April 26, 2024 • 43 mins
Acknowledging his isolation, Maurice bravely shines a light on the darker aspects of his life, detailing his guilt, pain, fear, and constant decision-making. Even amidst this daunting reality, he stands resilient for his convalescing wife and their child Hudson, maintaining the wheels of life despite an overbearing stream of concerns. Understand his struggles with Cindy's medical requirements, Hudson’s needs, financial management, work, and maintaining a functional household, all while battling his own sickness, discomfort, and profound loneliness.
Grasp his journey towards self-forgiveness, the cycles of grief, and how he learns to live and grow through adversity.
Finally, delve into Maurice's inspiring message of resilience and optimism: This too will pass. The episode concludes on a hopeful note, underscoring Maurice's unwavering love and commitment to his wife Cindy and their son Hudson.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Welcome to episode six. So the last time we left off Maurice,
he painted a very grim picture for all of us to think about.
And I think it's very telling on where his mind frame is.
Well, the picture that he painted for us was him just going grocery shopping in the rain.
You know, you don't want to leave out any loved ones. And that would be Cindy,
(00:25):
right? She's wheelchair bound and coming Coming home, it's raining.
He has to take out Hudson, but he has to take out Cindy first.
Now he got Hudson in one arm, pushing Cindy into the house while bringing in groceries.
And he mentioned that it's very lonely. So I want you to talk about yourself.
(00:48):
I know maybe you don't want to, maybe you don't want to get into deeper emotions,
but I feel like maybe listeners would like more insight into your mind frame
because the word that you left us with, at least left me with, was lonely.
I would agree with you. I think the word lonely might encompass that along with sadness.
(01:12):
And the only thing holding you up, I guess, is love.
So if you could let us into your mind a little bit, maybe you want to elaborate
more on that one particular situation of bringing home.
I feel very much alone. Really, only you walk this path, you as in I.
(01:34):
Only I walk this path, and everybody's there to watch and support you,
but nobody's in your shoes, so you feel isolated.
And, you know, as much as I talk to friends and family,
and they see what I'm going through,
Sometimes I try to share the experiences or try to hide the pain or hide the
(02:01):
tediousness of the things I
have to go through because oftentimes I find that it's hard to relate to.
Even if they're right there with you you know
in lockstep experience the same thing but no one is the husband no one is the
caretaker no one's the father of the situation which you're encompassing in
(02:23):
so at the end of the day you know i felt alone and usually i would turn to my wife cindy,
because when you choose a partner or you marry somebody, you kind of have somebody
there that shares the burden with you. You can share your troubles.
They can help you and lift you up because they're there with you all the time.
(02:48):
That's the hard part. She wasn't there. And for me, it's just, it was painful, right?
And I couldn't really express myself to others saying that, you know, I mean, I can and I can't.
I can't say that, you know, you guys have, when you guys go home at night, everything seems okay.
(03:09):
Okay, because in the situation when you're here right now, she's in the hospital
or wherever she may be, and when you're in sight, it just seems, you know, very real.
But when you go home, things are not so much out of place. You get to go home
to your family, all that stuff. But for me, it's happening.
And when I go home, I'm reminded every single night as I go to an empty home,
(03:33):
as the things I was used to, I'm not seeing there anymore. There's a void there, right? Right.
So that was hard for me because, and I mentioned this before,
we got into the cadence, eight months of welcoming a new child and taking care of him.
So she'd be on the right side, be left side. We do things in tandem,
(03:54):
but all of a sudden an abrupt change in that.
And it made it difficult because every
time I saw him it reminded me that she was not here and she could
be potentially you know gone and
I had to pretend to smile I had
to pretend so on so many levels and move forward because so many things were
(04:15):
on my shoulders the wheels turn because I turn the wheels will stop turning
if I stop turning and that's not to say that you know I am
the only person who can do everything it's because i am the one person that
i guess i guess that is what i'm saying because i'm so tightly coupled with
(04:38):
the situation that i'm i have to keep things moving if i don't things would
be very bad and i didn't have time to dwell so.
When it comes to me there's a lot of things to unload that has been difficult
you know So, again, I've had a lot of family support. I've had friends.
We had a big turnout at the hospital when this happened.
(05:00):
I mean, the first week when Cindy was in the ICU, I think I was...
Filtering calls, I was getting messages, and I was messaging people,
and there was just a lot of people showing support and love and concern.
I think there was like probably, I mean, I almost felt bad for all the other
(05:23):
patients there because Cindy had a really big turnout.
There was probably in the given week, maybe, you know, always 20 people in the waiting room,
and 30 at most in one time and you
know it was compelling and that's
not because that if that doesn't tell you the
character that person that lays in the bed i don't
(05:44):
know what does i don't have to tell you anything but the turnout of that really tells
you something right and so that was that was bittersweet to see everybody concerned
about her and then but then you know you couldn't enjoy you You couldn't enjoy
the support and you couldn't embrace it all because your mind was somewhere else, you know.
(06:06):
And so for me, when I'm kind of doing certain things that I need to do,
you know, driving a car from one place to the other or eating a meal or just walking,
my mind was constantly running.
I was focused on one thing is the situation at hand. It was just floating around, you know.
(06:29):
Cindy, all the things, the possibilities, what our future was,
what our past was, what's currently at hand, what does Hudson's future look like?
Like all these, my head was just a map of all directions of prospective futures
and decisions I needed to make and stuff like that.
(06:49):
Like, you know, what happens if we do this? Where would we be?
And et cetera, et cetera. And so for me, I don't know how I was functioning,
but I was functioning on multiple planes of reality.
And it was also real and very real.
You know, I had to deal with so many decisions. decisions, how to,
(07:11):
you know, between bedside and going home, how to make tons of calls,
how to be involved in many dialogues, how to put on many different hats,
talk to an employer, give updates, talk to my employer, give updates, call insurance,
seek lawyers, trying to find, you know, power of attorney in case of anything,
(07:32):
having to deal with errands, having to, you know, The back of my mind was always about Sydney, texting,
calling, managing visitors.
My home was a revolving door. Through all this, how much sleep were you actually getting?
Oh, I mean, like little to none. I mean, I would say little to none for a long while.
(07:58):
I think I probably maybe slept an hour more or less every single night.
I don't even know to this day how I function.
But I think the adrenaline and everything just was on the forefront of my mind
that kept me strong and going.
And I had so many things running in my head that I couldn't stop to rest.
(08:22):
And so just, yeah. And then we pivot away from Cindy here.
Remember that Hudson is also another life that's thriving or changing or a person
I have to take care of almost the same way I have to take care of Cindy,
but not really an emergent state, but he really requires attention.
(08:46):
Most people say, as parents who have a young child, that's the number one priority.
Well, here I had two number one priorities, and that's not one...
Supersedes the other one so well i have to give it to you one second okay sorry about that i.
(09:06):
I'm as i'm recording this live right now hudson was supposed to be sleeping
i am carefully monitoring him and he looks like he was about to get up and i
was about to end this call,
but looks like he might have settled himself down but that's kind of what i
go through is like Like, anything I do while he's awake or while he's asleep,
(09:30):
I could be interrupted at any point of time.
Yeah. But I want to return back to what I was saying, is that,
you know, Hudson's also priority.
So if we could pivot to him, what was my life looking at as,
you know, an active mom slash dad, if you will.
(09:51):
That's the role I'm playing at this point of time. time
and you know i had to take care of him
he was always sick he he has food allergies he
had breakouts you know i had to administer meds for him he has severe eczema
we have skin breakout who breaks skin he would have scars and i'd have to take
him to just doctor appointments you know same time i have to go to cindy's appointments
(10:14):
i have to deal with daycare issues you know i you You know,
me and Cindy always felt bad because we both worked and when we got,
you know, when we both got home or were available to pick him up,
like, he, we'd be one of the few last kids there.
But he would look good going there and then he would just look kind of really
(10:36):
messy on the way picked up and just felt bad that we couldn't,
you know, sacrifice more of our time for him. And so I was dealing with that as well.
And, you know, he's not sleeping through the night. He's crying every night.
So not only was things on my mind, at nighttime I was doing stuff too.
I was consoling him. I was soothing him to bed.
(10:57):
You know, I was co-sleeping with him. I was, you know, trying to figure out
what his needs were at night.
And then in the morning and in the daytime I was figuring out Cindy's needs and her.
Other ancillary things that she needed to do, like I need to take care of her finances.
She might be out for a long time. I had to get control and say,
okay, does she have any debt? I need to take care of this and that.
(11:19):
There's a lot of moving parts there. So I didn't shave. I just dressed casual.
I just always drove back and forth from the hospital, daycare, home.
I had to carry Hudson all the time. So I was aching. I was sick all the time.
You know, he'd wake up in the middle of the night, wet or vomit,
(11:41):
and I'd have to take care of that.
Basically, hold him up, try to change the bedsheet at the same time,
and change him at the same time in the darkness of the night,
like 2 or 3 a.m. in the morning.
Because usually I can have Cindy to come by and say, hey, you know,
can you help me do this? Put this in the laundry, whatever, I've got to change the diaper.
But no, no, I had to do a lot of this. and you
(12:03):
know i also want to say that you know
my yes my family you know especially my
cindy's family have taken their
time to also be there to
help me but hudson's really very much attached to
me at this point and so oftentimes he
requires my attention even though there
(12:26):
are maybe another other one or two resources around
so but you know bless
everybody for trying to help me but you know it was very
much a overwhelming experience for
me so i i guess that's what
i mean when i felt alone at the end of the night when he's
crying i'm in that dark room and cindy
(12:49):
i know she's in the hospital fighting for her life and here
i have hudson crying i don't know why he's crying and deep
down I'm crying too and I don't have
anybody to go to because I want to
go to Sydney and tell her but she isn't here and that made it really more intense
for me like it was really more I was very sad about the situation and it made
(13:14):
me you know to a point where I couldn't even grieve over.
Something I lost or somebody that was in the hospital I was trying to find the light,
a silver lining, and it was very hard to find anything at all.
(13:35):
And so during this period of time, I don't think anybody...
Knows until you when you know you know you when
you're in in it you know but it's as i'm
telling you this it probably doesn't even
justify or not justify even closely tell you what how i was feeling at the time
(14:01):
i felt really i mean my mind was just wandering dark places i i well you know
So I could say this as a parent myself,
you know, I had the luxury of having my wife.
And when you were telling that story, I felt, I felt so sad,
you know, I felt because me and my wife did it as a team and it was still difficult.
(14:28):
Difficult, and now here you're telling me you had to do it all by yourself.
It hurt me for you, you know.
Yes, I'll never understand, you know, how it actually was, and when you say you're lonely.
Maurice, I've known you for a very long time, and I think that's part of your
(14:48):
character where I think maybe you don't ask for help.
I've never known you as a person that asked for help. you would do it yourself.
It's very similar to your wife, in a sense. And I'll just ask you,
do you think there was just a part of you that just wanted people to see your pain and come help,
(15:14):
but there was a part of you that didn't want to burden anybody else with what
you felt was your burden to bear because you said you were the husband,
you were the father, and you thanked everybody,
you know, and blessed your soul because...
That's very commendable. But do you think there's a part of you that just didn't
(15:37):
want to ask for help because you felt it was your weight to carry?
In this situation, I didn't have to ask for help. Everybody was offering help.
That was the biggest difference.
And I was not particularly turning them
away because at this point is a
pivotal point in how I change forever whatever and what you touched on there
(16:04):
is what i've kind of understood is that i need to embrace and ask for help and
i do now but i do it carefully because i will recognize if you,
if you can't help then i don't want you to be obligated and find a way to help
when it's clearly difficult for you to help so i i know the difference and but i will ask for help.
(16:30):
In a particular way.
I do know why you're hesitant as well, because you shared with me one instance
that may make you a bit shy and maybe that you're learning.
And like you said, you're very careful about who you ask for help.
But there's one situation where you told me you ask somebody for help just to
(16:54):
watch Cindy for a time being and they said that's too early.
Yeah, I mean, the...
It was very important for me to have somebody advocate for Cindy because,
you know, there were points of time where one incident I mentioned before,
(17:14):
I was gone only for two hours and that lapse of care resulted in her NG tube
being kind of exposed and withdrawn out of her nose and her stomach,
causing us to go through that traumatic incident of, you know,
re-inserting, re-implanting it through several incidents.
(17:35):
And so that was very important to me. So I did ask for help all the time.
I was trying to, I built a schedule, like I said, a plan of rotation.
And so Cindy would be covered because I was very nerve-restricted with her being
alone with just no advocate.
(17:58):
It so i yeah i i reached out to
many people and sometimes they couldn't
help and you know for very good reasons right
but i i i asked anyways
and you know in that particular case when someone gives you
a reason that you know maybe maybe in
my eyes was not
(18:22):
a solid reason then i learned
to accept that and move on
because what I want to say is that I believe it's my responsibility and it's
directly related to me and it's my burden and I'm not asking anybody to give
up their lives to do something that they don't want to do.
(18:46):
If I understand that you can't help, and in this case for that particular reason,
then And I am very reluctant and shy to ask because I don't want to put you in that situation.
And I just, for me, you know, if I put myself in your shoes,
that wouldn't be my answer, right? But I can't speak for you.
(19:10):
And so for me, you know, I have a good, I feel like I have a good pulse on,
after a number of occasions asking for people to help, who can really help,
who will go out of their way to help.
And I use them in the rotation often.
And then when I get, you know, when I can't, when resources are low and I have
(19:31):
to reach out, I do reach out, but, you know, there's only so much I can do.
But situations, you know, I mean, I'm just asking everybody and anybody that
is to understand if they're willing to help, do they want to help?
And I don't want to pass judgment I mean it's not for me to judge but it is
(19:57):
just kind of what I'm dealing with and.
Stuff like that is i have to roll off my shoulder i'm speaking of this at this
point of time well over a year and a half now so i've i've come to terms with
my feelings for it is much different,
now than it is then but you know
when you're when you're in the thick of things and you just want help and
(20:19):
and you can't get the help
you're out of your control you can't you can't pay
enough people to help you and even sometimes
then you also
kind of feel helpless and and
very like you feel like you failed like i failed cindy and then you have to
(20:40):
move mountains you have to do something with your situation and be multiple
places at once but you know i i i do want to stress that
any help that I got, I was grateful for. Any help.
Even though it was just scheduling, or it was kind of cooking meals, bringing food by.
(21:05):
It was watching Cindy, watching Hudson, trying to talk to me,
trying to listen to me, trying to get me to talk.
I would tell you that at this point of time, at least for the first five to
six months during her beginning of her injury,
I did not or could not really talk about a lot of this stuff.
(21:29):
And so I wasn't really there.
I didn't really need somebody just to listen because it didn't help me.
It didn't change the situation at all.
I had a mechanical mind, an analytical mind that said that if you can't change
anything, it doesn't make me feel better.
But there was people there that was just wanting to be there.
And it was also as awkward for them as it was for me because they didn't know how to be there for me.
(21:51):
But it's, again, I want to circle back to say that I learned to ask for help.
I mean, I remember my sister-in-law who's helped me quite a bit. She's been there.
She and Cindy, you know, as close as it can be, two peas in a pod.
I actually admire their relationship together and you know she sometimes would
(22:14):
tell me you know to ask for help don't be afraid to ask help what i couldn't
tell her that i do ask for help but you can't imagine some of the.
Excuses or rejections I get sometimes because I didn't want her to feel that
I didn't, I asked for help, but
I was not getting, they were not being supportive. That was not it at all.
(22:36):
It was for the fact that, well, not everybody can help out and I'm running out
of options and I don't want to, I'm not trying to blame anybody because they're
not, nobody, it's not because I don't want to help.
It's just they, in their way, can't help.
So I don't know if that kind of gave you an idea of my transformation or how
(23:02):
I conducted myself from then to now.
But now, where we are now, I ask for help when I can.
Or we're at a spot where we're a little bit better now, where I can do certain things.
I can talk about certain things. You know, I'm different now than I am then.
(23:24):
But back then, it was, I had never really broke down and really cried. And I did.
I remember talking that very first night or second or third night or whatever.
Whenever I went home one time and seeing parents came, I came to town as fast
(23:49):
as I could and I broke down.
I was like, I can't believe this is happening.
And that's not the face of me. That's not the person that I am. I don't ever do that.
And so this will be single-handedly the worst thing that's ever happened in my life.
Even though I have more life to live. I can't foresee anything getting worse
(24:11):
than this, you know, even,
you know, dare I say death to myself will be not as worse as what I'm,
what I went through with my wife and our son and that acute scenario that we were in.
That's, I actually really enjoyed hearing you say all that.
You know, when a person is put in a situation like yours, right.
(24:36):
What loved ones want to hear is that
that you have more life to live you know so that was really good to hear and
hearing that you broke down I know you broke down a couple of times but yes
it is very out of your character to show that sign I guess I don't want to say the word weakness,
(24:58):
you know but that's not your character from my experience with you and to hear
you break down It was really sad to hear,
but I think it was part of the journey because you coming out of this and doing what you've done is,
yes, your character has grown a hundredfold, Maurice.
(25:19):
Like beforehand, I don't think people will understand that, at least from my
experience, we didn't talk like this, right?
In the beginning of the podcast, like we were trying to show,
was that all we did was joke around and laugh, have a few beers, and have a good time.
And on this deep level, I'm glad we're here. It's for me too.
(25:42):
I want to learn from your experience how to be a better man,
a better father, a better husband.
Because what you've grown into is beautiful.
You've already proven yourself. There's nothing else that you need to prove.
And I really do hope that you found the mind frame that you did everything that you can do.
(26:09):
There's nothing you should blame yourself for.
So I guess the next thing I want to hear from you is that you finally came out
of that dark place and forgiven yourself for even thinking that you could have done more.
But you tell me, do you still find yourself maybe sinking into that dark place
(26:32):
or have you found some type of peace with how you've handled the situation?
It's ebbs and flows because it depends on,
you know, I was just doing, i mean we found a
nice cadence and yes my family still
needs me at this point of time i'm i'm
(26:52):
but we found kind of like our own rhythm of routine to do things but there will
be something that would throw it off right for instance you know like last night
you know maybe 2 a.m he woke up and he was all wet and then he says belly ached
and then he vomited a little bit there'll be times when that happens,
(27:12):
and in the back of my head I was like I wish I had.
Cindy, next to me. And then I'm sitting there, laying down.
As I'm recording this podcast, thinking about some of the episodes,
I think to myself, gosh, we talked about the first episode, second episode,
(27:34):
and I'm recounting these events.
And I'm like, man, I wish I would have done this and would have done that.
And so it comes back that maybe I could have done more.
So i've embraced the fact as i mentioned before that a lot of this is out of
my control and i did the best i can and i'm reassured by that by you know our
(27:56):
friends family medical team but then,
that's not good enough for me because it's not my nature to just because i'm always living in,
hindsight what if you know and so that
part of me does float up
sometimes and it does grab hold of me and say gosh really i mean so i'm angry
(28:20):
right i was angry then less angry now because but i'm not i don't know what
i'm angry about i'm angry the fact that i can't change anything i can't go back Back in time,
I'm angry at the fact that I can't, why did this happen, right?
Even her diagnosis was, you know, it's diagnosed as spontaneous brain bleed.
There's no reason behind it that they could officially say on paper.
(28:44):
And so I'm blaming myself because I can't blame anybody else.
I find myself doing that because that's the, that's the, I don't want to blame,
put blame on somebody that doesn't
deserve it. So I find a reason to blame myself, and I recognize that.
I don't know. I know that's probably not justified.
(29:08):
And I think that motivates me to become a better person, I guess.
You know, I've been, you know, I'm compelled to be a better person because of
Cindy, because of Hudson, and because of every situation I have to overcome.
I want to be a better person. I want to be the best version of myself in this lifetime.
(29:30):
And this whole process has made me humbled, right? You know,
everybody gets humbled all the time.
But I am humbled every single day because every single day I'm reminded of what
we used to have and what we kind of, I wouldn't say don't have now,
but what we, our lives have changed every single day where, you know,
(29:54):
it's not settled in. It's not completely normal yet.
And so it hasn't, remember, this is only a year and a half, and I still feel
like I'm still, things are still dynamic, things are still changing,
and I'm still struggling with many parts of myself and my life.
There's many aspects because there's, part of this is like.
(30:18):
I'm kind of the only parenting role model at this point of time.
I'm going to talk about back then because I, you know, now is a little bit different
than by that time. I was only, you know, I'm the only role model then for Hudson and it had to be.
(30:39):
Had to make a promise to myself like i don't care what the situation is you will not have a lack of,
nurturing because of this i will try to teach you to do the things that you
that we plan to do for you if as if cindy was still here because that's what
she would want and when i when i was speaking that i mean like physically there
(31:02):
she obviously was in the hospital for a
very long time in rehab centers for a very long time. She was not staying at home.
So I promised myself to him, to Cindy, that he would not miss out because of you not being here.
So I was trying to pick up the places like, okay, trying to read to him, trying to talk to him.
(31:26):
I tried my best, but oftentimes inside, I cried to myself because I can't do this.
Please help me. You know, I can't do this.
And so I was handling that.
And then the fact is like, I don't have a wife, the companion,
(31:47):
the person that I come home after work and say, how was your day?
Let me tell you about this. Oh, what'd you think about this?
And, you know, or I, you know, just our daily lives. I didn't have a partner.
I didn't have a partner in crime. I didn't have a partner to share with.
I didn't have somebody there physically to love.
(32:08):
And so I was missing that part of me, like being a husband, being a wife,
that was not there either.
And then just the fact that now I'm also taking care of her and she wasn't giving me feedback.
And I was just becoming, I had became an active caretaker all the way around.
I was just giving, giving, giving, and I was doing a bunch of stuff,
(32:30):
and I was losing myself, and I was never going to complain about it.
And this may sound to me, because if you caught me off guard by asking me this,
but I'm not trying to complain at all, but this is what I was dealing with, right?
This is where you just kind of had to really...
(32:53):
Down and just do what you needed to do. And I am thankful that I was able to
execute on some of the responsibilities and the duties I needed to do.
And I hope I will remain healthy to continue to do those things.
And I'm always planning and pre-planning and preparing for whatever situation
(33:15):
may come up, I want to make the best of things and provide,
nurture, love to help Cindy and Hudson thrive because they both have,
I want them to have a long life to live and I want us to make the most of this life.
So I'm humbled every day because, you know, where we were then,
(33:39):
what could have been and And where we are now,
you know, it's surreal and it's very difficult to really understand or embrace.
But, you know, I don't often think about, you know, we haven't gone out.
I haven't gone out, right? You know, since this happened, let me talk about myself.
(34:02):
I haven't gone out and had a meal, proper meal, for a long time.
You know, even, you know,
for a year I didn't have the opportunity or the will to even go out and eat
a meal outside because in the back of my mind, I thought about,
(34:24):
well, why am I out here getting food for myself,
but Cindy's in the hospital on a feeding tube?
Why am I trying to go stop by here and get a drink that I want to drink?
And she's unable to. It was just unfair to me. And I wanted to feel the pain.
(34:44):
Don't know if that makes sense but i wanted to feel the pain because i wanted in some ways for,
it made me feel better that she's not the only one in pain i wanted to be there with her i wanted to.
Relate to her some ways because it was
unfair and i was angry and i
was like no why do i i can't go out and work
(35:05):
out right now i have so many things to do but everybody's
always telling you take care of yourself marise take care of yourself
but i couldn't as much as i wanted to i was
like i can't take that amount of time just sleep an extra hour two
hours when everybody else depends on me it's like i feel
like i'm letting someone down yeah i
know someone will say mace if you're you're no good to anybody if you're not
(35:27):
well well my mind doesn't go that way my mind is always about you know i have
to do something i have to i have to i'm stronger than this i i will i will lift everybody up.
I wanted to be bigger than I was.
And so it's just a process I've been learning over time about myself as much
(35:50):
as you've learned about me, that what a person, kind of person I am,
what potential I have you know I
so I've I've it's it's been really to say the least a life-changing a moment
for everybody involved and I'm talking about like you know even her family as well where
(36:18):
her mom had to practically move in to help out for a long while.
And, you know, so I don't know.
Well, let me just chime in that we don't think this is complaining.
As I'm listening, this does not look like complaining like you mentioned earlier.
(36:40):
Like, I just want you to know that part.
You being angry, you have every right to be angry. because life's unfair and
sometimes it's more unfair to some of us.
I'd be angry. I can't imagine anyone not being at least a bit upset about a situation as yours.
So I would say you're right for feeling that way.
(37:02):
But I will say that you're here because you never gave up.
You have my admiration forever for this there were many times that you could
have sorry to be a little crude pulled the plug on this whole situation.
(37:26):
And I'm not talking about pulling the plug on yourself, okay?
People could just read that as they may.
But there were some dire situations in the beginning.
And you never gave up. You are Hudson's hero.
If you're not, Hudson is misguided.
And Cindy should know how much you love her at this point.
(37:51):
Because really, I think some people would have quit.
I really do. You never broke down. You broke down by yourself.
You came out of it. You don't blame anybody. You took sole responsibility for
things that probably are not even your responsibility.
(38:11):
You deserved all the help you got. You moved forward. And that, amen.
I respect you so much and just know that.
I think that this podcast has been cathartic and I want to say that the other
day I met one of the patients that was a fellow patient that was doing rehab
(38:38):
with Cindy and he had heard about the podcast and he had listened to it.
He brought my day up the
day started out really good because i met
him and he said like oh i listened to your podcast because cindy had mentioned
this and even though this is a perspective of a caretaker he was like oh it
(39:00):
was good i can relate and i think that it is more probably more for my wife, his wife,
was his caretaker to probably relate to.
And I felt good because I'm helping in some ways through my experiences because
people are relating and knowing that they're not alone.
(39:22):
And if they're going through the same thing as I am, they can smile through the pain as well.
And I think that's rewarding in some ways, This recently happened,
and I understand that hopefully I am doing some good.
(39:43):
And I know I'm not a perfect person, but perfection is motivation.
And so you're never going to get there. It's always in the horizon,
but it certainly makes you a better person to want to be perfect.
And I feel that's the category I fit in. I mean, thank you for really acknowledging
(40:04):
or recognizing that perhaps I have a place here.
I think that's important to me to some degree.
But for me, when Cindy and Hudson have come out and thrived and look at me and
say, thank you, that's all I need.
(40:25):
I need to know. I need them to know. And this is a catalog of my experiences in my perspective,
the good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful whatever it may be for them to know
what i've been doing when you don't,
see me and you don't remember
(40:46):
where i was this is as much
as is for me for for them for anybody
who's going through this to know that you know
they're if there's a person like myself you know
we we're trying and i
don't i'm gonna have good days
and bad days but like you
(41:09):
were saying before like how do i you know what's life
look like now you know i
i've come to terms with some things i've come
to grips with certain things i know i
can't change the past i know i can't change i can't stop you know i may have
not whatever i would it would it would have taken a lot more than me just changing
(41:33):
one thing to prevent cindy forever having this injury but.
I've come to terms with time is a very funny thing and i want to tell anybody out there that's It's,
you know, in a very dark place and they feel trapped that this will pass. You will survive.
(41:58):
But the better days might take longer than, you know, than sooner or earlier.
It's going to take time, but it might get worse before it gets better.
And you're going to have ebbs and flows, but this too will pass.
So time is a very funny thing You know, it's that first girlfriend that you
(42:19):
met you thought you're gonna marry and you broke up Like the world's gonna end That will pass,
So if I keep that in mind It lets me hold it hold on to things much longer and
I don't Feel that i'm gonna be I have to know that i'm not gonna be stuck here forever.
I will find a way Because this will pass,
(42:41):
This feeling will pass we'll have better days and I told Cindy this,
that I want you to know that everything I'm doing for you is so that to let
you know that your better days are not behind you look forward to them they will come.
Welcome to episode six. So the last time we left off Maurice,
he painted a very grim picture for all of us to think about.
And I think it's very telling on where his mind frame is.
Well, the picture that he painted for us was him just going grocery shopping in the rain.
You know, you don't want to leave out any loved ones. And that would be Cindy,
(00:25):
right? She's wheelchair bound and coming Coming home, it's raining.
He has to take out Hudson, but he has to take out Cindy first.
Now he got Hudson in one arm, pushing Cindy into the house while bringing in groceries.
And he mentioned that it's very lonely. So I want you to talk about yourself.
(00:48):
I know maybe you don't want to, maybe you don't want to get into deeper emotions,
but I feel like maybe listeners would like more insight into your mind frame
because the word that you left us with, at least left me with, was lonely.
I would agree with you. I think the word lonely might encompass that along with sadness.
(01:12):
And the only thing holding you up, I guess, is love.
So if you could let us into your mind a little bit, maybe you want to elaborate
more on that one particular situation of bringing home.
I feel very much alone. Really, only you walk this path, you as in I.
(01:34):
Only I walk this path, and everybody's there to watch and support you,
but nobody's in your shoes, so you feel isolated.
And, you know, as much as I talk to friends and family,
and they see what I'm going through,
Sometimes I try to share the experiences or try to hide the pain or hide the
(02:01):
tediousness of the things I
have to go through because oftentimes I find that it's hard to relate to.
Even if they're right there with you you know
in lockstep experience the same thing but no one is the husband no one is the
caretaker no one's the father of the situation which you're encompassing in
(02:23):
so at the end of the day you know i felt alone and usually i would turn to my wife cindy,
because when you choose a partner or you marry somebody, you kind of have somebody
there that shares the burden with you. You can share your troubles.
They can help you and lift you up because they're there with you all the time.
(02:48):
That's the hard part. She wasn't there. And for me, it's just, it was painful, right?
And I couldn't really express myself to others saying that, you know, I mean, I can and I can't.
I can't say that, you know, you guys have, when you guys go home at night, everything seems okay.
(03:09):
Okay, because in the situation when you're here right now, she's in the hospital
or wherever she may be, and when you're in sight, it just seems, you know, very real.
But when you go home, things are not so much out of place. You get to go home
to your family, all that stuff. But for me, it's happening.
And when I go home, I'm reminded every single night as I go to an empty home,
(03:33):
as the things I was used to, I'm not seeing there anymore. There's a void there, right? Right.
So that was hard for me because, and I mentioned this before,
we got into the cadence, eight months of welcoming a new child and taking care of him.
So she'd be on the right side, be left side. We do things in tandem,
(03:54):
but all of a sudden an abrupt change in that.
And it made it difficult because every
time I saw him it reminded me that she was not here and she could
be potentially you know gone and
I had to pretend to smile I had
to pretend so on so many levels and move forward because so many things were
(04:15):
on my shoulders the wheels turn because I turn the wheels will stop turning
if I stop turning and that's not to say that you know I am
the only person who can do everything it's because i am the one person that
i guess i guess that is what i'm saying because i'm so tightly coupled with
(04:38):
the situation that i'm i have to keep things moving if i don't things would
be very bad and i didn't have time to dwell so.
When it comes to me there's a lot of things to unload that has been difficult
you know So, again, I've had a lot of family support. I've had friends.
We had a big turnout at the hospital when this happened.
(05:00):
I mean, the first week when Cindy was in the ICU, I think I was...
Filtering calls, I was getting messages, and I was messaging people,
and there was just a lot of people showing support and love and concern.
I think there was like probably, I mean, I almost felt bad for all the other
(05:23):
patients there because Cindy had a really big turnout.
There was probably in the given week, maybe, you know, always 20 people in the waiting room,
and 30 at most in one time and you
know it was compelling and that's
not because that if that doesn't tell you the
character that person that lays in the bed i don't
(05:44):
know what does i don't have to tell you anything but the turnout of that really tells
you something right and so that was that was bittersweet to see everybody concerned
about her and then but then you know you couldn't enjoy you You couldn't enjoy
the support and you couldn't embrace it all because your mind was somewhere else, you know.
(06:06):
And so for me, when I'm kind of doing certain things that I need to do,
you know, driving a car from one place to the other or eating a meal or just walking,
my mind was constantly running.
I was focused on one thing is the situation at hand. It was just floating around, you know.
(06:29):
Cindy, all the things, the possibilities, what our future was,
what our past was, what's currently at hand, what does Hudson's future look like?
Like all these, my head was just a map of all directions of prospective futures
and decisions I needed to make and stuff like that.
(06:49):
Like, you know, what happens if we do this? Where would we be?
And et cetera, et cetera. And so for me, I don't know how I was functioning,
but I was functioning on multiple planes of reality.
And it was also real and very real.
You know, I had to deal with so many decisions. decisions, how to,
(07:11):
you know, between bedside and going home, how to make tons of calls,
how to be involved in many dialogues, how to put on many different hats,
talk to an employer, give updates, talk to my employer, give updates, call insurance,
seek lawyers, trying to find, you know, power of attorney in case of anything,
(07:32):
having to deal with errands, having to, you know, The back of my mind was always about Sydney, texting,
calling, managing visitors.
My home was a revolving door. Through all this, how much sleep were you actually getting?
Oh, I mean, like little to none. I mean, I would say little to none for a long while.
(07:58):
I think I probably maybe slept an hour more or less every single night.
I don't even know to this day how I function.
But I think the adrenaline and everything just was on the forefront of my mind
that kept me strong and going.
And I had so many things running in my head that I couldn't stop to rest.
(08:22):
And so just, yeah. And then we pivot away from Cindy here.
Remember that Hudson is also another life that's thriving or changing or a person
I have to take care of almost the same way I have to take care of Cindy,
but not really an emergent state, but he really requires attention.
(08:46):
Most people say, as parents who have a young child, that's the number one priority.
Well, here I had two number one priorities, and that's not one...
Supersedes the other one so well i have to give it to you one second okay sorry about that i.
(09:06):
I'm as i'm recording this live right now hudson was supposed to be sleeping
i am carefully monitoring him and he looks like he was about to get up and i
was about to end this call,
but looks like he might have settled himself down but that's kind of what i
go through is like Like, anything I do while he's awake or while he's asleep,
(09:30):
I could be interrupted at any point of time.
Yeah. But I want to return back to what I was saying, is that,
you know, Hudson's also priority.
So if we could pivot to him, what was my life looking at as,
you know, an active mom slash dad, if you will.
(09:51):
That's the role I'm playing at this point of time. time
and you know i had to take care of him
he was always sick he he has food allergies he
had breakouts you know i had to administer meds for him he has severe eczema
we have skin breakout who breaks skin he would have scars and i'd have to take
him to just doctor appointments you know same time i have to go to cindy's appointments
(10:14):
i have to deal with daycare issues you know i you You know,
me and Cindy always felt bad because we both worked and when we got,
you know, when we both got home or were available to pick him up,
like, he, we'd be one of the few last kids there.
But he would look good going there and then he would just look kind of really
(10:36):
messy on the way picked up and just felt bad that we couldn't,
you know, sacrifice more of our time for him. And so I was dealing with that as well.
And, you know, he's not sleeping through the night. He's crying every night.
So not only was things on my mind, at nighttime I was doing stuff too.
I was consoling him. I was soothing him to bed.
(10:57):
You know, I was co-sleeping with him. I was, you know, trying to figure out
what his needs were at night.
And then in the morning and in the daytime I was figuring out Cindy's needs and her.
Other ancillary things that she needed to do, like I need to take care of her finances.
She might be out for a long time. I had to get control and say,
okay, does she have any debt? I need to take care of this and that.
(11:19):
There's a lot of moving parts there. So I didn't shave. I just dressed casual.
I just always drove back and forth from the hospital, daycare, home.
I had to carry Hudson all the time. So I was aching. I was sick all the time.
You know, he'd wake up in the middle of the night, wet or vomit,
(11:41):
and I'd have to take care of that.
Basically, hold him up, try to change the bedsheet at the same time,
and change him at the same time in the darkness of the night,
like 2 or 3 a.m. in the morning.
Because usually I can have Cindy to come by and say, hey, you know,
can you help me do this? Put this in the laundry, whatever, I've got to change the diaper.
But no, no, I had to do a lot of this. and you
(12:03):
know i also want to say that you know
my yes my family you know especially my
cindy's family have taken their
time to also be there to
help me but hudson's really very much attached to
me at this point and so oftentimes he
requires my attention even though there
(12:26):
are maybe another other one or two resources around
so but you know bless
everybody for trying to help me but you know it was very
much a overwhelming experience for
me so i i guess that's what
i mean when i felt alone at the end of the night when he's
crying i'm in that dark room and cindy
(12:49):
i know she's in the hospital fighting for her life and here
i have hudson crying i don't know why he's crying and deep
down I'm crying too and I don't have
anybody to go to because I want to
go to Sydney and tell her but she isn't here and that made it really more intense
for me like it was really more I was very sad about the situation and it made
(13:14):
me you know to a point where I couldn't even grieve over.
Something I lost or somebody that was in the hospital I was trying to find the light,
a silver lining, and it was very hard to find anything at all.
(13:35):
And so during this period of time, I don't think anybody...
Knows until you when you know you know you when
you're in in it you know but it's as i'm
telling you this it probably doesn't even
justify or not justify even closely tell you what how i was feeling at the time
(14:01):
i felt really i mean my mind was just wandering dark places i i well you know
So I could say this as a parent myself,
you know, I had the luxury of having my wife.
And when you were telling that story, I felt, I felt so sad,
you know, I felt because me and my wife did it as a team and it was still difficult.
(14:28):
Difficult, and now here you're telling me you had to do it all by yourself.
It hurt me for you, you know.
Yes, I'll never understand, you know, how it actually was, and when you say you're lonely.
Maurice, I've known you for a very long time, and I think that's part of your
(14:48):
character where I think maybe you don't ask for help.
I've never known you as a person that asked for help. you would do it yourself.
It's very similar to your wife, in a sense. And I'll just ask you,
do you think there was just a part of you that just wanted people to see your pain and come help,
(15:14):
but there was a part of you that didn't want to burden anybody else with what
you felt was your burden to bear because you said you were the husband,
you were the father, and you thanked everybody,
you know, and blessed your soul because...
That's very commendable. But do you think there's a part of you that just didn't
(15:37):
want to ask for help because you felt it was your weight to carry?
In this situation, I didn't have to ask for help. Everybody was offering help.
That was the biggest difference.
And I was not particularly turning them
away because at this point is a
pivotal point in how I change forever whatever and what you touched on there
(16:04):
is what i've kind of understood is that i need to embrace and ask for help and
i do now but i do it carefully because i will recognize if you,
if you can't help then i don't want you to be obligated and find a way to help
when it's clearly difficult for you to help so i i know the difference and but i will ask for help.
(16:30):
In a particular way.
I do know why you're hesitant as well, because you shared with me one instance
that may make you a bit shy and maybe that you're learning.
And like you said, you're very careful about who you ask for help.
But there's one situation where you told me you ask somebody for help just to
(16:54):
watch Cindy for a time being and they said that's too early.
Yeah, I mean, the...
It was very important for me to have somebody advocate for Cindy because,
you know, there were points of time where one incident I mentioned before,
(17:14):
I was gone only for two hours and that lapse of care resulted in her NG tube
being kind of exposed and withdrawn out of her nose and her stomach,
causing us to go through that traumatic incident of, you know,
re-inserting, re-implanting it through several incidents.
(17:35):
And so that was very important to me. So I did ask for help all the time.
I was trying to, I built a schedule, like I said, a plan of rotation.
And so Cindy would be covered because I was very nerve-restricted with her being
alone with just no advocate.
(17:58):
It so i yeah i i reached out to
many people and sometimes they couldn't
help and you know for very good reasons right
but i i i asked anyways
and you know in that particular case when someone gives you
a reason that you know maybe maybe in
my eyes was not
(18:22):
a solid reason then i learned
to accept that and move on
because what I want to say is that I believe it's my responsibility and it's
directly related to me and it's my burden and I'm not asking anybody to give
up their lives to do something that they don't want to do.
(18:46):
If I understand that you can't help, and in this case for that particular reason,
then And I am very reluctant and shy to ask because I don't want to put you in that situation.
And I just, for me, you know, if I put myself in your shoes,
that wouldn't be my answer, right? But I can't speak for you.
(19:10):
And so for me, you know, I have a good, I feel like I have a good pulse on,
after a number of occasions asking for people to help, who can really help,
who will go out of their way to help.
And I use them in the rotation often.
And then when I get, you know, when I can't, when resources are low and I have
(19:31):
to reach out, I do reach out, but, you know, there's only so much I can do.
But situations, you know, I mean, I'm just asking everybody and anybody that
is to understand if they're willing to help, do they want to help?
And I don't want to pass judgment I mean it's not for me to judge but it is
(19:57):
just kind of what I'm dealing with and.
Stuff like that is i have to roll off my shoulder i'm speaking of this at this
point of time well over a year and a half now so i've i've come to terms with
my feelings for it is much different,
now than it is then but you know
when you're when you're in the thick of things and you just want help and
(20:19):
and you can't get the help
you're out of your control you can't you can't pay
enough people to help you and even sometimes
then you also
kind of feel helpless and and
very like you feel like you failed like i failed cindy and then you have to
(20:40):
move mountains you have to do something with your situation and be multiple
places at once but you know i i i do want to stress that
any help that I got, I was grateful for. Any help.
Even though it was just scheduling, or it was kind of cooking meals, bringing food by.
(21:05):
It was watching Cindy, watching Hudson, trying to talk to me,
trying to listen to me, trying to get me to talk.
I would tell you that at this point of time, at least for the first five to
six months during her beginning of her injury,
I did not or could not really talk about a lot of this stuff.
(21:29):
And so I wasn't really there.
I didn't really need somebody just to listen because it didn't help me.
It didn't change the situation at all.
I had a mechanical mind, an analytical mind that said that if you can't change
anything, it doesn't make me feel better.
But there was people there that was just wanting to be there.
And it was also as awkward for them as it was for me because they didn't know how to be there for me.
(21:51):
But it's, again, I want to circle back to say that I learned to ask for help.
I mean, I remember my sister-in-law who's helped me quite a bit. She's been there.
She and Cindy, you know, as close as it can be, two peas in a pod.
I actually admire their relationship together and you know she sometimes would
(22:14):
tell me you know to ask for help don't be afraid to ask help what i couldn't
tell her that i do ask for help but you can't imagine some of the.
Excuses or rejections I get sometimes because I didn't want her to feel that
I didn't, I asked for help, but
I was not getting, they were not being supportive. That was not it at all.
(22:36):
It was for the fact that, well, not everybody can help out and I'm running out
of options and I don't want to, I'm not trying to blame anybody because they're
not, nobody, it's not because I don't want to help.
It's just they, in their way, can't help.
So I don't know if that kind of gave you an idea of my transformation or how
(23:02):
I conducted myself from then to now.
But now, where we are now, I ask for help when I can.
Or we're at a spot where we're a little bit better now, where I can do certain things.
I can talk about certain things. You know, I'm different now than I am then.
(23:24):
But back then, it was, I had never really broke down and really cried. And I did.
I remember talking that very first night or second or third night or whatever.
Whenever I went home one time and seeing parents came, I came to town as fast
(23:49):
as I could and I broke down.
I was like, I can't believe this is happening.
And that's not the face of me. That's not the person that I am. I don't ever do that.
And so this will be single-handedly the worst thing that's ever happened in my life.
Even though I have more life to live. I can't foresee anything getting worse
(24:11):
than this, you know, even,
you know, dare I say death to myself will be not as worse as what I'm,
what I went through with my wife and our son and that acute scenario that we were in.
That's, I actually really enjoyed hearing you say all that.
You know, when a person is put in a situation like yours, right.
(24:36):
What loved ones want to hear is that
that you have more life to live you know so that was really good to hear and
hearing that you broke down I know you broke down a couple of times but yes
it is very out of your character to show that sign I guess I don't want to say the word weakness,
(24:58):
you know but that's not your character from my experience with you and to hear
you break down It was really sad to hear,
but I think it was part of the journey because you coming out of this and doing what you've done is,
yes, your character has grown a hundredfold, Maurice.
(25:19):
Like beforehand, I don't think people will understand that, at least from my
experience, we didn't talk like this, right?
In the beginning of the podcast, like we were trying to show,
was that all we did was joke around and laugh, have a few beers, and have a good time.
And on this deep level, I'm glad we're here. It's for me too.
(25:42):
I want to learn from your experience how to be a better man,
a better father, a better husband.
Because what you've grown into is beautiful.
You've already proven yourself. There's nothing else that you need to prove.
And I really do hope that you found the mind frame that you did everything that you can do.
(26:09):
There's nothing you should blame yourself for.
So I guess the next thing I want to hear from you is that you finally came out
of that dark place and forgiven yourself for even thinking that you could have done more.
But you tell me, do you still find yourself maybe sinking into that dark place
(26:32):
or have you found some type of peace with how you've handled the situation?
It's ebbs and flows because it depends on,
you know, I was just doing, i mean we found a
nice cadence and yes my family still
needs me at this point of time i'm i'm
(26:52):
but we found kind of like our own rhythm of routine to do things but there will
be something that would throw it off right for instance you know like last night
you know maybe 2 a.m he woke up and he was all wet and then he says belly ached
and then he vomited a little bit there'll be times when that happens,
(27:12):
and in the back of my head I was like I wish I had.
Cindy, next to me. And then I'm sitting there, laying down.
As I'm recording this podcast, thinking about some of the episodes,
I think to myself, gosh, we talked about the first episode, second episode,
(27:34):
and I'm recounting these events.
And I'm like, man, I wish I would have done this and would have done that.
And so it comes back that maybe I could have done more.
So i've embraced the fact as i mentioned before that a lot of this is out of
my control and i did the best i can and i'm reassured by that by you know our
(27:56):
friends family medical team but then,
that's not good enough for me because it's not my nature to just because i'm always living in,
hindsight what if you know and so that
part of me does float up
sometimes and it does grab hold of me and say gosh really i mean so i'm angry
(28:20):
right i was angry then less angry now because but i'm not i don't know what
i'm angry about i'm angry the fact that i can't change anything i can't go back Back in time,
I'm angry at the fact that I can't, why did this happen, right?
Even her diagnosis was, you know, it's diagnosed as spontaneous brain bleed.
There's no reason behind it that they could officially say on paper.
(28:44):
And so I'm blaming myself because I can't blame anybody else.
I find myself doing that because that's the, that's the, I don't want to blame,
put blame on somebody that doesn't
deserve it. So I find a reason to blame myself, and I recognize that.
I don't know. I know that's probably not justified.
(29:08):
And I think that motivates me to become a better person, I guess.
You know, I've been, you know, I'm compelled to be a better person because of
Cindy, because of Hudson, and because of every situation I have to overcome.
I want to be a better person. I want to be the best version of myself in this lifetime.
(29:30):
And this whole process has made me humbled, right? You know,
everybody gets humbled all the time.
But I am humbled every single day because every single day I'm reminded of what
we used to have and what we kind of, I wouldn't say don't have now,
but what we, our lives have changed every single day where, you know,
(29:54):
it's not settled in. It's not completely normal yet.
And so it hasn't, remember, this is only a year and a half, and I still feel
like I'm still, things are still dynamic, things are still changing,
and I'm still struggling with many parts of myself and my life.
There's many aspects because there's, part of this is like.
(30:18):
I'm kind of the only parenting role model at this point of time.
I'm going to talk about back then because I, you know, now is a little bit different
than by that time. I was only, you know, I'm the only role model then for Hudson and it had to be.
(30:39):
Had to make a promise to myself like i don't care what the situation is you will not have a lack of,
nurturing because of this i will try to teach you to do the things that you
that we plan to do for you if as if cindy was still here because that's what
she would want and when i when i was speaking that i mean like physically there
(31:02):
she obviously was in the hospital for a
very long time in rehab centers for a very long time. She was not staying at home.
So I promised myself to him, to Cindy, that he would not miss out because of you not being here.
So I was trying to pick up the places like, okay, trying to read to him, trying to talk to him.
(31:26):
I tried my best, but oftentimes inside, I cried to myself because I can't do this.
Please help me. You know, I can't do this.
And so I was handling that.
And then the fact is like, I don't have a wife, the companion,
(31:47):
the person that I come home after work and say, how was your day?
Let me tell you about this. Oh, what'd you think about this?
And, you know, or I, you know, just our daily lives. I didn't have a partner.
I didn't have a partner in crime. I didn't have a partner to share with.
I didn't have somebody there physically to love.
(32:08):
And so I was missing that part of me, like being a husband, being a wife,
that was not there either.
And then just the fact that now I'm also taking care of her and she wasn't giving me feedback.
And I was just becoming, I had became an active caretaker all the way around.
I was just giving, giving, giving, and I was doing a bunch of stuff,
(32:30):
and I was losing myself, and I was never going to complain about it.
And this may sound to me, because if you caught me off guard by asking me this,
but I'm not trying to complain at all, but this is what I was dealing with, right?
This is where you just kind of had to really...
(32:53):
Down and just do what you needed to do. And I am thankful that I was able to
execute on some of the responsibilities and the duties I needed to do.
And I hope I will remain healthy to continue to do those things.
And I'm always planning and pre-planning and preparing for whatever situation
(33:15):
may come up, I want to make the best of things and provide,
nurture, love to help Cindy and Hudson thrive because they both have,
I want them to have a long life to live and I want us to make the most of this life.
So I'm humbled every day because, you know, where we were then,
(33:39):
what could have been and And where we are now,
you know, it's surreal and it's very difficult to really understand or embrace.
But, you know, I don't often think about, you know, we haven't gone out.
I haven't gone out, right? You know, since this happened, let me talk about myself.
(34:02):
I haven't gone out and had a meal, proper meal, for a long time.
You know, even, you know,
for a year I didn't have the opportunity or the will to even go out and eat
a meal outside because in the back of my mind, I thought about,
(34:24):
well, why am I out here getting food for myself,
but Cindy's in the hospital on a feeding tube?
Why am I trying to go stop by here and get a drink that I want to drink?
And she's unable to. It was just unfair to me. And I wanted to feel the pain.
(34:44):
Don't know if that makes sense but i wanted to feel the pain because i wanted in some ways for,
it made me feel better that she's not the only one in pain i wanted to be there with her i wanted to.
Relate to her some ways because it was
unfair and i was angry and i
was like no why do i i can't go out and work
(35:05):
out right now i have so many things to do but everybody's
always telling you take care of yourself marise take care of yourself
but i couldn't as much as i wanted to i was
like i can't take that amount of time just sleep an extra hour two
hours when everybody else depends on me it's like i feel
like i'm letting someone down yeah i
know someone will say mace if you're you're no good to anybody if you're not
(35:27):
well well my mind doesn't go that way my mind is always about you know i have
to do something i have to i have to i'm stronger than this i i will i will lift everybody up.
I wanted to be bigger than I was.
And so it's just a process I've been learning over time about myself as much
(35:50):
as you've learned about me, that what a person, kind of person I am,
what potential I have you know I
so I've I've it's it's been really to say the least a life-changing a moment
for everybody involved and I'm talking about like you know even her family as well where
(36:18):
her mom had to practically move in to help out for a long while.
And, you know, so I don't know.
Well, let me just chime in that we don't think this is complaining.
As I'm listening, this does not look like complaining like you mentioned earlier.
(36:40):
Like, I just want you to know that part.
You being angry, you have every right to be angry. because life's unfair and
sometimes it's more unfair to some of us.
I'd be angry. I can't imagine anyone not being at least a bit upset about a situation as yours.
So I would say you're right for feeling that way.
(37:02):
But I will say that you're here because you never gave up.
You have my admiration forever for this there were many times that you could
have sorry to be a little crude pulled the plug on this whole situation.
(37:26):
And I'm not talking about pulling the plug on yourself, okay?
People could just read that as they may.
But there were some dire situations in the beginning.
And you never gave up. You are Hudson's hero.
If you're not, Hudson is misguided.
And Cindy should know how much you love her at this point.
(37:51):
Because really, I think some people would have quit.
I really do. You never broke down. You broke down by yourself.
You came out of it. You don't blame anybody. You took sole responsibility for
things that probably are not even your responsibility.
(38:11):
You deserved all the help you got. You moved forward. And that, amen.
I respect you so much and just know that.
I think that this podcast has been cathartic and I want to say that the other
day I met one of the patients that was a fellow patient that was doing rehab
(38:38):
with Cindy and he had heard about the podcast and he had listened to it.
He brought my day up the
day started out really good because i met
him and he said like oh i listened to your podcast because cindy had mentioned
this and even though this is a perspective of a caretaker he was like oh it
(39:00):
was good i can relate and i think that it is more probably more for my wife, his wife,
was his caretaker to probably relate to.
And I felt good because I'm helping in some ways through my experiences because
people are relating and knowing that they're not alone.
(39:22):
And if they're going through the same thing as I am, they can smile through the pain as well.
And I think that's rewarding in some ways, This recently happened,
and I understand that hopefully I am doing some good.
(39:43):
And I know I'm not a perfect person, but perfection is motivation.
And so you're never going to get there. It's always in the horizon,
but it certainly makes you a better person to want to be perfect.
And I feel that's the category I fit in. I mean, thank you for really acknowledging
(40:04):
or recognizing that perhaps I have a place here.
I think that's important to me to some degree.
But for me, when Cindy and Hudson have come out and thrived and look at me and
say, thank you, that's all I need.
(40:25):
I need to know. I need them to know. And this is a catalog of my experiences in my perspective,
the good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful whatever it may be for them to know
what i've been doing when you don't,
see me and you don't remember
(40:46):
where i was this is as much
as is for me for for them for anybody
who's going through this to know that you know
they're if there's a person like myself you know
we we're trying and i
don't i'm gonna have good days
and bad days but like you
(41:09):
were saying before like how do i you know what's life
look like now you know i
i've come to terms with some things i've come
to grips with certain things i know i
can't change the past i know i can't change i can't stop you know i may have
not whatever i would it would it would have taken a lot more than me just changing
(41:33):
one thing to prevent cindy forever having this injury but.
I've come to terms with time is a very funny thing and i want to tell anybody out there that's It's,
you know, in a very dark place and they feel trapped that this will pass. You will survive.
(41:58):
But the better days might take longer than, you know, than sooner or earlier.
It's going to take time, but it might get worse before it gets better.
And you're going to have ebbs and flows, but this too will pass.
So time is a very funny thing You know, it's that first girlfriend that you
(42:19):
met you thought you're gonna marry and you broke up Like the world's gonna end That will pass,
So if I keep that in mind It lets me hold it hold on to things much longer and
I don't Feel that i'm gonna be I have to know that i'm not gonna be stuck here forever.
I will find a way Because this will pass,
(42:41):
This feeling will pass we'll have better days and I told Cindy this,
that I want you to know that everything I'm doing for you is so that to let
you know that your better days are not behind you look forward to them they will come.
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