December 5, 2024 • 39 mins
Today, Doug Pike interviews St. Jude representative Angela Garza about St. Jude's mission to eradicating childhood cancer. Listeners, you can call the number 1-800-588-1443 to make a donation to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Remember when it was impossible to misplace the TV remote
because you were the TV remote. Remember when music sounded
like this, go on? Remember when social media was truly social?
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Hey John, how's it going today? Well, this show is
all about you. This is fifty plus with Doug Pike.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Helpful information on your finances, good health, and what to
do for fun. Fifty plus brought to you by the
UT Health Houston Institute on Aging, Informed Decisions for a healthier,
happier life and Bronze roofing repair or replacement. Bronze roofing
has you covered? And now fifty plus with Doug Pike.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
All right, here we go.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Let me get this microphone over here where it belongs,
and get this cup of water away from the microphone,
way far away, because I don't want anything at all
to go wrong.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
All right there, that's good. Welcome back to fifty plus.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Thanks for listening on this Thursday, this day one of
our traditional two day radiothon in support of Saint Jude
Children's Research Hospital over in Memphis for the next little
while and actually again the same time tomorrow. Angela Garza
from Saint Jude and I Well at the beginning at
(01:34):
twenty after the hour, not right now, now, right now,
but at twenty after the hour.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
We are going to.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Talk about what they do over there, about how many
lives have been saved by them, about all of those things,
and I truly hope you'll pay attention when we do that.
We're off to a good start by the way that
it launched this morning early, and Houston seems to be
in a good mood overall. I have a pretty good
idea why.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Day or not.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
I do hope you'll consider stepping up and helping us
support that hospital and the miracles it performs. I'll bring
in Angela Garza, like I said from maybe second third segments,
I think we'll do two today, and I really hope
you'll listen closely to what she has to say and
what I have to say. I've toured the hospital. I've
been over there. It's been a hot minute. And when
Angela and I talked about it earlier this morning, she said,
(02:24):
you know, we need to get you back over there.
I want to give you a fresh look at what
they've done since I was there. I believe it was
about eight years ago. It's been quite a while, been
quite a while, so anyway, looking at the weather. Got
a couple more days of dreary to partly miserable ahead,
and it's.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Going to get cold, well, not cold cool.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
I reserve the word cold for temperatures below freezing, and
I deserve the reserve the word hot for temperatures excess
of one hundred degrees or one hundred degrees are higher
in excess of ninety nine point nine degrees when we're
measuring by tenths. So anyway, we got a little bit
more of this stuff ahead. I'm watching Monday very closely.
(03:08):
That's our eleventh Annuel Golf tournament for Saint Jude up
at Golf Club of Houston, and I honestly knock on wood,
I think the forecast is beginning to improve. It looked
looked pretty bad a couple of days ago, but that
was too far out to care. Now, as we get closer,
it looks like the the ugly part is going to
(03:31):
precede the tournament and it should get a little bit
better for that day.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Hey, if it's muddy, it's muddy.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Just I won't wear white pants because I don't own
white golf pants and I'm not good enough. I don't
even own a white golf belt. That's how bad I
am at golf. So we're going into today's highs and
Lowe's and haiku. Curtesy is always a texas IAQ specialist.
Texasiaq dot net go there for details on how they
get all the gunk out your duct work. You ready will, Yes,
(04:02):
weather is in flux warm, cool, windy, calm, dry, moist
for Houston normal, So do for you.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
I know it's no yesterday. It isn't it yesterday. I'm
glad that you recognize.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Sure, I mean, I know it was all just worn
out for yesterday. I think the middle lines a little clunky.
They're not even lines, they're just words.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
They're just what is it five words? Yeah, but it's
three lines.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
That's what the haikup is.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Well, that's what just is.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
Yeah that warm coma, cool, comma, windy, coma, calm, coma, dry,
comma moist. Those are that's one sentence.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Yeah, And it doesn't flow.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
It does for weather people, I don't know, truly does
its every condition here except for icy or boiling?
Speaker 4 (04:56):
Oh okay, as if I I didn't know that, I've
lived my entire life and I'm saying that it's clunky.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Well, I don't care what you call it. I want it.
I want it graded.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
Okay, it's a five point five, Well, you know, I'll
take that.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
I'm in a good mood because I'm I'm helping all
day today, all day tomorrow, and and then again big
time on Monday. I'm not gonna give away anything, but
I'm just gonna say, we set.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
A lofty goal for this year's golf tournament.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
And.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Maybe, just maybe we hit it. Maybe just maybe we
hit it. I want to say.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
I can't remember exactly what the number was last year.
It might have been four fifty something like that, four
hundred and fifty thousand dollars that one golf tournament. And
I'll just leave it at that for now because I really,
I really truly don't know the bottom line. I have
not seen the grand grand total yet. The sponsor ships
(06:00):
are in place, the teams are in place, everything is
in place and hopefully won't get washed away in.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
The next couple of days. I don't think it will.
I think it's going to be. Okay.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
Off the market we go now courtesy again at Houston
goold exchange dot com. Not much to talk about there, really,
everything I watched was in the red early, but by
very small fractions. Everything but oil actually at that was up,
but only up a quarter, not a quarter of a point,
just a quarter of a dollar, which is basically a
(06:30):
non event twenty five cents either way. Is it going
to change it? I don't even know that that would
change the price at the pump by a penny. I
think it might take just a little bit more than
that to do that. Maybe not from the Hunter Biden
pardon desk, and I want, well, gosh, I'm not going
to have time to get to this, but boy is
it juicy. US District Judge Mark Scarcy out in California
(06:51):
is a qus President Biden, in a very strong five
page letter of quote rewriting history end quote by the
way he pardoned his son Joe. Scarzy added that the
breadth of the pardon is unconstitutional. He had other problems
legally too, with how Biden released the pardon and how
it was written. Up until a week ago, Biden, if
(07:13):
you'll recall, had continually said that he would not pardon
his son because he believed in our legal system and
wasn't going to stand in the way of justice. He
was gonna abide by the court's decisions, no matter what
they were. Then when Kamala Harris lost, talked about this
a little bit yesterday, and he was counting on her
to pardon his son. Oh, thank you so much, Kamala. No,
(07:34):
she lost, and so that left him no choice but
to wave his magic pen and erase Hunter's questionable history.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
It's interesting.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
There's more too, a story rolled out just today, says Biden,
considering pardons for a lot of other people who maybe
did things they shouldn't have done during his administration. I
might try to get to that at the end of
the show, but I'm going to try to stick to
time here because Angela Garza will be showing up shortly
after this break. Don't let age sneak up on you, fellas.
(08:04):
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(09:29):
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Speaker 2 (09:32):
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Speaker 1 (09:52):
Now they sure don't make them like they used to.
That's why every few months we wash them, check his fluids,
and spring on a fresh coat of whack. This is
fifty plus with Doug Pike.
Speaker 5 (10:14):
Right.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Welcome back to fifty plus. Thanks for listening on this Thursday.
A quick reminder you can become a monthly donor to
Saint Jude by pledging just nineteen bucks a month. That's
gonna help these kids fight cancer over there at Saint Jude.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Put the gift on a credit card.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
You'll get the new this Shirt Saves Lives t shirt
and a Saint Jude sweatshirt. Angela's in here already. She
showed up right on time. I should have known got
the shirt on.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
You got one of those.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
I've got one at the house from last year. I'm
gonna have to I may have to talk you out
one for this year.
Speaker 6 (10:44):
We need to get you one this year.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Do indeed eight.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Hundred five eight eight one four four three one eight
hundred five eight eight one four four three will do
it again in a minute.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
But I want to get to all these questions for you,
so well. First of all, how's the KBR tope board
looking right now?
Speaker 6 (11:03):
It's looking really good, Doug, looking really good.
Speaker 5 (11:05):
The listeners out there, they're paying attention and feeling really
generous today, and we so appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Yeah, I talk about that.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
I think the greater Houston community is in a generally
good mood now that this election is over and one
way or the other we can all just breathe again.
And I feel very confident about how things are going
to go. So maybe we can convince some more of
these folks to go ahead and knock it out. So
let's talk about the history of Saint Jude Children's Research Hospital.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Who win, where?
Speaker 4 (11:35):
What?
Speaker 5 (11:36):
Yeah, So, for those of you that don't know, Saint
Jude was founded by Danny Thomas, the entertainer the center.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
This audience will know who Danny Thomas.
Speaker 5 (11:44):
Back in the fifties, he was very famous and he
had this. Really it was almost like a premonition godlike
where he was really struggling down and out, and he
went into a church and prayed to Saint Jude Thaddeus Wow,
the patron state of hopeless causes, please show me my
(12:06):
way and I will build you a shrine with his prayer.
And it wasn't about about five years later where his
luck actually immediately turned around and he got gigs and
and about five years later he made good on that
promise and he raised money a million dollars, criss crossed
the country, and in nineteen sixty two, Saint Jude was
(12:27):
founded by Danny Thomas Blood, sweat and tears.
Speaker 6 (12:30):
Really, truly, it was miraculous.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
I recall also hearing when I was over at the
hospital several years ago that he was among the first
people in Memphis to disallow any sort of segregation in
that hospital he planned to build.
Speaker 6 (12:44):
Right, is that right? That's correct.
Speaker 5 (12:46):
Yes, And there's a hotel, They're a famous hotel called
the Peabody, and.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
There that's where a state will.
Speaker 6 (12:53):
Yes, the people who are familiar know about the Ducks.
Speaker 5 (12:57):
And he went to the hotel and they time there
was it was segregated and asked the hotel, we're going
to have patients in their families and we don't want
them to pay a dime.
Speaker 6 (13:08):
I need extra housing. Will you take these patients in?
Speaker 5 (13:12):
And he convinced them to take patients of all ethnicities
and the segregated South back in the sixties, you know,
that was a tough time. So he made that happen
and it was breaking barriers. He truly was ahead of
his time.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
No question. Yeah, he didn't care who was sick. He
just wanted to make them well. It's amazing. So and
when did the hospital open exactly nineteen sixty two.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
And back then, what approximately, if you don't know exactly,
was the survival rate for kids with cancer twenty twenty
and that drum rope, and now and now.
Speaker 5 (13:46):
Thanks to the research, the protocols and the breakthroughs that
are happening at Saint Jude, it's eighty percent survival rate overall.
So it was it was like a death sentence back
when parents and families were getting those diagnoses, and that
twenty percent, you know, that's one in.
Speaker 6 (14:07):
Five kiddos that will survive.
Speaker 5 (14:09):
So now we flip that and the most common form
of childhood cancer back in the sixties was all there
was a ninety four percent, well four percent survival rate.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Oh my god.
Speaker 6 (14:22):
And now thanks.
Speaker 5 (14:24):
To the work that was the first form of cancer
that Danny wanted to tackle. Thanks to his work and
the work of Saint Jude, it's now ninety six percent
survival rate.
Speaker 6 (14:32):
It's literally flipped on its head.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
I want to I want to share here, if you
don't mind me taking a minute or two. The one
of the stories, one of my favorite stories out of
Saint Jude, and I talk about it every year at
the golf tournament, and I may not get to this
year because of the way it's all structured up. But
it's the story of a mother and her young son
who showed up at the hospital, no appointment, no nothing.
This woman had driven halfway across the country and walked
(14:58):
into the hospital with an armloader, papers and under one arm,
and her little boy and the other. You know the
story I'm about to tell, And I hope I get
it right if I don't tell me.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
So anyway, she walks up and says, hey, I need
some help.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
The people at my in my hometown have told me
none of the doctors can do anything else for my son.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
He's a goner without help from here.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
And she had just shown up out of nowhere and
she wanted to see a doctor. So this woman at
reception that hold on a minute and made a phone
call or whatever. This doctor walks out, comes over to
her and she explains her situation. He said, hand me
the papers.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
He walks off.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
He's gone for probably what must have seemed an eternity
to her. And when he comes back out, she hops
up very quickly, Oh please please, would you please?
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Would you please treat my son? And doctor said no,
I'm going to cure him.
Speaker 5 (15:55):
Yes, I know that story, and that is what Saint Jude,
that would That's what makes Saint Jude so special is
because those families they have no hope. Yeah, and it's
that moment that they arrived to Saint Jude that the
doctor will tell them I will give you hope, and
(16:17):
I will I will help cure your.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
Child and something else that most people already know this
a lot of them probably don't though. One of the
other parts of hope when you're talking about major medical procedures.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
I hope I can pay for this.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
And when someone is accepted at Saint Jude, it struck me.
I asked the question when we were making a big
tour around there, said, where's the billing department? And they said,
what the what the patient billing department?
Speaker 5 (16:45):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (16:46):
There isn't one.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
And I had to let that sink in for a minute,
because how can you run something that big and do
such extensive treatments and not have a place to pay
a bill. There's not even a bill generated, is there?
Speaker 6 (16:58):
No, there's never a bill.
Speaker 5 (17:00):
Well, patients never see a bill now for treatment, travel, housing,
or food. And that's just so that they can focus
on helping their child live.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
It's just so much, so much I want to get
to in these two days and these short little segments,
we're going to have something else. I remember being told
is that as former patients became adults, they survived childhood cancer,
they've become adults and they want to come back and
work at Saint Jude. They were coming back and saying,
I'm glad to be here, but man, this place still
(17:30):
smells like a hospital, and I don't like that. Tell
them what Saint Jude did to fix that?
Speaker 5 (17:35):
Yes, so we pump in, you know, a certain fragrance
so that it doesn't smell like a hospital. I mean,
we thought, we think of every little detail. We really
appreciate that feedback that we get from families, and we
want it to to not feel like a hospital.
Speaker 6 (17:54):
We don't want it to look and we don't want
it to smell like.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
It certainly doesn't. It doesn't.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
I remember that distinctly, and I didn't notice it walking in.
I was just walking around and looking at there's so
much to see and all this is.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Going on in front of you.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
And when whoever it was operating the tour said, by
the way, you'll probably notice that it doesn't smell like
a hospital. And I had to stop once again. It's like, no,
it doesn't. It doesn't smell like a hospital. And that's
kind of refreshing. Now what did smell good over there?
I'm not doing on to I got to make sure.
Oh we've only got just you know what, We're gonna
(18:27):
take a break. I'll tell you what the other thing
was on the way out. Or reminder to become a
monthly donor pledging just nineteen bucks a month, you can
help all these kids at Saint Jude fight these horrible,
horrible cancers. But you gift on a credit card, you're
gonna get the new this shirt. Let me get this right,
this shirt Saves Lives T shirt, the one that angels
wearing right now. You don't get that one, but you'll
(18:48):
get one just like it, and a Saint Jude sweatshirt.
Call now at one eight hundred five eight eight one
four four three one eight hundred five eight eight one
four four three one eight hundred five eight eight one
four four three onto some adult medicine. Got a place
right here in Houston to take care of us seniors,
and that is ut Health Institute on Aging, a collaborative
(19:11):
of more than a thousand providers who have gone back
and gained additional education on top of whatever it took
to get to get the diploma on the wall in
their office so that they can apply their knowledge specifically
to us to seniors. There's a great website you can
go to that has a tremendous number of resources that
(19:33):
can be of help to anybody in our age category.
And then of course access to all those providers all
over town. Utch dot edu slash Aging uth dot edu
slash Aging.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Aged to Perfection. This is fifty plus with Dougpike.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Trouble I have with this young man over here. I
know my MIC's hot too, well.
Speaker 4 (20:12):
Don't worry.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
So anyway back to fifty plus.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
Thank you Angela Garza for coming in here from Saint
Jude and helping us out.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
We're in the in day one. What are we six
hours in though?
Speaker 3 (20:25):
Six hours day one, six hours into this two day
radiothon brought.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
To us by Gallery Furniture.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
The KBR tope board, I am told, is looking pretty
good right now, right, a little.
Speaker 6 (20:38):
Over one hundred and twenty thousand dollars raised so far.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
It's pretty good by noon, is it not.
Speaker 6 (20:43):
It's really good.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
Yeah, we've got goals to meet, so be sure to
do your thing.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
Do your thing.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
I'm going to tell you about it again at the
end of this segment, but I want to get back
into what we're talking about. So we got through the
part about no patient billing department at Saint Jude, and
now I want to get to the part about and
this was something else that I've never seen in the hospital.
There's only one place to go.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Eat, isn't there?
Speaker 6 (21:07):
Yes, And I don't.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Care whether you're a patient and a little red wagon,
whether you're a mom or a dad, or a nurse
or a therapist or a neurosurgeon. If you're hungry, you're
going to the same place, aren't you.
Speaker 6 (21:20):
Yes, you're going to the K Cafe.
Speaker 5 (21:23):
And that is actually a great point that you brought up,
Doug with. It doesn't matter if you're a therapist or
a neurosurgeon. Danny Thomas wanted everybody to come together and
break bread and in that sense of you know, we're
all in this together a community.
Speaker 6 (21:43):
The families, they love it.
Speaker 5 (21:45):
Doctors eating with nurses, with patients, with families. That's the
That's the way Danny Thomas envisioned it, and it still
happens today.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
It's nobody's unapproachable, nobody.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
Nobody is hidden away in a corner where you have
to go call five people to go see them.
Speaker 6 (22:01):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
You see your surgeon in the in the corner of
the restaurant or the K cafe, and you just go
over there and say hi, and I'm sure they would
say hi right back. Something else that I wanted to
get to, which I thought was really cool, is those phones,
those special phones around there. If because you have you
have patients and families that speak approximately how many different languages?
Speaker 5 (22:24):
What there's dozens dozens, dozens, and they because they come
from all over the world, right, and our doctors come
from all over the world.
Speaker 6 (22:33):
Our researchers they and we've got of the best.
Speaker 5 (22:36):
Yes, you've been to the Danny Thomas Research ten or
twelve stories tall, and you see all of the flags
that represents all of the countries that our doctors and
researchers are from. So that those phones, to your point,
patients who don't speak English, they speak different languages, they
can just pick up a phone, helps with translators, gets
(22:58):
them exactly what they need. They've got a question about
just anything, it could be anything, they can pick up
the red phone and an into language that they speak.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
That's just crazy, it really, I mean honestly, when you
think about the time and effort and thought that goes
into all these things, and that didn't all happen at once.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Obviously, I'm sure those were added somewhere down the line. Yeah,
but because anytime there's a need over there, it seems
to be met every need.
Speaker 6 (23:26):
We think of everything.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
All about the kids, yes, all about the kids. But
another thing that was pretty cool I thought was that
where did I have it in my notes here?
Speaker 5 (23:37):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (23:37):
Yeah, if the kid gets a toothache, a patient gets
a toothache, you put them in a van, you take
them to a dentist, local dentists and let them get
taken care of.
Speaker 5 (23:45):
Yes, we have you know, the eye doctors on call.
We have any specialty if to your point, if there's
braces happening and we've got to get them to an orthodonist.
We think of everything and it's it's quick. They don't
have to wait, and you know, it kind of brings
(24:05):
up the point of the test. When you know you're
waiting for a scan or you're waiting for something to
come back. You're not waiting days, you know, for them
to call you. Sure, you get that immediately. It's it's
it's real time. Yeah, because we know parents you know there,
it's inks that that anxiety is real.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
Well, I think when when a child has such a
serious disease that they qualify to be treated at Saint Jude,
parents don't want to be have to wait because every
second they wait it's just got to beats. It's like
a just a gut punch.
Speaker 6 (24:37):
It is.
Speaker 5 (24:37):
It is, and so we want it to be We
want to take all of that off the parents so
that all they have to worry about is just focusing
on their child and that this you know, anxiety that
comes with a diagnosis like cancer.
Speaker 6 (24:51):
We try very hard to take that away.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
That's good.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
I had a neighbor actually a couple of years, several
years ago. Now they've they've since moved away. But when
I talked to him about the golf tournament and this,
that and the other one, he was a golfer. The
guy was a golfer, and they had a young daughter
and son, and we actually carpooled to school one year
before they moved. Anyway, he came to me once and
(25:15):
he said, I've got a relative back. I think he
was in Kentucky whose son has gotten some horrible diagnosis
of something. Don't you know somebody at Saint Jude. And
I said, yeah, I can find out who to call
and what to do. And about three weeks later I
got a call from him said their son's been accepted
(25:35):
at Saint Jude. And now they moved away and I've
lost touch with him. And I don't know the outcome
of that case, but it just it lifted some stuff
off my shoulder to be able to talk to them
about that and know that that kid was getting the
help he needed.
Speaker 5 (25:51):
Yeah, everybody knows somebody, right, So it cancer, you know,
it touches a lot of people. And we talked to
a lot of differentolunteers, donor supporters, and they know somebody
whose kid went to Saint Jude. Sure, you know we've
been our doors have been open since nineteen sixty two,
so we've treated thousands and thousands of kids. I mean
(26:11):
every year, sixteen thousand children are diagnosed with cancer and
we treat about eighty eight hundred of them every year. Wow,
So you know, you you will know somebody who has
been affected and they can speak on what Saint Jude
meant to them.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
And if you don't think you do, you probably make
three phone calls and find something, will you will? You
know when I first approached Lori Carter at Carter's Country
with this idea, she she just kind of held back
and held back and I'm making my pitch, come on,
we need you know, we need help with these kids,
and she goes, We've actually been making donations to Saint
Jude for a long time.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
I'd love to.
Speaker 6 (26:48):
Help, right.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
It was just so easy. Oh wow, yeah, yeah, just
like you're talking about. She I don't.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
I've still not learned what that connection is. I've not asked,
And if she wants to tell me, she can tell me.
But just that that level of enthusiasm she has for
doing this for us is just incredible and it truly
does just help make the miracles happen.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
Huh.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
Yes, Now we have a former patient from Saint Jude
speaking at the golf tournament Monday. Can you share anything
about his journey though? Oh, Emmanuel, So, Emmanuel's he's something else.
He's from Houston, he graduated high school here. He had
a tumor in his eye at the age of four
and had to be admitted. And he talks very art
(27:36):
he can really articulate at the age of four, his.
Speaker 5 (27:39):
Journey at Saint Jude. Now he's a young man in
his early twenties. He actually talked about his grandfather who
was a partner in Hope. Ironically, he was a partner
in Hope ironically before his son got cancer. I mean,
his grandson got cancer and then ended up at Saint Jude,
and his grandfather thought, that's so, that's so crazy that.
Speaker 6 (28:01):
I was already a donor. I was already a partner
in hope. And now here.
Speaker 5 (28:04):
My grandson needs Saint Jude. So he talked about that
the last time we had a conversation with him. But yeah,
you'll get to meet him. He's a fantastic guy.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
I'm looking forward to it, I really am. We are
gonna shut this down for today. I'm gonna have you
back in here. Can we make like a date, same time,
same place tomorrow, Yes, all right, it's a date.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
I'll have you back in here.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
What we're gonna do tomorrow is dig into some of
the research that goes on at Saint Jude, how it's
available to anybody and everybody on the planet who wants it,
and how they're just gonna keep on curing horribly, horribly
sick kids for as.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Long as they can.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
Become a monthly donor. I'm gonna ask you again to
please do that. Just pleague nineteen bucks a month. That's
all it takes to help these kids at Saint Jude
fight cancer. You can put that gift on a credit card.
You can get yourself at this shirt Saves Lives t
shirt just like the one Angela's wearing, not the one
she's wearing. We've already gone over that, guys and the
(29:01):
Saint Jude sweatshirt. One eight hundred five eight eight one
four four three. One eight hundred five eight eight one
four four three. One more time before we get out
of here. One eight hundred five eight eight one four
four three. On the way out, I'll tell you about
bronze roofing. I need to talk to Skeeter. I bet
I bet he jump in on this. I bet he's
never swung a golf club in his life, but he'd
(29:23):
probably be like one of the guys on my show,
a guy named Rick Bice who called in two weekends
ago and said, Hey, I want half a team, and
if somebody else will take the other half, fine, they
can have the team. I just want to make a donation.
And he did that, and five minutes later we had
the other half of the team sold. That's Rebecca about
that story.
Speaker 4 (29:41):
Show.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
Though Skeeter Broun has been in business thirty plus years,
he has he has helped anybody in everybody with any
kind of roof. They've got make sure that that roof
is doing what it's supposed to do, and we'll do
it for a long time. They'll come to your house
no charge at all, just like Saint Jude until well,
never mind, you out get a free roof. But what
(30:01):
you're gonna get is an inspection that will let you
know if there's something wrong, and if there is, they'll
show you pictures, they'll tell you what's happening with it.
They'll let you know if they have what they need
to fix it on the truck, and if they do,
just tell them to get started and how much it's
gonna cost. Bronze roofing been around forever on one simple premise,
quality work at a fair price. Call Skeeter Braun, get
(30:23):
him out there, get them take a look at your roof.
If it's fine, they'll tell you so. If it's not,
they'll fix it. Two eight one four eight zero ninety
nine hundred. Two eight one four eight zero ninety nine hundred.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
What's life without a net? I suggest you go to bed,
sleep it off.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Just wait until this show's over, Sleepy. Back to Doug
Pike as fifty plus continues.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
Bie, Welcome back, Thanks for listening to fifty plus into
our fourth and final segment on this first day of
the Saint Jude Radio Fund, brought to you by Gallery Furniture.
Thank you, Mac and the KBR tope board continues to
roll forward with a bigger and bigger number. I greatly
appreciate anything and everything you guys do. I am after
(31:17):
the show going to slide by the Big Boss's office
and ask him if I might offer up a round
of golf for three over either at Golf Club of
Houston three plus me. It's gonna if I'm handing out golf,
I'm gonna give myself an excuse to play maybe if
(31:37):
we can set some sort of a standard that will
get you that. And I don't think I could justify
doing it a bunch of times because I've got to
be around here working. But nonetheless, I'll find one day
where you and a couple of your buddies and I
could go play golf, either at Golf Club of Houston
or at Blackhawk Country Club. We've got access to both
(31:58):
and both are outside ending tracks. Anyway, back to where
we were, I'll let you know about that probably tomorrow.
I gotta go clear it first with the Big Boss.
Back to where I was earlier, and the judge out
of California, Judge Mark Scarcy wrote this letter to accusing
(32:22):
President Biden. Very strong, five page letter accusing him of
rewriting history in his pardoning of his own son, which
he said he'd never do, and everybody knew he would,
but he said he never would. So that Marcus checked.
Now comes word one of these. But wait, there's more things.
Story rolled out today says Biden also is considering pardons
(32:45):
for a whole lot of other people who maybe did
things they shouldn't have done during his administration. On the list,
from what the story said, Liz Cheney, Adam Schiff, Anthony Fauci,
Nancy Pelosi, and and.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
More than a few others.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
I am pretty confident that no other outgoing president has
felt the need to pardon so many people with whom
he worked so closely in federal government and said over
and over, we're such good people. He knows he either
he knows, or at least somebody who can persuade him
(33:26):
knows what's really up. And Biden pardons I don't know,
eight ten, two dozen politicians and prosecutors on his way
out the door.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
He's going to confirm what a lot of.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
Us have suspected for a long time. And anybody who
here's the deal, anybody who accepts a preemptive pardon, you
got to ask yourself. Why would an innocent person not
turn that down? Why wouldn't you say no, mister President,
I don't need that. I didn't do anything wrong. But
(33:57):
I guarantee if he if he calls him, he says
he you want me to pardon you? On the way out,
a lot of those people are gonna say yes as
fast as you can.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
From the this is kind of weird, Will. We got
a little bit of time here from the I don't
know what to call it. I guess the complications of
pregnancy desk.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
And I know that's not going to apply to many
people in my audience here, but maybe for daughters and
granddaughters it's worthy of note. Some infants are developing what
doctors call were wolf syndrome.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Have you ever heard of this? Will, I have never
heard of this. Their parents.
Speaker 3 (34:36):
Taking monoxa deal that very popular over the counter hair
lost drug that makes you grow hair. Well, these little
kids are growing tofty, it says here, hair across their backs,
their legs, and even their faces, and in extreme cases
can grow so much hair on their faces that they're
(35:00):
their faces are really unrecognizable.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
So just that's a.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
Cautionary word for anybody who in friends family whatever, who
are still in childbearing age and just might want to
bear one anytime soon. If they've got thin hair, ask
them if they're on monoxideal and if they are, tell
them stops. That would be a rough thing for a
(35:25):
child to grow up with. And I don't know that
there's any treatment for that. A very brief golf note,
the LPGA announced yesterday that players assigned mail at birth
and who went through mail puberty are no longer eligible
beginning in twenty twenty five. That's coming at us like
a house afire beginning twenty twenty five to participate in
LPGA Tour, Absent Tour, Ladies European Tour, and all other
(35:48):
elite LPGA competitions. That's all on that at least maybe
until the weekend on my Outdoors and Golf show. I may,
I may dig a little bit deeper into that, but
I do. I do like the idea of protecting women
in women's sports. It's a very hard thing for title
(36:09):
lines just been thrown out the window in a lot
of cases, and the OLPGA just put it back on
the table for a lot of young women who are
working their hearts out all the way through middle school
and high school to develop golf games that might get
them a scholarship that up until yesterday could have been
(36:29):
actually handed off to someone who was born.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
A man, a boy male. I guess they say.
Speaker 3 (36:36):
Vivic Ramaswami and Elon Musk are on Capitol Hill today
meeting with Republican lawmakers in both chambers of the House,
well the House and the Senate. Both chambers talk about
how they intend to reduce waste in federal government and
that shouldn't take long to find some things right. Making
no mistake, there is tremendous waste of tax dollars in Washington.
(36:58):
One of the things I'd like to see is for
federal employees to be held to the same standards of work,
similar to those in the private sector in some positions.
According to what I've read, anyway, employees at the federal level,
all these federal jobs that Biden's administration has put together
(37:18):
during his term, they're protected from termination for almost anything
short of setting.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
The building on fire. And maybe we can.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
Find a way to shake out some of these Post
office employees who've been stealing mail. This has been in
the news around here recently, stealing mail and tossing it
into dumpsters, stealing checks, all kinds of things they're doing.
And I know that that's a small group. I make
no mistake. I have a lot of respect for postal
employees who are doing the job and doing it right.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
But wrong is wrong, and they I don't know. I
don't think.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
I don't think it should be okay to make big
messes like that and then not be held accountable. Real
quick will gross but unavoidable from me to me, or
bit of a stretch, bit of a stretch. No, I'm
gonna do gross, pit unavoidable. No, I'll do that one
last bit of a stretch. Frontier Airline CEO Barry Biffle
(38:13):
says that travelers who try to avoid baggage fees are shoplifters.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
Here's a quote for me. They said, these people, these
are people that.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
It should say who are but he messed it up.
These are people that are stealing end quote. I disagree stealing.
Don't charge me sixty bucks to put a to presume
I don't need to carry luggage if I travel.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
That's kind of foolish.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
Just either jack the price up so I don't have
to pay for luggage, or make it a little more
reasonable to get it. That sounds about right to you.
Will Yeah, Okay, we're going back to gross but unavoidable.
The probability. Wait, I'm gonna I gotta draw this out
just a little bit. I'll give you run for us.
Run First, a doctor from Wisconsin raising money for cancer
(39:04):
research by running seven marathons in seven days on all
seven continents.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
I couldn't run a marathon. I don't know. I haven't
run a Did he do it? He's going to.
Speaker 3 (39:19):
So we don't know the probability of you drinking a
glass of water will that contains at least one molecule
of water that a dinosaur peed is almost one hundred percent.
Think about that next time you hit the tap. Go
(39:40):
go back tomorrow, Audios
Remember when it was impossible to misplace the TV remote
because you were the TV remote. Remember when music sounded
like this, go on? Remember when social media was truly social?
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Hey John, how's it going today? Well, this show is
all about you. This is fifty plus with Doug Pike.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Helpful information on your finances, good health, and what to
do for fun. Fifty plus brought to you by the
UT Health Houston Institute on Aging, Informed Decisions for a healthier,
happier life and Bronze roofing repair or replacement. Bronze roofing
has you covered? And now fifty plus with Doug Pike.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
All right, here we go.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Let me get this microphone over here where it belongs,
and get this cup of water away from the microphone,
way far away, because I don't want anything at all
to go wrong.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
All right there, that's good. Welcome back to fifty plus.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Thanks for listening on this Thursday, this day one of
our traditional two day radiothon in support of Saint Jude
Children's Research Hospital over in Memphis for the next little
while and actually again the same time tomorrow. Angela Garza
from Saint Jude and I Well at the beginning at
(01:34):
twenty after the hour, not right now, now, right now,
but at twenty after the hour.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
We are going to.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Talk about what they do over there, about how many
lives have been saved by them, about all of those things,
and I truly hope you'll pay attention when we do that.
We're off to a good start by the way that
it launched this morning early, and Houston seems to be
in a good mood overall. I have a pretty good
idea why.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Day or not.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
I do hope you'll consider stepping up and helping us
support that hospital and the miracles it performs. I'll bring
in Angela Garza, like I said from maybe second third segments,
I think we'll do two today, and I really hope
you'll listen closely to what she has to say and
what I have to say. I've toured the hospital. I've
been over there. It's been a hot minute. And when
Angela and I talked about it earlier this morning, she said,
(02:24):
you know, we need to get you back over there.
I want to give you a fresh look at what
they've done since I was there. I believe it was
about eight years ago. It's been quite a while, been
quite a while, so anyway, looking at the weather. Got
a couple more days of dreary to partly miserable ahead,
and it's.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Going to get cold, well, not cold cool.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
I reserve the word cold for temperatures below freezing, and
I deserve the reserve the word hot for temperatures excess
of one hundred degrees or one hundred degrees are higher
in excess of ninety nine point nine degrees when we're
measuring by tenths. So anyway, we got a little bit
more of this stuff ahead. I'm watching Monday very closely.
(03:08):
That's our eleventh Annuel Golf tournament for Saint Jude up
at Golf Club of Houston, and I honestly knock on wood,
I think the forecast is beginning to improve. It looked
looked pretty bad a couple of days ago, but that
was too far out to care. Now, as we get closer,
it looks like the the ugly part is going to
(03:31):
precede the tournament and it should get a little bit
better for that day.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Hey, if it's muddy, it's muddy.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Just I won't wear white pants because I don't own
white golf pants and I'm not good enough. I don't
even own a white golf belt. That's how bad I
am at golf. So we're going into today's highs and
Lowe's and haiku. Curtesy is always a texas IAQ specialist.
Texasiaq dot net go there for details on how they
get all the gunk out your duct work. You ready will, Yes,
(04:02):
weather is in flux warm, cool, windy, calm, dry, moist
for Houston normal, So do for you.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
I know it's no yesterday. It isn't it yesterday. I'm
glad that you recognize.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Sure, I mean, I know it was all just worn
out for yesterday. I think the middle lines a little clunky.
They're not even lines, they're just words.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
They're just what is it five words? Yeah, but it's
three lines.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
That's what the haikup is.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Well, that's what just is.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
Yeah that warm coma, cool, comma, windy, coma, calm, coma, dry,
comma moist. Those are that's one sentence.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Yeah, And it doesn't flow.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
It does for weather people, I don't know, truly does
its every condition here except for icy or boiling?
Speaker 4 (04:56):
Oh okay, as if I I didn't know that, I've
lived my entire life and I'm saying that it's clunky.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Well, I don't care what you call it. I want it.
I want it graded.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
Okay, it's a five point five, Well, you know, I'll
take that.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
I'm in a good mood because I'm I'm helping all
day today, all day tomorrow, and and then again big
time on Monday. I'm not gonna give away anything, but
I'm just gonna say, we set.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
A lofty goal for this year's golf tournament.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
And.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Maybe, just maybe we hit it. Maybe just maybe we
hit it. I want to say.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
I can't remember exactly what the number was last year.
It might have been four fifty something like that, four
hundred and fifty thousand dollars that one golf tournament. And
I'll just leave it at that for now because I really,
I really truly don't know the bottom line. I have
not seen the grand grand total yet. The sponsor ships
(06:00):
are in place, the teams are in place, everything is
in place and hopefully won't get washed away in.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
The next couple of days. I don't think it will.
I think it's going to be. Okay.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
Off the market we go now courtesy again at Houston
goold exchange dot com. Not much to talk about there, really,
everything I watched was in the red early, but by
very small fractions. Everything but oil actually at that was up,
but only up a quarter, not a quarter of a point,
just a quarter of a dollar, which is basically a
(06:30):
non event twenty five cents either way. Is it going
to change it? I don't even know that that would
change the price at the pump by a penny. I
think it might take just a little bit more than
that to do that. Maybe not from the Hunter Biden
pardon desk, and I want, well, gosh, I'm not going
to have time to get to this, but boy is
it juicy. US District Judge Mark Scarcy out in California
(06:51):
is a qus President Biden, in a very strong five
page letter of quote rewriting history end quote by the
way he pardoned his son Joe. Scarzy added that the
breadth of the pardon is unconstitutional. He had other problems
legally too, with how Biden released the pardon and how
it was written. Up until a week ago, Biden, if
(07:13):
you'll recall, had continually said that he would not pardon
his son because he believed in our legal system and
wasn't going to stand in the way of justice. He
was gonna abide by the court's decisions, no matter what
they were. Then when Kamala Harris lost, talked about this
a little bit yesterday, and he was counting on her
to pardon his son. Oh, thank you so much, Kamala. No,
(07:34):
she lost, and so that left him no choice but
to wave his magic pen and erase Hunter's questionable history.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
It's interesting.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
There's more too, a story rolled out just today, says Biden,
considering pardons for a lot of other people who maybe
did things they shouldn't have done during his administration. I
might try to get to that at the end of
the show, but I'm going to try to stick to
time here because Angela Garza will be showing up shortly
after this break. Don't let age sneak up on you, fellas.
(08:04):
If you have an enlarged prostate, non cancerous now a
large non cancerous prostate, a late health one of I
think it's three now vascular clinics under the name in Houston,
you go to a late health you get yourself a
prostrate artory embolization, and you'll go all of these procedures.
They do almost all of them anyway, take maybe a
(08:26):
couple of hours in the office. You don't ever have
to go to the hospital. All you do is go
in there, you get it knocked out whoever you're designated
driver to get. They're not going to send you home
on what it takes to knock you out and do this.
But your designated driver takes you home and you sit
there and recover in your your big comfy chair while
you watch TV, and the whole family works and waits
(08:48):
on you. Hand over fist in my dream. Anyway, go there,
get an exam, see if that treatment's right for you,
if it is probably going to be covered by Medicare
or Medicaid. And what will do is shrink that prost
ety years by plugging the artery that provides it with
oxygenated blood. And when it goes away, so do the symptoms.
(09:09):
They do the same in many cases for head pain actually,
which can be relieved and not a small number of
cases of head pain can be relieved by vascular procedures.
Ditto with fibroids for women. Ditto with ugly veins. Now
those are easy, that's boy. They do that all the time.
People who don't like those ugly things on their legs
(09:29):
or wherever they might be, just make them go away.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Seven one three, five, eight, eight thirty eight eighty eight.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
They also do regenerative medicine for people who are in
chronic pain, and nobody should endure that seven one three
call them, get a consultation, see what they can do
for You can go to the website to a latehealth
dot com seven to one, three, five, eight, eight thirty
eight eighty eight.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Now they sure don't make them like they used to.
That's why every few months we wash them, check his fluids,
and spring on a fresh coat of whack. This is
fifty plus with Doug Pike.
Speaker 5 (10:14):
Right.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Welcome back to fifty plus. Thanks for listening on this Thursday.
A quick reminder you can become a monthly donor to
Saint Jude by pledging just nineteen bucks a month. That's
gonna help these kids fight cancer over there at Saint Jude.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Put the gift on a credit card.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
You'll get the new this Shirt Saves Lives t shirt
and a Saint Jude sweatshirt. Angela's in here already. She
showed up right on time. I should have known got
the shirt on.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
You got one of those.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
I've got one at the house from last year. I'm
gonna have to I may have to talk you out
one for this year.
Speaker 6 (10:44):
We need to get you one this year.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Do indeed eight.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Hundred five eight eight one four four three one eight
hundred five eight eight one four four three will do
it again in a minute.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
But I want to get to all these questions for you,
so well. First of all, how's the KBR tope board
looking right now?
Speaker 6 (11:03):
It's looking really good, Doug, looking really good.
Speaker 5 (11:05):
The listeners out there, they're paying attention and feeling really
generous today, and we so appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Yeah, I talk about that.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
I think the greater Houston community is in a generally
good mood now that this election is over and one
way or the other we can all just breathe again.
And I feel very confident about how things are going
to go. So maybe we can convince some more of
these folks to go ahead and knock it out. So
let's talk about the history of Saint Jude Children's Research Hospital.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Who win, where?
Speaker 4 (11:35):
What?
Speaker 5 (11:36):
Yeah, So, for those of you that don't know, Saint
Jude was founded by Danny Thomas, the entertainer the center.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
This audience will know who Danny Thomas.
Speaker 5 (11:44):
Back in the fifties, he was very famous and he
had this. Really it was almost like a premonition godlike
where he was really struggling down and out, and he
went into a church and prayed to Saint Jude Thaddeus Wow,
the patron state of hopeless causes, please show me my
(12:06):
way and I will build you a shrine with his prayer.
And it wasn't about about five years later where his
luck actually immediately turned around and he got gigs and
and about five years later he made good on that
promise and he raised money a million dollars, criss crossed
the country, and in nineteen sixty two, Saint Jude was
(12:27):
founded by Danny Thomas Blood, sweat and tears.
Speaker 6 (12:30):
Really, truly, it was miraculous.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
I recall also hearing when I was over at the
hospital several years ago that he was among the first
people in Memphis to disallow any sort of segregation in
that hospital he planned to build.
Speaker 6 (12:44):
Right, is that right? That's correct.
Speaker 5 (12:46):
Yes, And there's a hotel, They're a famous hotel called
the Peabody, and.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
There that's where a state will.
Speaker 6 (12:53):
Yes, the people who are familiar know about the Ducks.
Speaker 5 (12:57):
And he went to the hotel and they time there
was it was segregated and asked the hotel, we're going
to have patients in their families and we don't want
them to pay a dime.
Speaker 6 (13:08):
I need extra housing. Will you take these patients in?
Speaker 5 (13:12):
And he convinced them to take patients of all ethnicities
and the segregated South back in the sixties, you know,
that was a tough time. So he made that happen
and it was breaking barriers. He truly was ahead of
his time.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
No question. Yeah, he didn't care who was sick. He
just wanted to make them well. It's amazing. So and
when did the hospital open exactly nineteen sixty two.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
And back then, what approximately, if you don't know exactly,
was the survival rate for kids with cancer twenty twenty
and that drum rope, and now and now.
Speaker 5 (13:46):
Thanks to the research, the protocols and the breakthroughs that
are happening at Saint Jude, it's eighty percent survival rate overall.
So it was it was like a death sentence back
when parents and families were getting those diagnoses, and that
twenty percent, you know, that's one in.
Speaker 6 (14:07):
Five kiddos that will survive.
Speaker 5 (14:09):
So now we flip that and the most common form
of childhood cancer back in the sixties was all there
was a ninety four percent, well four percent survival rate.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Oh my god.
Speaker 6 (14:22):
And now thanks.
Speaker 5 (14:24):
To the work that was the first form of cancer
that Danny wanted to tackle. Thanks to his work and
the work of Saint Jude, it's now ninety six percent
survival rate.
Speaker 6 (14:32):
It's literally flipped on its head.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
I want to I want to share here, if you
don't mind me taking a minute or two. The one
of the stories, one of my favorite stories out of
Saint Jude, and I talk about it every year at
the golf tournament, and I may not get to this
year because of the way it's all structured up. But
it's the story of a mother and her young son
who showed up at the hospital, no appointment, no nothing.
This woman had driven halfway across the country and walked
(14:58):
into the hospital with an armloader, papers and under one arm,
and her little boy and the other. You know the
story I'm about to tell, And I hope I get
it right if I don't tell me.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
So anyway, she walks up and says, hey, I need
some help.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
The people at my in my hometown have told me
none of the doctors can do anything else for my son.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
He's a goner without help from here.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
And she had just shown up out of nowhere and
she wanted to see a doctor. So this woman at
reception that hold on a minute and made a phone
call or whatever. This doctor walks out, comes over to
her and she explains her situation. He said, hand me
the papers.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
He walks off.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
He's gone for probably what must have seemed an eternity
to her. And when he comes back out, she hops
up very quickly, Oh please please, would you please?
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Would you please treat my son? And doctor said no,
I'm going to cure him.
Speaker 5 (15:55):
Yes, I know that story, and that is what Saint Jude,
that would That's what makes Saint Jude so special is
because those families they have no hope. Yeah, and it's
that moment that they arrived to Saint Jude that the
doctor will tell them I will give you hope, and
(16:17):
I will I will help cure your.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
Child and something else that most people already know this
a lot of them probably don't though. One of the
other parts of hope when you're talking about major medical procedures.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
I hope I can pay for this.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
And when someone is accepted at Saint Jude, it struck me.
I asked the question when we were making a big
tour around there, said, where's the billing department? And they said,
what the what the patient billing department?
Speaker 5 (16:45):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (16:46):
There isn't one.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
And I had to let that sink in for a minute,
because how can you run something that big and do
such extensive treatments and not have a place to pay
a bill. There's not even a bill generated, is there?
Speaker 6 (16:58):
No, there's never a bill.
Speaker 5 (17:00):
Well, patients never see a bill now for treatment, travel, housing,
or food. And that's just so that they can focus
on helping their child live.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
It's just so much, so much I want to get
to in these two days and these short little segments,
we're going to have something else. I remember being told
is that as former patients became adults, they survived childhood cancer,
they've become adults and they want to come back and
work at Saint Jude. They were coming back and saying,
I'm glad to be here, but man, this place still
(17:30):
smells like a hospital, and I don't like that. Tell
them what Saint Jude did to fix that?
Speaker 5 (17:35):
Yes, so we pump in, you know, a certain fragrance
so that it doesn't smell like a hospital. I mean,
we thought, we think of every little detail. We really
appreciate that feedback that we get from families, and we
want it to to not feel like a hospital.
Speaker 6 (17:54):
We don't want it to look and we don't want
it to smell like.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
It certainly doesn't. It doesn't.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
I remember that distinctly, and I didn't notice it walking in.
I was just walking around and looking at there's so
much to see and all this is.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Going on in front of you.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
And when whoever it was operating the tour said, by
the way, you'll probably notice that it doesn't smell like
a hospital. And I had to stop once again. It's like, no,
it doesn't. It doesn't smell like a hospital. And that's
kind of refreshing. Now what did smell good over there?
I'm not doing on to I got to make sure.
Oh we've only got just you know what, We're gonna
(18:27):
take a break. I'll tell you what the other thing
was on the way out. Or reminder to become a
monthly donor pledging just nineteen bucks a month, you can
help all these kids at Saint Jude fight these horrible,
horrible cancers. But you gift on a credit card, you're
gonna get the new this shirt. Let me get this right,
this shirt Saves Lives T shirt, the one that angels
wearing right now. You don't get that one, but you'll
(18:48):
get one just like it, and a Saint Jude sweatshirt.
Call now at one eight hundred five eight eight one
four four three one eight hundred five eight eight one
four four three one eight hundred five eight eight one
four four three onto some adult medicine. Got a place
right here in Houston to take care of us seniors,
and that is ut Health Institute on Aging, a collaborative
(19:11):
of more than a thousand providers who have gone back
and gained additional education on top of whatever it took
to get to get the diploma on the wall in
their office so that they can apply their knowledge specifically
to us to seniors. There's a great website you can
go to that has a tremendous number of resources that
(19:33):
can be of help to anybody in our age category.
And then of course access to all those providers all
over town. Utch dot edu slash Aging uth dot edu
slash Aging.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Aged to Perfection. This is fifty plus with Dougpike.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Trouble I have with this young man over here. I
know my MIC's hot too, well.
Speaker 4 (20:12):
Don't worry.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
So anyway back to fifty plus.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
Thank you Angela Garza for coming in here from Saint
Jude and helping us out.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
We're in the in day one. What are we six
hours in though?
Speaker 3 (20:25):
Six hours day one, six hours into this two day
radiothon brought.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
To us by Gallery Furniture.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
The KBR tope board, I am told, is looking pretty
good right now, right, a little.
Speaker 6 (20:38):
Over one hundred and twenty thousand dollars raised so far.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
It's pretty good by noon, is it not.
Speaker 6 (20:43):
It's really good.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
Yeah, we've got goals to meet, so be sure to
do your thing.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
Do your thing.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
I'm going to tell you about it again at the
end of this segment, but I want to get back
into what we're talking about. So we got through the
part about no patient billing department at Saint Jude, and
now I want to get to the part about and
this was something else that I've never seen in the hospital.
There's only one place to go.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Eat, isn't there?
Speaker 6 (21:07):
Yes, And I don't.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Care whether you're a patient and a little red wagon,
whether you're a mom or a dad, or a nurse
or a therapist or a neurosurgeon. If you're hungry, you're
going to the same place, aren't you.
Speaker 6 (21:20):
Yes, you're going to the K Cafe.
Speaker 5 (21:23):
And that is actually a great point that you brought up,
Doug with. It doesn't matter if you're a therapist or
a neurosurgeon. Danny Thomas wanted everybody to come together and
break bread and in that sense of you know, we're
all in this together a community.
Speaker 6 (21:43):
The families, they love it.
Speaker 5 (21:45):
Doctors eating with nurses, with patients, with families. That's the
That's the way Danny Thomas envisioned it, and it still
happens today.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
It's nobody's unapproachable, nobody.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
Nobody is hidden away in a corner where you have
to go call five people to go see them.
Speaker 6 (22:01):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
You see your surgeon in the in the corner of
the restaurant or the K cafe, and you just go
over there and say hi, and I'm sure they would
say hi right back. Something else that I wanted to
get to, which I thought was really cool, is those phones,
those special phones around there. If because you have you
have patients and families that speak approximately how many different languages?
Speaker 5 (22:24):
What there's dozens dozens, dozens, and they because they come
from all over the world, right, and our doctors come
from all over the world.
Speaker 6 (22:33):
Our researchers they and we've got of the best.
Speaker 5 (22:36):
Yes, you've been to the Danny Thomas Research ten or
twelve stories tall, and you see all of the flags
that represents all of the countries that our doctors and
researchers are from. So that those phones, to your point,
patients who don't speak English, they speak different languages, they
can just pick up a phone, helps with translators, gets
(22:58):
them exactly what they need. They've got a question about
just anything, it could be anything, they can pick up
the red phone and an into language that they speak.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
That's just crazy, it really, I mean honestly, when you
think about the time and effort and thought that goes
into all these things, and that didn't all happen at once.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Obviously, I'm sure those were added somewhere down the line. Yeah,
but because anytime there's a need over there, it seems
to be met every need.
Speaker 6 (23:26):
We think of everything.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
All about the kids, yes, all about the kids. But
another thing that was pretty cool I thought was that
where did I have it in my notes here?
Speaker 5 (23:37):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (23:37):
Yeah, if the kid gets a toothache, a patient gets
a toothache, you put them in a van, you take
them to a dentist, local dentists and let them get
taken care of.
Speaker 5 (23:45):
Yes, we have you know, the eye doctors on call.
We have any specialty if to your point, if there's
braces happening and we've got to get them to an orthodonist.
We think of everything and it's it's quick. They don't
have to wait, and you know, it kind of brings
(24:05):
up the point of the test. When you know you're
waiting for a scan or you're waiting for something to
come back. You're not waiting days, you know, for them
to call you. Sure, you get that immediately. It's it's
it's real time. Yeah, because we know parents you know there,
it's inks that that anxiety is real.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
Well, I think when when a child has such a
serious disease that they qualify to be treated at Saint Jude,
parents don't want to be have to wait because every
second they wait it's just got to beats. It's like
a just a gut punch.
Speaker 6 (24:37):
It is.
Speaker 5 (24:37):
It is, and so we want it to be We
want to take all of that off the parents so
that all they have to worry about is just focusing
on their child and that this you know, anxiety that
comes with a diagnosis like cancer.
Speaker 6 (24:51):
We try very hard to take that away.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
That's good.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
I had a neighbor actually a couple of years, several
years ago. Now they've they've since moved away. But when
I talked to him about the golf tournament and this,
that and the other one, he was a golfer. The
guy was a golfer, and they had a young daughter
and son, and we actually carpooled to school one year
before they moved. Anyway, he came to me once and
(25:15):
he said, I've got a relative back. I think he
was in Kentucky whose son has gotten some horrible diagnosis
of something. Don't you know somebody at Saint Jude. And
I said, yeah, I can find out who to call
and what to do. And about three weeks later I
got a call from him said their son's been accepted
(25:35):
at Saint Jude. And now they moved away and I've
lost touch with him. And I don't know the outcome
of that case, but it just it lifted some stuff
off my shoulder to be able to talk to them
about that and know that that kid was getting the
help he needed.
Speaker 5 (25:51):
Yeah, everybody knows somebody, right, So it cancer, you know,
it touches a lot of people. And we talked to
a lot of differentolunteers, donor supporters, and they know somebody
whose kid went to Saint Jude. Sure, you know we've
been our doors have been open since nineteen sixty two,
so we've treated thousands and thousands of kids. I mean
(26:11):
every year, sixteen thousand children are diagnosed with cancer and
we treat about eighty eight hundred of them every year. Wow,
So you know, you you will know somebody who has
been affected and they can speak on what Saint Jude
meant to them.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
And if you don't think you do, you probably make
three phone calls and find something, will you will? You
know when I first approached Lori Carter at Carter's Country
with this idea, she she just kind of held back
and held back and I'm making my pitch, come on,
we need you know, we need help with these kids,
and she goes, We've actually been making donations to Saint
Jude for a long time.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
I'd love to.
Speaker 6 (26:48):
Help, right.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
It was just so easy. Oh wow, yeah, yeah, just
like you're talking about. She I don't.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
I've still not learned what that connection is. I've not asked,
And if she wants to tell me, she can tell me.
But just that that level of enthusiasm she has for
doing this for us is just incredible and it truly
does just help make the miracles happen.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
Huh.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
Yes, Now we have a former patient from Saint Jude
speaking at the golf tournament Monday. Can you share anything
about his journey though? Oh, Emmanuel, So, Emmanuel's he's something else.
He's from Houston, he graduated high school here. He had
a tumor in his eye at the age of four
and had to be admitted. And he talks very art
(27:36):
he can really articulate at the age of four, his.
Speaker 5 (27:39):
Journey at Saint Jude. Now he's a young man in
his early twenties. He actually talked about his grandfather who
was a partner in Hope. Ironically, he was a partner
in Hope ironically before his son got cancer. I mean,
his grandson got cancer and then ended up at Saint Jude,
and his grandfather thought, that's so, that's so crazy that.
Speaker 6 (28:01):
I was already a donor. I was already a partner
in hope. And now here.
Speaker 5 (28:04):
My grandson needs Saint Jude. So he talked about that
the last time we had a conversation with him. But yeah,
you'll get to meet him. He's a fantastic guy.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
I'm looking forward to it, I really am. We are
gonna shut this down for today. I'm gonna have you
back in here. Can we make like a date, same time,
same place tomorrow, Yes, all right, it's a date.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
I'll have you back in here.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
What we're gonna do tomorrow is dig into some of
the research that goes on at Saint Jude, how it's
available to anybody and everybody on the planet who wants it,
and how they're just gonna keep on curing horribly, horribly
sick kids for as.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Long as they can.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
Become a monthly donor. I'm gonna ask you again to
please do that. Just pleague nineteen bucks a month. That's
all it takes to help these kids at Saint Jude
fight cancer. You can put that gift on a credit card.
You can get yourself at this shirt Saves Lives t
shirt just like the one Angela's wearing, not the one
she's wearing. We've already gone over that, guys and the
(29:01):
Saint Jude sweatshirt. One eight hundred five eight eight one
four four three. One eight hundred five eight eight one
four four three. One more time before we get out
of here. One eight hundred five eight eight one four
four three. On the way out, I'll tell you about
bronze roofing. I need to talk to Skeeter. I bet
I bet he jump in on this. I bet he's
never swung a golf club in his life, but he'd
(29:23):
probably be like one of the guys on my show,
a guy named Rick Bice who called in two weekends
ago and said, Hey, I want half a team, and
if somebody else will take the other half, fine, they
can have the team. I just want to make a donation.
And he did that, and five minutes later we had
the other half of the team sold. That's Rebecca about
that story.
Speaker 4 (29:41):
Show.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
Though Skeeter Broun has been in business thirty plus years,
he has he has helped anybody in everybody with any
kind of roof. They've got make sure that that roof
is doing what it's supposed to do, and we'll do
it for a long time. They'll come to your house
no charge at all, just like Saint Jude until well,
never mind, you out get a free roof. But what
(30:01):
you're gonna get is an inspection that will let you
know if there's something wrong, and if there is, they'll
show you pictures, they'll tell you what's happening with it.
They'll let you know if they have what they need
to fix it on the truck, and if they do,
just tell them to get started and how much it's
gonna cost. Bronze roofing been around forever on one simple premise,
quality work at a fair price. Call Skeeter Braun, get
(30:23):
him out there, get them take a look at your roof.
If it's fine, they'll tell you so. If it's not,
they'll fix it. Two eight one four eight zero ninety
nine hundred. Two eight one four eight zero ninety nine hundred.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
What's life without a net? I suggest you go to bed,
sleep it off.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Just wait until this show's over, Sleepy. Back to Doug
Pike as fifty plus continues.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
Bie, Welcome back, Thanks for listening to fifty plus into
our fourth and final segment on this first day of
the Saint Jude Radio Fund, brought to you by Gallery Furniture.
Thank you, Mac and the KBR tope board continues to
roll forward with a bigger and bigger number. I greatly
appreciate anything and everything you guys do. I am after
(31:17):
the show going to slide by the Big Boss's office
and ask him if I might offer up a round
of golf for three over either at Golf Club of
Houston three plus me. It's gonna if I'm handing out golf,
I'm gonna give myself an excuse to play maybe if
(31:37):
we can set some sort of a standard that will
get you that. And I don't think I could justify
doing it a bunch of times because I've got to
be around here working. But nonetheless, I'll find one day
where you and a couple of your buddies and I
could go play golf, either at Golf Club of Houston
or at Blackhawk Country Club. We've got access to both
(31:58):
and both are outside ending tracks. Anyway, back to where
we were, I'll let you know about that probably tomorrow.
I gotta go clear it first with the Big Boss.
Back to where I was earlier, and the judge out
of California, Judge Mark Scarcy wrote this letter to accusing
(32:22):
President Biden. Very strong, five page letter accusing him of
rewriting history in his pardoning of his own son, which
he said he'd never do, and everybody knew he would,
but he said he never would. So that Marcus checked.
Now comes word one of these. But wait, there's more things.
Story rolled out today says Biden also is considering pardons
(32:45):
for a whole lot of other people who maybe did
things they shouldn't have done during his administration. On the list,
from what the story said, Liz Cheney, Adam Schiff, Anthony Fauci,
Nancy Pelosi, and and.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
More than a few others.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
I am pretty confident that no other outgoing president has
felt the need to pardon so many people with whom
he worked so closely in federal government and said over
and over, we're such good people. He knows he either
he knows, or at least somebody who can persuade him
(33:26):
knows what's really up. And Biden pardons I don't know,
eight ten, two dozen politicians and prosecutors on his way
out the door.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
He's going to confirm what a lot of.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
Us have suspected for a long time. And anybody who
here's the deal, anybody who accepts a preemptive pardon, you
got to ask yourself. Why would an innocent person not
turn that down? Why wouldn't you say no, mister President,
I don't need that. I didn't do anything wrong. But
(33:57):
I guarantee if he if he calls him, he says
he you want me to pardon you? On the way out,
a lot of those people are gonna say yes as
fast as you can.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
From the this is kind of weird, Will. We got
a little bit of time here from the I don't
know what to call it. I guess the complications of
pregnancy desk.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
And I know that's not going to apply to many
people in my audience here, but maybe for daughters and
granddaughters it's worthy of note. Some infants are developing what
doctors call were wolf syndrome.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Have you ever heard of this? Will, I have never
heard of this. Their parents.
Speaker 3 (34:36):
Taking monoxa deal that very popular over the counter hair
lost drug that makes you grow hair. Well, these little
kids are growing tofty, it says here, hair across their backs,
their legs, and even their faces, and in extreme cases
can grow so much hair on their faces that they're
(35:00):
their faces are really unrecognizable.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
So just that's a.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
Cautionary word for anybody who in friends family whatever, who
are still in childbearing age and just might want to
bear one anytime soon. If they've got thin hair, ask
them if they're on monoxideal and if they are, tell
them stops. That would be a rough thing for a
(35:25):
child to grow up with. And I don't know that
there's any treatment for that. A very brief golf note,
the LPGA announced yesterday that players assigned mail at birth
and who went through mail puberty are no longer eligible
beginning in twenty twenty five. That's coming at us like
a house afire beginning twenty twenty five to participate in
LPGA Tour, Absent Tour, Ladies European Tour, and all other
(35:48):
elite LPGA competitions. That's all on that at least maybe
until the weekend on my Outdoors and Golf show. I may,
I may dig a little bit deeper into that, but
I do. I do like the idea of protecting women
in women's sports. It's a very hard thing for title
(36:09):
lines just been thrown out the window in a lot
of cases, and the OLPGA just put it back on
the table for a lot of young women who are
working their hearts out all the way through middle school
and high school to develop golf games that might get
them a scholarship that up until yesterday could have been
(36:29):
actually handed off to someone who was born.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
A man, a boy male. I guess they say.
Speaker 3 (36:36):
Vivic Ramaswami and Elon Musk are on Capitol Hill today
meeting with Republican lawmakers in both chambers of the House,
well the House and the Senate. Both chambers talk about
how they intend to reduce waste in federal government and
that shouldn't take long to find some things right. Making
no mistake, there is tremendous waste of tax dollars in Washington.
(36:58):
One of the things I'd like to see is for
federal employees to be held to the same standards of work,
similar to those in the private sector in some positions.
According to what I've read, anyway, employees at the federal level,
all these federal jobs that Biden's administration has put together
(37:18):
during his term, they're protected from termination for almost anything
short of setting.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
The building on fire. And maybe we can.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
Find a way to shake out some of these Post
office employees who've been stealing mail. This has been in
the news around here recently, stealing mail and tossing it
into dumpsters, stealing checks, all kinds of things they're doing.
And I know that that's a small group. I make
no mistake. I have a lot of respect for postal
employees who are doing the job and doing it right.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
But wrong is wrong, and they I don't know. I
don't think.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
I don't think it should be okay to make big
messes like that and then not be held accountable. Real
quick will gross but unavoidable from me to me, or
bit of a stretch, bit of a stretch. No, I'm
gonna do gross, pit unavoidable. No, I'll do that one
last bit of a stretch. Frontier Airline CEO Barry Biffle
(38:13):
says that travelers who try to avoid baggage fees are shoplifters.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
Here's a quote for me. They said, these people, these
are people that.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
It should say who are but he messed it up.
These are people that are stealing end quote. I disagree stealing.
Don't charge me sixty bucks to put a to presume
I don't need to carry luggage if I travel.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
That's kind of foolish.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
Just either jack the price up so I don't have
to pay for luggage, or make it a little more
reasonable to get it. That sounds about right to you.
Will Yeah, Okay, we're going back to gross but unavoidable.
The probability. Wait, I'm gonna I gotta draw this out
just a little bit. I'll give you run for us.
Run First, a doctor from Wisconsin raising money for cancer
(39:04):
research by running seven marathons in seven days on all
seven continents.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
I couldn't run a marathon. I don't know. I haven't
run a Did he do it? He's going to.
Speaker 3 (39:19):
So we don't know the probability of you drinking a
glass of water will that contains at least one molecule
of water that a dinosaur peed is almost one hundred percent.
Think about that next time you hit the tap. Go
(39:40):
go back tomorrow, Audios
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