August 12, 2024 • 49 mins
An avid listener, contributor and friend, joins the conversation to finally speak to Cindy directly. Cindy responds and provides a unique perspective on her inspiring progress.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
Welcome to another episode of Smiling Through the Pain. In today's episode,
we have a couple of special guests.
First, the beloved Cindy, around whom this story revolves and is fixated on.
And second, a close friend, an avid listener, and a contributor that you've
heard on various episodes, Voth.
Our format today allows Voth, who has heard our story during the course of this
(00:25):
podcast, to share his thoughts and ask questions directly with Cindy.
So this episode is a continuation
with conversations with cindy with that hello guys hi hey maurice hey cindy
you don't you don't even understand how i got butterflies in my stomach you
know like just yeah we haven't seen each other or talked to each other in maybe Maybe two years. Yeah.
(00:51):
And... The last time was when you came to visit with your son and wife.
I think that was the last time. We got to hold Hudson when he was just a wee child. Yeah.
It was... We had steak and we had a good time.
And... Your wife bought dessert. What? Yes, she did. She bought dessert for so many, so many.
(01:18):
Wait i can't understand that i'm so sorry she brought dessert so this is the thing is that,
i have been kind of basically interacting
with sydney and post injury for you know the past two years so the things that
you say i pick up a lot easier than some other people and so as you start to
(01:39):
talk to her as you listen to the previous episode while you said that you start
to get a little bit more accustomed to some of the, which is called accents.
So she was just saying that last time your wife brought dessert from Somi Somi.
Wow. You remember that? I don't even remember what dessert she brought,
but yes, she loves dessert. That sounds great. Yes, she brought some dessert.
(02:01):
Okay. As long as you enjoyed it.
And like I was saying, I'm actually really nervous right now to talk to you.
And the things that you've gone through and Maurice has gone through is,
I guess you could say is a very foreign thing to normal people like me. Yeah.
I just want to just commend you and Maurice. You guys are remarkable. And you guys...
(02:26):
The love that you guys shown to each other and along the way,
you know, I've got to talk to Maurice here and there.
Of course, his time was completely depleted, you know, from the situation,
but the times that I did get to talk to him, you know, he's,
he's shown a lot of growth.
And I think me and him has come a long way in terms of our friendship too,
(02:47):
as we mentioned in the podcast and behind the scenes,
you know, it's like you were still there, you know, and And going through some
things that maybe I'll touch upon.
I don't want to overwhelm you with anything.
Maybe I just have some simple questions. And I don't know how you feel about
maybe certain issues that we talked about during the podcast.
(03:11):
But I'll try to touch upon it. And if it's something that you'd like to stay away from, feel free.
Okay. Just not answer it.
I'll just say I plead the fifth. You plead the fifth.
Okay your sense of humor is back okay that's great i really
didn't know how to lean into this conversation but i'm glad you did that little
(03:34):
joke right there it kind of like let out the tension a bit for me you know maybe
you and marie's joke around all the time i remember you you're a jokester and
you had the funniest jokes now i don't even know if you're ghetto or not you're You're a pharmacist.
I am a ghetto pharmacist. You have the most ghetto things to say, and it was hilarious.
But just saying. I appreciated your humor is what I'm trying to say.
(03:58):
That cut you off. What were you trying to say? I was saying that I am a ghetto
pharmacist, too. Ghetto pharmacist.
Yeah. A street pharmacist. I see. Yeah, a professional street, no drug dealer.
Yes. Yes. That is your humor. And you were smart as a whip and quick,
(04:19):
too. And no one's going to beat you in a board game, sadly. Yeah.
If you want to know my thoughts going through this as it's happening to you
as a friend, one of the things that ran through my mind the most during this
time is one, what kind of pain are you feeling?
(04:40):
And I mean, the mental and the physical, because we talk, me and Maurice talk,
and he tried to explain as best he could to me the process.
But no one's going to explain the hardship and the pain on a physical sense more than you can.
(05:02):
So I don't know if that's something you want to touch upon. on?
The physical pain? Luckily, I don't have any pain. The mental pain?
I don't have any mental pain either. It's just a lot more difficult to like
walk because our driveway is inclined.
(05:25):
There is a decline and an incline, which makes it hard to walk on an unlevel surface.
But on a direct basis, I don't have any pain.
That's actually very nice to hear, that actual pain.
(05:48):
Hi, I see George. You see her, right? Yeah, I do. Because she's trying to sneak in with her donut.
We learned about the process from Maurice, about what she went through.
I was just asking her, there's nobody else to tell us if there was actual pain, physical pain.
And it was interesting. She said that she really didn't feel the pain.
(06:12):
Currently, I don't feel any pain, but I know there was some pain in the beginning
when I was actually, but luckily, I don't remember it.
That's so possible that you actually went and endured some pain,
but yeah probably today you don't remember it yeah that is interesting because
(06:34):
maurice was telling us about those milestones you know that that made everybody
so excited that you were still mentally there and you couldn't remember the
first instance of that milestone either like like,
The hand gestures, right? No, I don't remember that at all. Yeah,
I mean, I could probably speak to that.
(06:58):
In the episode that we talked about previously, I was describing how it's funny
how there's short-term memory and long-term memory, you know, since a brain injury.
When you have a brain injury or TBI, in other words, everybody's brain gets affected differently.
Some becomes very sharp. Some might be tuned to some things.
(07:19):
And so there's a lot of signals that gets kind of, I guess, jumbled up and kind of juggled.
And so she came out of this because obviously I'm very close with her.
And so I've had many years with her that I can recognize her and things like
she has very sharp, acute recall memory of things 20 years ago, 30 years ago.
(07:42):
And I'm not saying that she doesn't remember her events in their early emergent stages at the ICU.
But I can speak to the pain that she had because at that moment,
she was responding and giving me feedback that she had convulsions.
She had coughing. She was coughing up blood. Remember, she was on the trach.
So blood was coming down out of her throat.
(08:05):
She was reeling in pain. In fact, there was a point in time where she was trying
to manage her pain medication with the staff, quickly realized that her professional
occupation was a doctor of medicine.
And then shortly after that, she used that to tell them, I'd like to have this
meds. I'd like you to start at 30 minutes before I'm actually going to get in pain.
(08:26):
So I don't know if you remember that or not. I do.
When I was in LTAC, yeah, I remember that.
There was like this other The other patient, he had a second TBI that really affected his memory.
He couldn't remember anything.
Couldn't even read. Had to start all over.
(08:49):
You know, there was this, we were at the transition facility,
and there was a moment where, you know, you always fixate and focus on yourself
and what's happening to you, right?
Outside, you look at others, and you're kind of, I'm going to describe as envious,
right? Because others can do things that you cannot do. And so you look at that.
But there's so many other people around you that are at times far worse,
(09:13):
like Cindy just described.
But you don't see that. You just see the people that are much better.
Like I wish that she could walk. She wished she could eat.
But there's other folks who are there who are almost completely paraplegic and
needed assistance all the way
around. And you're humbled to know that you can't take things for granted.
(09:35):
When you were, you know, probably in the beginning states,
coming out of your coma, when you got consciousness again, I could only imagine
what you must be feeling being away from pretty much your newborn, right?
Yeah. A child that you fought so hard to have in the beginning.
(09:57):
Yeah. Yeah, like, it is what it is. It's kind of hard to be away.
Maybe I should be far away.
Yeah, we could hardly do it. We send Carter off to TK, and it's hard,
you know, just being away from him. Then we pick him up early.
(10:19):
So how is your relationship with Hudson now? It's so much better now.
Now, like he's like, like, like when he gets up and I ask him, can I pick you up?
He lets me pick him up before he would not.
He was always like, he still does.
(10:39):
But it's gotten so much better.
Because every morning I see him and I make his breakfast.
I think that like being there every day and him seeing me every day,
that makes a big difference.
That's so good. It's definitely improvement.
(10:59):
Bright tools, you can definitely relate. Yeah. Yeah.
I'm so glad you're doing so much better. It's amazing how far you came.
Yeah, I'm just happy that I can eat better food. Yeah.
And if I drink water and if I drink small amounts of it,
(11:21):
like five cc's five mils with
less around there i'm okay so you
have to measure i do everything well i
do six more sips i can tell
when i take a big sip that's great but i'm glad that like the last place i was
(11:43):
at i used a walker and then my legs worked again That must have been a very amazing feeling.
Yeah, it was super exciting.
There was a group that came to talk and motivate people.
And he looked at these patients and he said, you'll be able to walk.
(12:07):
You're not going to be able to walk.
Yeah, so people just talked about,
Yeah. And you can't eat spicy foods either.
I can't. Like the salsa that I really like, I found out it was medium. Salsa?
Is how much it is? Yeah, medium, medium. I couldn't even eat like black pepper.
(12:30):
My fish sauce cannot have any pepper at all.
Yeah. You're like a child. I am. I'm like, I'm like when you're all stuck in an adult body.
But what is the reason why you can't have it it's just
you just have a reaction to it no there's no
(12:51):
reaction it just tastes really spicy and
hot okay yeah it's just overbearing now yeah handle it okay before i could like
it was nothing but now i guess too much it's kind of like my taste buds have
reset so i developed my tolerance again,
(13:12):
Well I guess this is like your favorite saying It's your new norm Yeah I hate that word.
Yeah I'd probably hate it too If you know I was wearing your shoes,
Because you're going to fight back to be the old norm Yeah but Yeah like someone
said If you don't like your situation Change it,
(13:37):
Yeah I like that word I like what he said I don't want my situation I'll just try to change it.
Exactly. And I remember one thing that stuck out to me when you were talking. It's a little thing.
Well, actually, it's a big thing, but you could not talk and walk at the same
(13:57):
time? No, I could not multitask.
You'd have to stop, like, get on the tracks to say something.
Yeah, like if I was walking, I have to not talk, I have to stay focused or else
I'll get too easily distracted and not be able to walk.
So it's either one or the other.
(14:19):
Right, but you've overcome this.
Yeah, so like I try to practice it, like keep walking and talking at the same time.
Don't stop and talk because that's
not how people drive you don't stop your car just
to talk so same thing goes for like when you're not in a car but next you're
(14:45):
gonna add like chewing gum right yeah i'm gonna add chewing gum and talking
or like texting and talking back to normal again Yeah.
I mean, the motor functions. I mean, you had the right brain injury?
Right cerebellum, which affected my left side.
That's your motor functions, your balance. It's like motor function,
(15:08):
motor planning, sequencing.
Yeah. Sequencing? Yeah. So in addition to the stroke symptoms,
I also had motor difficulties.
I see. So it's like a double whammy. A double whammy, but you're overcoming
everything, I assume. Every single day?
(15:31):
I'm progressing every day. Like today, occupational therapy,
they worked on my vision.
Because like you're saying that one eye, like my left eye would move,
but my right eye would not move at all.
Like the pupil was looking off to the side. Oh, the eyeball, the eyeball.
(15:55):
The eyeball was moving? Okay. The left eyeball was moving. The right eyeball was not moving.
Okay. That concerned them, huh? Yeah, it did. So I said, I want to work on that today.
Then you could go back to rolling your eyes at everything again. That's perfect.
(16:20):
I don't think that being with silver lining, that day makes sense.
That went through the same thing. Like, things affected them differently,
but they all had, like, brain injuries.
Like, one person, like, her brain injury, like, happened in her occipital lobe.
(16:45):
So she has very limited vision.
And another lady, we had the same stroke, but, like, she could not smell or taste.
So it's like eating cardboard. Oh, wow. Yeah. People sound like an interesting story themselves.
Yeah, they do feel inspiring. Yeah, maybe you should have them on.
(17:09):
I'd love to hear it. If they're there to come on and, you know,
we've gone through your journey.
I mean, you have every empathy in the world for these people.
Yeah. That's if you want to continue this. I like hearing their story. Like, what helps them?
Right but yeah yeah i
(17:31):
think that would be good that there's a
lot of negative things in this world right i mean i watch
a lot of negative youtube videos to hear somebody's you know story just like
yours it's a reminder you know to be human to be to be mortal i guess you could
say and you're not guaranteed the next day tomorrow yeah you still fight for
(17:52):
it and that's that's It's very impressive.
And your whole life has been very impressive. I mean, I don't know it to a detail.
I don't know if you want to share it with...
With the world. But I do know you were born without the greatest of health.
Nope. Yeah. And then you've overcome everything. Yeah.
(18:16):
It's meant for a book. Your life is a book. My book is an autobiography.
Yeah. You could write it. You could embellish it. Yeah. And there was one video that I watched.
It said, prove them wrong. like some
doctor told my sister that i would never
(18:37):
be able to walk again somebody actually
said that to her that's it made her so sad they they also told maurice that
she won't that you won't make it yeah that's wild you know it just makes me
feel i mean you're in the industry makes me lose a little bit of hope for this.
(18:59):
That they could give us that type of information. They're only going off of
textbook. Yeah. That's right.
So I don't blame them. They only know what they know.
Yeah. I guess they're trying to soften the blow for the family members, more or less.
(19:20):
Or like not giving false hope. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, some of the stories that Maurice has told us over the time,
you know, it ignites a certain emotion about the caretaking, you know.
Yeah. But overall, I guess you would say it was good. They were caring.
(19:41):
Well, like, overall, each step of the way, they're kind of rough.
But I think, like, I wouldn't be here today unless I had to endure that.
In order to move to the next step.
Okay. I mean, there are some stories, and I'll break it up.
(20:04):
Maybe you don't want to answer it because this one is a very touchy one,
and it pretty much shocked me.
And that was when you told Maurice about sodomy. Oh, man.
I don't even remember that.
Yeah. I heard that you did not recall that. and
(20:25):
I don't know being back I definitely would have felt that but I did not but
though you know the mind is tricky you know maybe some like sexual assault victims
tend to you know push those memories to the back because it's so painful what.
(20:46):
And your mind was very fragile at the time, maybe. You think this is one of
those that might come back?
Has any memory started to, you know, come back to you about your time at the hospital?
In the beginning of the LTCH, and I see I don't remember it at all.
Nothing ever came back? No. Okay. I guess we could just leave it at that and
(21:11):
pretend it never happened.
There's like and you know in some of the episodes that you
guys have listened to that a lot of it cindy does remember but us as not just
me family and friends as well as you can tell like you know almost leading up
to two years the mood has changed a little bit you know cindy's joking again and,
(21:33):
i'm able to talk about this so i think that that's uh that's a sign of healing
so to speak so it's That's amazing.
I love to hear it laugh. I mean, we've been talking about nothing but the pain.
Early on, there's a big pocket of void in my life where I just was cut off from the real world.
And I still am cut off from, you know, obviously TV and movies and all the normal
(21:56):
stuff, but more than that with friends and everything.
So that's like where our disconnect comes from, where we kind of got disconnected.
You didn't hear from me because I couldn't talk about it. And I think I just
sent out a broadcast to people, like I said, to say we're dealing with some stuff.
It's pretty serious. And that was the end of it. So how long has this been going on?
(22:20):
Do you guys know exactly the date? Yeah. Time frame? We do.
August 10th of 2022 was the fateful night.
Okay. So we're not far off from two years right now. It'll be two years in August.
Which was about five days away from her birthday.
(22:43):
She just had her birthday that week, and then we celebrated,
and then all that went down.
I see. And it stemmed from the worst headache in your life, right? Yeah.
Uh-huh. Yes. And yeah, in the beginning of the podcast, you know,
it was nice to hear because I think Maurice has been dealing with a lot of,
(23:06):
I guess, guilt in a way, you know, of how he could have handled things better.
But it was nice to hear that you felt that he did everything just right. Yeah.
He did all that he could. I did all these and
when I thought it was a migraine when
I went to work thinking that it was a migraine yeah if you're susceptible to
(23:31):
migraines would you think different right yeah what I found out was that a lot
of people that had TBIs they also had migraines.
So there's really no way to catch it just like
going to the doctor every time you have a migraine which is not practically
just not no no and for two
(23:53):
people they had brain simply help me sit there while they were on vacation well
that's the worst place to have them one guy it happens him when he was in Vegas
so another female I have to her Well, she was in Kabul.
Kabul? Yeah, Kabul, yeah. On vacation.
(24:18):
I think things changes a little bit. We talked about this before because Cindy
now has a history of having had a brain hemorrhage, brain bleed,
that we have altered the way that we manage our life.
Because remember, even you had commented that there's a possibility that it
(24:39):
could happen again, especially if you don't know why it happened. it.
So I advocate that you obviously should take action when you notice something
wrong with your body, especially when it comes to a headache,
a massive headache that you have not experienced like none other.
But also for us personally, when she gets a headache, it's a trigger because
(24:59):
any other day and I have a headache, but now when she gets a headache,
the other day, I think this This morning, there was a package Cindy ordered,
and in that package was a box of Tylenol.
And I kind of triggered a little bit. I asked, why did you order Tylenol?
Do you have a headache right now and concern because she had ordered a refill of Tylenol?
(25:20):
And she doesn't take that on a regular basis because that kind of like counteracts
her medication to a certain degree or her current state.
And so she's not supposed to take Tylenol. And so I, things like that,
notes of that, that are kind of laced throughout her life going forward is kind
of a trigger for me a little bit. It kind of makes me concerned.
(25:42):
But, you know, now she gets a headache or something like that. How do we manage it?
We wait 15 minutes, then go to ER because you can't really go to ER every single
time you have a headache, especially if you have a history of headaches.
So there's a teeter kind of a delicate balance now.
And I don't know where that is, but I have to be very aware of it.
And so i guess there's no checklist
(26:02):
that you have to look out for now if you have a headache it's like okay start
the clock monitor 50 minutes to go away an hour doesn't go away you have to
pick a threshold of time and then say hey let's go get a ct scan and see if it's if it's a thing,
you know i almost wish we knew what the cause was because if you knew what the
(26:25):
cause was then you can kind of act on it and say, oh.
But it was diagnosed as a spontaneous brain bleed, so it's kind of altered the
way that we manage our life.
When we go on vacation, Memorial Day is coming up, and the summer is coming up.
(26:46):
Trying to figure out what are the things we can do now, what are adaptive things
we can do in our family situation.
But also when I go somewhere, I do have to think, is there trauma one,
trauma two level hospital nearby?
What are the actions I need to take? I have to pre-plan ahead of time.
If there is a flight, a care flight that I need to go out, if there's an emergency.
(27:06):
So now you have to think about these things. You have to plan for these things,
which you don't think about at all normally, right?
When you guys go on vacation, you don't think about the nearest hospital where you're
at when you rent a place right you see how far is that drive you map it so it's
a 15 minute drive it's an hour drive is it remote are you going out to the hills
(27:28):
or some type of rural area so that's altered our kind of our or at least my caregiving.
Planning yeah i can't imagine you guys have to really plan for things nowadays
Nowadays, in excess, I guess you could say.
But as for you, Cindy, I mean, physically, like, let's just say your day-to-days
(27:50):
nowadays, what is the most frustrating thing?
Or do you find acceptance with most things now that you have to?
I think the biggest thing is that if I go somewhere, I have to use a walker.
In order, like, if I lose my balance, I have something to hold on to.
(28:12):
I tend to use my right hand more than my left hand.
And also riding things. If I want to ride things that are clear, I have to ride very slow.
Wait, Cindy, are you left-handed? I am. You are left-handed.
(28:34):
No wonder. I knew it. I'm left-handed.
Everything is on my left side. No, I am ambidextrous.
You are ambidextrous now. Yes. Forced.
Yeah, I'm forced. Keep up your left hand to be ambidextrous. Yeah.
I used to be left dominant. Now I am ambidextrous.
(28:57):
Some good anywhere, right? Yeah. Out of everything.
Well, there was a milestone where she started to use chopsticks again.
Those are the little details where she couldn't use utensils.
And then kind of eventually worked her way up and not as proficient as she used
to be, but she's got chopsticks in her hand again and using her left hand.
(29:19):
And today she has a workbook that she's working on tracing and writing again.
So continue. It's like, I don't know, it's like learning again.
I guess it's like... It is.
I was talking about, I was like when you're all stuck in the end, and an adult body.
(29:40):
Yeah, pretty much. She has to relearn that. I mean, me and Mo have talked about
that too. Yeah, I have to relearn everything.
You're running parallel with Hudson right now. Yeah.
Hudson's beating me. He's beating you. He's a clever little kid. You could just tell.
Mo showed me some videos of him. Now, are you guys documenting a lot of this
stuff, family pictures and stuff, that you can share in the future when you
(30:03):
guys are more comfortable?
You know, I mean, you guys are parents. the only
thing that have photos on my phone now is just hudson all the
time or a year and a half ago when cindy has
her injury obviously we weren't documenting i
was trying my best to document hudson's growth with
photos or videos but i also have
photos and videos of cindy because i was wanting to track
(30:26):
and keep a baseline of of where she
started and where she's here today so i'm
hoping one day to kind of compile that and
and kind of streamline it to see how she's progressed through the days and months
and years so that that'll be something nice to for me to be able to do and see
(30:50):
the the difference i think that will definitely kind of make us,
I appreciate how far she's come because I think that she's been very unfortunate
in the sense that she's got the
brain injury, but very fortunate the fact that she was able to recover.
Nobody expected this when they looked at her document, her medical profile,
(31:14):
and saw the injury she had and what she had suffered and how long she was unconscious
for and all the things that had to support her life.
I think she's just stubborn. Some people are very stubborn.
I was watching
a video of myself on move send
it to me i was trying to move
(31:35):
something from the left side to the right side with a loop remember that the
loop yeah we have some videos of you early early days when you just barely propped
up from bed and they were trying I mean, time is of the essence.
So they try to kind of start giving you passive therapy.
(31:57):
And that means that they try to move you a little bit. And then you try to do
therapy, self-therapy yourself.
And so we have some video footage of that. But so I haven't been able to go
through all of it, but we do.
Yeah, I sent you some that, you know, just to show you how far you come to have
you understand how strong you are.
(32:17):
I think the Cindy being in a healthcare profession, I think just in her nature,
she has There's always...
She watches these surgery videos of live surgeries and all this stuff.
I get a little bit squirmy about that stuff, someone doing live heart surgery and stuff like that.
But I think it's because we talked about this before.
(32:38):
And I personally think that some people are born the way they are, and maybe you are.
But I think the congenital heart disease or what you're born with also made
you the person you are because you had to face challenges.
You had to deal with a lot of stuff you had to have several
open heart surgeries your life was threatened
not just by this brain injury but well before it
(33:01):
you are going to live past what is it eight years old or two
years old i can't remember what your father told me eight years old
eight years old you know she was you know
had to have open heart surgery and they couldn't they were looking for
a heart surgeon and they said they weren't
even going to perform the surgery on her because he was too small and they
you know doctors make a a risk call
(33:24):
and says is it worth it to even do this or just kind
of you know cut your losses and and my i think her father was very convincing
and so she's kind of met one challenge after the other which i believe kind
of shaped your your will to survive and your strength and your mental state
and so i think that any other.
(33:47):
Survivors of this are dealing with it very differently you know so,
certainly for me I don't know about you guys if this happened to you guys I'd
put myself in my shoes I'm like I would be,
not doing as well as Cindy for sure so yeah I think that a lot of people pray
(34:08):
for me too and I think that really helped because I know that my co-workers and her parents,
added me to their prayers.
So that was one thing.
And like Moises and Uncle, they had the sorrows repeat. They got blessed.
(34:31):
So I think that definitely helped me.
Yeah, I mean, I could say that maybe some of those things would be underestimated.
How, I guess you could say, how the human spirit can be lifted with prayer,
something as simple as a prayer, you know?
Wow. You know, I was just telling Cindy Maurice while you were gone,
(34:54):
you know, she has these new friends, right, that may be suffering through the
same things, if not worse, and.
If I'm an avid listener, so I would love to hear their stories as well.
So some people are suffering internally, maybe they have memory loss,
maybe they have vision stuff, but outside you might not be able to tell,
(35:15):
that's like an invisible disability,
but it's still nonetheless a brain injury that has impacted you.
So all types of injury that are seeking rehabilitation, seeking for help,
and that's the friend she's talking about. So, you know, she talks about a friend
that has been in pain and stuff like that.
So it's varying degrees, you know, like for someone who looks at Cindy,
(35:38):
it's clear that she's impaired physically because she has to have a assisted
device where others are walking freely,
but maybe they have migraines, severe headaches, or they have memory loss,
or they have cognitive problems. It depends how your brain is.
There's that note about it all just just learning more
(35:58):
about this the space of you
know neuroscience and and and how the brain is
so complicated and also very fragile it's a
fragile organ at the very same time cindy wanted me to take her to one of the
outings they have which was that you know kind of like an outing at to go eat
dinner so we went out to eat and i think cindy was and one other friend were
(36:23):
the only ones that had a device.
He had a wheelchair and Cindy had her electric scooter at the time.
And everybody else can come and go to the bathroom and stuff like that.
But they're all patients or survivors of TBI.
So it sometimes isn't clear when you see people who have been impacted by a
(36:48):
brain injury. I want to say what Cindy's been through.
She's come to grips with a lot of things. At least that's what I feel from talking
to her, from hearing her laugh or whatnot.
But is there something unresolved with yourself during this journey?
Because you might still have the
(37:10):
remnants of those feelings that you just mentioned. Feeling alone, maybe.
Hey, we walk through life, right? And sometimes we don't always get the credit that we want.
We'll never ask for it.
We'd like to know the people that we love of what we've done.
(37:34):
We want to leave behind a legacy, whatnot. Maybe it's just silly man stuff.
But is there something unresolved with yourself that you probably need more
time to get over? or conquer or however you want to approach?
Oh, I feel like this is a super long journey.
(37:56):
So I think that only time will tell.
And I want to be able to meet my goals at that time or probably in my lifetime
because I think this recovery is going to be forever.
I have a long time to get back to where I was.
(38:18):
So I think I need, like, I just have to keep working on myself.
And I'll get there eventually. It could be like 10 years from now,
five years from now. I don't even know.
But I just know that there are some people that were worse off than me that got back to baseline.
(38:41):
Really? Yeah. And what about yourself, Mo? How are you going to come out of this?
I don't know. I mean, if you're being honest, it's just taking one day at a
time. You know, one day you're dealing with, the days are status quo sometimes,
and then some days are just more bright than others.
And then when something happens, they're really dark, right?
(39:03):
You have this pendulum, you have this rollercoaster ride.
And I don't know, I think I learned that I have to take it one day at a time
because, so when this happened, a doctor comes up to you and say,
this is going to be a long haul.
What does that mean? Did you guys know? I don't know. What did you mean by long
haul? I thought she was going to just wake up.
It's a waiting game. It might be a week or something like that.
(39:24):
Wake up and then, oh, I'll have her back.
If I had thought about how long, I would die just kind of anticipating because
I wanted it to come sooner than later.
So I have to take every day one step at a time. And so I think my feelings are very organic.
I've come to terms with what has happened because I can't change it anymore. That's the good thing.
(39:50):
As far as the path that I lead, I do feel alone at times, but I feel like I
am supported by some of the tools I've gained by reframing certain things,
looking at things a different way.
So I'm healthier for that. So how's the support system nowadays?
Because I'm not going to say, well, Cindy,
(40:14):
You're not 100%. What would you say you're at?
I would probably say I'm probably about 85%. 85%? 85.
Oh, okay. My support system, definitely my family, both my immediate family
and also my siblings in that family and my close,
(40:38):
actually all my friends because they were there too. too, so they know what's going on.
Yeah. And my mom saw pretty much everyone.
Well, that's a reflection of who you are, for these people to be there for you. Yeah.
They were there during the dark times.
(40:59):
Yeah. Does that fill your heart up? It does.
It does, doesn't it? Yeah, I went through some sort of discussion group.
They said, Isn't it so wonderful that somebody is willing to learn sign language
just to communicate with you?
(41:19):
I didn't think about it that way. That's right.
They did. They didn't have to, but they wanted to.
Because at the time, I could only do sign language.
Yeah, that's right. I remember that. We put a sign language letter board above
(41:42):
her bed, her hospital bed, because she was not able to communicate.
And when I was building the rotation of care for her, slots of people coming
that we trusted that can come and take care of her, advocate for her,
we put that up so they can learn to it.
So they can say, oh, this means okay, and stuff like that. because Cindy was
(42:04):
at a point Cindy was spelling.
I think if you can slur,
In sign language, Cindy was slurring. She was just really fingerspelling really fast.
You know, she was doing stuff. Going gang signs. Yeah, exactly.
And lots of crips. Yeah.
Then a doctor was saying, I think that's sign language. I know a little bit.
(42:25):
Other people were very supportive in that way. Some were trying to learn it
because they were there for two hours at a time.
And so they were just trying to ask Cindy, are you in pain?
One of the key things I always built the templates.
But ask her if she's in pain, ask her if she needs anything.
(42:46):
And then always tell her the time and date and where she is and ask her if she understands.
Why don't you tell her that time in the hospital, and I think you remember where
you gave the finger to somebody. I did.
Was it a nurse? Yeah, she was in her bra. No, she was a resident.
I was very mad at her, and I gave her the middle finger.
(43:09):
She saw it like in her face i gave it to
her and made sure she saw it yeah she
understood that sign language yeah so i gave you one back yeah i should not
be the blind the hand that feeds me yeah that's true and that was why i had
(43:29):
to have to have somebody right next to her Oh, so I see.
Cindy was a problem, I guess.
And I think, what was it? Because she was very rough on you, is that what you said?
She was just very, like, she was nice.
Okay. She wasn't rough, but she was nice. Yeah, you could tell it on their face,
(43:51):
right? Fake nice, fake nice.
Fake nice, yeah. Yeah. I could tell.
So I'm curious to see if Jules has any questions or comments.
I know she is also an avid listener.
Almost sometimes I would hear through you, Voth, that she will hang on to an episode.
I mean, I can't stop listening to it. And I always enjoy it very much.
(44:16):
And I love hearing her improvements, her milestones, and everything.
Yeah, it's a sneak peek behind the curtains. and
a lot of stuff was shocking a lot of stuff was
heartwarming like right now like just before
this podcast like i was telling you guys i'm nervous because at this point cindy
(44:36):
has become kind of a myth right kind of a legend because i've heard from her
for a while and the things that she's going through and knowing how far she's
come when she was given no chance is is wild
it's a wild story and you guys i don't know
if you guys want to be proud of such a story because it's been so hard
(44:56):
but if you guys could get over it i think you guys should be in
that sense yeah i loved especially hearing mo's struggles
and what he had to go through because you know other people go through this
and they need to hear it from most point of view yeah How he suffered and how
hard it was for him and how much stress and everything.
(45:21):
You know, that's a really big picture.
People need to know that. Two sides of a story. Exactly. We got Mo's story.
And then when you were ready, now we get your story. It's a complete story.
It's a complete like anthology, your journey. Because this happens to people.
And now they know Mo's side and what they can expect. and then now they see
(45:44):
Cindy thriving and there's hope.
Yep. And that brings listeners.
And the greatest thing about all this, and me and Mo have already said it, for Hudson...
This is going to be so eye-opening. He's going to know his mom and dad.
He's going to know what his mom went through.
He's going to know what his dad did for him, did for her.
(46:06):
And he's getting to the age where he's going to start remembering things.
Yeah, he's going to be a very good boy.
Yeah, I can see. From good parents, good boy. Yeah, he looks like a perfect mix of you two.
There was one moment during, I think it was like last year,
where i had i think we went by some place and there was a school of wheelchairs there was like a,
(46:29):
a group of wheelchairs and he pointed at it it just said mom because that's
all that's all he knew of mom was that she was wheelchair she's always been
in a wheelchair she never walked around and stood up and he just looked at it
and he said mom he just looked at these,
wheelchairs mom and it said mom you know and because he's just associated that
yeah and that That was the story to be told to him, like when he gets older
(46:53):
or when he realizes that,
you know, and and if obviously as you get better and better,
maybe he didn't realize you were, you know, you had this phase that you were dealing with.
One thing that I do like is that I spent less time on social media was a big time suck.
(47:17):
But now I don't even look at it. You were big on social media? I was. Yeah.
Like, like, every month I would post something about it. But now I don't even post.
Yeah. Me and Jules gave up on social media a long time ago.
It was too toxic. Cindy, how do you feel about today's conversation?
(47:40):
Being able to talk to our dear friends that you haven't been able to speak to
since your brain injury?
I liked it. I enjoyed it.
Like, I haven't been able to talk to them in a long time. It's good to hear from them.
Yeah, you've always been a sweetheart to us, Cindy. Yeah. And we remember.
(48:01):
Right, just people. Mm-hmm. You're a person I know, and you are very, very strong.
And it's amazing how far you came. I'm sorry, I had the hiccups.
You're very amazing and inspirational. Yeah, I think I would agree.
With the same sentiments there.
I think this will be sort of like the beginning of many conversations as Cindy
(48:26):
reintegrates, that we reintegrate with society and the community.
And I look forward to the next series of episodes where we get to see some other special guests.
And with Nadeer. Thank you guys for being here. Thank you for supporting us.
Thanks for having us. Thanks for having us. And you, Cindy, from the last time
I heard to right now, Now you improved so much.
(48:49):
I think this has been a great conversation and I look forward into the next
time we get to speak again.
Thank you guys. Thank you, Mo. Bye. Thank you, Cindy. Bye.
Welcome to another episode of Smiling Through the Pain. In today's episode,
we have a couple of special guests.
First, the beloved Cindy, around whom this story revolves and is fixated on.
And second, a close friend, an avid listener, and a contributor that you've
heard on various episodes, Voth.
Our format today allows Voth, who has heard our story during the course of this
(00:25):
podcast, to share his thoughts and ask questions directly with Cindy.
So this episode is a continuation
with conversations with cindy with that hello guys hi hey maurice hey cindy
you don't you don't even understand how i got butterflies in my stomach you
know like just yeah we haven't seen each other or talked to each other in maybe Maybe two years. Yeah.
(00:51):
And... The last time was when you came to visit with your son and wife.
I think that was the last time. We got to hold Hudson when he was just a wee child. Yeah.
It was... We had steak and we had a good time.
And... Your wife bought dessert. What? Yes, she did. She bought dessert for so many, so many.
(01:18):
Wait i can't understand that i'm so sorry she brought dessert so this is the thing is that,
i have been kind of basically interacting
with sydney and post injury for you know the past two years so the things that
you say i pick up a lot easier than some other people and so as you start to
(01:39):
talk to her as you listen to the previous episode while you said that you start
to get a little bit more accustomed to some of the, which is called accents.
So she was just saying that last time your wife brought dessert from Somi Somi.
Wow. You remember that? I don't even remember what dessert she brought,
but yes, she loves dessert. That sounds great. Yes, she brought some dessert.
(02:01):
Okay. As long as you enjoyed it.
And like I was saying, I'm actually really nervous right now to talk to you.
And the things that you've gone through and Maurice has gone through is,
I guess you could say is a very foreign thing to normal people like me. Yeah.
I just want to just commend you and Maurice. You guys are remarkable. And you guys...
(02:26):
The love that you guys shown to each other and along the way,
you know, I've got to talk to Maurice here and there.
Of course, his time was completely depleted, you know, from the situation,
but the times that I did get to talk to him, you know, he's,
he's shown a lot of growth.
And I think me and him has come a long way in terms of our friendship too,
(02:47):
as we mentioned in the podcast and behind the scenes,
you know, it's like you were still there, you know, and And going through some
things that maybe I'll touch upon.
I don't want to overwhelm you with anything.
Maybe I just have some simple questions. And I don't know how you feel about
maybe certain issues that we talked about during the podcast.
(03:11):
But I'll try to touch upon it. And if it's something that you'd like to stay away from, feel free.
Okay. Just not answer it.
I'll just say I plead the fifth. You plead the fifth.
Okay your sense of humor is back okay that's great i really
didn't know how to lean into this conversation but i'm glad you did that little
(03:34):
joke right there it kind of like let out the tension a bit for me you know maybe
you and marie's joke around all the time i remember you you're a jokester and
you had the funniest jokes now i don't even know if you're ghetto or not you're You're a pharmacist.
I am a ghetto pharmacist. You have the most ghetto things to say, and it was hilarious.
But just saying. I appreciated your humor is what I'm trying to say.
(03:58):
That cut you off. What were you trying to say? I was saying that I am a ghetto
pharmacist, too. Ghetto pharmacist.
Yeah. A street pharmacist. I see. Yeah, a professional street, no drug dealer.
Yes. Yes. That is your humor. And you were smart as a whip and quick,
(04:19):
too. And no one's going to beat you in a board game, sadly. Yeah.
If you want to know my thoughts going through this as it's happening to you
as a friend, one of the things that ran through my mind the most during this
time is one, what kind of pain are you feeling?
(04:40):
And I mean, the mental and the physical, because we talk, me and Maurice talk,
and he tried to explain as best he could to me the process.
But no one's going to explain the hardship and the pain on a physical sense more than you can.
(05:02):
So I don't know if that's something you want to touch upon. on?
The physical pain? Luckily, I don't have any pain. The mental pain?
I don't have any mental pain either. It's just a lot more difficult to like
walk because our driveway is inclined.
(05:25):
There is a decline and an incline, which makes it hard to walk on an unlevel surface.
But on a direct basis, I don't have any pain.
That's actually very nice to hear, that actual pain.
(05:48):
Hi, I see George. You see her, right? Yeah, I do. Because she's trying to sneak in with her donut.
We learned about the process from Maurice, about what she went through.
I was just asking her, there's nobody else to tell us if there was actual pain, physical pain.
And it was interesting. She said that she really didn't feel the pain.
(06:12):
Currently, I don't feel any pain, but I know there was some pain in the beginning
when I was actually, but luckily, I don't remember it.
That's so possible that you actually went and endured some pain,
but yeah probably today you don't remember it yeah that is interesting because
(06:34):
maurice was telling us about those milestones you know that that made everybody
so excited that you were still mentally there and you couldn't remember the
first instance of that milestone either like like,
The hand gestures, right? No, I don't remember that at all. Yeah,
I mean, I could probably speak to that.
(06:58):
In the episode that we talked about previously, I was describing how it's funny
how there's short-term memory and long-term memory, you know, since a brain injury.
When you have a brain injury or TBI, in other words, everybody's brain gets affected differently.
Some becomes very sharp. Some might be tuned to some things.
(07:19):
And so there's a lot of signals that gets kind of, I guess, jumbled up and kind of juggled.
And so she came out of this because obviously I'm very close with her.
And so I've had many years with her that I can recognize her and things like
she has very sharp, acute recall memory of things 20 years ago, 30 years ago.
(07:42):
And I'm not saying that she doesn't remember her events in their early emergent stages at the ICU.
But I can speak to the pain that she had because at that moment,
she was responding and giving me feedback that she had convulsions.
She had coughing. She was coughing up blood. Remember, she was on the trach.
So blood was coming down out of her throat.
(08:05):
She was reeling in pain. In fact, there was a point in time where she was trying
to manage her pain medication with the staff, quickly realized that her professional
occupation was a doctor of medicine.
And then shortly after that, she used that to tell them, I'd like to have this
meds. I'd like you to start at 30 minutes before I'm actually going to get in pain.
(08:26):
So I don't know if you remember that or not. I do.
When I was in LTAC, yeah, I remember that.
There was like this other The other patient, he had a second TBI that really affected his memory.
He couldn't remember anything.
Couldn't even read. Had to start all over.
(08:49):
You know, there was this, we were at the transition facility,
and there was a moment where, you know, you always fixate and focus on yourself
and what's happening to you, right?
Outside, you look at others, and you're kind of, I'm going to describe as envious,
right? Because others can do things that you cannot do. And so you look at that.
But there's so many other people around you that are at times far worse,
(09:13):
like Cindy just described.
But you don't see that. You just see the people that are much better.
Like I wish that she could walk. She wished she could eat.
But there's other folks who are there who are almost completely paraplegic and
needed assistance all the way
around. And you're humbled to know that you can't take things for granted.
(09:35):
When you were, you know, probably in the beginning states,
coming out of your coma, when you got consciousness again, I could only imagine
what you must be feeling being away from pretty much your newborn, right?
Yeah. A child that you fought so hard to have in the beginning.
(09:57):
Yeah. Yeah, like, it is what it is. It's kind of hard to be away.
Maybe I should be far away.
Yeah, we could hardly do it. We send Carter off to TK, and it's hard,
you know, just being away from him. Then we pick him up early.
(10:19):
So how is your relationship with Hudson now? It's so much better now.
Now, like he's like, like, like when he gets up and I ask him, can I pick you up?
He lets me pick him up before he would not.
He was always like, he still does.
(10:39):
But it's gotten so much better.
Because every morning I see him and I make his breakfast.
I think that like being there every day and him seeing me every day,
that makes a big difference.
That's so good. It's definitely improvement.
(10:59):
Bright tools, you can definitely relate. Yeah. Yeah.
I'm so glad you're doing so much better. It's amazing how far you came.
Yeah, I'm just happy that I can eat better food. Yeah.
And if I drink water and if I drink small amounts of it,
(11:21):
like five cc's five mils with
less around there i'm okay so you
have to measure i do everything well i
do six more sips i can tell
when i take a big sip that's great but i'm glad that like the last place i was
(11:43):
at i used a walker and then my legs worked again That must have been a very amazing feeling.
Yeah, it was super exciting.
There was a group that came to talk and motivate people.
And he looked at these patients and he said, you'll be able to walk.
(12:07):
You're not going to be able to walk.
Yeah, so people just talked about,
Yeah. And you can't eat spicy foods either.
I can't. Like the salsa that I really like, I found out it was medium. Salsa?
Is how much it is? Yeah, medium, medium. I couldn't even eat like black pepper.
(12:30):
My fish sauce cannot have any pepper at all.
Yeah. You're like a child. I am. I'm like, I'm like when you're all stuck in an adult body.
But what is the reason why you can't have it it's just
you just have a reaction to it no there's no
(12:51):
reaction it just tastes really spicy and
hot okay yeah it's just overbearing now yeah handle it okay before i could like
it was nothing but now i guess too much it's kind of like my taste buds have
reset so i developed my tolerance again,
(13:12):
Well I guess this is like your favorite saying It's your new norm Yeah I hate that word.
Yeah I'd probably hate it too If you know I was wearing your shoes,
Because you're going to fight back to be the old norm Yeah but Yeah like someone
said If you don't like your situation Change it,
(13:37):
Yeah I like that word I like what he said I don't want my situation I'll just try to change it.
Exactly. And I remember one thing that stuck out to me when you were talking. It's a little thing.
Well, actually, it's a big thing, but you could not talk and walk at the same
(13:57):
time? No, I could not multitask.
You'd have to stop, like, get on the tracks to say something.
Yeah, like if I was walking, I have to not talk, I have to stay focused or else
I'll get too easily distracted and not be able to walk.
So it's either one or the other.
(14:19):
Right, but you've overcome this.
Yeah, so like I try to practice it, like keep walking and talking at the same time.
Don't stop and talk because that's
not how people drive you don't stop your car just
to talk so same thing goes for like when you're not in a car but next you're
(14:45):
gonna add like chewing gum right yeah i'm gonna add chewing gum and talking
or like texting and talking back to normal again Yeah.
I mean, the motor functions. I mean, you had the right brain injury?
Right cerebellum, which affected my left side.
That's your motor functions, your balance. It's like motor function,
(15:08):
motor planning, sequencing.
Yeah. Sequencing? Yeah. So in addition to the stroke symptoms,
I also had motor difficulties.
I see. So it's like a double whammy. A double whammy, but you're overcoming
everything, I assume. Every single day?
(15:31):
I'm progressing every day. Like today, occupational therapy,
they worked on my vision.
Because like you're saying that one eye, like my left eye would move,
but my right eye would not move at all.
Like the pupil was looking off to the side. Oh, the eyeball, the eyeball.
(15:55):
The eyeball was moving? Okay. The left eyeball was moving. The right eyeball was not moving.
Okay. That concerned them, huh? Yeah, it did. So I said, I want to work on that today.
Then you could go back to rolling your eyes at everything again. That's perfect.
(16:20):
I don't think that being with silver lining, that day makes sense.
That went through the same thing. Like, things affected them differently,
but they all had, like, brain injuries.
Like, one person, like, her brain injury, like, happened in her occipital lobe.
(16:45):
So she has very limited vision.
And another lady, we had the same stroke, but, like, she could not smell or taste.
So it's like eating cardboard. Oh, wow. Yeah. People sound like an interesting story themselves.
Yeah, they do feel inspiring. Yeah, maybe you should have them on.
(17:09):
I'd love to hear it. If they're there to come on and, you know,
we've gone through your journey.
I mean, you have every empathy in the world for these people.
Yeah. That's if you want to continue this. I like hearing their story. Like, what helps them?
Right but yeah yeah i
(17:31):
think that would be good that there's a
lot of negative things in this world right i mean i watch
a lot of negative youtube videos to hear somebody's you know story just like
yours it's a reminder you know to be human to be to be mortal i guess you could
say and you're not guaranteed the next day tomorrow yeah you still fight for
(17:52):
it and that's that's It's very impressive.
And your whole life has been very impressive. I mean, I don't know it to a detail.
I don't know if you want to share it with...
With the world. But I do know you were born without the greatest of health.
Nope. Yeah. And then you've overcome everything. Yeah.
(18:16):
It's meant for a book. Your life is a book. My book is an autobiography.
Yeah. You could write it. You could embellish it. Yeah. And there was one video that I watched.
It said, prove them wrong. like some
doctor told my sister that i would never
(18:37):
be able to walk again somebody actually
said that to her that's it made her so sad they they also told maurice that
she won't that you won't make it yeah that's wild you know it just makes me
feel i mean you're in the industry makes me lose a little bit of hope for this.
(18:59):
That they could give us that type of information. They're only going off of
textbook. Yeah. That's right.
So I don't blame them. They only know what they know.
Yeah. I guess they're trying to soften the blow for the family members, more or less.
(19:20):
Or like not giving false hope. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, some of the stories that Maurice has told us over the time,
you know, it ignites a certain emotion about the caretaking, you know.
Yeah. But overall, I guess you would say it was good. They were caring.
(19:41):
Well, like, overall, each step of the way, they're kind of rough.
But I think, like, I wouldn't be here today unless I had to endure that.
In order to move to the next step.
Okay. I mean, there are some stories, and I'll break it up.
(20:04):
Maybe you don't want to answer it because this one is a very touchy one,
and it pretty much shocked me.
And that was when you told Maurice about sodomy. Oh, man.
I don't even remember that.
Yeah. I heard that you did not recall that. and
(20:25):
I don't know being back I definitely would have felt that but I did not but
though you know the mind is tricky you know maybe some like sexual assault victims
tend to you know push those memories to the back because it's so painful what.
(20:46):
And your mind was very fragile at the time, maybe. You think this is one of
those that might come back?
Has any memory started to, you know, come back to you about your time at the hospital?
In the beginning of the LTCH, and I see I don't remember it at all.
Nothing ever came back? No. Okay. I guess we could just leave it at that and
(21:11):
pretend it never happened.
There's like and you know in some of the episodes that you
guys have listened to that a lot of it cindy does remember but us as not just
me family and friends as well as you can tell like you know almost leading up
to two years the mood has changed a little bit you know cindy's joking again and,
(21:33):
i'm able to talk about this so i think that that's uh that's a sign of healing
so to speak so it's That's amazing.
I love to hear it laugh. I mean, we've been talking about nothing but the pain.
Early on, there's a big pocket of void in my life where I just was cut off from the real world.
And I still am cut off from, you know, obviously TV and movies and all the normal
(21:56):
stuff, but more than that with friends and everything.
So that's like where our disconnect comes from, where we kind of got disconnected.
You didn't hear from me because I couldn't talk about it. And I think I just
sent out a broadcast to people, like I said, to say we're dealing with some stuff.
It's pretty serious. And that was the end of it. So how long has this been going on?
(22:20):
Do you guys know exactly the date? Yeah. Time frame? We do.
August 10th of 2022 was the fateful night.
Okay. So we're not far off from two years right now. It'll be two years in August.
Which was about five days away from her birthday.
(22:43):
She just had her birthday that week, and then we celebrated,
and then all that went down.
I see. And it stemmed from the worst headache in your life, right? Yeah.
Uh-huh. Yes. And yeah, in the beginning of the podcast, you know,
it was nice to hear because I think Maurice has been dealing with a lot of,
(23:06):
I guess, guilt in a way, you know, of how he could have handled things better.
But it was nice to hear that you felt that he did everything just right. Yeah.
He did all that he could. I did all these and
when I thought it was a migraine when
I went to work thinking that it was a migraine yeah if you're susceptible to
(23:31):
migraines would you think different right yeah what I found out was that a lot
of people that had TBIs they also had migraines.
So there's really no way to catch it just like
going to the doctor every time you have a migraine which is not practically
just not no no and for two
(23:53):
people they had brain simply help me sit there while they were on vacation well
that's the worst place to have them one guy it happens him when he was in Vegas
so another female I have to her Well, she was in Kabul.
Kabul? Yeah, Kabul, yeah. On vacation.
(24:18):
I think things changes a little bit. We talked about this before because Cindy
now has a history of having had a brain hemorrhage, brain bleed,
that we have altered the way that we manage our life.
Because remember, even you had commented that there's a possibility that it
(24:39):
could happen again, especially if you don't know why it happened. it.
So I advocate that you obviously should take action when you notice something
wrong with your body, especially when it comes to a headache,
a massive headache that you have not experienced like none other.
But also for us personally, when she gets a headache, it's a trigger because
(24:59):
any other day and I have a headache, but now when she gets a headache,
the other day, I think this This morning, there was a package Cindy ordered,
and in that package was a box of Tylenol.
And I kind of triggered a little bit. I asked, why did you order Tylenol?
Do you have a headache right now and concern because she had ordered a refill of Tylenol?
(25:20):
And she doesn't take that on a regular basis because that kind of like counteracts
her medication to a certain degree or her current state.
And so she's not supposed to take Tylenol. And so I, things like that,
notes of that, that are kind of laced throughout her life going forward is kind
of a trigger for me a little bit. It kind of makes me concerned.
(25:42):
But, you know, now she gets a headache or something like that. How do we manage it?
We wait 15 minutes, then go to ER because you can't really go to ER every single
time you have a headache, especially if you have a history of headaches.
So there's a teeter kind of a delicate balance now.
And I don't know where that is, but I have to be very aware of it.
And so i guess there's no checklist
(26:02):
that you have to look out for now if you have a headache it's like okay start
the clock monitor 50 minutes to go away an hour doesn't go away you have to
pick a threshold of time and then say hey let's go get a ct scan and see if it's if it's a thing,
you know i almost wish we knew what the cause was because if you knew what the
(26:25):
cause was then you can kind of act on it and say, oh.
But it was diagnosed as a spontaneous brain bleed, so it's kind of altered the
way that we manage our life.
When we go on vacation, Memorial Day is coming up, and the summer is coming up.
(26:46):
Trying to figure out what are the things we can do now, what are adaptive things
we can do in our family situation.
But also when I go somewhere, I do have to think, is there trauma one,
trauma two level hospital nearby?
What are the actions I need to take? I have to pre-plan ahead of time.
If there is a flight, a care flight that I need to go out, if there's an emergency.
(27:06):
So now you have to think about these things. You have to plan for these things,
which you don't think about at all normally, right?
When you guys go on vacation, you don't think about the nearest hospital where you're
at when you rent a place right you see how far is that drive you map it so it's
a 15 minute drive it's an hour drive is it remote are you going out to the hills
(27:28):
or some type of rural area so that's altered our kind of our or at least my caregiving.
Planning yeah i can't imagine you guys have to really plan for things nowadays
Nowadays, in excess, I guess you could say.
But as for you, Cindy, I mean, physically, like, let's just say your day-to-days
(27:50):
nowadays, what is the most frustrating thing?
Or do you find acceptance with most things now that you have to?
I think the biggest thing is that if I go somewhere, I have to use a walker.
In order, like, if I lose my balance, I have something to hold on to.
(28:12):
I tend to use my right hand more than my left hand.
And also riding things. If I want to ride things that are clear, I have to ride very slow.
Wait, Cindy, are you left-handed? I am. You are left-handed.
(28:34):
No wonder. I knew it. I'm left-handed.
Everything is on my left side. No, I am ambidextrous.
You are ambidextrous now. Yes. Forced.
Yeah, I'm forced. Keep up your left hand to be ambidextrous. Yeah.
I used to be left dominant. Now I am ambidextrous.
(28:57):
Some good anywhere, right? Yeah. Out of everything.
Well, there was a milestone where she started to use chopsticks again.
Those are the little details where she couldn't use utensils.
And then kind of eventually worked her way up and not as proficient as she used
to be, but she's got chopsticks in her hand again and using her left hand.
(29:19):
And today she has a workbook that she's working on tracing and writing again.
So continue. It's like, I don't know, it's like learning again.
I guess it's like... It is.
I was talking about, I was like when you're all stuck in the end, and an adult body.
(29:40):
Yeah, pretty much. She has to relearn that. I mean, me and Mo have talked about
that too. Yeah, I have to relearn everything.
You're running parallel with Hudson right now. Yeah.
Hudson's beating me. He's beating you. He's a clever little kid. You could just tell.
Mo showed me some videos of him. Now, are you guys documenting a lot of this
stuff, family pictures and stuff, that you can share in the future when you
(30:03):
guys are more comfortable?
You know, I mean, you guys are parents. the only
thing that have photos on my phone now is just hudson all the
time or a year and a half ago when cindy has
her injury obviously we weren't documenting i
was trying my best to document hudson's growth with
photos or videos but i also have
photos and videos of cindy because i was wanting to track
(30:26):
and keep a baseline of of where she
started and where she's here today so i'm
hoping one day to kind of compile that and
and kind of streamline it to see how she's progressed through the days and months
and years so that that'll be something nice to for me to be able to do and see
(30:50):
the the difference i think that will definitely kind of make us,
I appreciate how far she's come because I think that she's been very unfortunate
in the sense that she's got the
brain injury, but very fortunate the fact that she was able to recover.
Nobody expected this when they looked at her document, her medical profile,
(31:14):
and saw the injury she had and what she had suffered and how long she was unconscious
for and all the things that had to support her life.
I think she's just stubborn. Some people are very stubborn.
I was watching
a video of myself on move send
it to me i was trying to move
(31:35):
something from the left side to the right side with a loop remember that the
loop yeah we have some videos of you early early days when you just barely propped
up from bed and they were trying I mean, time is of the essence.
So they try to kind of start giving you passive therapy.
(31:57):
And that means that they try to move you a little bit. And then you try to do
therapy, self-therapy yourself.
And so we have some video footage of that. But so I haven't been able to go
through all of it, but we do.
Yeah, I sent you some that, you know, just to show you how far you come to have
you understand how strong you are.
(32:17):
I think the Cindy being in a healthcare profession, I think just in her nature,
she has There's always...
She watches these surgery videos of live surgeries and all this stuff.
I get a little bit squirmy about that stuff, someone doing live heart surgery and stuff like that.
But I think it's because we talked about this before.
(32:38):
And I personally think that some people are born the way they are, and maybe you are.
But I think the congenital heart disease or what you're born with also made
you the person you are because you had to face challenges.
You had to deal with a lot of stuff you had to have several
open heart surgeries your life was threatened
not just by this brain injury but well before it
(33:01):
you are going to live past what is it eight years old or two
years old i can't remember what your father told me eight years old
eight years old you know she was you know
had to have open heart surgery and they couldn't they were looking for
a heart surgeon and they said they weren't
even going to perform the surgery on her because he was too small and they
you know doctors make a a risk call
(33:24):
and says is it worth it to even do this or just kind
of you know cut your losses and and my i think her father was very convincing
and so she's kind of met one challenge after the other which i believe kind
of shaped your your will to survive and your strength and your mental state
and so i think that any other.
(33:47):
Survivors of this are dealing with it very differently you know so,
certainly for me I don't know about you guys if this happened to you guys I'd
put myself in my shoes I'm like I would be,
not doing as well as Cindy for sure so yeah I think that a lot of people pray
(34:08):
for me too and I think that really helped because I know that my co-workers and her parents,
added me to their prayers.
So that was one thing.
And like Moises and Uncle, they had the sorrows repeat. They got blessed.
(34:31):
So I think that definitely helped me.
Yeah, I mean, I could say that maybe some of those things would be underestimated.
How, I guess you could say, how the human spirit can be lifted with prayer,
something as simple as a prayer, you know?
Wow. You know, I was just telling Cindy Maurice while you were gone,
(34:54):
you know, she has these new friends, right, that may be suffering through the
same things, if not worse, and.
If I'm an avid listener, so I would love to hear their stories as well.
So some people are suffering internally, maybe they have memory loss,
maybe they have vision stuff, but outside you might not be able to tell,
(35:15):
that's like an invisible disability,
but it's still nonetheless a brain injury that has impacted you.
So all types of injury that are seeking rehabilitation, seeking for help,
and that's the friend she's talking about. So, you know, she talks about a friend
that has been in pain and stuff like that.
So it's varying degrees, you know, like for someone who looks at Cindy,
(35:38):
it's clear that she's impaired physically because she has to have a assisted
device where others are walking freely,
but maybe they have migraines, severe headaches, or they have memory loss,
or they have cognitive problems. It depends how your brain is.
There's that note about it all just just learning more
(35:58):
about this the space of you
know neuroscience and and and how the brain is
so complicated and also very fragile it's a
fragile organ at the very same time cindy wanted me to take her to one of the
outings they have which was that you know kind of like an outing at to go eat
dinner so we went out to eat and i think cindy was and one other friend were
(36:23):
the only ones that had a device.
He had a wheelchair and Cindy had her electric scooter at the time.
And everybody else can come and go to the bathroom and stuff like that.
But they're all patients or survivors of TBI.
So it sometimes isn't clear when you see people who have been impacted by a
(36:48):
brain injury. I want to say what Cindy's been through.
She's come to grips with a lot of things. At least that's what I feel from talking
to her, from hearing her laugh or whatnot.
But is there something unresolved with yourself during this journey?
Because you might still have the
(37:10):
remnants of those feelings that you just mentioned. Feeling alone, maybe.
Hey, we walk through life, right? And sometimes we don't always get the credit that we want.
We'll never ask for it.
We'd like to know the people that we love of what we've done.
(37:34):
We want to leave behind a legacy, whatnot. Maybe it's just silly man stuff.
But is there something unresolved with yourself that you probably need more
time to get over? or conquer or however you want to approach?
Oh, I feel like this is a super long journey.
(37:56):
So I think that only time will tell.
And I want to be able to meet my goals at that time or probably in my lifetime
because I think this recovery is going to be forever.
I have a long time to get back to where I was.
(38:18):
So I think I need, like, I just have to keep working on myself.
And I'll get there eventually. It could be like 10 years from now,
five years from now. I don't even know.
But I just know that there are some people that were worse off than me that got back to baseline.
(38:41):
Really? Yeah. And what about yourself, Mo? How are you going to come out of this?
I don't know. I mean, if you're being honest, it's just taking one day at a
time. You know, one day you're dealing with, the days are status quo sometimes,
and then some days are just more bright than others.
And then when something happens, they're really dark, right?
(39:03):
You have this pendulum, you have this rollercoaster ride.
And I don't know, I think I learned that I have to take it one day at a time
because, so when this happened, a doctor comes up to you and say,
this is going to be a long haul.
What does that mean? Did you guys know? I don't know. What did you mean by long
haul? I thought she was going to just wake up.
It's a waiting game. It might be a week or something like that.
(39:24):
Wake up and then, oh, I'll have her back.
If I had thought about how long, I would die just kind of anticipating because
I wanted it to come sooner than later.
So I have to take every day one step at a time. And so I think my feelings are very organic.
I've come to terms with what has happened because I can't change it anymore. That's the good thing.
(39:50):
As far as the path that I lead, I do feel alone at times, but I feel like I
am supported by some of the tools I've gained by reframing certain things,
looking at things a different way.
So I'm healthier for that. So how's the support system nowadays?
Because I'm not going to say, well, Cindy,
(40:14):
You're not 100%. What would you say you're at?
I would probably say I'm probably about 85%. 85%? 85.
Oh, okay. My support system, definitely my family, both my immediate family
and also my siblings in that family and my close,
(40:38):
actually all my friends because they were there too. too, so they know what's going on.
Yeah. And my mom saw pretty much everyone.
Well, that's a reflection of who you are, for these people to be there for you. Yeah.
They were there during the dark times.
(40:59):
Yeah. Does that fill your heart up? It does.
It does, doesn't it? Yeah, I went through some sort of discussion group.
They said, Isn't it so wonderful that somebody is willing to learn sign language
just to communicate with you?
(41:19):
I didn't think about it that way. That's right.
They did. They didn't have to, but they wanted to.
Because at the time, I could only do sign language.
Yeah, that's right. I remember that. We put a sign language letter board above
(41:42):
her bed, her hospital bed, because she was not able to communicate.
And when I was building the rotation of care for her, slots of people coming
that we trusted that can come and take care of her, advocate for her,
we put that up so they can learn to it.
So they can say, oh, this means okay, and stuff like that. because Cindy was
(42:04):
at a point Cindy was spelling.
I think if you can slur,
In sign language, Cindy was slurring. She was just really fingerspelling really fast.
You know, she was doing stuff. Going gang signs. Yeah, exactly.
And lots of crips. Yeah.
Then a doctor was saying, I think that's sign language. I know a little bit.
(42:25):
Other people were very supportive in that way. Some were trying to learn it
because they were there for two hours at a time.
And so they were just trying to ask Cindy, are you in pain?
One of the key things I always built the templates.
But ask her if she's in pain, ask her if she needs anything.
(42:46):
And then always tell her the time and date and where she is and ask her if she understands.
Why don't you tell her that time in the hospital, and I think you remember where
you gave the finger to somebody. I did.
Was it a nurse? Yeah, she was in her bra. No, she was a resident.
I was very mad at her, and I gave her the middle finger.
(43:09):
She saw it like in her face i gave it to
her and made sure she saw it yeah she
understood that sign language yeah so i gave you one back yeah i should not
be the blind the hand that feeds me yeah that's true and that was why i had
(43:29):
to have to have somebody right next to her Oh, so I see.
Cindy was a problem, I guess.
And I think, what was it? Because she was very rough on you, is that what you said?
She was just very, like, she was nice.
Okay. She wasn't rough, but she was nice. Yeah, you could tell it on their face,
(43:51):
right? Fake nice, fake nice.
Fake nice, yeah. Yeah. I could tell.
So I'm curious to see if Jules has any questions or comments.
I know she is also an avid listener.
Almost sometimes I would hear through you, Voth, that she will hang on to an episode.
I mean, I can't stop listening to it. And I always enjoy it very much.
(44:16):
And I love hearing her improvements, her milestones, and everything.
Yeah, it's a sneak peek behind the curtains. and
a lot of stuff was shocking a lot of stuff was
heartwarming like right now like just before
this podcast like i was telling you guys i'm nervous because at this point cindy
(44:36):
has become kind of a myth right kind of a legend because i've heard from her
for a while and the things that she's going through and knowing how far she's
come when she was given no chance is is wild
it's a wild story and you guys i don't know
if you guys want to be proud of such a story because it's been so hard
(44:56):
but if you guys could get over it i think you guys should be in
that sense yeah i loved especially hearing mo's struggles
and what he had to go through because you know other people go through this
and they need to hear it from most point of view yeah How he suffered and how
hard it was for him and how much stress and everything.
(45:21):
You know, that's a really big picture.
People need to know that. Two sides of a story. Exactly. We got Mo's story.
And then when you were ready, now we get your story. It's a complete story.
It's a complete like anthology, your journey. Because this happens to people.
And now they know Mo's side and what they can expect. and then now they see
(45:44):
Cindy thriving and there's hope.
Yep. And that brings listeners.
And the greatest thing about all this, and me and Mo have already said it, for Hudson...
This is going to be so eye-opening. He's going to know his mom and dad.
He's going to know what his mom went through.
He's going to know what his dad did for him, did for her.
(46:06):
And he's getting to the age where he's going to start remembering things.
Yeah, he's going to be a very good boy.
Yeah, I can see. From good parents, good boy. Yeah, he looks like a perfect mix of you two.
There was one moment during, I think it was like last year,
where i had i think we went by some place and there was a school of wheelchairs there was like a,
(46:29):
a group of wheelchairs and he pointed at it it just said mom because that's
all that's all he knew of mom was that she was wheelchair she's always been
in a wheelchair she never walked around and stood up and he just looked at it
and he said mom he just looked at these,
wheelchairs mom and it said mom you know and because he's just associated that
yeah and that That was the story to be told to him, like when he gets older
(46:53):
or when he realizes that,
you know, and and if obviously as you get better and better,
maybe he didn't realize you were, you know, you had this phase that you were dealing with.
One thing that I do like is that I spent less time on social media was a big time suck.
(47:17):
But now I don't even look at it. You were big on social media? I was. Yeah.
Like, like, every month I would post something about it. But now I don't even post.
Yeah. Me and Jules gave up on social media a long time ago.
It was too toxic. Cindy, how do you feel about today's conversation?
(47:40):
Being able to talk to our dear friends that you haven't been able to speak to
since your brain injury?
I liked it. I enjoyed it.
Like, I haven't been able to talk to them in a long time. It's good to hear from them.
Yeah, you've always been a sweetheart to us, Cindy. Yeah. And we remember.
(48:01):
Right, just people. Mm-hmm. You're a person I know, and you are very, very strong.
And it's amazing how far you came. I'm sorry, I had the hiccups.
You're very amazing and inspirational. Yeah, I think I would agree.
With the same sentiments there.
I think this will be sort of like the beginning of many conversations as Cindy
(48:26):
reintegrates, that we reintegrate with society and the community.
And I look forward to the next series of episodes where we get to see some other special guests.
And with Nadeer. Thank you guys for being here. Thank you for supporting us.
Thanks for having us. Thanks for having us. And you, Cindy, from the last time
I heard to right now, Now you improved so much.
(48:49):
I think this has been a great conversation and I look forward into the next
time we get to speak again.
Thank you guys. Thank you, Mo. Bye. Thank you, Cindy. Bye.
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