Keep Fahking Grinding with Michael Carnell

Boston native and United States Marine, Michael Carnell, joins The Good Stuff to share his battle that goes well beyond the war.  Three years into his Stage 4 B Cancer diagnosis, he continues to inspire others daily and epitomizes what it means to be a true Warrior. 

 

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Facebook: @michael.carnell.71

TikTok: @echo5_charlie

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
Welcome to the Good Stuff. I'm Jacob Schick and I'm
joined by my co host and wife, Ashley Shick.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Jake is a third generation combat Marine and I'm a
gold Star granddaughter. We work together to serve military veterans,
first responders, frontline healthcare workers, and their families with mental
and emotional wellness through traditional and non traditional therapy. At
One Tribe Foundation, we.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
Believe everyone has a story to tell, not only about
the peaks, but also the valleys they've been through to
get them to where they are today.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Each week, we invite a guests to tell us their story,
to share with us the lessons they've learned that shaped
who they are and what they're doing to pay it
forward and give back.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
Our mission with this show is to dig deep into
our guest's journey so that we can celebrate the hope
and inspiration their story has to offer.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
We are thrilled you're joining us again.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
Welcome to the Good Stuff.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
Today, we're joined by our very close friend and brother,
Michael Kurnell. We have wanted to have Mike on the
podcast since day one, no doubt, but making it happen
hasn't been as easy as just scheduling an interview.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
Reason being he's in a big fight right now, a
fight for his life, and he is battling this marine
brother of mine was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer
almost three years ago, which has now spread to his liver, lungs,
lymph nodes, and stomach wall. He just told it was
inoperable and incurable and life expectancy was short. But today

(01:33):
he is here with us, very much alive. He is
truly an inspiration and the epitome of a warrior. This
isn't an episode about being sick. It's very much an
episode about truly living. We are better people for Mike's
presence in our lives, and we are so grateful that
he is here with us and able to share his
story with you.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
This was truly an amazing conversation with Michael, and we
wanted the episode to just jump right into a story
about the time time we all traveled to Ireland together.
So here we go.

Speaker 3 (02:03):
Enjoy I loved Ireland. It's such a good time there,
such a good time.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
Think good, Sharon Gurlsby.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
We're going to get into that.

Speaker 4 (02:14):
But they wouldn't let you pour. You do not the
yank pull a fucking pine, like you don't tell him no.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
So the backstory on that. Real quick, we were in
Ireland with Gabby and Michael Carnell his first trip over
the Pond to the Emerald Isle, and we were in
the beautiful village of Kinsale, which we've talked about on
this show before. When we had Danny Manning on Carney
has this thing. What's your thing about pouring a pine?

Speaker 4 (02:41):
It just it just it started.

Speaker 3 (02:43):
When I graduated high school, my father took me to
New York to go and watch the Red Sox and
Yankees play at old Yankee statey before they tore it down.
I don't know, maybe he just felt like, look, I
can't really get you into the everyba, but let's see
what we could do right.

Speaker 4 (03:00):
And there was this.

Speaker 3 (03:01):
Back called Tommy Makom's Irish Pavilion. Tommy Makam is a
famous Irish singer. So my dad walks up to like
the guy at the door. He's like, hey, look, you
know I'm gonna take my son and real quick, he's
got to use the bathroom.

Speaker 4 (03:11):
We're just here for his graduation. Guy's like, I don't care.

Speaker 3 (03:13):
Whatever, Lets me and I go have a beer with
my dad at a bar for the first time, and
I was like, this is pretty cool. You know.

Speaker 4 (03:19):
I'm like drinking butt heavy whatever.

Speaker 3 (03:21):
I didn't care, trying to stand in the background so
nobody can see me. But the next day we wake up,
when we go back, he's like, I just want to
try and get a picture. So we walked behind the
bar and just talked to the box and he was
straight off the boat too, like a shameless o'lardi or whatever.
I mean, he was talking to hell's how you doing.
My dad talked to him and he's like he looks around.

(03:41):
He's like, give me are some went behind the bod
and let me hold the bottle of Jamison portoglass or somebody.
And then that's just kind of how it started and
then became this thing of whenever I travel, I try
to let them let me go behind the bond or pining.
Nine times out of ten they don't care. When we
were there, it was just right post COVID, so they
were like most of the guys like I don't care. Yeah,

(04:04):
you know, because the first place was a trumpt I
went on so that they had like where we had
breakfast at. But then there was like a bar that
was out on like the first tea right there, Gaby,
noone walking around.

Speaker 4 (04:15):
We stopped.

Speaker 3 (04:15):
We just figured we'll grab some of drink or whatever,
and there was nobody in there, and I just asked again.
He was like another little sixteen seventeen year old famous
old Larry just in there and he's like, ah, I'm
not really supposed to do this, but sure, go ahead,
started poring pints and then it was everyby on Ireland
like I'm gonna pour pint as many times as i can.

(04:36):
So so then.

Speaker 2 (04:37):
We get to can Sale, which we know a lot
of people there, and now you're family to everyone and
can Sail. This amazing village in Ireland that we love
so much.

Speaker 3 (04:44):
Was the White Something there was the White House, the
White House, the Frowley is the White House great place.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
So they had a little special reception with Irish veterans
there in their back room and then Mike's like, hey,
I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go pour some pints and
so he leaves. Well, he comes back a little while
later and he's like, yeah, they wouldn't let me next door.

Speaker 3 (05:03):
You can't come back here, no way, there's nobody come
back here and pour pints and I'm all right, my bad.

Speaker 4 (05:08):
Sorry.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
Well, what they didn't know is that we were with
the great Sharon Crosby, one of the greatest humans on earth.
And Sharon immediately stands up and says, nope, come with me,
and so next thing I know, they're gone.

Speaker 1 (05:21):
Fort not exactly how she said either, she said it
was a lot more colorful.

Speaker 3 (05:25):
Than there's a few fom you're not gonna tell the
Stephan Yank and he's not gonna pour a pint behind
the bar, just the way she did it to him,
like you fucking not telling him he's not pouring a pipe.
And then she's like, you know what, as a matter
of fact, I'm going next door. Will you make sure
he finishes poorn his pint? Michael, when you're done with
a point, you come next door to me. I walk

(05:45):
all they and there's Sharon and like four women and
they just absolutely loved me, and they just like threw
me behind the bar and just said it born points.
And then the next day she sent me a message
on Facebook. She's like, you're good to go, and she
listened like fteen different like they all know you're coming
and just drop my name.

Speaker 4 (06:05):
I was like, I love you.

Speaker 2 (06:07):
The next thing i know, we're still sitting at the
White House. Gabby looked at me at one point she's like,
is he good. I'm like, oh, he's with Sharon. He's fine.

Speaker 1 (06:13):
He may to Scotland.

Speaker 4 (06:16):
Those women were having fun with me.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
They're on the train to Dublin. But no. But next
thing we know, we're getting this picture of this big
American plaque with Carnie and like five Irish women, you know,
flank on either side.

Speaker 3 (06:29):
My belt buck will like tucked in and everything. One
of our friends, Ryan James, made fun of when he
saw that picture. He's like, would you just graduate boot camp?

Speaker 2 (06:43):
Great times? Great times in Ireland.

Speaker 3 (06:45):
It was an absolute blouse. I mean it was a
dream come true. I mean that was always one of
those as a kid. I mean, my mom hasn't even
been and she's always wanted to go, you know, and
I'm like, look go, I'm like, especially now she's just
tired and everything else.

Speaker 4 (06:57):
But back then, like move and it was all COVID.

Speaker 3 (07:01):
She was all like worry and she had heart disease
and cancer and everything else. I mean, it wasn't like
the greatest time for her to be doing traveling. But
now they're retiring again for the second time in the
move to Hiltonhead, so they're more up to doing more
traveling and getting now, which is really good for them
so well.

Speaker 2 (07:20):
And part of the reason we decided to take that
trip and thank you Jake for making that happen, was
that we went to you about three years ago almost
and said, what's your bucket list? And you know we're
here sitting today in your office at your home. How
are you feeling today?

Speaker 3 (07:38):
I look at in two ways, you know, physically every
day is it's it's a battle, you know. I mean,
it's it is what it is when you get diagnosed
with stage four cancer that it doesn't matter what it
is though, whether it's your stomach with it, your feet
with it's your arm. I mean, it's it's cold outside now,
so that the medicine I have makes my bones really cold.
The wrapping my hands and fingers is a thousand times

(08:00):
was worse than it's been. I knew it was gonna
get like to that with the winter coming up, and
it makes walking, you know, difficult. I gotta usually cane
half the time, or I'm grabbing the kids like get
me here, hold on on my falling over. Mentally, I'm
blessed to be able to wake up every single day,
you know, I mean I realized that we're all living
in the bar or time.

Speaker 4 (08:20):
I think you said that before.

Speaker 3 (08:21):
We're all living in the ball of time, and sometimes
you look at the hourglass and something. You know, maybe
my sin's is a bit less than everybody else's. But
I'm happy that I got to wake up today. And
like I tell people when they're like, I'm having a
rough morning or whatever, I'm.

Speaker 4 (08:33):
Like, dude, you woke up today.

Speaker 3 (08:34):
The devil's already pissed off it you're so don't worry
about it, right, you already tagged one thing for the day.

Speaker 4 (08:38):
Just keep going.

Speaker 3 (08:39):
That's kind of how I mentally, even in the morning,
tell myself I do it, Just get up and then
make myself get up and get going for the day.
So you know, it's fifty to fifty physically okay today
and mentally yeah, I'm squared on.

Speaker 4 (08:54):
So yeah for the most part.

Speaker 3 (08:56):
You know, to put glasses on and then you'll blur
and I can't think anymore.

Speaker 1 (09:00):
You just wrapped up your one hundred and thirtieth round
a chemo why only one thirty?

Speaker 4 (09:06):
Yeah, I know you.

Speaker 3 (09:07):
That's a funny question people ask some time, like, oh,
so was that your last one honeymoon?

Speaker 4 (09:11):
You have to go? I'm like, no, I have no idea,
you know.

Speaker 3 (09:14):
I'm like when they when they tell you inoperable and curable,
you keep going. And you know, people are like, oh,
chemo so bad. I had to do two rounds of chemo.
I'm like, don't keep in the room because we through tongue.
At the same time, I'm like, I've been through one
hundred and thirty rounds of chemo and it's been one
hundred and thirty different feelings every time. So once I

(09:36):
was like, I've been through this like twice or three times.

Speaker 4 (09:39):
I get it. It sucked, it does I go.

Speaker 3 (09:41):
But you know, you get to the extent that I'm
at now, and you know, my body at a couple
of way times starts to deteriorate, right, I mean, there's
so much you can take this before you know your
body breaks ound. Like I said, the neurapathy and all that,
but it is what it is. Like if I could
do one thirty one and they say you're done, let's
do it. If they tell me I got to do

(10:02):
you two hundred and fifty before I get finished. All right,
well let's go for two fifty. You know, I'm not
trying to break any chemo records, that's for sure.

Speaker 1 (10:10):
Well, as long as you get to keep wearing those
Grandpa sweaters like that.

Speaker 4 (10:13):
Dude, thank you? When do you talk about grandpas sweater?
This thing is one.

Speaker 3 (10:17):
We're good to go because money, I could wear this
out and probably what the hell you want to.

Speaker 2 (10:21):
Do, certainly in a pub in Ireland.

Speaker 4 (10:23):
Yeah, I definitely we.

Speaker 2 (10:24):
Have wanted to have you on the Good Stuff since
day one. I mean you were literally one of the
first people we put on our list of people that
we wanted to have on this show, mostly because of
that mindset that you just talked about. You know, you
don't want to break any records, but not to glance
over the weight of the fact that you've had one
hundred and thirty rounds of chemo, but your mindset is unbelievable.

Speaker 3 (10:50):
It's hard because just like anybody, you can have a
good day in a bad day, right in the mindset
of trying to say.

Speaker 4 (10:58):
Positive all time.

Speaker 3 (11:01):
One of the things they first told us when I
got diagnosed in and they give this like big book
of like this cancer book, like the avc's dictionary whatever.
And this has been a few times since then. My
wife felt like, where's that book? Were you go back
and find it because there was something in there that
was important.

Speaker 4 (11:15):
Right.

Speaker 3 (11:16):
But one of the things they tell you, like at
the beginning, is like you got to get rid of negatiory. Yeah,
get rid of toxicity. Theeasings are not good for somebody
who has cancer. You don't need stress in your life.
I'm like, well that's everybody, right, I mean, who needs
any that kind of stuff in their life. So it
just became this thing of trying to figure out between
my wife and I in the beginning, because when I

(11:37):
found out at first was a culture shock.

Speaker 4 (11:39):
It was a what are we gonna do? Like we
didn't prep for this, you know.

Speaker 3 (11:45):
Yeah, I was doing great at work and the kids
are good and everybody's healthy except for me apparently. But
even when they came and they said you have cancer,
I was like, all right, well cool, everybody gets cancer,
like what kind? And they were like stage four. It's
like oh, so we went right to the end and
then like stage four being like, oh is a bee?
I didn't even know, I thought it was just numbers.

(12:06):
I'm like, so the bee is what like bad? I
just remember sitting with with Gabby, my wife, a couple
of days later on the on the bed, reading through
the book, and just like I was still trying to
wrack everything in my head because I'm a problem solver.
That's just what I do. If there's an issue, I
figure it out. And I attacked it. I go after

(12:26):
and solved the problems for everybody. And I couldn't figured
this out. I could have wrapped my head around it.
I was like, what am I going to do? And
the best thing that happened to me, outside of having
Gabby trying to confidence all the time, was I had
a friend from work who called me up and said,
I heard about your diagnosis. I want to give you
a few days to go ahead and think about it,

(12:46):
but let me tell you a story real quick. And
he said, my mom had exactly what you have. And
He's like, and all should do is eat water, burger
and drink large day coachs every day. And I could
tell you exactly I was. I mean, we were in
the old house. I was in the kitchen. I know
exactly where's because they stopped once he told me that,
and he was like, and I want to let you

(13:06):
know that.

Speaker 4 (13:07):
Sho's still here today.

Speaker 3 (13:08):
I was like, all right, so this can be done
because doctors don't give you that this could be not
a problem. Michael, yeah, stays four beat cancer, going cancers,
fantastatized to your liver.

Speaker 4 (13:21):
Not a problem.

Speaker 3 (13:22):
This is gonna be issuing And they're like, so, sir, yeah,
in opera and cariable for a reason. Na, that's what
it means. And I remember when the doctor told me. Originally,
like I slammed the chair on the floor and I
was like, we're gonna to rewrite that because that doesn't
work for me. But getting that news from that friend
just kind of put the positive attitude in my mind, like,
all right, somebody's done this before, somebody's beat this before,

(13:43):
and if I'm gonna be negative, it's.

Speaker 4 (13:46):
Not going to be good. You know, it's going to
just beat me down.

Speaker 3 (13:49):
I've been into the rooms before and seen the cancer
patients that just look like they're like they're never coming back,
like that's it, that's their last appointment, and they're gonna
go to hospice whenever they're gonna go home. And they're
going to pass out that night and not wake up
the next day. And you know, I walk in the nurses,
They're like, outside of the two times I lost my
mind in there, they they're like, we love you. You know.
I walk into the iPad, I'm laughing half the time.

(14:11):
I'm cracking jokes Eve. When I don't feel good. It's like,
if you know I'm not gonna make it through life,
we don't keep it light. That's just Marines too, right.
I Mean, we bust on each other so much, but
it's like it's out of absolute love. So if we
don't keep that positive attitude of mindset and the one
step mentality, you know, and keep moving forward because.

Speaker 4 (14:29):
It doesn't matter what what a Marcus throw.

Speaker 3 (14:32):
I watched this interview within the other day and he's like,
ninety percent of what was in the movies not what
really happened. And he tells the stories like I was
on a rock for like a day, crawling from the
Taliban they do where it was they were shooting you know,
RPGs at me, and they were throwing rockets and grenades
and everyone else down on me.

Speaker 4 (14:48):
And he's like, I just kept moving.

Speaker 3 (14:50):
I just kept moving He's like, I knew there was
this lake in front of me, and I need to
get some water, so I just kept moving. It's like,
it's just one of those mentalities in your head. If
you just keep that one step forward mentality, if you
could take it, and no matter if you.

Speaker 4 (15:02):
Get a crawl and you get to walk, you're gonna run.

Speaker 3 (15:03):
However you make it, you make it, and then strind
yourself with a good support system, people like you guys,
people like the Aboard, people like the Turners, people have
all these non profits that we do work with her.
As you said, you shrond yourself with good people, by default,
you become a better person. So all these great people
have taught me so many things that have changed my
mentality over years to try and be paused.

Speaker 4 (15:25):
And plus I got three kids.

Speaker 3 (15:27):
And I'm getting older, I'm mature and trying to teach
them the right things life and be positive.

Speaker 2 (15:32):
So your mindset and how hard you've battled over the
past three years, I mean, I'm speechless. I really don't
have the words to how consistent you've been with this mindset.
No days off from your deciding to live.

Speaker 3 (15:53):
Yeah, you know, it's a Navy seal thing. When no
days off, right, that was something hitty to day. I
was like, I say, somebody, yeah, I'll be like, it's
been three years.

Speaker 4 (16:04):
I'm like, I don't get a break it.

Speaker 3 (16:06):
Everybody gets a Friday night, Saturday, Sunday. Like I don't
get that. I get to go to bed sometimes in
a great mood and wake up absolutely miserable and be
miserable all weekend. But then it's so horrible the summertime,
right because with this medicine stuff. I'm like, I went
to my oldest daughters soccer game and walking from the
car to the field to set up a ten with

(16:29):
a lows bucket that has a fan that blows ice
to watching her game at one hundred and ten degrees whatever,
and then packing it all up and get back in
the car. And I looked in my awaye and I go,
I'm done, and she's just looking like it's eleven o'clock
when I'm like, I'm done for the day. Like I
don't make any of the plans we're going home. I'm
gonna sit on that couch and I'm not moving, like
I just collapsed.

Speaker 4 (16:51):
It's just it gets you.

Speaker 3 (16:53):
And I'm still learning that with my limits as it's
becoming more and more difficult to do things. But I'm
also that stubborn marine in my head, like I don't
care what.

Speaker 4 (17:04):
This is telling me. I'm going to make it. I mean,
I had a goal.

Speaker 3 (17:08):
I always wanted to run the Boston Marathon, and a
couple months who I texted to of my cousins and
they both have done it, one of them on college nurse,
and I was like, hey, I just want to get
your opinion on this before I actually start thinking about it.
I go, I can't do the training right now because
it's too hot in texta cycle, but once the cools,
that should be good to go. I said, what do
you think about running the marathon? She was like absolutely not.

(17:30):
She was like if as my cousin, I would love
to see you come up here and run the marathon,
and if you do it, I'll be the first one
standing there on the sidelines cheering.

Speaker 4 (17:37):
You want.

Speaker 3 (17:38):
She's like as a patient, she's like, no, you probably
gonna make it a mile. She's like the dehydration all that.
She's like, you're just gonna be killing your body. And
I'm like, oh, okay, thanks for because she's like, no,
I want to see you do it. I was like, well,
you basically told me I can. And my other cousin's like, nah,

(17:58):
you could do it. He's brother. He's like, I definitely
believe you could do it. I'm like me too, right,
I could do it. And then I go for a
walk to the mailbox and like whoa, you know.

Speaker 4 (18:09):
I come back and I'm like, you know what I mean,
that marathon might be a little bit harder.

Speaker 3 (18:13):
I mean, I might do five hundred and walks the
nail to watch before we can get doing the marathon.

Speaker 2 (18:19):
So that's one of the things I remember. It carry
the Load, which is our our annual Memorial Day walk,
what we all do together. You were out there midnight march.

Speaker 1 (18:27):
I think it's important to say that it's its own nonprofit,
that we once Tris Beneficiarias and the Depth Train Foundation,
a bunch of other really great organizations, and that you know,
we've been doing this together for I mean, I think
since we've known each other.

Speaker 3 (18:41):
Yeah, over a decade, yeah, over a decade years years
this year twelve years.

Speaker 2 (18:47):
Yeah, No, I mean just the midnight march. You were
out there with your cane and big old chain around
your neck.

Speaker 1 (18:53):
Got to get the swhite equity in and that was
actually the first one we did silent. I'm sure you
remember before we started, and I spoke and then asked
David to say, if you.

Speaker 4 (19:01):
Were yelled at people and told them shut up and
we're not talking, I was like.

Speaker 1 (19:07):
Yeah, no, I was angry. Yeah, I was angry. I
mean it was, uh, it's zero dark, so yeah, it
was yeah. But you know, and I needed and I
was honest about it. I said, I need this too.
I need to heal too. And I think that we
owe it to them, those that were honoring to just
shut your souper cooler while we're doing this. We're not

(19:27):
playing music, we're not We're just gonna walk. We're gonna
start together, we're gonna finish together. And if you have
a problem with it, and I do remember saying that
you can walk right out the same gate you walked
in and nobody left. I mean there's like two hundred
people there. It was all tears and everything, and it
was that was a spiritual moment man, that hour and

(19:49):
a half, for hour forty whatever it took, because it
wasn't you know, because one lap is what seven seven
miles I think, or something like that. And then and
I you know what I really distinctly remember about that
walk was the dog tags.

Speaker 2 (20:01):
Yeah, Terry Burgess, thank you.

Speaker 1 (20:04):
Terry wears on his pack the whole time, and all
you heard was the clink, clink, clink, because he wears
all the dog tags of Brian's unit that that they lost,
not just Brian's. And it was the clinking was like
it was almost like marching the cadence like we do
in the Marines. It was just that clink clink, and

(20:24):
I just remember thinking like it was just different. Then,
you know, at one point I did have to run
up to the front and tell him like, hey, got
slow it down a little bit. We got a couple
of stragglers. And then I remember the first time I did,
and he looked at me, and the guy was like, seriously,
I know what.

Speaker 4 (20:40):
We have to slow you know?

Speaker 3 (20:42):
It was it was different than the typic character. Look right, yeah,
you know It's different than I'm gonna get out there.
I'm a march around with everybody. I'm gonna see his hand,
I'm gonna take a thousand photos kissing babies the whole
nine yards. Right, do you see so and so? Do
you see so and so. Yeah, yeah, you're so excited
for that day to go see every buddy and to
be a part of the event that's obviously bigger than ourselves.

Speaker 4 (21:04):
And I always.

Speaker 3 (21:06):
Genuinely look forward to it, even if I'm out there
at night and I'm walking around and it's one hundred grees,
I said, I still love it. The quiet thing was different,
and it gave you that moment, like to really take
that time to reflect.

Speaker 4 (21:20):
Like why are we really here?

Speaker 1 (21:22):
Right?

Speaker 4 (21:22):
Like we all know why we're really here.

Speaker 3 (21:24):
And I don't think it really hit me until on
the way back. My buddy, uh John, who one of
my old neighbors. He had a couple of friends at
that period that we were walking. Just that time frame,
there was like six signs in there with his friends
were all on those signs.

Speaker 4 (21:41):
So like he sees the first one, he stops.

Speaker 3 (21:43):
He puts the hand on like he'd already done, you know,
like eighteen miles that day, but he stayed to do
it at night, and seeing him touch the last one
and like how emotional he was about it that I.

Speaker 4 (21:55):
Was like, all right, you got it. But like I
hope this quiet part and.

Speaker 3 (22:01):
This reflection gave you that time to really heal from
what you're still, you know, having a hard time with
I mean we also do right, sorry cursing, but that's
who I am.

Speaker 2 (22:12):
You've dropped like twenty f bombs up to this point.

Speaker 3 (22:15):
You're good, good? Then, all right, this is the good
guy the podcasting. We're not gonna put the thing at
the bottom with an explicit language.

Speaker 1 (22:24):
Well, so the good news about that is is that
it with a lot of our guests like okay, well
you know, what can we do or can't we do?
Them like talk as if you want your children to
hear it? So for you problem at all? Yeah, there's
nothing they could hear where they were like, well, dad.

Speaker 4 (22:42):
I tried to get better. I really have.

Speaker 3 (22:45):
But you know, the words and Irish, I know, but
that is part of my language. I'm like, I don't
use oz, but I have.

Speaker 4 (22:52):
I used the F word like it's like tomorrow, Like
there's no tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (22:57):
So let's take it back to Boston. Tell us about
your upbringing. Was what made you even want to become
a United States Marine?

Speaker 3 (23:03):
It was weird growing up in Boston. My mom is
one of six, my dad's one of six. You know,
I have a huge Irish Catholic family, you know, and
out of six of them, you know, on both sides,
I think only one had three kids. The rest were
all like four, five, six, So I have massive amount

(23:23):
of cousins, right, I mean, like the family text thread,
sometimes I'm like, I got to mute it because I'm like,
there's this the one hundred people on here.

Speaker 4 (23:30):
I don't care. I know the Patriots are lose in
right now.

Speaker 1 (23:33):
Right.

Speaker 3 (23:34):
I had great aunts and uncles. I really did because
of the age. Both of my parents actually were the
second or the third oldest in their families, so they
were older then, like even and I have aunts and
uncles who are only like ten or fifteen years older
than me, so you know, they were kind of my
brothers and sisters or whatever. When I was a kid,
they were my babysitters. They you know, it took me

(23:55):
to the beach, they did all that kind of stuff.
So I had a good, decent upbringing. And then we
got to like middle school age, my parents were divorced
and became a broken home and just one of those
things that bouncing back and forth between houses is be
pre cell phones and text messaging and all that stuff.

Speaker 4 (24:14):
So I was the oldest, So I was.

Speaker 3 (24:16):
One communicating the messages all the time. Nobody was happy.
People do whatever message they got, so it never turned
out the way they wanted. But I remember a conversation
with my father one day driving down the road, and
he just like he asked me what I wanted to
be when I got older. I was still a kid,
like a professional hockey player playing for the Brumin's just
like everybody else from playing for the Red Sox whatever, right,
which dinnis hilarious City says I. You know, I thought

(24:37):
I was playing for the Boston Red Sox. It didn't happen.
You wear a helmet sometimes you just suck.

Speaker 4 (24:41):
It up, right.

Speaker 3 (24:42):
That's just part of life, and it's the way it works,
and all our dreams work out the way.

Speaker 4 (24:46):
We want to. But I went to a good high school.

Speaker 3 (24:49):
I felt that's where I started to learn who I
was as a person. Because being a kid from a
broken home and having to deal with these conversations all
the time, and the arguments and the fighting and the divorce.

Speaker 4 (25:03):
I was a very quiet kid. You guys know me.

Speaker 3 (25:07):
You know I've never not been quiet. I'm center for attention, loud, vocal.
I got something to say. I was just a quiet kid,
and I'm sure I had to do a lot of
the stuff around us that made us just shut down
in life. And my dad asked, He was like, like,
what do you want to do in life? Where do
you want to be? And I was like, I'm going
to be in a big city, but it's not going

(25:27):
to be here. And I don't know what I'm doing.

Speaker 4 (25:29):
If I'm not playing hockey, but I'm gonna be living
in a big city, I'm being a power building. I
didn't know what I was going to do. I had
no dreams.

Speaker 3 (25:37):
It wasn't like I was like, oh, I want to be,
you know, an accountant.

Speaker 4 (25:40):
None.

Speaker 3 (25:40):
Zero.

Speaker 4 (25:41):
To this day, I'm still like I don't even know
what i want to be.

Speaker 2 (25:43):
Right.

Speaker 3 (25:44):
So I graduated high school on a team soccer team
that my soccer coach was a drill sergeant the army,
and hated that guy for four years. Hated him. He
came out first day of try out. He had all
the stuff that the evenrinker uses for marketing. He was

(26:04):
like paying his week to sleep.

Speaker 4 (26:05):
In the body, blah blah blah blah.

Speaker 3 (26:08):
All this stuff and no matter what we do, you
guys are going to be the most athletic and fitteam
out here. No team will run you off the field ever.
If they do, we'll be running. And I'd never been
in shape like that. I mean I could probably run
three miles in fifteen minutes at that point in time.

Speaker 4 (26:25):
I mean it was just we were so that's all
we did was run.

Speaker 3 (26:28):
We ran from school to practice instead of taking cause
the seniors could take a car to practice. Well, our
senior year, we left the cars in school. We were like, no,
this is how we doing it for four years, is
how we're going.

Speaker 4 (26:40):
To keep doing it.

Speaker 3 (26:41):
We're going to run to school. We got this team
behind us. And we knew our freshman year too, as
a kid who goes man. We're seniors, you know, there's
nobody stopping us. And we went the night before training
camp started a bus to bus. Seniors and some of
the juniors that have been on the team before were like,
let's see something different. Let's sleep at the field before

(27:03):
double sessions start. Some of the guys was like, why,
you know what, This sounds like the dumbest idea, But
the coach is gonna show up and we're already there,
so we're already a step ahead of him before the
season starts, even though this guy watched this play all
summer and everything else. But I left school and I
went to college, and I got the party card of

(27:28):
college down pretty good, four point zero. It was to
go in to class part that I struggled with my
first semester. I went to class. Second semester. I half
went to class third semester. I think I went to
class to like I'm signing me, like I'm dropping this class,
and I knew I was gonna be doing something different,
so I think I went and saw my mom for

(27:49):
Christmas that year, and when I came home, my dad
was like, hey, your report card came in the.

Speaker 4 (27:54):
Mill and I was like really.

Speaker 3 (27:57):
He's like, yeah, we're not gonna do that right now,
so we'll have this conversation tomorrow. And I was like,
all right, you know what I'm doing and he said, well,
I'm joining the military. And he was like it just
like floored him, Like you're not joining the military. I
was in the military. You're not supposed to be in
the military. You go to you go to schools to
be better than me. I'm like, it's not gonna work out.
I hadn't even seen the recruit yet, right, I'm just

(28:17):
telling him this. So like next day I'm down taking
the bus to go see the recruiter, walk and see
the RECRUI recruiter. I'm like, hey, everybody to join the
boot camp. He's like, awesome, we have as late entry
program used. It takes about a year. Bus a test,
you get a pass and everything else. And I was like,
you have to understand. I go, I gotta leaven.

Speaker 4 (28:36):
Like two weeks. He was like, two weeks. I go.

Speaker 3 (28:39):
Well, One, when my father finds out that I'm joining
the Marine Corps not the Army, he's gonna kill me,
all right. And it's because he wants me to go
to school and I don't want to go to school.

Speaker 4 (28:50):
I go.

Speaker 3 (28:51):
And number two, my twenty first birthdays in three weeks,
so you can't get me out of here before my
twenty first birthday. I'm gonna stay and then I'm gonna
go talk to like the army recruiter. He was like
all right, hold on. Second, he's like, well, you passed
the drug test. And I was like I think so,
and he's like okay, let's get that s great away.

(29:12):
Number one okay, let's get you past the drug test.
And went took a drug test to pass that took
the ASVAP. He's like, dude, you basically put your name
on the paper. That's it. That's all you basically get
it to do. I scored like a nine something or
whatever the score was. And he came back. He's like,
your score came in. You did great. He's like, what
do you dreams? Your goals you have about like being
the rinkle, what do you want to do. I was like,
I thought you guys just blew stuff up. He was like, oh,

(29:32):
three fifty one. I was like, I have no idea
what it was not realizing, Like the MS chart is
on the board behind me, right, with nine hundred jobs
that I could have been in your traffic controller, right,
I could have picked any job in the world to
teach me something to have a skill. When I get out,
no play with tetan arty X and frigging TNT and

(29:54):
everything else and learn how to play with dead cord
and rockets and missiles. And I was like, well, that,
I mean sounds like a lot more fun than guiding
planes in anyway. And then through the recruiter calls me
and he goes, you're still going to enjoy boot camp, right.
I was like, yeah, you gotta shoot out on Mondays? Right,
he goes yep.

Speaker 4 (30:13):
So next Monday, He's liked because it was Monday night already,
and he goes, Nope, I'll be each house at four
o'clock in the morning. I'm like, oh, he's like that
could be a problem. Like, Nope, not a problem. He's like,
all right, to see you zero form. I good to go.

Speaker 3 (30:26):
Haven't called my parents and I haven't told anybody that
I'm going to boot camp.

Speaker 4 (30:32):
Get I'm even this far into it.

Speaker 3 (30:34):
I call them all up and they're like, you're an idiot.
I can't believe you're doing this. You're so stupid. And
I was like, whatever, get in the car or the recruiter.
And that's when I actually got the best advice I
think I ever got. And this is the advice I
give every recruit that I ever meet that's going to
boot camp. Drill instructures are paid assholes. The minute you

(30:56):
get that in your head, you are going to be
good to you know. And it took me about a
week or two and I was like, all right, I
get it. I got the game. It's it's all mental.
Oh yeah, you never fast enough. You never quick enough
even if you are, somebody else isn't, So why rush.
Just get there as quick as you can, you know,

(31:16):
whether it's getting up in the morning, going to chow
I mean I've had chow er, I've sat down, They're
like everybody up. I'm like, I didn't even get a bite.
I'm like, gotta be kidding me. I'm like, I wasn't
like done, no rats or double rats running. I was
just I was in the back of the line because
it was a squad leader. And then somebody messed up.
So by the time I got to chance get my food,
I'm like literally taking a plastic sports trying to shove

(31:38):
down eggs, powdered eggs to the trash barrel.

Speaker 1 (31:41):
Then God forbid you take a drink at your water
with one hand.

Speaker 3 (31:45):
Oh no, man, you're I remember being at Paras Island
and we were we had pet one morning and it
hit me and I was like, this is what I'm
supposed to be doing. You know, at the time, all
reading was what you know, rifle training, drill, working out,
you know that kind of stuff. Nomenclature. You weren't you
weren't in the field day.

Speaker 1 (32:04):
You weren't learning like you were doing basically treading marines.

Speaker 3 (32:08):
But I knew there was just one day running around
the track out there for PT.

Speaker 4 (32:13):
I just remember it's something to me. I go, this
is what I want to do. I love this.

Speaker 3 (32:16):
I'm like, I get up and I'm working on im, Like,
I feel great. I wish I could still do it today.
I wish I could get up. Its still run here
and I hate running. Well, kid, wasn't one of those
things that like.

Speaker 4 (32:27):
A lot of people are like, oh, it's horrible, it sucked.

Speaker 3 (32:29):
I'm like, I didn't think it was that bad. I mean, yeah,
it sucked, but I knew I had thirteen weeks. Just
deal with it. It's all mental. I mean, the crucible
was the most difficult thing that you did the entire
time there. And getting your own instructor to come up
and shake your hand and hand to put an eglobe
and anchor in your hand is one of the most
just honorable achievements ever made in my life. Yeah, I'm like,

(32:54):
it did something that people were free to do well.

Speaker 1 (32:56):
Very few yeah done, very few accomplished up.

Speaker 3 (33:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (33:00):
I mean, did y'all do it post crucible or did
y'all do it?

Speaker 3 (33:04):
We were like the third Crucible thirteen third phase they
had gone through the Crucible.

Speaker 1 (33:10):
Yeah, but so did y'all do the e g A
the Warriors breakfast, the sending of the ego globe maker
post crucible or did y'all Okay, you did all? Yeah,
that's when we did it.

Speaker 4 (33:20):
Why you are now?

Speaker 1 (33:22):
No? No, no, no, I've heard yeah, simplatoons wait till graduation days, simpleton.

Speaker 3 (33:26):
And I'm like, yeah, we came all all money, dirty
anything because it was pouring the entire time we were
there too, so we were all right, they planned it
on that right, we're gonna have this week?

Speaker 1 (33:38):
Did it ain't rain and we ain't training?

Speaker 2 (33:40):
The marine now control mother nature?

Speaker 4 (33:42):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (33:43):
So how did that training physically, mentally, emotionally, How do
you feel like that's contributed to the battle that you're
in right now?

Speaker 3 (33:53):
I think that being in the Marine Corps is giving
me everything that I have today. I wouldn't be who
I am without the Marine Corps, with the time that
I spend with the guys that I serve, with the
times that I've spent with the guys that I didn't
serve with you know, the people I've met outside of
the Marine Corps, the whole legacy of what the Marine
Corps is like, you can't mess out because there's so

(34:15):
many historical people that have gone before you that. I mean,
my first year in the Marine Corps, I was in Okinawa,
right and there was an incident in Okinawa where there
was a murder or something like that that had happened,
and we had this brief from the Marines that were there.
But then like the State Department came down and see
is the Japanese version of the State Department came down

(34:35):
and time.

Speaker 4 (34:36):
To talk to us. We weren't they when it happened.

Speaker 3 (34:39):
We got there like two weeks afters and they were
just like tension on the island is high. You can't
mess up. And you're like, well, a good thing. We
going for jungle warfare training. We're not gonna be sitting
out here at the bars and the strip clubs and
everything else all that long.

Speaker 4 (34:53):
We're gonna be open in the woods, so we'll stay
out of trouble.

Speaker 3 (34:55):
But it's just one of those things that I think
that mentality that I learned from the Marine Corps, which
is just this attack attack attack mentality has definitely been
one of the things that helped me when it came
to this fight that I have now, because trust me,
is twenty days when I wake up and I'm like, dude,
for this, I can't do this today, I'm like, I'm
just and I have to sit there and remind myself,

(35:19):
you know, the whole I watched a lot of videos
to get motivation, you know, and some of it is
you know, hey, you missed a thousands in the shuts
you don't take or you know, I need something like
that in the morning to get me to wake up,
or the picture I have appeared, you know, keep going.

Speaker 4 (35:32):
Like it gets me up in the morning.

Speaker 3 (35:35):
All right, here we go and then once them up,
you know, and this she never get in my head, right,
And then I think the Marine Corps mentality is always
going to be in any marine because we are who
we are for a reason. We're wired differently than everybody else.
And when people are like, oh, marine's ray holes and
blah blah, like, no, we're confident, we're cocky, we're self centered.

Speaker 4 (35:58):
We know that we've owned it. You made fun of
us and told us to crayons.

Speaker 3 (36:02):
We owned that and now you're mad at us that
we actually enjoy eating crayons to make you look like
an idiot. You don't understand. Marines are just built differently.
We always find a way. And even with my diagnosis
that I have right now, the doctor could say whatever
they want. I made a video of me last time

(36:23):
with endi interest and I'm like, hey, it doesn't matter
if they.

Speaker 4 (36:25):
Say there's shrinkers or if there's growth. It is what
it is.

Speaker 3 (36:30):
We'll figure it out and we'll keep moving in the
next direction. I'm like, it doesn't matter what they tell me.
They tell me that doctor told me once a couple
weeks ago, She's like, you've already exceeded what your life
expectancy was supposed to be. Like, I know, I told
you guys, you don't know me. So it's one of
those things. I just I just had this dog mentality
of not I'm not going to give up.

Speaker 4 (36:50):
I mean, even in the days that.

Speaker 3 (36:53):
Suck, you know, I just got to get up, Give
me some water, give me some sugar, you know, and
just like stayway with the sugar, might get me your
Panta whatever, mountain.

Speaker 5 (37:03):
Dude, something, let's talk about Gabby Angel.

Speaker 4 (37:15):
I wouldn't be here today without her. You want to
start getting me crying?

Speaker 2 (37:18):
Man, I don't want to start getting you crying.

Speaker 1 (37:21):
Okay, So here's the thing. Nobody's trying to get anybody
start crying.

Speaker 4 (37:25):
Yeah no, I'm good today.

Speaker 2 (37:28):
But what a support system you and your entire family,
like you have all five been battling and the rest
of us who call you know you're our brothers.

Speaker 3 (37:37):
So it was hard, right, So is January twenty twenty one.
I go to the hospital and they tell me, I,
you know.

Speaker 1 (37:43):
What led you to the hospital? Like the wait? So
what happened exactly the.

Speaker 3 (37:47):
Whole twenty twenty COVID thing. I started having some pain
on my side, and there was a couple of times
I had blood in my stool, which is like red
flag you're supposed to be. But I was like, all right,
maybe I ate too much.

Speaker 4 (37:59):
Food or you know whatever. It wasn't like a constant
thing right back, was certain.

Speaker 3 (38:06):
I mean I attributed a lot of the problems I
was having to just stress getting older, not working out anymore,
not taking walks, blah blah blah. So there is a
place in Frisco that's called the float Spot because there
have been to a bit of like these huge ebsence
all tanks. Right, I sold Gabby On Saturday, I go,

(38:27):
I'm going to go do one of those float spots.
That should suck everything out of me. I should start
feeling better, hopefully by the time I get home. I
came back home and I was feeling worse. I go,
that's it. I go, I'm done. And I hate hospitals.
I just don't do doctors. I don't do hospitals.

Speaker 4 (38:42):
I'm stubborn man.

Speaker 3 (38:44):
Right, And I go in and you know, of course
it's due to COVID. So the doctor comes into the
room and he's got like a blue et outfit on
with a tube hanging behind him, right, Like.

Speaker 1 (39:01):
I think it's important to tell the audience that it
wasn't an actual ETV. It was the people that were
wearing the bio hazard. Yes, yes, you're right, okay in front.

Speaker 3 (39:14):
It's funny because like the doctor comes in all suited up,
the RN is sitting there, she's just got like a
paper mask. Right.

Speaker 4 (39:20):
I'm like, you look at the tube and you're like, okay,
what's going on.

Speaker 1 (39:25):
Somebody's not communicating with somebody, you know.

Speaker 4 (39:28):
Something we don't know yet.

Speaker 3 (39:29):
Yeah, So he just the meeting was like, your simptoms
are basically telling me you have COVID, but we'll do
a blood test. And I go, it's not COVID. He's like,
I'm pretty sure it is. And I'm like, I'm pretty
sure it's not. So because it was COVID. During that timeframe,
you couldn't leave the hospital. You were put in a
separate wing to the hospital. So I got wing in
the hospital. I call Gaby like, hey, I got COVID.

(39:50):
I can't leave for like three days whatever. I wake
up one morning in the hospital and this is a
doctor standing there and he was like, I work.

Speaker 4 (40:00):
In oncology, and I just want to let you know.

Speaker 3 (40:03):
We're going through your blood work and everything else and
a peer as you have blockage in your colon, we
want to get checked out. And we've done some blood
work on your liver. What it looks like right now
is that you have multiple swimmers.

Speaker 4 (40:20):
You have cancer.

Speaker 3 (40:20):
And I was like, okay, so not COVID. He's like, yeah,
I gus, we just got the viowel after the sea.

Speaker 4 (40:27):
Wrong, okay, no big deal? All right, all right, cool,
everybody gets cancer? Like what kind? And how long?

Speaker 3 (40:32):
He's like, well, run a cool one to ask. We
run a few tests, and then a couple of days
we'll meet again and we'll we'll sit down and talk.
And I was like, all right, cool. So I had
like no idea. It was like stage four right, Like
it's just like you have cancer. And I'm telling game
like this sucks, but like, you know, my mom had cancer,
she beat my dad had cancer, she'd be We've we
know people would be in cancer before, right. I'm like,
all right, so I should should be all right, hopefully

(40:54):
caught this early enough.

Speaker 4 (40:55):
And then we go into his.

Speaker 3 (40:56):
Office to go talk to him and he's like okay,
so oh. They go through the book the whole time.
I'm like, can we get to the answer. Like, I'm like,
what's the number? What's stage?

Speaker 1 (41:06):
Man?

Speaker 3 (41:07):
News like you have stage four. I was like whoa, whoa,
that's that's not good. He's like, yes, you're gonna be
doing chemo. When I was like, okay, so like when
am I starting keemo? He's like right right now, like
you're when we're done here, you're walking into the room,
you're starting quemo.

Speaker 4 (41:20):
Like are you serious? He was like yeah, So they
already knew I had cancer, so they had a medical
port imported or implanted when I was knocked out for
like the colon oscary or whatever.

Speaker 3 (41:32):
So then I gotta come home and figure out, like,
all right, I have stage four cancer.

Speaker 4 (41:35):
In the first three.

Speaker 3 (41:37):
Months, I didn't get out of bed. I mean I
was in bed. I was waking up, I was taking pills.
I was seeing what was on TV. I was checking
everybody in the house, looked at the food, doing this
looks disgusting. Go to bathroom, lay down, all sleep, wake up,
do it again the next day and back then. Oh,
it was horrible because I was on so much medication.

(41:57):
I have the cold sweats every night, like two three
times a night. I'm waking Gabby up, like we gotta
change the sheets I got. I need help, like because
I'm just so drugged up.

Speaker 4 (42:08):
And I didn't know.

Speaker 3 (42:09):
I mean, I was taking what I was told to
take because they're doctors. Looking back on it now, I
wish I was more like, know this, know that we're
trying to do things healthy as well.

Speaker 4 (42:23):
But knowing the pills, I never looked at like them
oun like the opioids and all that kind of stuff.
But here we are now three years later and more
in control. Of how it works. It is what it is.
But yeah, that's how I found out. It was a
good tay. It was a nice, beautiful January day.

Speaker 2 (42:43):
I mean, but here we are three years later and
you are still battling and you are beating cancer because
you're still here.

Speaker 3 (42:51):
So I had a hard time in the meeting with
like trying to figure out what to say about like, yeah,
I have cancer, where I was like, I made a
joke a couple of times, like I never should up
because they didn't for the kids who, like I was
dealt in THEA certificate and I have stage four. I
had a cousin who works on college and she was like,
you need to stop saying stuff like that. She's like,
you need to remind your stuff that you're living with cancer.

(43:11):
You're not dying from cancer. And I was like it
was an instant switching my head, like I never thought
about it that way. And I'm sure you've run into
this reforms. Your boys have been out there when you've
been speaking that you're into a moment or whatever and
you're speaking and you don't realize sometimes they're they're there

(43:31):
and you're saying things Like when I was saying things
like death certificate or whatever, Like I didn't take into
account with like what those words really meant to my
kids or to Gabby or if they thought that I
was given up. I was just it was years later,
I mean just now just thinking around, like I can't
believe that I I did that back then, like it
was a couple of weeks ago. I've ever telling on

(43:52):
a friend of words return like we're not saying that anymore,
Like I get it, And it gets to point across
as but you know, has his comment about bad words
give you spells and good words give you blessings and
things like that, So why talk negatively about sometime when
we can talk positively about It'd be like he's still
living with it as opposed to he has a dathifficcate.

(44:14):
We all have a deus ctificate exactly. It's just a
matter of when is going to get the mail.

Speaker 2 (44:19):
So what are Michael Carnell's words to someone who's.

Speaker 3 (44:22):
Battling, man, It's never quit, never give up. Because a
lot of these cancer groups I run a part of that,
are online, and a lot of them are great because
there's people who have been in your situation.

Speaker 4 (44:36):
Before, who.

Speaker 3 (44:39):
You know, you may have a question about this treatment
that they're going to give you, or you're having this
problem and today, or you can't figure this out or whatever,
and somebody on there seems to know like, Hey, I've
been through this before. This is what we had to
deal with this even like so this is this group
is called the Colon Town Group, right because it's colon cancer.
But then they have like fifteen different groups or forty
different groups or stuff like that side of it. One of

(45:01):
them the military group and these guys and they're like, hey,
I'm men, have a hard time with my pack deck.

Speaker 4 (45:05):
How do I get this paperwork file? So you know
this people give advice.

Speaker 3 (45:10):
Well, there's one that's part of it's called Man Up
Cancer that is really good people with a lot of
good stuff in there. But there's a lot of negativity
sometimes too. People are like, I'm on round this. You know,
my life is horrible.

Speaker 4 (45:23):
I hate this. I'm sick all the time. I'm tired
of this.

Speaker 3 (45:26):
And you know, I get on there sometimes i make
my post and I'm like I'm on a round and
round thirty and no matter what happens, I'm still walking
out of here at the end of day. And I'm
gonna keep pausitive attitude and just keep moving forward. So
I feel sometimes people give up on themselves two months
that they don't want to have. And this is the
thing I've talked to the doctors before too. I'm like, look,
I understand you guys have MD if your neighbor, there's
a reason why it's called practice in medicine, right, I said,

(45:49):
But at the same time, was it I was just
gonna say something they see that was a cheymo bringer
just kicked in.

Speaker 1 (45:55):
No, it's fun.

Speaker 2 (45:56):
Jks TBI brain. So yeah, and I'm just forget no.
So I'll tell the doctors.

Speaker 3 (46:02):
I'm like, the one thing that you guys can do
is you can reacharge and you can come up with
hypotheses and theories and everything else.

Speaker 4 (46:09):
I said. The thing you guys don't hate into account
is human spirit, just even the faith the person has himself.

Speaker 1 (46:17):
Right.

Speaker 3 (46:18):
You could be as religious as you want to, you
still get cancer, and you could pray all the time
and hope those prayers are answered. But if you don't
have faith in yourself that you can believe something. That's
why I look at doctors. I'm like, yeah, you didn't
think I was going to be here a year ago
and I'm here. Let's take that as a stacking a win.

(46:39):
So when I get to days, I see her and
she's like, your numbers are down, they look really good,
and I'm like, high five.

Speaker 4 (46:44):
She's still kind of awkward to me. My uncle is
not like, she doesn't really do high five, but she's
she's been awesome, you know, and she's got me to
this point.

Speaker 1 (46:55):
So let's get back to Gabby. You took a job
with the Dollar Stars.

Speaker 4 (47:01):
She was an ice girl for the Dallas Stars Kiss.
So what is an ice girl?

Speaker 2 (47:06):
Ice girl? Not an ice girl.

Speaker 3 (47:08):
So they would go on ice and they clean the
ice in between the So in the NHL, if they
have three five minutes or three TV timeouts per period
and just supposed to be every five minutes fifteen ten five,
right turn those TV timeouts, the ice crops would come
on the ice wave, Hey how you doing, And.

Speaker 1 (47:27):
They do it in full body robes with hoods on.

Speaker 4 (47:30):
Pretty much, and then they had shovels.

Speaker 3 (47:33):
Then they would pick up the snow around the ice,
which would just you know, maybe he wants us off
the ice because it causes friction on the pocking slows
to puck down and everything else, so try to keep
it as clean asmon as possible. And I got stationed
fourth com clearly by accident, but I had a friend
who was here and he introduced to somebody else and
they were like, oh, you like hockey and I was like, yeah,
I've been playing stuff like four years old. And they're like,

(47:55):
do you want a job with the stars? Don't work security? Like,
I don't want to be dudes sitting around in her jacket.
Just let me read your jiggot. I'm like, I don't
want to do that, and they're like, just come on
out and tell us what you think. So the first
night was out there and I was signed to work
with Ice Girls, and I walked around with my now

(48:16):
wife at the time all night long. At the end night,
went back in the room with some of the guys
and they have like the pictures you know that the
Ice Girls sign all the time to pass out to
fans or whatever, and one of the guys was like,
out of all the girls in here, which one do
you like the best? And I actually pointed to Gabriella
and yeah, you did. After that, like it just seemed like,

(48:37):
you know, we would go to like they had the
bar at the Jack Daniels Club at American All and
said we'd always go up after the fans would leave
his stuff and then we'd be able to go up
there and go get a drink or whatever and see
our friends or whatever. And I saw Gabby and she
came out to me. She put her hand on me,
and she was like, we should go out some time.

Speaker 4 (48:53):
And I was looking us like this girl putting her
arm on me before.

Speaker 3 (48:57):
I'm like, I've been going to all these events for
like a year, chasing her around, showing up talking, You've
beck in full conversation with her. She'd be like, I
gotta go to the bathroom and then never come back,
and now now I'm supposed to put her arm on
me and we should go oh sometime.

Speaker 4 (49:12):
I'm like, this is so, what'd you do?

Speaker 3 (49:15):
We actually spent that entire night talking and then I
walked it back to the Parking garage and then we
set up a time to go out a date. She
had tickets for a Raiders game, so she's like, I
want to a Raiders game. So our first eight was
her take me to a Raiders game. And I don't
think the Rangers have ever hit so many.

Speaker 4 (49:31):
Home runs in one direction. All right.

Speaker 3 (49:34):
We were like in left field every two minutes, there's
a ball hit at us. I was like, this is
a bad spot, right, Like we're talking the whole time
and just trying to make sure we don't get hit
in the head.

Speaker 2 (49:48):
That is a beautiful love story.

Speaker 3 (49:50):
I chased her around for a year and then she
finally let me take her on a date, and then
we moved in. We started dating in September of Oh man,
oh three, September O three. Yeah, because you deployed No.
Four And we started doing in September, and I think
it was like November. I had to call her up
and I was like, hey, I go on, we just

(50:11):
got some news over here today.

Speaker 4 (50:12):
She's like what.

Speaker 3 (50:13):
I'm like, we're deploying. She has no idea what that
really means. She's still so new to the marine, like
she didn't have been to a rinkle ball yet. All right,
And I'm like I'm deploying and she's like, okay, go ah,
I wonder if you can help me out with something.
I go, my lease ends in February. We're leaving at
the end of February. I'm not going to get in an
apartment to put my stuff in storage. I go, if

(50:35):
I pay half your rent, can I just can I
leave my stuff? A year, all I had was a
couch like a TV, my clothes. I didn't have anything
at the time. I was twenty three, twenty four years old, right,
I had no money barely. I mean I think I
still use solo cups. I didn't even have a regular
cup in my apartment, right, So she's like, yeah, no problem.
When we came back from deployment, she picked me up.

(50:57):
We hung out that day, and then she took me
home home.

Speaker 4 (51:00):
I've never left. I've never been asked if I want
to live with her. Here we are twenty years later.

Speaker 2 (51:08):
I always be clothed and always that's brilliant. Yeah, twenty
years and three.

Speaker 4 (51:14):
Beautiful children, very well behaved children that I couldn't ask for,
literally anything better. I mean, parenting is one of those things, right,
we're always trying to figure out. And I had this thing,
I had written down that and of course now I
don't have the glasses, so I can't even know we
are here.

Speaker 3 (51:27):
We are, But when it came to the kids, that's
kind of what earlier about what we don't pay attention
all the time.

Speaker 4 (51:33):
What they here.

Speaker 3 (51:35):
We're always saying the things that we say, and things
like I said, like death certificate or whatever, and what
I go through and what I look like, less side effects,
the pain, et cetera, blah blah blah.

Speaker 2 (51:44):
Go.

Speaker 3 (51:45):
There's somebody else's watching me and paying attention. That's learning
and growing. And I feel guilty all the time because
I don't want my kids to grow up no one.

Speaker 4 (51:56):
Their dad was sick all time.

Speaker 3 (51:57):
Lean came home from school every day and I was
on the couch watch the TV under blankets, drink of tea,
looking miserable, you know. Or sometimes when I go in
and the epykmo in the side effects her, you know,
things like when my face breakout. I'm like, I don't
want to go anywhere with my kids because I want
them to be embarrassed because I look like the way
that I do. I think one of the good things

(52:19):
is our oldest daughter's soccer team.

Speaker 4 (52:22):
There's like six of them that're been together for like.

Speaker 3 (52:25):
Eight years, so we know them all very well. But
she's with such a good group of parents, and we've
been with them for a few years now that they
know what's been going on with me, and they know,
like when I'm not there when it's one hundred and
twenty degrees outside because I can't be in the heat,
and I might have to miss the gaming with her
because it's too cold. And having people like that in

(52:46):
our lives that just extends our support system and people
who can help us out has been immensely helpful. I mean,
I can't thank the parents of the teams that we
have around us that have helped us out big time.

Speaker 2 (52:58):
It's beautiful. And I think the kids don't see maybe
what you're feeling. I think they see eat their father
fighting because you're a warrior and that's what you've continued
to do for three years.

Speaker 3 (53:11):
Yeah, it's it's so just it just it's hard to
rapper on your head sometimes, you know. I mean Nick
asked me the other day and he's like, do you
have problems talking about death? I was like, dude, in
nineteen ninety eight, when I settled in a yellow contract,
I accepted death a long time ago, you know. And
I went to a private school, so I grew religious
and I accepted it a long time ago for myself.

(53:34):
If I was singled right now and somehoppen as a
car accident, Like I don't everybody sit here and feel
bad for right with Gabby and the kids and anything else.
My old goal, you know nowadays, making sure that they're
all taken care of. You know, not that nobody does,
but if it was for you coming to me that day,
like hey, apparently had been nominated from all of our friends.

(53:56):
They have this conversation you have to have you have
to have ah and you we're gonna hook you up
with a lawyer and everything else. I was like, you know,
things like that, you don't You don't prep for when
you're forty three years old and you're taking like I
got a great career.

Speaker 4 (54:10):
Things are taking off from me, My kids are doing well.

Speaker 3 (54:12):
I'm living kind of the American dream, and I'm having fun.
And then all of a sudden emergency break and you're like, yeah,
I guess what. All that fun it's all done and
over with that that's no longer a part of your life.
It's one of those of like, yeah, I have to
sit down and you have to figure it out. You're like, oh,
I goa do big boys stuff. Now I gotta do
a will.

Speaker 4 (54:33):
Damn.

Speaker 3 (54:34):
You know, it's it's tough to put that stuff in,
but it was nice to have it done and behind
us because we don't have to think about it anymore.
We know what's gonna happen with everything, what will happen
with the kids, what will happen with you know. I
mean obviously we're not talking like that. It is just
something that's gonna happen. But we're just yeah, we're more

(54:54):
prepped today than we were before and trying to just
enjoy life every single day. That's the thing is, there's
so many people where they're like you enjoying them, Like, yeah,
I have good.

Speaker 4 (55:03):
Days and bad days ago, but I'm living it, you know.

Speaker 1 (55:05):
And that's the thing is, it doesn't matter what that
looks like, right, And I think that it's important, you know,
with Jack and Jmo, the being from really young to
getting older and older and they would ask me about
the scars and you know this and how did that happen?
And I used to be concerned about, well, you know,
when I walk into the daycare, are they gonna be like, oh,

(55:27):
that's my dad with a robot leg and you know,
whereas now I just couldn't possibly care less, you know,
because it's easy to show them living when everything's great,
that's easy. Yeah, doing it's hard, but doing it now, Yeah,
Like you're showing them what grit with grace looks like.

(55:49):
And you're showing them And that's why I just wholeheartedly disagree.
And I think that's very much societal thing that's been
pushed on you. On that mindset of like, well, you know,
if I'm breaking out and I don't want to go
and I'm afraid they're going to be embarrassed, I mean,
I think that's really societal. Like I feel like if
we didn't have all that shit out there, you would
never cross your mind.

Speaker 4 (56:08):
Probably not.

Speaker 1 (56:10):
I think it's so important to say that what you've
shown them for the past three years is so much
more valuable than anything they're gonna get in the classroom,
anything they're gonna get on a soccer field or from
a game experience or gaming experience. I just truly believe

(56:31):
that what you've done has been it's been like I
sit in awe of you, and I don't do it
with and you know me, like, I don't say that lightly,
Like there's not a whole lot of people like wow,
I'm just blown away because I don't do that. I mean, man,
probably because it's pretty hard to blow me away. I

(56:51):
mean unless you're thought but bro with you, it's been
I think that your kids, your wife, your family, your friends,
just motivating to think about you. And it's motivating like
anytime I feel like shit and I don't want to
do another call or do this thing, and I'm like,

(57:12):
come on, guy.

Speaker 4 (57:13):
Yeah, I appreciate that. Man. I mean, it means a lot.
It's specially coming from you. I've learned a lot from
you over the years.

Speaker 3 (57:19):
And I said this once before, somebody has said I
wouldn't waste cancer on anybody. Obviously it's a horrible, miserable disease.
But some way it's been a blessing. And just guys,
it's me, Gabby and I a thousand times close to
each other. Even we're arguing about stuff, we don't argue

(57:39):
like when we were younger, you know, like oh ah,
you used to stay down with your friends, do long
and blah blah blah. I'm imad agin you for nine
days and I talk to you and whatever. Now she's
mad at me, and the next morning she wakes up,
she's like, how can.

Speaker 4 (57:51):
I help you?

Speaker 3 (57:51):
You know, and it's we've learned more about mutual love
and respect. It's deeper for us now than it was before.
But even with the kids, it wasn't like I ignored
the kid that we didn't go to things in them,
because we went to every event that they had, every
game they had, We been to it.

Speaker 1 (58:04):
Right.

Speaker 3 (58:05):
I appreciate it more now because they go to those things,
and I'm like, you know what, not everybody woke up
today and not everybody's getting to see this. So I'm
blessed with being able to wake up and me pissing
off the devil every day. And even if it feel
bad or I look bad, I love going to watch
the kids play and being at their stuff goes maybe
me sooner thinking in one way about like I don't

(58:27):
want them feeling bad that I look like this or
they think of me like this. When they get older,
hopefully they remind themselves that I was always there, you know,
I was always making it to the games. And I
hope in God and pray all the time that we
do something right with the kids, because it's like parenting is.

(58:47):
I don't care what book they give you, it makes
no sense whatsoever. You know, we love our kids so much.
We just try to figure it out all the time
the best we can. I guess, Kevin, I've always had
the mantra, will we'll figure it out, And you know,
they've fit a hard time with it. I mean, they
gotta they gotta go through this stuff too, you know,
they got to deal with a seeming like that. But
also like when they go to school, I don't know

(59:09):
if they bring it up. Like we've talked to the
teachers and let them know, you know, we when it
was one time a teacher sent us a message that
lex was having a hard day, and.

Speaker 4 (59:16):
I talked to her about it.

Speaker 3 (59:18):
But I'm not there, so I don't know what is
being said during the day during the class. I mean,
there shouldn't be something that prop as a topic of conversation,
but you know, it kid be and then they could
affect them a big time. I had to call the
coaches and stuff like that, tell them, like I just
need you to know they may come to practice of
a game today and be off because I'm off all right,

(59:41):
or I'm in the hospital, like when it's I had Nationals,
you know, I'm like I'm in the hospital.

Speaker 4 (59:45):
So she's in Virginia Nationals, and I'm like that I
had to have waited on her.

Speaker 3 (59:49):
I had to have had an impact on her, even
though I talked to her every day and told her
I'm good to go.

Speaker 4 (59:53):
Don't worry about it. I'd be fine. I'll be home
when you get here.

Speaker 3 (59:56):
Try to keep a positive I was like, I know
she had a hard time yet excited for being at
such a large event as she was at for herself,
such a huge ecompete for their team to go to
Nashville and be four than forty one other teams to
get there, and I felt bad because I wasn't there.
I was like, this sucks, but you know, we got
more Nationalist going on this week, so hopefully I make

(01:00:18):
up for it.

Speaker 2 (01:00:19):
So go to a little bit warmer weather. Yeah yeah,
Michael Carnell to echo everything Jake said. You truly inspire us.
You motivate us on the daily. We're just so privileged
that we've got you as a brother in our life

(01:00:40):
and we get to be in such close contact. But
thank you for coming and being so willing to share
your story to inspire so many other people. I love you.

Speaker 3 (01:00:49):
You all are family to us been I mean the
both asion you know that Avid for years. It was
funny when Nick asked me, He's like, how long you
known Jake. I go, I don't know, ago a long time.
And then he asked me, he's like, when did you
you remember when you met him? I was like, yeah,
I was like, we were at our friend's house. We were
at doing Max house, and you walked up the door
and you said, I just got the phone with Bobby G.
And I'm like, what the how do you know Bobby G?

(01:01:12):
And like everybody there looked at me, all like, well,
how do you know Bobby G. I'm like, I'm from Boston.
There's only so many Bobby G's in Boston.

Speaker 1 (01:01:21):
Yeah, you guys got in a fight.

Speaker 4 (01:01:22):
Yeah, okay the first time we met. Yeah, we were
at a hotel party in high school. Never spoke a
word to each other, just look at each other. All
of a sudden, he jumps on the bed. We start brawling,
no reason whatsoever.

Speaker 1 (01:01:33):
Another marine. So, with our brothers and sisters that have
served and deployed, you know, do you have any words
of advice to them about getting checked out?

Speaker 4 (01:01:45):
Absolutely? I mean nobody came up to me and told
me there was a thing like that. I need to
go get checked out.

Speaker 3 (01:01:49):
And this sounds like an immature adult, like I should
have been responsible and known, but I didn't or I
just didn't pay attention.

Speaker 4 (01:01:57):
It's extremely important. I mean with the.

Speaker 3 (01:02:00):
Pack tackets out there now, there's so many things that
are out there the VA will help out with. When
it comes to people who are dealing with cancer. The
thing is you got to get checked out.

Speaker 4 (01:02:09):
You have to. And you know, a Coleen Ausby is
like sometimes it's uncomfortable and it's you know, it's embarrassing
to want to go ahead and talk about whatever, but
it's it's an hour or two out of your day.

Speaker 3 (01:02:18):
You go ahead, you get checked out, and then you
get the rest of your life of knowing I have
no problems, or you find it early enough so that
you go ahead, go ahead and take care of So
take the time, make the appointment, whether it's with the VA,
whether it's your primary care doctor. It just get a
cancer screening. I know, like I said, I'm trying to
work on an event in March.

Speaker 4 (01:02:35):
We could do it here.

Speaker 3 (01:02:37):
But please take the time and get to a cancer
screening and just make sure you take care of yourself
because it works your ass off. To gets where you're at,
you might as well go ahead enjoy the rest of
your life. So get checked out.

Speaker 2 (01:02:48):
Michael, Is there anything else you want to say to
anyone that's listening?

Speaker 3 (01:02:52):
Man? You know, I mean I could see it all
day and thank all kinds of people forget me, you know,
to where I'm at.

Speaker 4 (01:02:58):
You guys are a part of that group.

Speaker 3 (01:03:00):
And you know, you say the thing all the time
about keeping you know, circle of small by design, and
I've really taken that into into our lives over the
last couple of years, about the people we really want
to trust and have around and who know what's going on.
You know this, you guys as Ray as if A
bores Is, you know, from Carlo Steve and you know

(01:03:20):
people up in Massachusetts.

Speaker 4 (01:03:22):
And but that's it, like the rest of us. Like
I'm not trying to hide anything for anybody. It's just a.

Speaker 3 (01:03:27):
Matter of I go through what I go through. And
I think the first year that I was diagnosed, it
was very public and everybody want to know, and it
was a thousand questions. It's a million emails and text
messages and everything else. I loved all the support, But
then it came to like year two, and I was like,
all right, I'm done, Like let me, let me live
my life and and.

Speaker 4 (01:03:47):
Try to figure it out. So there there's a million.

Speaker 3 (01:03:50):
Of people that I all the people involved, all the
nonprofits that we've found work with before, and I could
send a spitter all day they talk about it. There
was one this is This is a quote that I
really like and I keep it around.

Speaker 4 (01:04:04):
And it's about an old Cherokee. He may have heard
it before. It's about Cherokee and wolves.

Speaker 3 (01:04:09):
And the story it goes that there's an older man
he's taking out of his grandson and they're talking about life.
The old man explains to the grandson that not all
the people in this life, you know, they they're struggling too.

Speaker 4 (01:04:21):
There's a fight for them to go to. And the
struggle consists for two wolves.

Speaker 3 (01:04:26):
So one manifests itself to negativity, you know, bad energy,
and he's anger, he's sorrow, he's inferiority, he's all that's evil.
The other wolf with joy, he's capassion, he's faith, he's truth,
he's loved, he's.

Speaker 4 (01:04:40):
All that's good in this world.

Speaker 3 (01:04:42):
So the grandfather and the grandson said there for a
little while, and the grandson asked him. He's like, well,
which one that wins. He's like, whichever one you feed.
So we talk about love and appreciation for everybody else.
I feel that the more we feed that to ourselves,
the more we put that out there in the.

Speaker 4 (01:04:57):
World, the better everybody else would be.

Speaker 3 (01:04:59):
The man with all this other crap going on in
the world today, going back to the Bible, like you
love your neighbors, stuff like that, I just feel that
if we just started treating each other a little bit better,
eaching every day, it's going to make a big impact,
and it makes an impact on the children, because hopefully
my kids grow up to be, you know, good kids
and not punk wise asses like I was.

Speaker 4 (01:05:18):
Having to get out of the count.

Speaker 3 (01:05:21):
So I'll leave with that and say I love you guys,
thank you so much for even considering having me on
for something like this. Let me bump my gums for
a few minutes and hopefully gets to somebody who needs
to hear and gets your day better.

Speaker 1 (01:05:34):
Not guarantee you it well.

Speaker 2 (01:05:35):
Thank you for being part of the good stuff.

Speaker 4 (01:05:37):
We love you, love it.

Speaker 1 (01:05:43):
We are so grateful Mike had the strength to dig
deep today and have this conversation with us He is
truly an incredible human being and we are humbled, honored,
and privileged to call him brother. His life has definitely
made our lives better. No matter what you're going through,
keep going. Life is so short and precious, and every

(01:06:05):
moment matters. You matter, Make it count.

Speaker 2 (01:06:10):
We have one episode left in season one and it's
another great one. Make sure to follow The good Stuff
on social media, stay up to date on The good
Stuff podcast, and reach out to us on our website
at The Goodstuff podcast dot com, and rate and review
the show on Apple Podcasts. Thank you so much for
listening to the Good Stuff. If this episode touched you today,
please share it and be part of making someone's day better.

Speaker 1 (01:06:33):
Put on your bad ass caves like Michael Carnell will
go be great today, and remember you can't do epic
stuff without epic people. Thank you for listening to the
good Stuff. The Good Stuff is executive produced by Ashley Schick,
Jacob Schick, Leah Pictures and q Code Media. Hosted by

(01:06:54):
Ashley Shick and Jacob Shick, Produced by Nick Cassilini and
Ryan Counts. House post production supervisor Will Tindy, Music editing
by Will heywood Smith edited by Mike Robinson,