yeah, pay attention, I guess, definitely pay attention. Answer
the phone for sure, just to have eyes and ears
on the people you love that are getting older and
know all you can about health wellness. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 8 (01:06:16):
If I had to add anything, which for you as
a spot on, I was trying to remember this song
by j Cole Cole Love Yours m hmm. But see,
if you see something, say something like Matt said, will
probably be my takeaway.
Speaker 1 (01:06:30):
From this episode.
Speaker 2 (01:06:31):
Ye all right, y'all. Well, be sure to follow us
find us on Patreon if you have not yet, and
subscribe to the party over there because we have the
after show, which we typically film after every episode where
you get some more exclusive Lless ever After content. You
can also get more Ellis family content on Patreon, So
shout out to our Patreon gang and thank you for
(01:06:52):
following us on social media. If you have not yet,
hit the button to follow Ellis ever After on socials.
I'm Kadeen, I am.
Speaker 8 (01:07:00):
And I am Deval, I'm going to score back Ellis,
and I'm Joshua Underscore Dwayne.
Speaker 6 (01:07:05):
I'm Trips the Cool t R I B b Z
the Cool on Everything.
Speaker 3 (01:07:09):
And if you're listening on Apple Podcasts, be sure to rate,
review and.
Speaker 2 (01:07:13):
Subscribe and download Baby That Ass.
Speaker 5 (01:07:17):
The B I B l E it.
Speaker 2 (01:07:22):
Stand alone on the word Elie.
Speaker 7 (01:07:28):
Ellis ever After is an iHeartMedia podcast. It's hosted by
Kadeen and Deval Ellis. It's produced by Triple Video, Production
by Joshua, Dwayne and Matthew Ellis, Video editing by Lashan
Roe
Speaker 3 (01:09:04):
Set Face
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Ruthie's Table 4
For more than 30 years The River Cafe in London, has been the home-from-home of artists, architects, designers, actors, collectors, writers, activists, and politicians. Michael Caine, Glenn Close, JJ Abrams, Steve McQueen, Victoria and David Beckham, and Lily Allen, are just some of the people who love to call The River Cafe home. On River Cafe Table 4, Rogers sits down with her customers—who have become friends—to talk about food memories. Table 4 explores how food impacts every aspect of our lives. “Foods is politics, food is cultural, food is how you express love, food is about your heritage, it defines who you and who you want to be,” says Rogers. Each week, Rogers invites her guest to reminisce about family suppers and first dates, what they cook, how they eat when performing, the restaurants they choose, and what food they seek when they need comfort. And to punctuate each episode of Table 4, guests such as Ralph Fiennes, Emily Blunt, and Alfonso Cuarón, read their favourite recipe from one of the best-selling River Cafe cookbooks. Table 4 itself, is situated near The River Cafe’s open kitchen, close to the bright pink wood-fired oven and next to the glossy yellow pass, where Ruthie oversees the restaurant. You are invited to take a seat at this intimate table and join the conversation. For more information, recipes, and ingredients, go to https://shoptherivercafe.co.uk/ Web: https://rivercafe.co.uk/ Instagram: www.instagram.com/therivercafelondon/ Facebook: https://en-gb.facebook.com/therivercafelondon/ For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iheartradio app, apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.