October 29, 2024 • 47 mins
Haven Shepherd was born in Vietnam. When she was 16 months old, her biological parents, who had had an affair, detonated a bomb that was intended to be a family suicide. It instantly killed her biological parents but Haven survived. Haven was thrown 10 metres from the family hut and driven for 2 hours on a motorbike to the local hospital where they amputated both of her legs.
She hasn’t had surgery since!
4 months later, she was adopted into an American family and gained 6 siblings! Haven is now an elite paralympic athlete who competed at Tokyo 2020. She also happens to be a laugh and a half with some of the most outrageous ‘double decker’ date stories we’ve ever heard!
In the chat we speak about:
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What Haven remembers about her early years
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Whether she holds resent for her biological parents
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How strangers ask inappropriate questions about how Haven lost her legs
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How Haven’s parents initially weren’t going to be her parents and the serendipitous way they found each other
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Why swimming was the best option for her
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How parents should teach their kids about disability
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Life Uncut acknowledges the traditional custodians of country whose lands
were never seated. We pay our respects to their elders
past and present.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Always was, always will be Aboriginal Land. This episode was
recorded on Cameragle Land.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Hi, guys, and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut.
I'm Brittany and I'm Laura, and today's episode is one
I'm so excited about. So today we're speaking to Haven Shepherd,
and her story is quite remarkable. The self determination and
the hard work, the inspiration, it's truly incredible. When Haven
was only sixteen months old, she was living in Vietnam
(00:45):
with her family, and her parents decided that they would
strap a suicide bomb to them and do what was
hoped to be a family suicide. Haven survived and her
parents did not. And the story that follows Haven's life
is one that I can't even think about in a
(01:06):
way without smiling because seeing you absolutely thrive now at
this point in your life, Haven is remarkable. So I'm
so excited to give you the space to tell your
story here today.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Welcome to Life on Cut.
Speaker 4 (01:17):
Hi, guys, Thanks for having me Haven.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Something that we do with every guest is accidentally unfiltered.
It's our embarrassing story. And you said that you have
an embarrassing story, we would love to hear it.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
Yes, I have.
Speaker 5 (01:30):
For Australia, I will tell this very embarrassing story that
happened last February. I was actually in Melbourne for a
swim meet and I kept telling you everybody, like, my
biggest fear is to like say an Australian accent to
an Australian speaking person, Like if I'm in a conversation
and I'd be like, oh nar like oh like that
was my biggest fear.
Speaker 4 (01:50):
That was my biggest fear.
Speaker 5 (01:52):
If I was talking to an Australian speaking person and
I start doing the accent to them. That actually happened
to me at the swim meet where they they were
handing me my towel and I said, oh, thank.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
You, Okay, oh do your best Australian accent. I mean,
no one ever says to run of the trip on
the barbie person.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
I want to hear it.
Speaker 5 (02:10):
How about I say a blue line. I can say,
I watch that all the time with my nieces. What
does she say?
Speaker 4 (02:16):
She says, Mum, dad, can you do a smooth chie kiss?
And he's like, they always say that in the in
the episode can you do a smooth chee kiss? And
what else?
Speaker 3 (02:30):
It's not bad.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
It goes a bit New Zealand kew and then a
bit UK.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Yeah, whenever Americans do an Australian accent, it has a
little bit of like a sounds British.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
It's so funny, Hoven that you say the like the
first word that came to your head for the Aussi's
was no.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
My partner is Swiss and he says it all the time.
He's like Australians.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
He's like, you don't understand how you say no? And
I'm like, what It's apparently the word no is like
a huge thing here.
Speaker 4 (02:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (02:56):
I think you guys are really not represented well on
the American.
Speaker 4 (03:01):
TV show H two Oh. I seen H two oh.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
But it was like fifty years ago.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
That is so great, Heaven, You're only twenty one years old,
is that correct?
Speaker 4 (03:13):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (03:14):
I mean, even just from.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
The short time that we've been speaking to you, your
positivity and your absolutely just like smiling nature comes through
the screen and I know that you yourself have been
through so much hardship in your life to be able
to get to the place that you are at now.
I would love for you to be able to explain
more about your story. Can you take us back to
(03:36):
what happened when you were sixteen months old?
Speaker 5 (03:39):
Yeah, so, I, like you guys were saying, I was
born in Vietnam to two people that had an affair
and had me. And the law back then in Vietnam
was women couldn't divorce husbands. So my biological mother was
still married to her husband, but she had an affair
with my biological father. So it was just this very
(04:02):
complicated relationship and only that happened. We don't know anything
else besides that I was a part of that affair.
The story was that he came home one night and
he decided to commit a family suicide with them, and
I was blown forty feet away from the blast and
the hospital ride was two hours. So they found me
(04:24):
forty feet away. I was on a back of a motorcycle,
probably on the way to the hospital. I was two
hours away And I didn't go in shock. I didn't
lose blood all that stuff, Like we have pictures of
me in the hospital. I was fine, Like it was
just like a little baby with her little legs mputated.
But yeah, that happened when I'm sixteen months old, so
(04:44):
that's a little over a one year old. And then
I was adopted when I was twenty months old, so
I only was in Vietnam and with my biological grandparents
for four months until I was adopted to United States.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Did you like, going back to the story about your parents,
I didn't actually know it was illegal that you couldn't
divorce back then. I don't know if it even is now.
But did the rest of your family and the extended
family know what was happening, Like, did your grandparents know
that there was this affair happening, that there was this
unrest to the point of that something like these could happen.
Speaker 5 (05:18):
I would say in their culture, it was very shameful
to get a divorce and then even worse, get pregnant
by somebody that isn't your husband, because my like even
on my Vietnamese birth certificate, I don't even have a
father on that birth certificate, Like, we don't even know
who this other person was. But it was very obvious
(05:39):
that I was a part of an affair because I
have a half sister in Vietnam and my biological mom
had her with her husband, but in the newspaper they
said they were married.
Speaker 4 (05:52):
But I think it's a lot of shame in that
culture where like, oh, you don't want to have a baby.
Speaker 5 (05:58):
Especially at a woodlock, and especially not with your husband
that you're married to. I can understand that's like a
huge no no, And that's even a big no no
now and in this reality right now. So I can
just only imagine being in her position. But I mean,
I'm so thankful that she decided to have me, Like
she could have had any opportunity to just you know,
(06:20):
leave me somewhere, you know, get rid of me any
but she kept. She kept me, and that's really special
to me to think that. You know, I knew I
was nursed by her. I knew I was with her
all the time because I really love folding laundry. I
really when I was adopted. I can say this because
it's out there now.
Speaker 4 (06:38):
I was really.
Speaker 5 (06:39):
Obsessed with my mom's chest when I was first adopted.
So that what's made my mom think you were probably
breastfed for like a really long time because you know,
very very very poor country.
Speaker 4 (06:51):
So I knew I was.
Speaker 5 (06:53):
She really loved me, and I'm very thankful that she
decided to keep me and have me into take care
of me, because, like I say, it's such a known
to have an affair and to have the baby.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Hayven your you said your grandmother, you were with her
for four months. Was it your grandmother who found you
or were you taken to her? How did you get discovered?
And like how did you I know you got to
the hospital in the back of the motorbike, but who
was it that got you there?
Speaker 5 (07:15):
I'm assuming it's my grandmother because in my hospital pictures,
she was the only one that was there. And we
were there for I said in the newspaper, I was
there for forty sixties and the only reason I got
to stay was because other people in the hospital donated
money so I could stay in the hospital for longer
for my treatment.
Speaker 4 (07:34):
And I've never had another surgery ever since.
Speaker 5 (07:37):
Then.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
That seems incredible because you hear I mean, you hear
that places like Vietnam, especially like rural where you were located,
then you know that you imagine the healthcare system and
the surgeons and the doctors are not as great as
they would be here in Australia or a first world country.
When you just said, you're really grateful to your mum
for keeping you and you know, like breastfeeding you and
(07:59):
keep you for that first year, not giving you up.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
How do you look at that now, because I.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
See that you're really positive about it when you know
that at the end of the day they wanted all
of you as a family to leave this earth. Do
you have a sort of like an understanding with that?
How do you reckon with that? Do you feel like, oh,
it was because of love that she did it, so
you understand Do you hold any resentment to what they
tried to do with.
Speaker 4 (08:25):
Perspective is a big thing for me.
Speaker 5 (08:27):
My mom is a life coach and she she didn't
want to raise seven children. She would not have had
seven children, but she made an emphasis that if I'm
going to have these many kids, I was going to
raise seven children. So she took time to raise each
and every one of us very individually, and for me,
it was a big perspective thing, Like she always talked
(08:48):
to me about, you know, you don't know what it's
like to be hungry for a really long time. You
don't know what it's like to not have a shower
and a bed and a family. And Christmas and Eastern
and all these like really exciting stuff in your life.
You don't know what that's like, And so that was
a big perspective show. She was telling me growing up,
(09:09):
like she didn't have anything. She had you and she
had what she.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
Could give you.
Speaker 5 (09:14):
And I don't hold any resentment to them, because I
don't know what it's what it's like to be hungry
and not to have utilities and a nice home and activities,
and we have a very beautiful life.
Speaker 4 (09:27):
Life is very blessed.
Speaker 5 (09:28):
So I just think that they were also again in
a very hopeless situation where they don't have food, money
to buy land or anything property. You know, they're just
very poor in the mountains, you know, living off what
they got. So the whole situation was just simply hopeless,
and this was the only way out. How many people think,
(09:51):
how we have anxiety nowadays. You know, the only thing
we think that can help us is a glass of
wine at the end of the day, doom scrolling on
your phone. We have a different type of hopeless, of
feeling lonely and no way out, but we don't know how.
It's an experience where you're in a third world country,
and there's no opportunities.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
You also said wait a couple of times in there,
and I realized you wasn't just you who was in
that explosion. It was also your sister who was there
as well. How was she affected and do you still
have any relationship with her?
Speaker 5 (10:26):
She was okay, like she So, I have a biological
grandparents on my mom's side. They took care of us
for the amount of time till I was adopted. But
my half sister was not in the explosion at all.
But I don't have any contact with her. I have
pictures of them and her, but it's almost like a
(10:47):
past life thing.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
They know me, but I have no memory of them.
Speaker 5 (10:50):
Like my first memory is my first Easter having candy everywhere,
Like that's like literally my first memory.
Speaker 4 (10:56):
I don't have any memory at all.
Speaker 5 (10:57):
So when I look back at pictures of myself from
a baby, like in the hospital Vietnam like that, I
don't even recognize that that's me. So when I look
at what my life could have been, that's like almost
a past life thing. Like I was born new when
I came over here after the explosion, they decided to
amputate my legs below the knee. It's not a clear
(11:18):
cut across. They're both two different links, but I both
have my knees. There's a really big hospital around this
area in Kansas City, and I went there.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
When I first got home.
Speaker 5 (11:28):
I got all my vaccinations, all everything, and they said,
she is a completely healthy baby. She doesn't need any
new surgery. She's completely fine. And isn't that crazy coming
from a hospital that has probably very little resources to
have a major surgery on a baby to have none.
I'm twenty one years old today, the surgery was twenty
(11:51):
years ago, and I've never had another revision.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
It's just crazy.
Speaker 5 (11:55):
So yeah, I have no scarring anywhere, like I just
have my amputayas nothing else is on my body.
Speaker 4 (12:03):
It's just the amputations.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
I think that sometimes it is absolutely shocking the things
that a child can withstand and then still grow into
being this incredible adult. What was it like for your mom?
How did she come across you to be able to
adopt you? What was that process like for her to
be able to find you?
Speaker 5 (12:20):
Well, So, my accident happened when I was sixteen months old,
but two years prior to that, my mom had an epiphany.
She was in church one day and somebody was talking
about adoption and she was like, oh, I would like
to have that. I'm telling you, like just like simple epiphany,
(12:40):
Like it never crossed her mind to adopt. She has
six children of her own, and she always tells a
story it's a really hard buy for your husband to
tell him, Hey, I think we should adopt after you
having six children and a house full of eight bedrooms
and eight bathrooms and it's not wonderful that you just renovated. Yeah,
(13:01):
it's a really hard ask for a husband.
Speaker 4 (13:05):
So they went on.
Speaker 5 (13:06):
A really intense journey on trying to my mom convincing
my dad to adopt, because he was like, the we
have fourteen sports schedules, we have Zach in college playing basketball,
we have saw your playing middle school baseball, Like, how
are we going to adopt? And so they actually went
through marriage counseling. My mom says it was basically me
(13:28):
and the therapist, I think he's wrong, and I think
you should change his mind. And obviously in therapy you
can't just be like, yes, you should listen to your wife.
But they went through intense couple therapy to basically tell
my dad, hey, your wife really wants less, so you
better just agree. So after two years, my dad went
(13:49):
on a mentor retreat and he came back and finally
told her, yes, I think we can adopt. And then, serendipitous,
her college best friend, I mean her school best friend
reached out to her and said, hey, I found this
little girl and the newspaper in Vietnam. Do you want
to go get her? And my mom was like, yeah,
(14:10):
I would love to go get her, just for the adventure.
I was not their baby. So they just went on
the adventure and they were gone for two weeks in Vietnam,
and obviously they fell in love with me.
Speaker 4 (14:21):
I just I mean, I was such this precious baby.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Because I listened to some interviews with your mom and like,
bless her soul, she's incredible. But I heard her saying
she tried really hard when your dad was like I
don't want to adopt, she tried really hard to let
that go and be like, oh, okay, it's not for us,
he doesn't want it. And for whatever reason, she's like
I woke up every day and could not stop thinking
about that, Like I was.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
Destined to have this child.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
And then when they went to pick you up, to
take you back to another family. She talks about how
the fact that you were just obsessed with them and
your dad from the day that they picked you up,
like I just didn't want anyone else, just wanted to
baby with him, and you fall in love immediately.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
It's like you chose them.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
Yes, yes, my mom called it.
Speaker 5 (15:10):
When I was little, I had like a little sixth sense,
like I could always pick up on, you know, certain situations,
certain things. To I was very much an old soul,
like I could speak through my eyes basically, So when
they came and got me for this justice adventure, that
I was not their.
Speaker 4 (15:27):
Baby, I was just this, Oh, it's just gonna be
an adventures. I fell in love with my dad.
Speaker 5 (15:33):
I don't think I've ever cause you had to think
like a baby that has never seen a very tall, bearded, white,
dark haired man, like wow, that's so intriguing. But I
fell in love with my dad on the beach, and
then he had to go home for work after a week.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
And I'm still I'm still quite in love with my parents.
I was telling them the other day on the I
was laying on the couch.
Speaker 5 (15:59):
I was laying on the couch and I was like
we were watching a movie and I was like, guys,
this is just great, just the three of us, everyone else,
so back, going back. He had to leave for work
after a week to go back home. My mom spent
two weeks with me, and again I wasn't their baby.
(16:20):
They're bringing me to this other family that homeschooled and
wore glasses and knitted their own sweaters and lived on
a farm and did not have health insurance. It was
really a great situation.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
I love that you said, just to set the same.
Speaker 5 (16:36):
Yes, yes, we lived on a farm and they did
not have health insurance, and they were bringing me home
for them, and after two weeks they dropped me off.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
I was not having a good.
Speaker 5 (16:46):
Time because I just wanted to paint a picture for
you what I was like in Vietnam with my mom.
I needed to wear all her jewelry and I was
really into, like they bought me new baby clothes on
the street. I was really into wearing my new baby clothes.
And I had a purse and I had hair clips,
(17:07):
and I was not supposed to go to this nat
knitting sweater family that lived on a farm. She was
she said, I was a shepherd girl from the very beginning,
like I needed my nails painted, I needed like, this
is a twenty month old baby, by the way, Like
there are pictures of me with just tons of all
her stuff on. And so she just knew that I
(17:30):
was just a shepherd. So giving me up to them
for six days was just so hard for her. And
then Pam called her one day after the six days
and said, Hey, I don't think it's working out with
the proctors. Haven isn't very happy. Do you and Robston
want her? And my mom got off the phone after
she said yes, she got off the phone with them,
(17:51):
and she said she spent two thousand dollars at them
all that day because she knew I was coming home
that night. She's like, she needs a new crip, she
needs a new strullder, she needs a carci oh, a
whole new wardrobe. She said she spent probably over two
thousand dollars just going crazy at the baby stores, and
so she was ready for me to come home.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Hey, even it's such a remarkable story for so many reasons.
But I would assume that most adopted families would expect
to have a period that is hard with their new baby.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
So it is absolutely.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Wild to me that this farm knitting family after six
days was like, oh, this is a bit hard, Like
I would genuinely expect it to be that. You know,
it's a new child in a new environment with new people, Like,
of course they're going to be scared and crying and
all the other things. So to think that they got
to the end of that six days and thought that
this isn't the right fit for me, it's almost like
(18:45):
there was this divine fate that was at work there
that you are exactly where you're supposed to be.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Well, it sounds more like I have no doubt if
you did live your life on that farm, you would
have had a wonderful life. But it sounds more like
they were really great people that wanted to do a
great thing. And being an amputee, I can imagine your
medical expenses were going to be astronomical, and so they've
wanted to do a good thing. But at the end
of the day, American you need health insurance. They didn't
have it, So I think they probably bit off more
(19:12):
than they could chew, even though they had great intentions.
Speaker 5 (19:15):
No, I don't hold anything against them, it just wasn't
the right fit. I still know them to this day,
like they are great people. They were just not for me.
They had I mean, they were going to have give
me a beautiful life regardless, but it just wasn't the
right fit. And I was just a shepherd girl. I'm
a maximalist at heart, and I was a maximalist back then,
(19:37):
and it was just not going to cut it with
the one sweater.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
I love the ownership too.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
You got into swimming really young, so I mean at
three years old you started swimming, and it's obviously taking
you across the world. It's become such a massive part
of your life because I can only imagine as a
parent who has so many children, it is really really
high to cater to the intense schedule of all the
different sporting requirements of your kids and their schedules and
(20:07):
everything else. How firstly, did your parents allow for you
make time for you to be able to have the
schedule of someone who is a paralympian now?
Speaker 5 (20:19):
So, yeah, I started swimming at three years old. We
had a pool in our backyard and it was very
important for my dad for me to learn how to swim,
because if I just waltzed outside one day, I needed
to know to learn how to just at least paddled
to like knock drown. So that was really important. So
people are always surprised when I say that, like, yeah,
I learned how to swim at three years old. You
(20:40):
need to put your kids in lessons or something. It's
an important life skill to learn how to swim. So
I always knew how to swim. It's never like, oh,
I didn't know how to swim and then I became
this great paralympian. No. I was in track, and the
problem with track is that the stuff would go into
my eyes and.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
I think it was sweat.
Speaker 5 (21:00):
Sweat would go into my eyes and my heart would
start pumping, my makeup would just go everywhere. It was
just not for me. My parents were like dull. We
would get her and swimming. So I had one swim
lesson and they're like, oh, she needs to go to
a different swim club, Like we can't train her the.
Speaker 4 (21:18):
Way, Like she's way too advancing.
Speaker 5 (21:21):
So we went to a more an elite club when
I was I would say thirteen to about eighteen.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
I was there for a long time and I progressed
like very rapidly. I progressed.
Speaker 5 (21:34):
At thirteen, I made the emerging team was on Tmusa
and then just built on from there. I made lots
of international teams, I made standards all that stuff. So
swimming was just a hobby at first, and then I
think my parents realized, like, oh, she's she's pretty good,
we should probably invest more time into this.
Speaker 4 (21:56):
So it was definitely really.
Speaker 5 (21:58):
Hard being in a big face family and having lots
of different sports schedules, but my parents made it work.
My grandparents picked me up a lot, But I think
my parents did a great job. They came to everything,
even like my brother played baseball at the time, Like
we would be a swim practice and then straight to
the ballfield. I always tell people I was raised at
sporting events. I was raised in the winter at basketball courts,
(22:22):
and then in the spring it was volleyball, and then
all summer long was at a baseball park. And my
four main food groups were nacho cheese, skittles, ice cream,
and gatorade. And it's all the food dies.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
It's actually incredible because he's so much about like when
you're trained to be an athlete, you have to eat.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
You know, you've got at.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Macros and your micros and way yourself and you only
eat proteins at this time, and you're like, I'm apparently
pen survived on nachos and hot dogs. I even when
you get in the pool, do you feel any relief
in terms of are you in any kind of pain
or do you feel a lot of pressure being on
your prosthetics all day? Does that provide you with any
sort of comfort.
Speaker 5 (23:02):
Yes, for till I was about eleven to about now
until twenty one. You have to think, you know, I
always debscribe to people. We're in prosthetics all day long.
It's not like I think about it all the time,
like when you wait. First thing you wake up at
the morning and you put on your glasses to see.
The first thing I do in the morning is to
put my legs on so I can walk, So like
(23:23):
it's not like something the conscious forefront thought all the
time that I have prosthetic lakes. But going to school
for eight hours and then getting to swim for three
hours and just take my legs off, like that is
just the relief that I needed, Like my arms could
handle the weight that my legs have been doing all day,
And it was just so such a great like relief.
Speaker 4 (23:44):
And by the end of the night, I'm like, oh,
you did good today. You did good.
Speaker 5 (23:49):
You walked all up the stairs at school, and you
got to swim and just pump your arms, and now
you just get to rest and do it all again tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Do you think in your lifetime ever underestimated your abilities?
And I mean this in a way of like judging
a book by its cover. People who may not know
you or who may see that you're a double amputee.
Have you ever felt that people have underestimated you?
Speaker 5 (24:12):
Yeah, especially growing up in my small town. Everybody really
knew me. But it was never like, oh, she can't
do that. It was always like people saw me grow
up through my whole life and then so it was like, oh,
haven can do that. It was I never had to
prove myself in any type of way because parents saw
(24:32):
me on the playground playing with her kids like, oh,
like she can keep up. Like So, I grew up
with people that already knew me. So I don't think
people thought I would make it on the professional level
as I did. But I never gave people a reason
to doubt doubt me anyway. So I say that's the
best way I could describe it is that I never
gave people a reason to doubt that I could be
(24:53):
like everybody else because I was already keeping up with
everybody else. Basically, I was very much a normal child.
And I want to say that to any any parents
that have children with disabilities. Your kid is going to
grow up normal if you treat them normal. And there's
no reason to put labels on anybody if you don't
put any limits on them. As soon as you label
(25:14):
your kid as disabled, you're going to put a limit
on them.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
I think that's something society has taken a long time
to learn though, and that's for reasons like the Paralympics
not being as advertised as visible as it is now.
And a really good friend of ours, Ellie Cole, she's
a Paralympic swimmer. I recently went into the I'm a
Celebrity Jungle with her. So she has one leg, she's
got one prosthetic, and the number of people that doubted
(25:39):
that she could be okay in there, myself included when
I went in. And we've been friends for a long time,
but when we went in, I was like, let me
know if you need anything, because it's like pretty hardcore
living conditions and like a lot of climbing up mountains
like off center kind of stuff, and all the challenges.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Her leg literally needed electricity, so they've brought in a
solar fee we had.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Yeah, we had to solo charge her legs, so I'd
be like walking.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
Around with the solar panels.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
But I learned very quickly that she's more capable than
I am, like, and I think that that is also
something just from seeing the Paralympics more on our screens.
But people up until probably I don't know, maybe this
is just my ignorance, but people up until probably the
last ten years have assumed that if you are an amputee,
(26:24):
or if you're in the Paralympics, if you have any
kind of disability, that you are not capable to completely
immerse yourself into a quote unquote normal society.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
But it's just so far from the truth.
Speaker 5 (26:35):
H Yeah. I especially living in by myself, it kind
of it kind of hit me when I moved to
a new town. You know, I would be out buying
groceries and people tell me, oh, you're.
Speaker 4 (26:46):
So good that you're getting out there. I'm like, She's like, what, why,
Like why I need groceries? Don't you need groceries? That's
why we're at a grocery store. Question Mark, like, I
also drive, also drive a car.
Speaker 5 (26:59):
And I have a driver's license, and I have health insurance.
Speaker 4 (27:04):
I have all these normal things.
Speaker 5 (27:05):
I have paid my taxes, Like I'm just like anybody else,
And it's almost like I just I describe it as
being like an alien out in the world that like
lives in your reality as well, Like I'm just an
alien living in other people's reality. But I also describe
being an amputee like constantly being in a constant state
(27:25):
of pregnancy. When you're pregnant, everybody just goes up to
you and says, oh, how long has it been and
are you doing okay?
Speaker 4 (27:32):
And k ken I, Oh, you're doing so well.
Speaker 5 (27:35):
It's like it's just being an amputee, is being in
a constant state a pregnancy of people always needing to
say something to you.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
How do you deal with that when a complete stranger
oversteps the mark says something that is completely out of line.
Speaker 5 (27:51):
I think every day that I leave my home, I
get asked what happened to my legs and all that stuff.
Speaker 4 (27:57):
But it's actually funny. I thought of this the other day.
Speaker 5 (28:00):
You would never go up to a bald person and
be like, so when did you start going bald?
Speaker 4 (28:06):
So when you go up to amputee?
Speaker 5 (28:08):
So when did you lose your legs? Because I could
say the same thing back to you, so when did
you start dressing bad? Like it's just the same amount
of well you don't have legs today, I'm like, yes
I have I don't have my legs every single day.
It hits me different times and other times. But when
(28:29):
I was a teenager, it definitely like, was can I
just eat out with my friends and not be a
museum for you to investigate into.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
It's almost as though people who have any sort of
like presentable disability quote unquote have to.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
Carry the explanation as to why they have that.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
But you put something up on your socials, which I
thought was really interesting because it's one thing to ask
the question, But what do you do with that information
once you've received it? And you sort of said, if
you're going to ask someone about their disability, you better
be able to hold space for the reason why they
have that or the reason why they've experienced it. What
(29:08):
is the reaction that people give you when you tell
them why you lost your legs?
Speaker 5 (29:13):
I definitely ruin a lot of people's mornings by telling
them in the coffee line, yeah, affair and bomb, and
then I was exploded and this what's happened to me?
Speaker 4 (29:23):
And then they don't take it well.
Speaker 5 (29:25):
They don't take it well in the Starbucks line, and
then I'm standing there like, yeah, this didn't happen to
me yesterday.
Speaker 4 (29:31):
I'm just not gonna yeah.
Speaker 5 (29:34):
And they're like, oh, oh really, and I'm like, yeah,
they weren't really lift off by puppies, if that's what
you really wanted to hear. And then I shot rainbows
across the universe and who might have crossed legs?
Speaker 1 (29:50):
It's so true though, right, Like there's not going to
be any positive event that I can think of that
would leave you with an injury like that, Like there's
just not and people need to be more self aware.
But we've spoken to Lauren Wasser, the model with the
Golden legs, like I mentioned Ellie Cole. We've spoken to
quite a few paralympians and amputees and it's sort of
(30:10):
in contrast to what you're saying, and I want to
know if you agree, but they've sort of said like
they often will see very obviously little kids are staring
at them and asking their parents, like they watch it
go down.
Speaker 3 (30:22):
You can see the little kids pointing, what's that? Why
they why don't they have legs?
Speaker 1 (30:26):
And they've always said come over to us and ask us,
like in that sense they tell parents, come and speak
to me, because I would rather educate your child that
this is normal and I can do all this stuff
and I'm like a superhero. Do you find space for
that when they're when it's almost like an education for
the younger.
Speaker 4 (30:42):
Yes, I see it both ways.
Speaker 5 (30:44):
So I think when you are a parent, it is
a really big responsibility three children.
Speaker 4 (30:50):
It is your.
Speaker 5 (30:51):
Responsibility to teach your children how to react and to
approach people because it's not really appropriate to just like
my niece went for a long time, she'd be out
in public, She's three years old and she was like, hey,
that man's bald, and like you don't you just don't
say that out loud. So, yes, I do love it
(31:12):
when parents do come up to me and educate your children,
but it's also their responsibility to teach them. They're just
a person existing, Like you wouldn't like somebody to come
up to you all the time. I feel like it's
your as a parent, you're responsible for your child, and
to pull them aside afterwards and say, so, what did
you learn from that experience? How are you going to
(31:35):
when you see somebody else like that again, how are
you going to acknowledge? And because it's not nice to
just like kids are also children too, Like they have
a lot of grace where you can say yes when
kids point at you, and like, just like I had
a kid.
Speaker 4 (31:49):
One time I was with a group of my friends,
They're like.
Speaker 5 (31:52):
Oh, mom, look like that is your responsibility as a
parent to be like, hey, that's not kind.
Speaker 4 (32:00):
It's not kind.
Speaker 5 (32:00):
But more times out and not parents do handle those
situations a lot better. I think the problem I have
is when adults don't handle situations better.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
But I would almost say that a lot of times
children who don't handle it well are often a reflection
of their parents.
Speaker 5 (32:19):
I feel like kids have so much wonder and you
can't blame you can't blame people's curiosity. I know I
make people uncomfortable because like out in public, you see something,
you're looking at it, and then I notice you're looking
and then oh you feel awkward. So you need to
say something and it's just an awkward exchange at the
bar and you're like, Okay, I'm gonna go walk over
(32:42):
there now and good goodbye. And I think people you
can't blame curiosity. I mean, all of us are curious,
and all of us deserve grace, But if you don't
handle situations, well that's where I am.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
Like, come on, Like, obviously, we've covered so much about
your story as to how you've gotten to where you are,
but like the most incredible part of it is the
fact that you are a Paralympian. When was the time
that you realized that your career in swimming that it
was going to be what it is, that you had
the ability that you were actually going to make it
(33:15):
to the Paralympics. When was it that you realize that
this is something that could be a career for you.
Speaker 4 (33:20):
Oh.
Speaker 5 (33:21):
I think there's a saying that's like ignorant is bliss.
I feel like my entire teens was just bliss because
I was oblivious to everything around me and I still
am not very self aware, but I think being that young,
experiencing that level of intensity and eliteness at a young age,
(33:45):
it was just almost like not aware of it, Like
aware like this, Oh, this is like really serious, like, oh,
I'm about to swim for my life at this race.
But it's just not my personality. I am going to
be so honest with you guys right now. I'm not
very a competitive person.
Speaker 4 (34:02):
It's just not in my it's just not in my heart.
I don't need it. I don't need to win all
the time. It's not It.
Speaker 5 (34:12):
Just doesn't fuel me like other things do. Like I said,
ignorance bliss like So, I went to the Paralympics in
Tokyo in twenty twenty. That was a great experience. I
was seventeen years old, I just graduated high school and
I had no friends and I am on this adventure
for two months, going to the Paralympics for the first time,
(34:35):
and it was just great.
Speaker 4 (34:37):
Obviously after the fact.
Speaker 5 (34:38):
I found out about some really awful things after the fact,
but overall, my experience was great, and coming home from
that high I just knew that I was needed.
Speaker 4 (34:50):
To be myself from here on out.
Speaker 5 (34:52):
Like I think people really struggle with group settings and
trying to not be themselves and try to fit in.
But my biggest goal going into Tokyo twenty twenty and
being away for four weeks was to just be myself,
not change for anybody, not change for my surroundings, not
(35:13):
compromise on my values, my morals just because I am
feel pressure from people around me, and so that's what
I did. Like I went into every race thinking I
need to be myself, Like I'm not going to be
this tight ass person in the call room, gonna stare
you down and make me faces at you and tell
(35:34):
you that you did a.
Speaker 4 (35:34):
Shitty job at your blah blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 5 (35:37):
Like that's just not my personality. Like, no, I'm gonna
be nice. I was raised to be kind to people
and show people to grace and oh that was Oh
that was such a good race, and you did such
a good job, Like that's how I was race. And
I also think at the time I was younger, I
was representing my parents in my family. So if we're
(35:59):
got to them that I was a brat and I
was not responsible and I was not respectful to people
around me and my authorities, that would get back to
my parents and they would tell me, like, we raised
you better than that, and you show respect to people
that are older than.
Speaker 4 (36:14):
You, even though you don't like the rules, blah blah
blah blah blah.
Speaker 5 (36:18):
So I knew that was my responsibility going into Tokyo,
and I feel like I did a good job.
Speaker 4 (36:24):
I didn't get in trouble.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
Once you are the Paralympics, you definitely did a good job.
Well what fuels you? Then you say it's not winning?
Speaker 2 (36:31):
But I mean that's such a different perspective than anybody
else we've had on I mean, any other elite athlete
has always said, like winning is kind of the goal.
So if it's not that, what makes you keep going
when you are Paralympian?
Speaker 5 (36:44):
I think having fun, Like I just have. I just
have too much fun. I just it never gets too
serious for.
Speaker 4 (36:50):
Me, Like I just have too much fun.
Speaker 5 (36:52):
All I was probably thinking about at the Paralympics was Oh,
I promised this track girl. I was going to be
ice cream with her that night at the dinning. So
I need to get back, like right now, I just
have too much fun.
Speaker 3 (37:03):
And I I want to adopt you. I want you
come and live with us.
Speaker 5 (37:09):
Life is just too I don't tell you life too seriously,
but you gotta have, like again that perspective thing you are.
Speaker 4 (37:17):
You are here you got a free.
Speaker 5 (37:19):
Plane ticket to Tokyo, Japan, Like, have fun with your friends,
get all the get all the cokes from the soda
machine and take them back to your dorm room and
sneak food in from the didding hall and help your
friends sneak out to other boys apartments.
Speaker 4 (37:36):
Like that's that is what life is about.
Speaker 5 (37:39):
Is about keeping it light and competing very very hard,
but mostly fun.
Speaker 3 (37:46):
Talking about ignorance is bliss.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
Just when you were talking about like twenty twenty Olympics
was great, A Paralympics was so fun. But then you
made a comment about, you know, besides those bad moments,
but it didn't happen to you. What were you referring to?
What was this something that went down with the Paralympic
stream team that went on across Or am I just
have I missed something?
Speaker 5 (38:05):
No, I just I just feel like it's more of
a little bit more drama happened behind the scenes that
I was just not aware of or I was not
invited to know about, which is fine.
Speaker 4 (38:15):
Which is fine. I'm I'm always out of the loop,
so it's fine.
Speaker 5 (38:18):
But I think it's just a level of like drama
and oh, I don't like her, and she stole my
shirt and she wow, and he likes her, and I
I just stay in my room. I just stay in
my room, and I go to lunch when I'm supposed to,
and I get on the right bus.
Speaker 4 (38:38):
I get on the right bus that I'm scheduled.
Speaker 5 (38:40):
For, and I pack everything. I'm just I am just
an A plus student.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
So what is success like for you now? What does
it look like outside of the pool? And do you
are we going to see you at the next Olympics. Paralympics.
Speaker 5 (38:54):
Life for me right now is just enjoying my family.
I don't think I've ever spent this much time with
my family because I'm always on the go. It wasn't
just swimming, it was other commitments that I had to
be gone. Like last October, I was probably gone for
every single weekend, flying everywhere because I needed to be.
(39:14):
And so I actually get to enjoy my family and
get to enjoy, you know, getting to see my nieces
and nephews grow up, and you know, actually spending time
with the people that I actually care about. Because you
do this for the people that you love. I do
it for me and my family and to represent ourselves
and to get our story out there.
Speaker 4 (39:33):
But I didn't actually get to enjoy the people that.
Speaker 5 (39:37):
Helped me along this journey, Like I'm not actually spending
time with them. Being on home soil for twenty twenty
eight does sound enticing, But I'm enjoying my little.
Speaker 4 (39:46):
Break right now.
Speaker 5 (39:48):
I get to enjoy being a little sassy, home, little
little girl back in my hometown.
Speaker 4 (39:56):
And do you guys ever watch gil More girls? I
feel like a little gil More girl. I grew up
with a goo That's how I feel.
Speaker 5 (40:03):
I feel like I'm just in this like little bubble
that I've never got to live in. Everything was just
so out there, and I just get to oh, this
is so nice. I get to just be at home
and to enjoy my fruits of my labor.
Speaker 2 (40:16):
Hi, even if you were swimming, what would you want
to be or do with yourself?
Speaker 4 (40:21):
Do you guys know this?
Speaker 5 (40:22):
I only only because you don't have the sport in Australia?
Do you know who Taylor Swift's boyfriend is, Kanas City Chiefs.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
I watch so much of that football now because my
partner loves it.
Speaker 3 (40:35):
I know all of it.
Speaker 5 (40:36):
Okay, Well, the game's going on right now and it's
not going well, but I would like to audition to
be alignment for the Kansas City Chiefs.
Speaker 4 (40:45):
And I already have my audition already laid out.
Speaker 5 (40:48):
Hi.
Speaker 4 (40:48):
I'm Haven Treppard. I am five foot five, I weigh
one hundred and thirty five pounds.
Speaker 5 (40:53):
I've never played a contact sport, but I would love
to get out there. And the lineman's are the big
three hundred pounds men can people.
Speaker 3 (41:01):
I don't think you can be alignsman. I don't want
to be a person that burst your bubble. I disagree
with the attitude that Haven has. I reckon you could
do whatever you want. Honestly, they would squish you. If
they fell on you, you are dead.
Speaker 5 (41:15):
I think a power of positive energy would just push
these men over. And I want to be the first
woman lineman. And I feel like I meet a lot
of requirements. I gave them my height, my weight. I
feel like that is.
Speaker 4 (41:29):
Enough for them to audition, not audition, try out. That's
not a play. It's not a play.
Speaker 3 (41:35):
I'll put the call outs for you.
Speaker 1 (41:37):
This is definitely like a relationship style podcast. And you
mentioned before that you would help like your friends sneak
out at the Paralympics to meet boys. Ellie, who we've
had here, says that it's just like it's hot property there,
Like it is almost like a dating site.
Speaker 4 (41:52):
What is it?
Speaker 3 (41:53):
How uncomfortable? I guess what's it? What's the dating life
like for you?
Speaker 4 (41:58):
Like?
Speaker 3 (41:59):
Are you dating any one? Have you ever had hot break?
Speaker 5 (42:02):
Like?
Speaker 3 (42:02):
We love this sort of relationship goes.
Speaker 4 (42:07):
Oh.
Speaker 5 (42:08):
I did have a very serious boyfriend. Uh, I think
a year ago.
Speaker 3 (42:13):
I think it's a fall.
Speaker 4 (42:17):
It was not a good boyfriend.
Speaker 5 (42:19):
He was not a good boyfriend. But he was six
foot three, so I will give him that. I recently, I.
Speaker 4 (42:28):
Can't believe have told you this. I he will never
see it anyway.
Speaker 5 (42:33):
I recently had to break off a situationship with a
He was a New York City detective that I met
on a modeling shoot and he reached He approached me
in real life and asked me for my phone number.
Speaker 4 (42:46):
I was like, it was crazy.
Speaker 5 (42:49):
He had a badge and a gun and everything, and
I was like, I'm about to get in my.
Speaker 4 (42:52):
Uber like.
Speaker 5 (42:55):
But yes, I had to recently break off a situationship
and I didn't even know how to write this text message.
So I went into chat GBT and I typed in
long paragraph breaking off message period.
Speaker 1 (43:12):
If there is ever a twenty one year old breakup
that easy, that is brilliant.
Speaker 4 (43:18):
So I copied and I past and I sent it.
I didn't even read it. I didn't even read it.
I was like, good enough, you read it.
Speaker 3 (43:30):
How do you even know about the names written? What
if it's written like Shakespeare or something.
Speaker 5 (43:33):
I didn't skim it, and I was like, oh, that's
too sassy for me. I long paragraph. Nice way to
break off with somebody that's not your boyfriend, period period.
And then it was like this long it was the
song and I was like, I'm not reading all that.
Speaker 4 (43:49):
And I actually sent it this morning.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
So oh my god, has he written back?
Speaker 4 (43:56):
Uh? I haven't looked.
Speaker 5 (43:58):
I've I am not very much a dater, but if
I go on a date, I like really go on
a date. I double stack dates with different people, so
I called them my double decor dates. So like one
time I had a date at dinner date at my
apartment at five o'clock, but he had a meeting at
seven thirty. So I was like, oh, he's gonna be
(44:19):
gone way before this guy. Other guy's gonna pick me
up for a movie.
Speaker 3 (44:23):
He wasn't there was he.
Speaker 5 (44:25):
Guys it doesn't and well overstays his time at my
apartment because he keeps talking and I'm like, we need
to go. So I walk him down the stairs and
my other date is standing outside his car waiting for me.
Speaker 3 (44:42):
Oh my god, you tag teamed date. They high fived
on the way out.
Speaker 4 (44:46):
It's not my proudest moment.
Speaker 5 (44:48):
But the other guy that I got in the car
with to the movie date, he just kept saying, so, who.
Speaker 4 (44:54):
Was that guy?
Speaker 5 (44:54):
And I was like, oh, it's he just needed my
WiFi for homework.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
I am in awe and in shock, and I have
all the feelings though. If that happens, though, the problem
is you got to walk the other guy to the car,
but you can't kiss him goodbye because then you that's
just too obvious. You just try to like him five
to five and then get him mo the guy's cars.
Speaker 3 (45:17):
You did kiss him goodbye?
Speaker 4 (45:19):
No, I didn't kiss either of them.
Speaker 3 (45:21):
Oh good, that's fine. Then that's my friend day. Are
you too busy to stretch them out? What's this like stacking? Then?
Speaker 4 (45:27):
I don't know. I just don't know. That's why I
had to break it off with the situationship like I'm
not gonna do this all day long. It's not for me.
Speaker 5 (45:34):
But if I go on a date, if I go
on one date, I'm like just going like that is
my day to go on a date.
Speaker 2 (45:40):
Yeah, you're like you've time, You're a paralympian. You don't
have time for dating, Like you've got stuff to do,
places to be.
Speaker 5 (45:46):
It's either a zero or a hundred where I'm like, Okay,
coffee in the morning with this person and then lunch
with this person, and then oh I like the first
guy better, so I'm gonna have this other guy drop
me off at the first guys place so we can
go get ice cream. I don't recommend double decor dating.
Speaker 1 (46:05):
It's because you put so much effort into I've done
that before. You put so much effort into like the outfit.
You've got your makeup on, you've done your hair, like
you're ready to go. You're like, I don't want to
waste this on like an hour date. So like I
understand that, but I tell you what, Yes, you are
a little surprise package. I did not expect that from you.
Speaker 4 (46:23):
Right then, Yeah, I'll surprise you.
Speaker 5 (46:26):
I have a lot of little trinkets, and there is
for so much word to me that people don't realize.
Speaker 1 (46:32):
I know you said before that people look at you
and that you make them uncomfortable, but can I just say,
I don't think we've ever had a guess that has
made us feel as comfortable.
Speaker 3 (46:41):
Straight out of the bat.
Speaker 1 (46:41):
You are a wonderful human with an incredible personality, an
incredible outlook on life, and I have personally loved speaking
to you so much.
Speaker 2 (46:50):
Your story is truly remarkable, but I think what is
even more acceptional than that is your perspective on life
and how you present yourself and how you share your story.
Haven You've been absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for
coming and being a part of the pod.
Speaker 4 (47:04):
Oh so thank you, guys, Thank you so much.
Life Uncut acknowledges the traditional custodians of country whose lands
were never seated. We pay our respects to their elders
past and present.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Always was, always will be Aboriginal Land. This episode was
recorded on Cameragle Land.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Hi, guys, and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut.
I'm Brittany and I'm Laura, and today's episode is one
I'm so excited about. So today we're speaking to Haven Shepherd,
and her story is quite remarkable. The self determination and
the hard work, the inspiration, it's truly incredible. When Haven
was only sixteen months old, she was living in Vietnam
(00:45):
with her family, and her parents decided that they would
strap a suicide bomb to them and do what was
hoped to be a family suicide. Haven survived and her
parents did not. And the story that follows Haven's life
is one that I can't even think about in a
(01:06):
way without smiling because seeing you absolutely thrive now at
this point in your life, Haven is remarkable. So I'm
so excited to give you the space to tell your
story here today.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Welcome to Life on Cut.
Speaker 4 (01:17):
Hi, guys, Thanks for having me Haven.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Something that we do with every guest is accidentally unfiltered.
It's our embarrassing story. And you said that you have
an embarrassing story, we would love to hear it.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
Yes, I have.
Speaker 5 (01:30):
For Australia, I will tell this very embarrassing story that
happened last February. I was actually in Melbourne for a
swim meet and I kept telling you everybody, like, my
biggest fear is to like say an Australian accent to
an Australian speaking person, Like if I'm in a conversation
and I'd be like, oh nar like oh like that
was my biggest fear.
Speaker 4 (01:50):
That was my biggest fear.
Speaker 5 (01:52):
If I was talking to an Australian speaking person and
I start doing the accent to them. That actually happened
to me at the swim meet where they they were
handing me my towel and I said, oh, thank.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
You, Okay, oh do your best Australian accent. I mean,
no one ever says to run of the trip on
the barbie person.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
I want to hear it.
Speaker 5 (02:10):
How about I say a blue line. I can say,
I watch that all the time with my nieces. What
does she say?
Speaker 4 (02:16):
She says, Mum, dad, can you do a smooth chie kiss?
And he's like, they always say that in the in
the episode can you do a smooth chee kiss? And
what else?
Speaker 3 (02:30):
It's not bad.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
It goes a bit New Zealand kew and then a
bit UK.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Yeah, whenever Americans do an Australian accent, it has a
little bit of like a sounds British.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
It's so funny, Hoven that you say the like the
first word that came to your head for the Aussi's
was no.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
My partner is Swiss and he says it all the time.
He's like Australians.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
He's like, you don't understand how you say no? And
I'm like, what It's apparently the word no is like
a huge thing here.
Speaker 4 (02:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (02:56):
I think you guys are really not represented well on
the American.
Speaker 4 (03:01):
TV show H two Oh. I seen H two oh.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
But it was like fifty years ago.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
That is so great, Heaven, You're only twenty one years old,
is that correct?
Speaker 4 (03:13):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (03:14):
I mean, even just from.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
The short time that we've been speaking to you, your
positivity and your absolutely just like smiling nature comes through
the screen and I know that you yourself have been
through so much hardship in your life to be able
to get to the place that you are at now.
I would love for you to be able to explain
more about your story. Can you take us back to
(03:36):
what happened when you were sixteen months old?
Speaker 5 (03:39):
Yeah, so, I, like you guys were saying, I was
born in Vietnam to two people that had an affair
and had me. And the law back then in Vietnam
was women couldn't divorce husbands. So my biological mother was
still married to her husband, but she had an affair
with my biological father. So it was just this very
(04:02):
complicated relationship and only that happened. We don't know anything
else besides that I was a part of that affair.
The story was that he came home one night and
he decided to commit a family suicide with them, and
I was blown forty feet away from the blast and
the hospital ride was two hours. So they found me
(04:24):
forty feet away. I was on a back of a motorcycle,
probably on the way to the hospital. I was two
hours away And I didn't go in shock. I didn't
lose blood all that stuff, Like we have pictures of
me in the hospital. I was fine, Like it was
just like a little baby with her little legs mputated.
But yeah, that happened when I'm sixteen months old, so
(04:44):
that's a little over a one year old. And then
I was adopted when I was twenty months old, so
I only was in Vietnam and with my biological grandparents
for four months until I was adopted to United States.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Did you like, going back to the story about your parents,
I didn't actually know it was illegal that you couldn't
divorce back then. I don't know if it even is now.
But did the rest of your family and the extended
family know what was happening, Like, did your grandparents know
that there was this affair happening, that there was this
unrest to the point of that something like these could happen.
Speaker 5 (05:18):
I would say in their culture, it was very shameful
to get a divorce and then even worse, get pregnant
by somebody that isn't your husband, because my like even
on my Vietnamese birth certificate, I don't even have a
father on that birth certificate, Like, we don't even know
who this other person was. But it was very obvious
(05:39):
that I was a part of an affair because I
have a half sister in Vietnam and my biological mom
had her with her husband, but in the newspaper they
said they were married.
Speaker 4 (05:52):
But I think it's a lot of shame in that
culture where like, oh, you don't want to have a baby.
Speaker 5 (05:58):
Especially at a woodlock, and especially not with your husband
that you're married to. I can understand that's like a
huge no no, And that's even a big no no
now and in this reality right now. So I can
just only imagine being in her position. But I mean,
I'm so thankful that she decided to have me, Like
she could have had any opportunity to just you know,
(06:20):
leave me somewhere, you know, get rid of me any
but she kept. She kept me, and that's really special
to me to think that. You know, I knew I
was nursed by her. I knew I was with her
all the time because I really love folding laundry. I
really when I was adopted. I can say this because
it's out there now.
Speaker 4 (06:38):
I was really.
Speaker 5 (06:39):
Obsessed with my mom's chest when I was first adopted.
So that what's made my mom think you were probably
breastfed for like a really long time because you know,
very very very poor country.
Speaker 4 (06:51):
So I knew I was.
Speaker 5 (06:53):
She really loved me, and I'm very thankful that she
decided to keep me and have me into take care
of me, because, like I say, it's such a known
to have an affair and to have the baby.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Hayven your you said your grandmother, you were with her
for four months. Was it your grandmother who found you
or were you taken to her? How did you get discovered?
And like how did you I know you got to
the hospital in the back of the motorbike, but who
was it that got you there?
Speaker 5 (07:15):
I'm assuming it's my grandmother because in my hospital pictures,
she was the only one that was there. And we
were there for I said in the newspaper, I was
there for forty sixties and the only reason I got
to stay was because other people in the hospital donated
money so I could stay in the hospital for longer
for my treatment.
Speaker 4 (07:34):
And I've never had another surgery ever since.
Speaker 5 (07:37):
Then.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
That seems incredible because you hear I mean, you hear
that places like Vietnam, especially like rural where you were located,
then you know that you imagine the healthcare system and
the surgeons and the doctors are not as great as
they would be here in Australia or a first world country.
When you just said, you're really grateful to your mum
for keeping you and you know, like breastfeeding you and
(07:59):
keep you for that first year, not giving you up.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
How do you look at that now, because I.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
See that you're really positive about it when you know
that at the end of the day they wanted all
of you as a family to leave this earth. Do
you have a sort of like an understanding with that?
How do you reckon with that? Do you feel like, oh,
it was because of love that she did it, so
you understand Do you hold any resentment to what they
tried to do with.
Speaker 4 (08:25):
Perspective is a big thing for me.
Speaker 5 (08:27):
My mom is a life coach and she she didn't
want to raise seven children. She would not have had
seven children, but she made an emphasis that if I'm
going to have these many kids, I was going to
raise seven children. So she took time to raise each
and every one of us very individually, and for me,
it was a big perspective thing, Like she always talked
(08:48):
to me about, you know, you don't know what it's
like to be hungry for a really long time. You
don't know what it's like to not have a shower
and a bed and a family. And Christmas and Eastern
and all these like really exciting stuff in your life.
You don't know what that's like, And so that was
a big perspective show. She was telling me growing up,
(09:09):
like she didn't have anything. She had you and she
had what she.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
Could give you.
Speaker 5 (09:14):
And I don't hold any resentment to them, because I
don't know what it's what it's like to be hungry
and not to have utilities and a nice home and activities,
and we have a very beautiful life.
Speaker 4 (09:27):
Life is very blessed.
Speaker 5 (09:28):
So I just think that they were also again in
a very hopeless situation where they don't have food, money
to buy land or anything property. You know, they're just
very poor in the mountains, you know, living off what
they got. So the whole situation was just simply hopeless,
and this was the only way out. How many people think,
(09:51):
how we have anxiety nowadays. You know, the only thing
we think that can help us is a glass of
wine at the end of the day, doom scrolling on
your phone. We have a different type of hopeless, of
feeling lonely and no way out, but we don't know how.
It's an experience where you're in a third world country,
and there's no opportunities.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
You also said wait a couple of times in there,
and I realized you wasn't just you who was in
that explosion. It was also your sister who was there
as well. How was she affected and do you still
have any relationship with her?
Speaker 5 (10:26):
She was okay, like she So, I have a biological
grandparents on my mom's side. They took care of us
for the amount of time till I was adopted. But
my half sister was not in the explosion at all.
But I don't have any contact with her. I have
pictures of them and her, but it's almost like a
(10:47):
past life thing.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
They know me, but I have no memory of them.
Speaker 5 (10:50):
Like my first memory is my first Easter having candy everywhere,
Like that's like literally my first memory.
Speaker 4 (10:56):
I don't have any memory at all.
Speaker 5 (10:57):
So when I look back at pictures of myself from
a baby, like in the hospital Vietnam like that, I
don't even recognize that that's me. So when I look
at what my life could have been, that's like almost
a past life thing. Like I was born new when
I came over here after the explosion, they decided to
amputate my legs below the knee. It's not a clear
(11:18):
cut across. They're both two different links, but I both
have my knees. There's a really big hospital around this
area in Kansas City, and I went there.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
When I first got home.
Speaker 5 (11:28):
I got all my vaccinations, all everything, and they said,
she is a completely healthy baby. She doesn't need any
new surgery. She's completely fine. And isn't that crazy coming
from a hospital that has probably very little resources to
have a major surgery on a baby to have none.
I'm twenty one years old today, the surgery was twenty
(11:51):
years ago, and I've never had another revision.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
It's just crazy.
Speaker 5 (11:55):
So yeah, I have no scarring anywhere, like I just
have my amputayas nothing else is on my body.
Speaker 4 (12:03):
It's just the amputations.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
I think that sometimes it is absolutely shocking the things
that a child can withstand and then still grow into
being this incredible adult. What was it like for your mom?
How did she come across you to be able to
adopt you? What was that process like for her to
be able to find you?
Speaker 5 (12:20):
Well, So, my accident happened when I was sixteen months old,
but two years prior to that, my mom had an epiphany.
She was in church one day and somebody was talking
about adoption and she was like, oh, I would like
to have that. I'm telling you, like just like simple epiphany,
(12:40):
Like it never crossed her mind to adopt. She has
six children of her own, and she always tells a
story it's a really hard buy for your husband to
tell him, Hey, I think we should adopt after you
having six children and a house full of eight bedrooms
and eight bathrooms and it's not wonderful that you just renovated. Yeah,
(13:01):
it's a really hard ask for a husband.
Speaker 4 (13:05):
So they went on.
Speaker 5 (13:06):
A really intense journey on trying to my mom convincing
my dad to adopt, because he was like, the we
have fourteen sports schedules, we have Zach in college playing basketball,
we have saw your playing middle school baseball, Like, how
are we going to adopt? And so they actually went
through marriage counseling. My mom says it was basically me
(13:28):
and the therapist, I think he's wrong, and I think
you should change his mind. And obviously in therapy you
can't just be like, yes, you should listen to your wife.
But they went through intense couple therapy to basically tell
my dad, hey, your wife really wants less, so you
better just agree. So after two years, my dad went
(13:49):
on a mentor retreat and he came back and finally
told her, yes, I think we can adopt. And then, serendipitous,
her college best friend, I mean her school best friend
reached out to her and said, hey, I found this
little girl and the newspaper in Vietnam. Do you want
to go get her? And my mom was like, yeah,
(14:10):
I would love to go get her, just for the adventure.
I was not their baby. So they just went on
the adventure and they were gone for two weeks in Vietnam,
and obviously they fell in love with me.
Speaker 4 (14:21):
I just I mean, I was such this precious baby.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Because I listened to some interviews with your mom and like,
bless her soul, she's incredible. But I heard her saying
she tried really hard when your dad was like I
don't want to adopt, she tried really hard to let
that go and be like, oh, okay, it's not for us,
he doesn't want it. And for whatever reason, she's like
I woke up every day and could not stop thinking
about that, Like I was.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
Destined to have this child.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
And then when they went to pick you up, to
take you back to another family. She talks about how
the fact that you were just obsessed with them and
your dad from the day that they picked you up,
like I just didn't want anyone else, just wanted to
baby with him, and you fall in love immediately.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
It's like you chose them.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
Yes, yes, my mom called it.
Speaker 5 (15:10):
When I was little, I had like a little sixth sense,
like I could always pick up on, you know, certain situations,
certain things. To I was very much an old soul,
like I could speak through my eyes basically, So when
they came and got me for this justice adventure, that
I was not their.
Speaker 4 (15:27):
Baby, I was just this, Oh, it's just gonna be
an adventures. I fell in love with my dad.
Speaker 5 (15:33):
I don't think I've ever cause you had to think
like a baby that has never seen a very tall, bearded, white,
dark haired man, like wow, that's so intriguing. But I
fell in love with my dad on the beach, and
then he had to go home for work after a week.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
And I'm still I'm still quite in love with my parents.
I was telling them the other day on the I
was laying on the couch.
Speaker 5 (15:59):
I was laying on the couch and I was like
we were watching a movie and I was like, guys,
this is just great, just the three of us, everyone else,
so back, going back. He had to leave for work
after a week to go back home. My mom spent
two weeks with me, and again I wasn't their baby.
(16:20):
They're bringing me to this other family that homeschooled and
wore glasses and knitted their own sweaters and lived on
a farm and did not have health insurance. It was
really a great situation.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
I love that you said, just to set the same.
Speaker 5 (16:36):
Yes, yes, we lived on a farm and they did
not have health insurance, and they were bringing me home
for them, and after two weeks they dropped me off.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
I was not having a good.
Speaker 5 (16:46):
Time because I just wanted to paint a picture for
you what I was like in Vietnam with my mom.
I needed to wear all her jewelry and I was
really into, like they bought me new baby clothes on
the street. I was really into wearing my new baby clothes.
And I had a purse and I had hair clips,
(17:07):
and I was not supposed to go to this nat
knitting sweater family that lived on a farm. She was
she said, I was a shepherd girl from the very beginning,
like I needed my nails painted, I needed like, this
is a twenty month old baby, by the way, Like
there are pictures of me with just tons of all
her stuff on. And so she just knew that I
(17:30):
was just a shepherd. So giving me up to them
for six days was just so hard for her. And
then Pam called her one day after the six days
and said, Hey, I don't think it's working out with
the proctors. Haven isn't very happy. Do you and Robston
want her? And my mom got off the phone after
she said yes, she got off the phone with them,
(17:51):
and she said she spent two thousand dollars at them
all that day because she knew I was coming home
that night. She's like, she needs a new crip, she
needs a new strullder, she needs a carci oh, a
whole new wardrobe. She said she spent probably over two
thousand dollars just going crazy at the baby stores, and
so she was ready for me to come home.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Hey, even it's such a remarkable story for so many reasons.
But I would assume that most adopted families would expect
to have a period that is hard with their new baby.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
So it is absolutely.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Wild to me that this farm knitting family after six
days was like, oh, this is a bit hard, Like
I would genuinely expect it to be that. You know,
it's a new child in a new environment with new people, Like,
of course they're going to be scared and crying and
all the other things. So to think that they got
to the end of that six days and thought that
this isn't the right fit for me, it's almost like
(18:45):
there was this divine fate that was at work there
that you are exactly where you're supposed to be.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Well, it sounds more like I have no doubt if
you did live your life on that farm, you would
have had a wonderful life. But it sounds more like
they were really great people that wanted to do a
great thing. And being an amputee, I can imagine your
medical expenses were going to be astronomical, and so they've
wanted to do a good thing. But at the end
of the day, American you need health insurance. They didn't
have it, So I think they probably bit off more
(19:12):
than they could chew, even though they had great intentions.
Speaker 5 (19:15):
No, I don't hold anything against them, it just wasn't
the right fit. I still know them to this day,
like they are great people. They were just not for me.
They had I mean, they were going to have give
me a beautiful life regardless, but it just wasn't the
right fit. And I was just a shepherd girl. I'm
a maximalist at heart, and I was a maximalist back then,
(19:37):
and it was just not going to cut it with
the one sweater.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
I love the ownership too.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
You got into swimming really young, so I mean at
three years old you started swimming, and it's obviously taking
you across the world. It's become such a massive part
of your life because I can only imagine as a
parent who has so many children, it is really really
high to cater to the intense schedule of all the
different sporting requirements of your kids and their schedules and
(20:07):
everything else. How firstly, did your parents allow for you
make time for you to be able to have the
schedule of someone who is a paralympian now?
Speaker 5 (20:19):
So, yeah, I started swimming at three years old. We
had a pool in our backyard and it was very
important for my dad for me to learn how to swim,
because if I just waltzed outside one day, I needed
to know to learn how to just at least paddled
to like knock drown. So that was really important. So
people are always surprised when I say that, like, yeah,
I learned how to swim at three years old. You
(20:40):
need to put your kids in lessons or something. It's
an important life skill to learn how to swim. So
I always knew how to swim. It's never like, oh,
I didn't know how to swim and then I became
this great paralympian. No. I was in track, and the
problem with track is that the stuff would go into
my eyes and.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
I think it was sweat.
Speaker 5 (21:00):
Sweat would go into my eyes and my heart would
start pumping, my makeup would just go everywhere. It was
just not for me. My parents were like dull. We
would get her and swimming. So I had one swim
lesson and they're like, oh, she needs to go to
a different swim club, Like we can't train her the.
Speaker 4 (21:18):
Way, Like she's way too advancing.
Speaker 5 (21:21):
So we went to a more an elite club when
I was I would say thirteen to about eighteen.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
I was there for a long time and I progressed
like very rapidly. I progressed.
Speaker 5 (21:34):
At thirteen, I made the emerging team was on Tmusa
and then just built on from there. I made lots
of international teams, I made standards all that stuff. So
swimming was just a hobby at first, and then I
think my parents realized, like, oh, she's she's pretty good,
we should probably invest more time into this.
Speaker 4 (21:56):
So it was definitely really.
Speaker 5 (21:58):
Hard being in a big face family and having lots
of different sports schedules, but my parents made it work.
My grandparents picked me up a lot, But I think
my parents did a great job. They came to everything,
even like my brother played baseball at the time, Like
we would be a swim practice and then straight to
the ballfield. I always tell people I was raised at
sporting events. I was raised in the winter at basketball courts,
(22:22):
and then in the spring it was volleyball, and then
all summer long was at a baseball park. And my
four main food groups were nacho cheese, skittles, ice cream,
and gatorade. And it's all the food dies.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
It's actually incredible because he's so much about like when
you're trained to be an athlete, you have to eat.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
You know, you've got at.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Macros and your micros and way yourself and you only
eat proteins at this time, and you're like, I'm apparently
pen survived on nachos and hot dogs. I even when
you get in the pool, do you feel any relief
in terms of are you in any kind of pain
or do you feel a lot of pressure being on
your prosthetics all day? Does that provide you with any
sort of comfort.
Speaker 5 (23:02):
Yes, for till I was about eleven to about now
until twenty one. You have to think, you know, I
always debscribe to people. We're in prosthetics all day long.
It's not like I think about it all the time,
like when you wait. First thing you wake up at
the morning and you put on your glasses to see.
The first thing I do in the morning is to
put my legs on so I can walk, So like
(23:23):
it's not like something the conscious forefront thought all the
time that I have prosthetic lakes. But going to school
for eight hours and then getting to swim for three
hours and just take my legs off, like that is
just the relief that I needed, Like my arms could
handle the weight that my legs have been doing all day,
And it was just so such a great like relief.
Speaker 4 (23:44):
And by the end of the night, I'm like, oh,
you did good today. You did good.
Speaker 5 (23:49):
You walked all up the stairs at school, and you
got to swim and just pump your arms, and now
you just get to rest and do it all again tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Do you think in your lifetime ever underestimated your abilities?
And I mean this in a way of like judging
a book by its cover. People who may not know
you or who may see that you're a double amputee.
Have you ever felt that people have underestimated you?
Speaker 5 (24:12):
Yeah, especially growing up in my small town. Everybody really
knew me. But it was never like, oh, she can't
do that. It was always like people saw me grow
up through my whole life and then so it was like, oh,
haven can do that. It was I never had to
prove myself in any type of way because parents saw
(24:32):
me on the playground playing with her kids like, oh,
like she can keep up. Like So, I grew up
with people that already knew me. So I don't think
people thought I would make it on the professional level
as I did. But I never gave people a reason
to doubt doubt me anyway. So I say that's the
best way I could describe it is that I never
gave people a reason to doubt that I could be
(24:53):
like everybody else because I was already keeping up with
everybody else. Basically, I was very much a normal child.
And I want to say that to any any parents
that have children with disabilities. Your kid is going to
grow up normal if you treat them normal. And there's
no reason to put labels on anybody if you don't
put any limits on them. As soon as you label
(25:14):
your kid as disabled, you're going to put a limit
on them.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
I think that's something society has taken a long time
to learn though, and that's for reasons like the Paralympics
not being as advertised as visible as it is now.
And a really good friend of ours, Ellie Cole, she's
a Paralympic swimmer. I recently went into the I'm a
Celebrity Jungle with her. So she has one leg, she's
got one prosthetic, and the number of people that doubted
(25:39):
that she could be okay in there, myself included when
I went in. And we've been friends for a long time,
but when we went in, I was like, let me
know if you need anything, because it's like pretty hardcore
living conditions and like a lot of climbing up mountains
like off center kind of stuff, and all the challenges.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Her leg literally needed electricity, so they've brought in a
solar fee we had.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Yeah, we had to solo charge her legs, so I'd
be like walking.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
Around with the solar panels.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
But I learned very quickly that she's more capable than
I am, like, and I think that that is also
something just from seeing the Paralympics more on our screens.
But people up until probably I don't know, maybe this
is just my ignorance, but people up until probably the
last ten years have assumed that if you are an amputee,
(26:24):
or if you're in the Paralympics, if you have any
kind of disability, that you are not capable to completely
immerse yourself into a quote unquote normal society.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
But it's just so far from the truth.
Speaker 5 (26:35):
H Yeah. I especially living in by myself, it kind
of it kind of hit me when I moved to
a new town. You know, I would be out buying
groceries and people tell me, oh, you're.
Speaker 4 (26:46):
So good that you're getting out there. I'm like, She's like, what, why,
Like why I need groceries? Don't you need groceries? That's
why we're at a grocery store. Question Mark, like, I
also drive, also drive a car.
Speaker 5 (26:59):
And I have a driver's license, and I have health insurance.
Speaker 4 (27:04):
I have all these normal things.
Speaker 5 (27:05):
I have paid my taxes, Like I'm just like anybody else,
And it's almost like I just I describe it as
being like an alien out in the world that like
lives in your reality as well, Like I'm just an
alien living in other people's reality. But I also describe
being an amputee like constantly being in a constant state
(27:25):
of pregnancy. When you're pregnant, everybody just goes up to
you and says, oh, how long has it been and
are you doing okay?
Speaker 4 (27:32):
And k ken I, Oh, you're doing so well.
Speaker 5 (27:35):
It's like it's just being an amputee, is being in
a constant state a pregnancy of people always needing to
say something to you.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
How do you deal with that when a complete stranger
oversteps the mark says something that is completely out of line.
Speaker 5 (27:51):
I think every day that I leave my home, I
get asked what happened to my legs and all that stuff.
Speaker 4 (27:57):
But it's actually funny. I thought of this the other day.
Speaker 5 (28:00):
You would never go up to a bald person and
be like, so when did you start going bald?
Speaker 4 (28:06):
So when you go up to amputee?
Speaker 5 (28:08):
So when did you lose your legs? Because I could
say the same thing back to you, so when did
you start dressing bad? Like it's just the same amount
of well you don't have legs today, I'm like, yes
I have I don't have my legs every single day.
It hits me different times and other times. But when
(28:29):
I was a teenager, it definitely like, was can I
just eat out with my friends and not be a
museum for you to investigate into.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
It's almost as though people who have any sort of
like presentable disability quote unquote have to.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
Carry the explanation as to why they have that.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
But you put something up on your socials, which I
thought was really interesting because it's one thing to ask
the question, But what do you do with that information
once you've received it? And you sort of said, if
you're going to ask someone about their disability, you better
be able to hold space for the reason why they
have that or the reason why they've experienced it. What
(29:08):
is the reaction that people give you when you tell
them why you lost your legs?
Speaker 5 (29:13):
I definitely ruin a lot of people's mornings by telling
them in the coffee line, yeah, affair and bomb, and
then I was exploded and this what's happened to me?
Speaker 4 (29:23):
And then they don't take it well.
Speaker 5 (29:25):
They don't take it well in the Starbucks line, and
then I'm standing there like, yeah, this didn't happen to
me yesterday.
Speaker 4 (29:31):
I'm just not gonna yeah.
Speaker 5 (29:34):
And they're like, oh, oh really, and I'm like, yeah,
they weren't really lift off by puppies, if that's what
you really wanted to hear. And then I shot rainbows
across the universe and who might have crossed legs?
Speaker 1 (29:50):
It's so true though, right, Like there's not going to
be any positive event that I can think of that
would leave you with an injury like that, Like there's
just not and people need to be more self aware.
But we've spoken to Lauren Wasser, the model with the
Golden legs, like I mentioned Ellie Cole. We've spoken to
quite a few paralympians and amputees and it's sort of
(30:10):
in contrast to what you're saying, and I want to
know if you agree, but they've sort of said like
they often will see very obviously little kids are staring
at them and asking their parents, like they watch it
go down.
Speaker 3 (30:22):
You can see the little kids pointing, what's that? Why
they why don't they have legs?
Speaker 1 (30:26):
And they've always said come over to us and ask us,
like in that sense they tell parents, come and speak
to me, because I would rather educate your child that
this is normal and I can do all this stuff
and I'm like a superhero. Do you find space for
that when they're when it's almost like an education for
the younger.
Speaker 4 (30:42):
Yes, I see it both ways.
Speaker 5 (30:44):
So I think when you are a parent, it is
a really big responsibility three children.
Speaker 4 (30:50):
It is your.
Speaker 5 (30:51):
Responsibility to teach your children how to react and to
approach people because it's not really appropriate to just like
my niece went for a long time, she'd be out
in public, She's three years old and she was like, hey,
that man's bald, and like you don't you just don't
say that out loud. So, yes, I do love it
(31:12):
when parents do come up to me and educate your children,
but it's also their responsibility to teach them. They're just
a person existing, Like you wouldn't like somebody to come
up to you all the time. I feel like it's
your as a parent, you're responsible for your child, and
to pull them aside afterwards and say, so, what did
you learn from that experience? How are you going to
(31:35):
when you see somebody else like that again, how are
you going to acknowledge? And because it's not nice to
just like kids are also children too, Like they have
a lot of grace where you can say yes when
kids point at you, and like, just like I had
a kid.
Speaker 4 (31:49):
One time I was with a group of my friends,
They're like.
Speaker 5 (31:52):
Oh, mom, look like that is your responsibility as a
parent to be like, hey, that's not kind.
Speaker 4 (32:00):
It's not kind.
Speaker 5 (32:00):
But more times out and not parents do handle those
situations a lot better. I think the problem I have
is when adults don't handle situations better.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
But I would almost say that a lot of times
children who don't handle it well are often a reflection
of their parents.
Speaker 5 (32:19):
I feel like kids have so much wonder and you
can't blame you can't blame people's curiosity. I know I
make people uncomfortable because like out in public, you see something,
you're looking at it, and then I notice you're looking
and then oh you feel awkward. So you need to
say something and it's just an awkward exchange at the
bar and you're like, Okay, I'm gonna go walk over
(32:42):
there now and good goodbye. And I think people you
can't blame curiosity. I mean, all of us are curious,
and all of us deserve grace, But if you don't
handle situations, well that's where I am.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
Like, come on, Like, obviously, we've covered so much about
your story as to how you've gotten to where you are,
but like the most incredible part of it is the
fact that you are a Paralympian. When was the time
that you realized that your career in swimming that it
was going to be what it is, that you had
the ability that you were actually going to make it
(33:15):
to the Paralympics. When was it that you realize that
this is something that could be a career for you.
Speaker 4 (33:20):
Oh.
Speaker 5 (33:21):
I think there's a saying that's like ignorant is bliss.
I feel like my entire teens was just bliss because
I was oblivious to everything around me and I still
am not very self aware, but I think being that young,
experiencing that level of intensity and eliteness at a young age,
(33:45):
it was just almost like not aware of it, Like
aware like this, Oh, this is like really serious, like, oh,
I'm about to swim for my life at this race.
But it's just not my personality. I am going to
be so honest with you guys right now. I'm not
very a competitive person.
Speaker 4 (34:02):
It's just not in my it's just not in my heart.
I don't need it. I don't need to win all
the time. It's not It.
Speaker 5 (34:12):
Just doesn't fuel me like other things do. Like I said,
ignorance bliss like So, I went to the Paralympics in
Tokyo in twenty twenty. That was a great experience. I
was seventeen years old, I just graduated high school and
I had no friends and I am on this adventure
for two months, going to the Paralympics for the first time,
(34:35):
and it was just great.
Speaker 4 (34:37):
Obviously after the fact.
Speaker 5 (34:38):
I found out about some really awful things after the fact,
but overall, my experience was great, and coming home from
that high I just knew that I was needed.
Speaker 4 (34:50):
To be myself from here on out.
Speaker 5 (34:52):
Like I think people really struggle with group settings and
trying to not be themselves and try to fit in.
But my biggest goal going into Tokyo twenty twenty and
being away for four weeks was to just be myself,
not change for anybody, not change for my surroundings, not
(35:13):
compromise on my values, my morals just because I am
feel pressure from people around me, and so that's what
I did. Like I went into every race thinking I
need to be myself, Like I'm not going to be
this tight ass person in the call room, gonna stare
you down and make me faces at you and tell
(35:34):
you that you did a.
Speaker 4 (35:34):
Shitty job at your blah blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 5 (35:37):
Like that's just not my personality. Like, no, I'm gonna
be nice. I was raised to be kind to people
and show people to grace and oh that was Oh
that was such a good race, and you did such
a good job, Like that's how I was race. And
I also think at the time I was younger, I
was representing my parents in my family. So if we're
(35:59):
got to them that I was a brat and I
was not responsible and I was not respectful to people
around me and my authorities, that would get back to
my parents and they would tell me, like, we raised
you better than that, and you show respect to people
that are older than.
Speaker 4 (36:14):
You, even though you don't like the rules, blah blah
blah blah blah.
Speaker 5 (36:18):
So I knew that was my responsibility going into Tokyo,
and I feel like I did a good job.
Speaker 4 (36:24):
I didn't get in trouble.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
Once you are the Paralympics, you definitely did a good job.
Well what fuels you? Then you say it's not winning?
Speaker 2 (36:31):
But I mean that's such a different perspective than anybody
else we've had on I mean, any other elite athlete
has always said, like winning is kind of the goal.
So if it's not that, what makes you keep going
when you are Paralympian?
Speaker 5 (36:44):
I think having fun, Like I just have. I just
have too much fun. I just it never gets too
serious for.
Speaker 4 (36:50):
Me, Like I just have too much fun.
Speaker 5 (36:52):
All I was probably thinking about at the Paralympics was Oh,
I promised this track girl. I was going to be
ice cream with her that night at the dinning. So
I need to get back, like right now, I just
have too much fun.
Speaker 3 (37:03):
And I I want to adopt you. I want you
come and live with us.
Speaker 5 (37:09):
Life is just too I don't tell you life too seriously,
but you gotta have, like again that perspective thing you are.
Speaker 4 (37:17):
You are here you got a free.
Speaker 5 (37:19):
Plane ticket to Tokyo, Japan, Like, have fun with your friends,
get all the get all the cokes from the soda
machine and take them back to your dorm room and
sneak food in from the didding hall and help your
friends sneak out to other boys apartments.
Speaker 4 (37:36):
Like that's that is what life is about.
Speaker 5 (37:39):
Is about keeping it light and competing very very hard,
but mostly fun.
Speaker 3 (37:46):
Talking about ignorance is bliss.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
Just when you were talking about like twenty twenty Olympics
was great, A Paralympics was so fun. But then you
made a comment about, you know, besides those bad moments,
but it didn't happen to you. What were you referring to?
What was this something that went down with the Paralympic
stream team that went on across Or am I just
have I missed something?
Speaker 5 (38:05):
No, I just I just feel like it's more of
a little bit more drama happened behind the scenes that
I was just not aware of or I was not
invited to know about, which is fine.
Speaker 4 (38:15):
Which is fine. I'm I'm always out of the loop,
so it's fine.
Speaker 5 (38:18):
But I think it's just a level of like drama
and oh, I don't like her, and she stole my
shirt and she wow, and he likes her, and I
I just stay in my room. I just stay in
my room, and I go to lunch when I'm supposed to,
and I get on the right bus.
Speaker 4 (38:38):
I get on the right bus that I'm scheduled.
Speaker 5 (38:40):
For, and I pack everything. I'm just I am just
an A plus student.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
So what is success like for you now? What does
it look like outside of the pool? And do you
are we going to see you at the next Olympics. Paralympics.
Speaker 5 (38:54):
Life for me right now is just enjoying my family.
I don't think I've ever spent this much time with
my family because I'm always on the go. It wasn't
just swimming, it was other commitments that I had to
be gone. Like last October, I was probably gone for
every single weekend, flying everywhere because I needed to be.
(39:14):
And so I actually get to enjoy my family and
get to enjoy, you know, getting to see my nieces
and nephews grow up, and you know, actually spending time
with the people that I actually care about. Because you
do this for the people that you love. I do
it for me and my family and to represent ourselves
and to get our story out there.
Speaker 4 (39:33):
But I didn't actually get to enjoy the people that.
Speaker 5 (39:37):
Helped me along this journey, Like I'm not actually spending
time with them. Being on home soil for twenty twenty
eight does sound enticing, But I'm enjoying my little.
Speaker 4 (39:46):
Break right now.
Speaker 5 (39:48):
I get to enjoy being a little sassy, home, little
little girl back in my hometown.
Speaker 4 (39:56):
And do you guys ever watch gil More girls? I
feel like a little gil More girl. I grew up
with a goo That's how I feel.
Speaker 5 (40:03):
I feel like I'm just in this like little bubble
that I've never got to live in. Everything was just
so out there, and I just get to oh, this
is so nice. I get to just be at home
and to enjoy my fruits of my labor.
Speaker 2 (40:16):
Hi, even if you were swimming, what would you want
to be or do with yourself?
Speaker 4 (40:21):
Do you guys know this?
Speaker 5 (40:22):
I only only because you don't have the sport in Australia?
Do you know who Taylor Swift's boyfriend is, Kanas City Chiefs.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
I watch so much of that football now because my
partner loves it.
Speaker 3 (40:35):
I know all of it.
Speaker 5 (40:36):
Okay, Well, the game's going on right now and it's
not going well, but I would like to audition to
be alignment for the Kansas City Chiefs.
Speaker 4 (40:45):
And I already have my audition already laid out.
Speaker 5 (40:48):
Hi.
Speaker 4 (40:48):
I'm Haven Treppard. I am five foot five, I weigh
one hundred and thirty five pounds.
Speaker 5 (40:53):
I've never played a contact sport, but I would love
to get out there. And the lineman's are the big
three hundred pounds men can people.
Speaker 3 (41:01):
I don't think you can be alignsman. I don't want
to be a person that burst your bubble. I disagree
with the attitude that Haven has. I reckon you could
do whatever you want. Honestly, they would squish you. If
they fell on you, you are dead.
Speaker 5 (41:15):
I think a power of positive energy would just push
these men over. And I want to be the first
woman lineman. And I feel like I meet a lot
of requirements. I gave them my height, my weight. I
feel like that is.
Speaker 4 (41:29):
Enough for them to audition, not audition, try out. That's
not a play. It's not a play.
Speaker 3 (41:35):
I'll put the call outs for you.
Speaker 1 (41:37):
This is definitely like a relationship style podcast. And you
mentioned before that you would help like your friends sneak
out at the Paralympics to meet boys. Ellie, who we've
had here, says that it's just like it's hot property there,
Like it is almost like a dating site.
Speaker 4 (41:52):
What is it?
Speaker 3 (41:53):
How uncomfortable? I guess what's it? What's the dating life
like for you?
Speaker 4 (41:58):
Like?
Speaker 3 (41:59):
Are you dating any one? Have you ever had hot break?
Speaker 5 (42:02):
Like?
Speaker 3 (42:02):
We love this sort of relationship goes.
Speaker 4 (42:07):
Oh.
Speaker 5 (42:08):
I did have a very serious boyfriend. Uh, I think
a year ago.
Speaker 3 (42:13):
I think it's a fall.
Speaker 4 (42:17):
It was not a good boyfriend.
Speaker 5 (42:19):
He was not a good boyfriend. But he was six
foot three, so I will give him that. I recently, I.
Speaker 4 (42:28):
Can't believe have told you this. I he will never
see it anyway.
Speaker 5 (42:33):
I recently had to break off a situationship with a
He was a New York City detective that I met
on a modeling shoot and he reached He approached me
in real life and asked me for my phone number.
Speaker 4 (42:46):
I was like, it was crazy.
Speaker 5 (42:49):
He had a badge and a gun and everything, and
I was like, I'm about to get in my.
Speaker 4 (42:52):
Uber like.
Speaker 5 (42:55):
But yes, I had to recently break off a situationship
and I didn't even know how to write this text message.
So I went into chat GBT and I typed in
long paragraph breaking off message period.
Speaker 1 (43:12):
If there is ever a twenty one year old breakup
that easy, that is brilliant.
Speaker 4 (43:18):
So I copied and I past and I sent it.
I didn't even read it. I didn't even read it.
I was like, good enough, you read it.
Speaker 3 (43:30):
How do you even know about the names written? What
if it's written like Shakespeare or something.
Speaker 5 (43:33):
I didn't skim it, and I was like, oh, that's
too sassy for me. I long paragraph. Nice way to
break off with somebody that's not your boyfriend, period period.
And then it was like this long it was the
song and I was like, I'm not reading all that.
Speaker 4 (43:49):
And I actually sent it this morning.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
So oh my god, has he written back?
Speaker 4 (43:56):
Uh? I haven't looked.
Speaker 5 (43:58):
I've I am not very much a dater, but if
I go on a date, I like really go on
a date. I double stack dates with different people, so
I called them my double decor dates. So like one
time I had a date at dinner date at my
apartment at five o'clock, but he had a meeting at
seven thirty. So I was like, oh, he's gonna be
(44:19):
gone way before this guy. Other guy's gonna pick me
up for a movie.
Speaker 3 (44:23):
He wasn't there was he.
Speaker 5 (44:25):
Guys it doesn't and well overstays his time at my
apartment because he keeps talking and I'm like, we need
to go. So I walk him down the stairs and
my other date is standing outside his car waiting for me.
Speaker 3 (44:42):
Oh my god, you tag teamed date. They high fived
on the way out.
Speaker 4 (44:46):
It's not my proudest moment.
Speaker 5 (44:48):
But the other guy that I got in the car
with to the movie date, he just kept saying, so, who.
Speaker 4 (44:54):
Was that guy?
Speaker 5 (44:54):
And I was like, oh, it's he just needed my
WiFi for homework.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
I am in awe and in shock, and I have
all the feelings though. If that happens, though, the problem
is you got to walk the other guy to the car,
but you can't kiss him goodbye because then you that's
just too obvious. You just try to like him five
to five and then get him mo the guy's cars.
Speaker 3 (45:17):
You did kiss him goodbye?
Speaker 4 (45:19):
No, I didn't kiss either of them.
Speaker 3 (45:21):
Oh good, that's fine. Then that's my friend day. Are
you too busy to stretch them out? What's this like stacking? Then?
Speaker 4 (45:27):
I don't know. I just don't know. That's why I
had to break it off with the situationship like I'm
not gonna do this all day long. It's not for me.
Speaker 5 (45:34):
But if I go on a date, if I go
on one date, I'm like just going like that is
my day to go on a date.
Speaker 2 (45:40):
Yeah, you're like you've time, You're a paralympian. You don't
have time for dating, Like you've got stuff to do,
places to be.
Speaker 5 (45:46):
It's either a zero or a hundred where I'm like, Okay,
coffee in the morning with this person and then lunch
with this person, and then oh I like the first
guy better, so I'm gonna have this other guy drop
me off at the first guys place so we can
go get ice cream. I don't recommend double decor dating.
Speaker 1 (46:05):
It's because you put so much effort into I've done
that before. You put so much effort into like the outfit.
You've got your makeup on, you've done your hair, like
you're ready to go. You're like, I don't want to
waste this on like an hour date. So like I
understand that, but I tell you what, Yes, you are
a little surprise package. I did not expect that from you.
Speaker 4 (46:23):
Right then, Yeah, I'll surprise you.
Speaker 5 (46:26):
I have a lot of little trinkets, and there is
for so much word to me that people don't realize.
Speaker 1 (46:32):
I know you said before that people look at you
and that you make them uncomfortable, but can I just say,
I don't think we've ever had a guess that has
made us feel as comfortable.
Speaker 3 (46:41):
Straight out of the bat.
Speaker 1 (46:41):
You are a wonderful human with an incredible personality, an
incredible outlook on life, and I have personally loved speaking
to you so much.
Speaker 2 (46:50):
Your story is truly remarkable, but I think what is
even more acceptional than that is your perspective on life
and how you present yourself and how you share your story.
Haven You've been absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for
coming and being a part of the pod.
Speaker 4 (47:04):
Oh so thank you, guys, Thank you so much.
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