#402: Recovery from ADHD, Dog and Husband's Cancer, Helpless Mother in Law

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I genuinely am they got that chicken sandwich. Don't be
it's gonna be great. I'm gonna look at up. I
need to tell you about this new place. It's called
it's literally cat like Cajun something. I got it from
Fabulous Las Vegas. No matter.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
This is pod therapy, real people, real problems, and real therapists.
You can submit your questions anonymously pod therapy dot net
or email us at pot therapy guys at gmail dot com.
And now broadcasting from the s J and the Ruckus
Coy Pond Studios.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
That's Jim, that's Whitney. I'm there. It's time for some
pot therapy. Captain's seafood boy. It's on Rainbow and I
don't know if they're open yet. Like Captain in the description,
we opted for the Cajun sauce, which it's oh wow,
they have a lot of reviews. Oh it is open, okay,
because they have one hundred and fifteen reviews. Wow, this
does not sound like a Cajun place. This looks like Louisiana. Shit,

(00:51):
look at that. It's corn and craw dads and some
kind of pot craw dad. You gotta say pod fathers.
I don't fuck and know, but it looks lueezyanion. All right,
I think it. I don't want to eat any of it,
but I mean I assume would. I'm sure you'd.

Speaker 3 (01:10):
Probably would send me that.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
Hello, everybody, Welcome back to another exciting episode of pod Therapy.
Don't forget that every episode we record a pre show.
You can hang out with the gang, get to know
us better, kind of enjoy a little bit more of
a casual conversation where we get get real. We turn
the chairs backward and the hats to and uh, you know,
we just wrap. We talk about real life stuff. Yeah,

(01:38):
like hotels, like hotels and travel.

Speaker 4 (01:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
Okay, so we didn't get much done this week. Yeah, yeah,
in any other week, you should pass money though.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
Patreon dot COM's Last Therapy. Come check it out, join
the celebration. And of course on Mondays we release uh
sporadically extra content deep dives research roundups. I am working
on one right now that is probably going to release
this week if I have the time to record it.
But I have all the research done on a political
extremism and assassins, and the FBI has this whole deep

(02:08):
report that they've published that I came upon and started
really like turning pages on is so interesting, just into
the psychology of like extremists that that ultimately turned to violence.
Is this a new report or is this Yeah? This
one not the one that you and I did that
years ago about that was about active shooters. This one
specifically about like political extremism that turns into assassination and violence.

(02:31):
So really fascinating stuff. Yeah, yeah, that's very relevant this week,
So lots of Yeah, don't don't turn on the news.

Speaker 3 (02:40):
It's fine, the Viking's lost. You don't want to see anything.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
Anyway. We are excited to have you with us this week.
We had some great questions for the show you met them? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
oh okay, yeah those guys. The first question up on
the docket today is medical so touched by an Angel
Medication verse recovery in ADHD, Dear doctor, social worker, fitness coach,

(03:03):
and colonel. I've been thinking I might have some adult ADHD.
I've been considering talking to a doctor to see if
ADHD medication might be appropriate for my situation. From listening
to Jim's Deep dive, I remember that ADHD is not
a chronic diagnosis and that it can go away. My
question is, if someone overcomes ADHD by getting on meds,

(03:23):
doesn't that trap them in a state of managing ADHD
symptoms and close the door on recovery. How does someone
with ADHD quote grow out of their symptoms if they're
regularly being managed by medication. By the way, this thought
occurred to me today after taking sudafed for a cold

(03:44):
and noticing that my focus was greater after taking it.
You've discovered math, my friend, I know Suita federan suit
of fred whatever the part that one is a stimulant.

Speaker 3 (03:55):
So I looked it up and it turns out that
it is somewhat effective as ADHD med Thanks everybody be gay,
do crimes. It's also effective if you want to stay
up for four or five days.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
Fuck udo, fat dude. I had I had a really bad,
uh like allergy spell, like when my mom was visiting
or whatever, and I thought about taking suit of fed.
I was like, fuck, man, if you take this, my
heart wants to explode out of my chest. Every time
I take sudi fed, I just cannot.

Speaker 2 (04:22):
I don't have I don't know for whatever reason, whatever
medication I take, I never have any of the symptoms.
Or the side effects that people talk about. Okay, like sudafed,
I've never had that feeling.

Speaker 1 (04:34):
Whoa, you don't notice the stuff? No, do you get
medicine head when you take certain things? I mean, when
you take like a benadrill, you tire when I when
I take it.

Speaker 2 (04:42):
That's like the only side effect that I have is
when I take a ben a drill, I can't stay awake.

Speaker 1 (04:47):
Yeah, yeah, I'm that's about it. But like any kind.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
Of feeling high or feeling any like disassociation.

Speaker 1 (04:55):
When you take niqu will, what is that like? For nothing? Dude?
I have the worst fucking nightmares. Really, it's so bad
that I won't take it. I will not take night will.
Fuck that noise.

Speaker 2 (05:04):
I would love to hear about your nightmare.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
What is a gym nightmare? Okay, I will tell you, actually,
right journal, let me tell you all about it. My nightmares.

Speaker 2 (05:16):
It's like he gets all the way to La Jolla
but just can't get to his hotel.

Speaker 1 (05:25):
To pay money to fix it. God damn it over
and over and over again. Uh no, my my nightmares.
The closest thing I could describe them as is the
Disney movie Alice in Wonderland. It is always that. It's
just I am going through situations, caterpillar smoking, nothing makes sense.
Just every situation does not make any sense, and I

(05:46):
am like, frustratingly trying to figure out the rules of
the situation and just be done with this.

Speaker 3 (05:50):
So is the bad dream part of this that you
don't understand? It is that the negative side of it?
Or are their negative things happening?

Speaker 1 (05:57):
It's all taken as granted in the dream. It's all
happening in this way that everybody around me that's also
in the dream accepts this weird ass scenario as the norm.
And when I'm pissed off and I'm like, what the
fuck is this caterpillar talking to us for? Why do
we have to listen to his ass? But this noise,
Everybody's like, whoa, why are you so angry? Like how

(06:18):
does that make you feel? Thanks for asking, buddy. Confused,
very confused, and very upset, and I hate those. And
then I wake up from the nightmare, and then I'm
scared to go back to sleep because I don't want
to go back to the caterpillar thing. It's just it's
just the confusion of it that bothers you.

Speaker 4 (06:34):
Doesn't stand it.

Speaker 1 (06:35):
Everything is a penis. I mean, it's so confusing that
what's confusing about I mean they are kind of confusing,
confused about a penis with all the penises. So that's
what my nightmares look like. And that's why I won't
take night quess. Well, I feel like I just watched
this that just has a weird dream.

Speaker 5 (06:52):
Yeah that does sound like this is my nightmare or
a nightmare. Okay, okay, But there's this pharmacist that's on
like you. I saw it on YouTube shorts and he
goes through and talks about how like pseudo fed and
different like musin x all that just bullshit.

Speaker 1 (07:08):
Oh really Yeah, Oh I heard that mucinex recently kind
of got revealed.

Speaker 4 (07:12):
Like an of the ones it's too much information.

Speaker 1 (07:15):
Came out and said, no, this is actually the active
ingredient doesn't do the thing we thought it.

Speaker 4 (07:19):
Yeah, something weird like that. It's extra dollars.

Speaker 1 (07:22):
Yeah, it may have been related to pseudo fed too.
I remember that.

Speaker 5 (07:24):
Yeah, I just watched this a couple of days ago,
so something about pseudo fed.

Speaker 4 (07:28):
Look it up. Don't trust me, I'm not a doctor.

Speaker 1 (07:29):
It's meth.

Speaker 3 (07:30):
That's that's the fun of it.

Speaker 5 (07:32):
But is pseudo fed made for They said they took
it for a cold. You used to take it for allergies?

Speaker 3 (07:37):
Is that?

Speaker 5 (07:38):
Uh?

Speaker 4 (07:38):
I think it's like a decongested Oh okay, just symptoms.

Speaker 1 (07:41):
So it depends on what you're going through. But this
is an interesting question congestion and ADHD apparently. But it
is an interesting question. I mean because like if I'm
if I'm hearing the question right, I think it's like
this chicken and egg thing right, because it's like, okay,
because what what Biga is referring to is in my
six hour deep dive on ADHD, very thorough. It's not
all one block. Everybody, don't listen to fucking Jacob. Okay,

(08:03):
he has turned so many people away from my ADHD.
They are units, they are just all I.

Speaker 3 (08:10):
Do is talk about how great it is that you
expounded at such length. Yes, and in such a dull,
monotone voice.

Speaker 4 (08:18):
I trust doctor Jacob.

Speaker 3 (08:21):
It's so good that you were so concerned about the
information that you want to make sure that nothing in
your delivery hindered the reception of that information. It's truly
responsorough the ad It's the kind of attitude that one
you would doctorate in the first This is true.

Speaker 1 (08:36):
This is true. The average extra content that I create
on Patreon is almost always about an hour, sometimes ninety minutes,
and so occasionally six hours. Four units of AHD they
were an hour and a half each, and that added
up to six hours. Anyway, on that that talk. One
of the things that we we go through is like
debunking myths and common misunderstandings about HD. And one of

(08:59):
the things a lot of people don't know about is
that we expect ADHD over time to wane if you're
diagnosed with it as a child. A high percentage of
people that are diagnosed with as a child would not
meet criteria later on in life. It eventually wanes away.

Speaker 3 (09:13):
Now is that because and forgive the forgive the verb,
But here is that because we kind of just settle
down as we get older.

Speaker 1 (09:19):
It might be developments, like it could be brain development.
It could just be like you said, settling down. It
could just be growing into your body and your homewners.

Speaker 5 (09:25):
Likenstantly changing learning, coping skills, adapt And I love my dab,
but he is ADHD, Like and he's seventy five years old,
and I'm like, yeah.

Speaker 1 (09:35):
And absolutely there are people he.

Speaker 5 (09:37):
Like won't really admit that. He kind of will finally
accept it because I've told him enough. I'm like, do
you just accept this? But he was like, I remember
I had to like do things extra in college and
like do all this stuff to like get through shit.

Speaker 4 (09:48):
That was hard.

Speaker 3 (09:49):
Like that's because you my man.

Speaker 4 (09:52):
Yeah exactly. I'm like still, so, like what.

Speaker 1 (09:55):
What the writer's referencing here is like that that's something
that we talk about in that deep dive becase because
I think it's kind of like chilled out a little
bit more now. But at the time when I recorded these,
the big emphasis we were seeing in like social media
culture about ADHD was that it's a type of person.
It's like it is who you are to your core,
and when you discover this about yourself, it's like doing

(10:17):
a twenty three and meters and realizing you're like eighty
percent Irish, and it's like, oh, now that I know
this permanent reality about me, it explains why I don't tan,
you know, and like all these extra things that now
that I know this becomes a compass for how I
live my entire life. And there was way too much
emphasis being put on this idea of neurodivergence and of
ADHD being these permanent features when in the research we
actually see that the majority of people who I who

(10:40):
would be diagnosed with ADHD in childhood will eventually grow
out of it. So I think that's what bigae is
talking about. Is he's saying, Hey, so, like, on one hand,
we have that scientific fact that a lot of people
grow out of this, But if I'm given the medicines
to cope with this over time, then it becomes this
question of is the medicine masking the symptoms so I

(11:01):
don't notice it anymore? Or did it go away on
its own? And then you have to like take away
the band aid to find out if the scar healed
kind of thing. And he's asking that question of, like,
so if you end up staying on the medicines as
part of your regular functioning, how do you go about
this process of like does it heal on its own
even when you're on the medicines? Like into that complexity,
I guess.

Speaker 5 (11:21):
Yeah, And and my understanding with ADHD medication and I
feel like I had a nurse practitioner express their opinions
recently to me on this as well, where and that
was the in their opinion, ADHD meds should not be
taken all the time, like you don't wake up, I mean,
you don't wake up and just have to populate ADHD

(11:41):
meds right one hundred percent of the time the day
you're prescribed till the day you die, or so.

Speaker 1 (11:46):
Take them as needed for some management.

Speaker 4 (11:48):
Kind of as needed.

Speaker 5 (11:49):
So, like children end up taking it really often because
they're in school five days a week and that's majority
of their time, and maybe their parent wants them to
take on the weekend.

Speaker 4 (11:57):
Because they're stressed the fuck out.

Speaker 5 (11:58):
Like I don't know, but I think kids end up
taking it more consistently because they are having to for
their lifestyle purposes. They're having to fit into that mold
like parents have to work, you have to go to school,
and we want you to have a self esteem and
not be like just torn down every day because you
can't focus.

Speaker 1 (12:15):
Right. But it opens up a good question here because
Biga is saying, if you're a human who has this,
there's going to be a debate or or there's going
to be a little bit of a push and pull
inside of you. Do you take a medicine that nulls
out the symptoms or do you have to learn to
manage the symptoms. And if we want you to learn
to manage the symptoms, to what extent are you supposed
to be using medicine? And really, I think we can

(12:36):
macro that question out to all mental health conditions, right,
because you have anxiety and it's like, okay, should you
just be taking xanax every time you have an anxiety
attack or should you have to learn how to cope
and recover? Well, the goal is not.

Speaker 4 (12:49):
To I think, become a dependent.

Speaker 1 (12:53):
That's part of it.

Speaker 3 (12:54):
Yeah, I mean, the goal is not to find a
treatment that works. The goal is to get to a
place in life where you're comfortable and happy.

Speaker 1 (13:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (13:03):
I love that response.

Speaker 3 (13:04):
And so like whatever the treatment ends up being, if
it ends up being you know, sixty percent meds and
forty percent uh you know, uh coping mechanisms or you
know the vice versa, or you know ninety ten or whatever,
it is, so right, right, like who cares? What the what?
What the treatment methodology is. If it works for you
and gets you to a good headspace, then like cool.

Speaker 5 (13:27):
Right yeah, Because even Bige says if someone overcomes ADHD
by getting on meds and I think that wording is
pretty tulling there.

Speaker 1 (13:36):
Yeah, we're not.

Speaker 5 (13:37):
My personal opinion is I don't want someone to overcome ADHD.
I want them to function kind of like Jacobs saying
I want you're happy.

Speaker 3 (13:45):
Overcoming implies that there is a baseline that we are
all trying to achieve.

Speaker 1 (13:50):
Yeah, we're like.

Speaker 4 (13:50):
A problem, like a like a problem and so right.

Speaker 3 (13:53):
Yeah, so anything that keeps you from achieving that baseline
becomes a problem. And then like you're just trying to
surmount that problem to get to that baseline.

Speaker 1 (14:01):
There is no baseline, right, We're all.

Speaker 3 (14:03):
Just trying to be happy and content, right, like whatever
whatever our idiot of our issues are, like, that's all
we're trying to do.

Speaker 1 (14:09):
I mean, I just watch this. I feel like I'm
being very hippie right now. No, I love it's the headband.
You're not wrong about current.

Speaker 5 (14:20):
Him back on the YouTube shorts again. But have y'all
seen that Subway guy interview? That unch.

Speaker 4 (14:33):
Watching him for a lot.

Speaker 3 (14:35):
He had really huge pants. It turns out he's a
really cool YouTube channel.

Speaker 4 (14:39):
He has a great.

Speaker 1 (14:43):
It was not a brill in depth.

Speaker 5 (14:45):
Man, Know, this guy does like Subway takes and he's
I don't know about chronically on YouTube, like I am.

Speaker 1 (14:54):
Then there's Subway. I got a new spokesperson. They wanted
to taste the amount of time.

Speaker 4 (15:00):
Yeah jared.

Speaker 5 (15:04):
It, but no, those guys is on the subway and
he interviews people about like what's your hot take? And
the other day these two brothers were like, people are
getting over therapized, okay.

Speaker 4 (15:17):
And I sat with this fom when.

Speaker 5 (15:18):
I was like about to be all defensive, you know,
and I listened and they ended up saying their their mom,
I think, is a therapist.

Speaker 4 (15:25):
So they're like, we love therapy. We promote therapy.

Speaker 5 (15:27):
But there's a point where they said they felt like
their generation and it looked like probably you know, younger
gen z. They're like, we are looking to therapy to
fix our problems.

Speaker 4 (15:39):
Like, and I'm not saying my peers, Oh yeah, I agree.

Speaker 1 (15:45):
A lot of head wearing hippies, that's right.

Speaker 5 (15:47):
Yeah, I don't disagree because I feel like they only
know other people their age.

Speaker 4 (15:52):
But I thought the same thing.

Speaker 5 (15:53):
I'm like a lot of my clients in their thirties
or forties will seek the same thing out, like, oh
do I have this diagnosis? Is this what's like wrong
with me, and it almost it presumes that something is
a problem instead of allowing us to all be like
our different, weird humans. Right.

Speaker 3 (16:09):
But then on the other hand, out there I have
I have a friend who is she was recently she's
my age and was recently diagnosed for the first time
with ADHD.

Speaker 1 (16:19):
At adult adult onset.

Speaker 3 (16:23):
I don't no, sorry, not that, but like basically late diagnosis. Okay, yeah,
it's some term for late diagnosis ADHD, late life diagnosed ADHD.

Speaker 1 (16:35):
She's in her forties and and and.

Speaker 3 (16:38):
Yeah, that's it's very interesting, but it seems to have
helped her mental disposition, just having that that clarification, So
I mean that can certainly be part of it.

Speaker 1 (16:47):
And to be clear, like I'm for that, I'm for
people finding out their truth. And where I think Biga
may have misunderstood some of my deep dive is that
it isn't the case that the science says people develop
their way out of it, like they solve it themselves.
And that's where this word recovery can get tricky, right,
because like when we use the word recovery in addictions work,

(17:08):
we know that you and your pattern and your programming
is a big part of gonna be your overall success
while you still permanently have an ailment that you need
to always be mindful of, which is the propensity for
addiction in ADHD. I don't know that you can exert
yourself enough with enough coping skills that this doesn't happen.
Like ADHD is fundamentally a way your brain works and

(17:31):
something you can learn to work with and like find
success with it. But like I don't know that there's like, oh,
this one weird trick, and then you will not have
ADHD anymore. You cannot like will power your way out
of it or change it. Like whereas with anxiety issues,
like I have generalized anxiety disorder, I function with it
pretty well, and in that sense, I have all this
recovery skill that like helps me get through the world,

(17:52):
and I don't need the medicines to survive it, and
I'm good, and like most of the time, I seem
like a person doesn't have it, But then like, deep
down I know that I do ADHD. I don't know,
isn't that same kind of ballpark it is? We consider
it a neuro developmental And I don't like the word illness,
I mean predisposition and those who grow out of it
grow out of it like they develop out of it.
We think that there's something happening in their neurostructure that

(18:15):
ultimately changes, and then they just don't seem to have
the symptoms anymore. So I don't know that the mentality
should be that they worked their way out of it.

Speaker 2 (18:22):
So I mean to kind of go back to his question,
is his continuing to take the medication preventing the possibility
of him growing out of it?

Speaker 1 (18:34):
See I don't think so. If you're an adult and
now you're taking the medicines, if you could grow out
of it as an adult, which I would argue that's
an open question too, I think you're kind of done
developing at that point. I think it's really just a
question of function. Like our old boss, doctor Poul used
to talk to us about opioids for painkilling, same concept.
He said, The point is not to be symptom free.
The point is to improve your functioning. And there's some

(18:56):
medicines that you take too much of and it decreases
your functioning even though you're less pain right, and so
like the same thing with ADHD meds. If if the
meds are ultimately facilitating an improved overall functionality. Then they
are one of your tools that has a purpose in
a time, in a place. But I agree with the
idea that I like humans having more than one tool
in their back right. And this is where like we

(19:18):
see this with adolescence. We sas young people taking medicine holidays,
you know, where they're learning how to like cope on
the weekends and like self manage and self regulate. There's
room for that. That's what that means. Yeah, Oh I've
been doing it wrong. Yeah you're doing the other way.

Speaker 3 (19:32):
You're regulating with the drugs, right, yeah, yeah dropping acid.

Speaker 1 (19:35):
Yeah, you gotta go the other way with it. That's bad.
Raw dog life.

Speaker 5 (19:39):
I was just gonna say, I totally saw someone doing
coc and alley in Portugal. I was like, Wow, they
just did that, they like bought it, and just like
I was like, I am sheltered.

Speaker 4 (19:48):
In this life.

Speaker 1 (19:48):
Oh I didn't. I don't think I told you.

Speaker 3 (19:50):
I think I said it on an ice cream social
within like the first five minutes or so of walking
around on Pink Street in downtown liz and there. It
might have been less, might have been like three minutes,
but I got offered coke like five or six times.

Speaker 1 (20:06):
Wow, with it a couple of minutes. Wow, But in fairness,
you look like that's gonna buy some coke.

Speaker 3 (20:12):
In fairness, I've been offered coke multiple times since then. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
it's become a bit of a runner on IDs. There's
clearly something about me that is inviting something about you.

Speaker 1 (20:23):
It might be because you keep buying the coke. I think
that might be part of it too. That would explain
why it's always the same guy. He only me alone,
and no, I feel we're not buying it on the trip.
That actually actually, now that you mentioned it, yeah, yeah,
and then you get those frequent purchasing miles.

Speaker 2 (20:40):
Speaking of weird ship on the streets, I saw a
guy taking a piss on the sidewalk on Flamingo and
Maryland Parkway.

Speaker 1 (20:49):
Good. But the crazy thing about that it checks out
none of that. Yeah, that's just normal.

Speaker 2 (20:55):
But the crazy part about it was that he wasn't
like behind a tree or building or someplace. He was
literally standing no, yes, yes, honestly, if you respect that,
if you're gonna do it, if you're gonna do it,
don't be coy.

Speaker 1 (21:16):
Yeah, let us all know this is what I'm doing.
Don't be a colorful fish. Yeah, whip that dick out,
Yeah yeah, get that mold checked out and b gay.
I think that's all. That's the point we want to
make today, is you know, like with with you and yours,
whip your dick out, piss right in public.

Speaker 3 (21:33):
Yeah, that's how you solve ADHD.

Speaker 4 (21:35):
You're doing crime.

Speaker 1 (21:37):
Not in all countries, some countries, I'm sure it's fine.
I believe it's frowned upon in Las Vegas. Yeah, but yeah,
just a categorical error that might be happening there. Be
gay is just we don't necessarily recover our way out
of adult ADHD. It's just the case that ADHD, when
measured across lifespan, often seems to develop away as the
brain and the body continue to develop. And then adults

(21:59):
who have it, even those who have it, they there
is a component of learning coping skills, learning, self regulation, learning,
executive functioning management. But then the medicine is an important
tool as well, And so I don't want it to
be the case that like it's either or it can
be both, and I don't know that just by using
the medicines you're never going to get a chance to
practice your coping skills or work on, like, you know,

(22:20):
your personal management. I think you're going to find those
opportunities because the meds only last for so long, Like
the half life of amphetamines is pretty low. So yeah,
I think that if you're asking yourself, should I try
to wean down off these and try to increase sort
of my my grappling with these symptoms in real time?
I think that's fine. I think that's fine under the
advice of your therapist, under the advice of your doctor,

(22:42):
with their support. Getting skills from you know, communities and
online then applying those things is great. But this idea
that one will recover from ADHD if they try hard
enough or learn enough, I don't know is the categorical
way we should be talking about that. I just don't
think that's the case. People do develop out of it,
but that is something that just happens. They didn't earn.

(23:02):
It just happens unless they did it through prayer.

Speaker 6 (23:06):
Yeah, in which you pradh adhd RYHD No more high
death episode TITLEHD.

Speaker 1 (23:18):
Anyway, thank you be Gay for writing in We're gonna
take a quick break and when we come back, we're
talking about a dog and a husband's cancers. WHOA you're
listening to Good Therapy.

Speaker 2 (23:31):
Today's episode has brought to you by Robert Brownie Junior
Men's Kayla Lansbury, Kevin Chamberlain, Ben Stanley, Adam Hathaway, Dan
Mark Live, Hey Yo, Andrew Langmead Schad, Meg and Prince
and would you lexmuss the show become a therapiscer picture
on dot com Flash there, all right, weird history trivia

(23:52):
today truth jam from inter Emma.

Speaker 3 (23:56):
All right, do we have a time period or anything,
or is just like general history?

Speaker 1 (24:01):
It could be all the way down to last hour.

Speaker 3 (24:05):
It's all on the table, bab earlier today.

Speaker 1 (24:08):
Five minutes ago. Uh, Jim, we'll start with you. What
happened at Lunchtown?

Speaker 2 (24:15):
What was Napoleon Bonaparte once attacked by during a hunting trip?

Speaker 1 (24:21):
Uh? Ok? Too off the fly? Sure a bore be
there for me? Be there, bore.

Speaker 2 (24:31):
It is listed as an option, Okay, and it is incorrect.

Speaker 1 (24:37):
Alright, alright, swinging a mess, but a gentleman's mess. All right,
all right, Whitney for the steal.

Speaker 2 (24:44):
You want choices, choices, geese, rabbits, wild boars, swans, a
wild boys.

Speaker 3 (24:56):
Him, implied, tame boys. Damn a domesticated boar. H.

Speaker 5 (25:00):
He said, geese swans, and what was the rabbits? Rabbits, rabbits,
it's gonna be geese.

Speaker 1 (25:10):
Would like the best rabbits, swans. It's gotta be swans,
that I mean, can't be rabbits.

Speaker 3 (25:16):
Point for Nick, whoa, it's rabbits big, remember to him,
rabbits are Oh that's right, that's right. Yeah, yeah he was.
They were towering over him. Yeah, that's probably the case.

Speaker 1 (25:32):
Yea, zero points all around except for Nick. All right,
here we go.

Speaker 3 (25:35):
You know that was just disinformation from the English.

Speaker 1 (25:40):
Short. Yeah he was actually he was like a little
a little taller than average. Yeah, and it's disinformation from
Emma that he was attacked by rabbits.

Speaker 4 (25:47):
Yeah, I thought that's what we're.

Speaker 1 (25:49):
Anti French shots fired thing. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (25:52):
The English like passed all this around, say that Napoleon
was super short. Oh my god, to piss off a
dictator that implied that he had a tiny pin.

Speaker 4 (26:00):
Are what they were trying to say?

Speaker 2 (26:02):
Yeah, we've risen above that. We talk about our leaders.

Speaker 3 (26:11):
Bat Parker a tray stone, which case you're making billions
of dollars off talking about our leaders.

Speaker 1 (26:18):
Whitney.

Speaker 2 (26:19):
Yeah, in the eighteenth century. In eighteenth century Europe, which
animal was sometimes put on trial for murder?

Speaker 1 (26:26):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (26:26):
My gosh, eighteenth century options.

Speaker 2 (26:29):
Okay, I have guesses donkeys, goats, pigs, or chickens.

Speaker 1 (26:36):
None of my guesses were on the list. Yeh, chupacabra
I thought would.

Speaker 5 (26:40):
Definitely put on trial for murder sasquatch, donkeys, goats, pigs,
and what chicken? Jesus, donkeys, goats, pigs, are chickens, donkeys?

Speaker 1 (26:53):
It feels right. No, for the steel, I feel like
I got fifty to fifty.

Speaker 3 (27:00):
I'm gonna say goats, legoats, No, oh my god, it's
down to chickens, pigs, It's gonna be.

Speaker 1 (27:10):
Killing people.

Speaker 3 (27:12):
It's got to be pigs, chickens.

Speaker 1 (27:15):
It iss.

Speaker 3 (27:16):
I was between goats and pigs because of cloven hoof.
I was going biblical.

Speaker 1 (27:22):
Yeah. Is there an explanation? Nope? All right, thanks em
for it. Right.

Speaker 3 (27:28):
Feel free to include explanation any that you think they
are not, not anything you think we'll be interested in,
that's right, and any that we will be interested in.
Make sure there is an explanation that we're not interested
to make sure, there is not an explanation.

Speaker 1 (27:42):
I think I went backwards.

Speaker 4 (27:43):
It's your turn now, right, No, Jacob.

Speaker 1 (27:45):
You went this way? Yeah, yeah, okay, all right, Jacob.

Speaker 2 (27:50):
In fifteen eighteen, what strange events swept through Strasburg causing
dozens of people to collapse?

Speaker 1 (27:58):
Oh? See?

Speaker 3 (28:00):
In fifteen eighteen Columbus sailed the ocean blue and cause
people to collapse in Strasburg.

Speaker 1 (28:10):
Sudden onset Columbus.

Speaker 3 (28:12):
Yeah, sudden onset Columbus is final answer. I guess options
the Great Sneezing plague. That's the dancing play.

Speaker 1 (28:20):
That's it. The yawning fever or the singing madness. Go
for govert dance dance fever.

Speaker 3 (28:28):
I mean you got the Saint Vitus dance scratch fever.
That's not a dance, that's a fever. That's right there
at the song title. The Saint Vitus dance is a
real that's a real disease. Was there a laughing one?

Speaker 1 (28:43):
Sneezing sneezing that's right.

Speaker 2 (28:45):
Sneezy fashful doc.

Speaker 3 (28:51):
Let's see, I'll say how many how many people was
it they collapsed?

Speaker 1 (28:55):
I did not Oh, I thought you said dozens. You
said dozens. It was in you're you're not.

Speaker 2 (29:01):
Strange event swept through Strasburg, causing dozens of people.

Speaker 1 (29:07):
I will help myself to.

Speaker 5 (29:08):
Your believing women.

Speaker 1 (29:14):
Well, dog, jimithy, I'm on the right side of history. Yes,
let's yawning, Jim. Give me the dancing one mother the
dancing player. Yes. Wow, I just wanted it to be true.

(29:36):
Sometimes you just gotta want something with all your heart
and it will happen. Points very well today, Good for me?
Is that all for this round? That's it? Next question
dog and husband's cancer. Hiyall, you answered a question of
mine at the start of the year, and it made
me laugh so much when things were tough. So I'm

(29:57):
hoping you can do the same again. No pressure, I'm
unfortunately that answer gave both my husband and my dog
cancer a bit of background for context and sorry. If
it's long. Been with my husband for a very happy
thirty three years, think he'd probably be weirdly okay to
stick with me for another thirty three Okay. Nearly sixteen
years ago, we had IVF for a much wanted third child.

(30:21):
I got pregnant but lost the baby at twelve weeks,
just when it was starting to become obvious I was
pregnant and had gone through a lot of the most
hideous parts. To say the loss was traumatic was an understatement.
Because I was early forties and we'd spend all our money.
We knew that was the end of the road regarding
more children. Whilst I'd been pregnant, an acquaintance had been
posting on Facebook that her dog was also going through

(30:44):
morning sickness. I had the mad idea of getting one
of the puppies once born, and my husband would have
agreed to anything I asked at that point. So from
almost the moment my dog was born, she was earmarked
as mine. I visited her frequently from a week old.
When I finally took her her home, she already felt
as though she'd been my dog forever. This dog has
been the most wonderful silver lining to a dark cloud

(31:07):
for the last fifteen and a half years. She's a
terrier across with so much character, energy and zest for life.
I've done so much with her at my side, from
traveling in holidays to dog training classes to agility. She
truly is my once in a lifetime dog. In a way,
I could barely be sad over what I went through
as I can't imagine a world in which she wasn't

(31:29):
my dog. July this year, my husband started saying one
of his testicles had swollen up and he'd been ignoring it.
It wasn't easy to persuade him to see a doctor,
but finally he did and was referred for a scan
and it was cancer. Much as we moan about the
NHS in the UK, I have to say they've been
amazing and very fast. It's been a whirlwind of tests,

(31:50):
CT scans and consultants leading to the removal of said
testicle at the start of September. We are now waiting
to see if he will need any chemo. Finding out
it was cancer was awful. I sobbed so many tears
and was so terrified I was going to lose him.
I absolutely fell to pieces over my poor adult kids
who have also had to face the illness of their father.

(32:10):
But we've been told there's a very high survival rate
and it hasn't spread from what we know, so although
it's been really hard, he's recovering well from the op
and things are looking tentatively brighter. Then in the midst
of all this, between his diagnosis and the operation, the
vet discovered our dog had really aggressive lymphoma which had

(32:31):
appeared from what seemed like nowhere. It nearly killed her
during the awful week. She was diagnosed whilst we were
still in limbo waiting for my husband's appointment. But in
the midst of that week we made the decision to
try chemo for our dog, and that's what we've done.
She isn't out of the woods by any means at all,
and I risk that by the time you read this,
we will have had bad news. Because of her age,

(32:54):
We've gone for a moderate protocol, which is less risk
to her and has minimal side effects, but should still
provide a reasonable remission. She's responding well to the chemos
so far, and we are starting to see our lively,
happy dog back, although it still feels like I'm on
a roller coaster. Here's the issue. The whole world seems
to have an opinion on us paying for chemo for

(33:14):
a fifteen year old dog, and their opinion is most
definitely not a positive one. My adult kids have been wonderful,
but they grew up with this dog and have an
attachment to her, and our very senior experienced vet would
not hesitate to tell us if we were putting our
dog through suffering by choosing this path. That's something I
check with the VET about regularly. However, I've lost count

(33:36):
of the number of extended family and friends who have
repeatedly told me to have the dog put to sleep.
No one has suggested this for my husband. I notice.
I've had comments like, put her to sleep so you
can concentrate on your husband like you should be, and
you'll be so much happier once you've had that dog
put to sleep.

Speaker 4 (33:53):
Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (33:54):
I've been told I'm crazy spending the money and the
VET trips are too much of a tie for me
at the moment, and that I should just let her go.
Telling people I don't want to talk about it doesn't work.
Saying I'm taking the vet's advice doesn't work. People just
cannot resist telling me that I'm doing the wrong thing.
I'm beyond fed up with messages telling me I'm doing

(34:15):
the wrong thing or wasting my money. But although the
chemo for her isn't cheap, it's way less than half
these friends and family spend on their cruises or their holidays.
That's it, or a lot of their possessions or their
beauty treatments, and no one is sending them negative texts
about that. On top of all, I've been sitting friends
lots of negative He just spams everybody with harassment and

(34:37):
hopes that it lands.

Speaker 5 (34:37):
In the right now.

Speaker 1 (34:40):
On top of this, I'm getting a constant barrage of
concerned texts and messages from seemingly the whole world, asking
how is my husband? Every detail of treatment, how is
he feeling, etc. Et cetera. For some reason, people are
too scared to message him directly, as though the cancer
has rendered him incapable of speaking for himself, so they
all ask me. They mean, well, but recently it's my dog.

(35:02):
I've been shedding the tears over because her life currently
feels so much more precarious. If I mention the dog,
I'm ignored at best. One of my friends the other
evening asked, and how is your husband? We're all so
concerned for him, and I yelled back, I don't fucking care.
I care about my dog. I did later apologize and
say it's not true that I don't care, but it

(35:24):
wasn't my finest moment and things have been strained since.
And so I find myself in the position where I'm
stuck avoiding or alienating a lot of people in my
life because they think I'm a heartless bitch who doesn't
give a shit about my husband and only cares about
my dog, which isn't actually true at all. And I
do have a couple of wonderful friends who do get

(35:45):
it because they've been through similar but similar situations, but they,
of course are the minority. Husband, by the way, is
one hundred percent behind the decisions with the dog, and
losing her right now wouldn't help him. I look forward
to advice and testicle jokes, many thinks theropod Foxy Sally
Sally right, I mean first with the first testical joke,

(36:10):
or just or just rattle them off. Yeah, let's go on.
Is the loneliest that you live?

Speaker 2 (36:17):
Remember Stephen Lynch that he was a comedian, this songwriter, Yeah,
the song guy.

Speaker 1 (36:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:22):
And so he had a song about having one testicle,
did he Yeah?

Speaker 1 (36:26):
And there was something.

Speaker 2 (36:29):
He had a line in that song, something about the
insecurity he has and experiences when he's had a baseball
game and he hears the umpire say ball one.

Speaker 3 (36:47):
Jokes one testicle in there going like so much room
for activities.

Speaker 1 (36:52):
Guy can really just spread out and yeah, this is great.

Speaker 3 (36:57):
Did you get in one of the fake testicles or
one of the fake testile yeah, eaven it out a
little bit. Yeah, I would suggest getting one that lights up.
Oh yeah, there's so much more fun. Yeah, and then
you're like, it's like glowing through your ballsack. And the
ones that makes sound effects when you hit them, yeah,
those are great.

Speaker 1 (37:14):
Gong.

Speaker 3 (37:15):
There's got to be some of those that are like
Bluetooth controlled. Oh yeah, a like a Bluetooth speaker. Yeah,
just I mean, okay, there you go, Jacob. You've got
too healthy ones right now. Would you be willing to
get rid of a healthy one to get a Bluetooth one?

(37:38):
That's kind of what I And if you could also
put in like a tap to to pay feature, so
I get like you pay for my Starbucks. Yes, you
just sold that's it, you just sold it.

Speaker 1 (37:53):
Oh that's all I want. That's all just reaching right
down there, holding them all up, dabbing them on the
fucking star thing.

Speaker 3 (38:00):
Just give it a quick little stamp and then then
they rip it away and you're.

Speaker 1 (38:03):
Like, I didn't click the tip though, If you could,
I will get slide it back over like to give
the tip. Yeah, I want to give you tip as well.
There's no reason to have to. Yeah, yeah, it's just
that it's probably the cause of most of my back problems.
Yeah that extra, Yeah, that's true. It's holding you back

(38:26):
in life. I mean, it's only going to speed up
your spending trouts or so, that's it. Oh yeah. The
drag on the swim time is terrible too, you know. Yeah, because.

Speaker 3 (38:40):
Testicle is the only thing keeping me out of the Olympics.
That's I can't disprove that exactly. You're absolutely exactly.

Speaker 4 (38:48):
But what if you change your mind and want to
have kids.

Speaker 1 (38:51):
That's less likely. That's why you keep one. You have
one just in case you want to do that. Yeah,
you need both.

Speaker 3 (38:58):
I was definitely going to wreckon been putting down your husband, okay, yeah, yeah,
So I'm sad that they beat you to you.

Speaker 1 (39:04):
Yeah, I'm sad that you got to that earlier way
to step on the jokes fot Yeah, Jesus.

Speaker 3 (39:09):
Really looking forward on having a whole diet drive about
how you put your husband down. It's going to be
the best had a good life. Yeah, Yeah, he's miserable now,
that's right. Yeah, he's just in constant pain. Yeah, it's
really just it's inhuman Yeah, sorry, boy.

Speaker 1 (39:23):
Throw them away? You do this? Why are we? Why
are we back here? What's coming on here? Let's just
throw a stick. Stop the We're going to have a picnic.

Speaker 4 (39:44):
It's a slide effect from the medicine.

Speaker 1 (39:46):
Bring the canol. That's right. I definitely love it too.

Speaker 2 (39:50):
When you hear other people say, you know, your life
would be a lot happier if you just took my advice.

Speaker 3 (39:55):
Jesus, this is the same ballpark. By the way, I
I am with, I am all on team don't spend
lots of money on pets. But that's just how I am.
That's how i'm That's how I was brought up, and
that's how I live. Uh, my wife is not on
that team, and so I spend lots of money on
pets whether I want to or not. It doesn't matter
what team I'm on. As far as spending money on pets, Yes,

(40:18):
but yeah, like who gives half a ship?

Speaker 1 (40:22):
How other people spend their money period?

Speaker 3 (40:24):
Yeah, I buy ridiculous things all the time. You even
point out, like your friends are going on cruises and
everything between telling you that you should kill your dog,
and I like, God damn it, so like that think
you are to waste.

Speaker 4 (40:38):
Your time on that cruise. That cruise five other.

Speaker 3 (40:41):
Times you told them not to spend their money on
the on the cruise, there'd being an asshole the other
way around. I think you could probably point that out
to them in a nicer way than that, But you
could just be like, Hey, if I told you not
to go on your cruise because it costs too much money,
you probably wouldn't appreciate that. I'm trying to keep my
dog alive right now because that's what I want to do.

Speaker 1 (41:02):
Fuck you can go fuck yourself. Yeah, I will say
I do think that there's something and I'm on the
same side as that, so I at the end of
the day, the end of this point is Yep, you
should be able to do what you're gonna do, and
we all empathize with you. I will say that it's
not uncommon when somebody is facing a really big, existential,
scary thing to see them become preoccupied with another challenge

(41:27):
to go solve another problem. Another thing also seems to
matter a lot all the same, And I've seen this before,
Like I've had a patient who was terminally ill with
cancer and her husband and her trying to navigate this,
and I worked with both of them, and then as
this was going on, husband started becoming really preoccupied with

(41:47):
a current election that was happening. This is many years ago,
but was very suddenly interested in an election and what
was going on with this election and how things need
to be addressed. I had another patient who was terminally ill,
also with cancer, and he suddenly was very very preoccupied
with with college sports and a very particular college basketball
team and just very involved in this very passionate, like

(42:08):
it mattered a lot to him all of a sudden,
And at the time it's like, huh, you're kind of
missing this big, huge, glaring thing in your life. But
that's the the a misunderstanding of how humans cope, right
because when you're staring at this black hole that's like,
oh my god, the unthinkable thing is losing the father
of my children, a three decade partner. To me, that

(42:29):
is ultimately easy. Thing is getting into Nickel State basketball.
It rightes YEA, honestly, like that's easy. It's a different
problem that my brain can focus on that ultimately is
kind of employ by the way, Yeah, it's also a
way that I'm dealing with my pain and frustrations about
problem A, because we're already doing all the things we

(42:51):
can do with problem A, right, we're solving that problem.
Now I'm bringing all my energy intention to problem B
and and like, I am invested in it, and I'm
not a to minimize the connection that Foxy has to
the dog. I think that this would have been how
Foxy felt anyway, even if husband had not been ill.
But I guess I'm trying to validate how common it
is that when somebody's facing an unthinkable terror that actually

(43:15):
they often do partition their attention into other problems and
and like really zoom in on those things. And to me,
that's not necessarily weird, and it doesn't subtract any units
of energy or mental power from problem A. It's actually
really common in my experience.

Speaker 3 (43:31):
Yeah, I don't have any problem with this at all
from any viewpoint. It's not what I would do, I
don't think. But you'd shoot the dog, But who gives
a ship. Yeah, that's the first thing you do. You
shoot the dog. If the dog was like, just shoot
the husband. Okay, So you're just rampaging at this point. Yeah,
I think the point is you're all too loud.

Speaker 1 (43:51):
I just want to read, God goddamn thermostat you're living
an open to five rules. I will not live like
this anymore. Now, quick follow we get the mouth honey bad,
I warned her.

Speaker 4 (44:11):
I have an interesting thought. What I hear is.

Speaker 5 (44:16):
That that Foxy is kind of overwhelmed with people asking
her about husband, And what I was thinking was are
people asking her about the dog too? Or are they
Is she upset everyone's asking about my husband and nobody
seems to care about the dog like I'm trying to
kind of or when they.

Speaker 1 (44:35):
Do, it's only to reprimand her or to scoff.

Speaker 5 (44:38):
Right, or she's like, yeah, I'm dealing with you know,
like husband's doing better. Are dog though, is in the
thick of it? And they're like, what, like why aren't
you there for your husband? You know, they're giving their
commentary them because you brought it up because you thought
they were your friends and family who would sympathize or
empathize with you, and they are not on that same page.

Speaker 1 (44:56):
And also like they're not doing something bad.

Speaker 3 (44:59):
No in the first place, right, they're asking like they're
concerned for human they're just not thinking about the dog.
So when you bring up the dog, it takes it.
They're they're gonna be a little taken aback as well.
And I kind of relate to this, like, you know,
I think it was too year, which.

Speaker 1 (45:12):
Is their fault, by the way, right, it's only their
fault because.

Speaker 3 (45:15):
They're making assumptions and then and then you're exposing the
fact that their assumptions are incorrect. It's always they are
acting surprised by the fact that they didn't know everything
about your life.

Speaker 1 (45:22):
It's always interesting when somebody does tell you that a
pet passed away, because the range that they're they could
be feeling, Oh yeah, it's really hard to guess at right.
Whereas somebody says, my spouse passed away, you can just
put that in a box and you're like, I can
guess the side of the spectrum that's on. But when
somebody's like, my dog has cancer, some people are handling
that really well, and they're like, yeah, it's it's so shitty,

(45:43):
it's so unfortunate. I'm worried about my kids because they
love this dog like a sibling, and so I'm just
handling this and sometimes cancer, right, it like sometimes it's
like this dog means everything to me, And I think
that's what Foxy's trying to explain, is like I had
a miscarriage and adopted this dog instead, right, this is
my child.

Speaker 5 (46:00):
Yeah, so yeah, that was another point to say that
I have a good friend. They got a dog when
when he was deployed. So it's just him and his wife.
So he was deployed to Afghanistan like years and years ago.
Their dog's probably forgive fifteen now, I don't know. So
he was deployed, she was by herself. They got the

(46:21):
dog like right before he left and came back, and
that is their baby. They don't have children, right, that
is their baby. Actually just on the way here, saw
a little posts they did like they're given her insulin.
I've seen them do the little they like. The dog
has you know torn that s acl and it's in
the water like treadmill thingy.

Speaker 1 (46:39):
Like yeah, yeah, but.

Speaker 5 (46:41):
I remember years ago we were chatting with him and
we kind of just brought up in conversation like oh,
how much would you spend on your animal? It's like
your limit before you're like and I know.

Speaker 1 (46:52):
The wrong question because very different.

Speaker 5 (46:55):
Yes, part of that's because I have never, like literally
never had a dog. Sometimes I think it's because I
know I would be fucking obsessed with it, right, Like
I I know it would be unhealthy, so and i'd
just be sad every time I left it.

Speaker 4 (47:10):
So I just can't go into that. OKAYLM all right.

Speaker 1 (47:12):
How much would you spend on Peter? What's your upper limits?
We've already saved his okay, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 (47:17):
Yeah, I'm grading.

Speaker 1 (47:18):
Yeah, nothing, I'm not sinking anymore.

Speaker 4 (47:21):
Someone's got to save him.

Speaker 1 (47:26):
You know, somebody tried to buy the website, like yeah,
it turned out it was already bought, and it was
used to like there was like two priests or something
like that that were caught up in a scandal and
it was like save Peter and it was like legitimately
a GoFundMe or something to praise and so people were like, okay,
so it's pretty awful like on its face, and also,
fuck the URL's taken.

Speaker 4 (47:49):
So this was like.

Speaker 5 (47:50):
Years years ago, you know, years and years ago, and
we were like on the page of like I mean,
I'll just be transparent. We're like, I don't know a
thousand and two thousand dollars, like we're not trying to
break the bank. I would be tore up, upset, like,
but it's your animal. So I'm just like, I don't know.
I'm just in that category. But they were like twenty
k right, and that was years ago. I don't want

(48:11):
to know what I think it'd be more or more like,
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (48:15):
It's their child.

Speaker 1 (48:16):
I don't know. There's not a number for this.

Speaker 5 (48:18):
You bring up a very important point. When when did
this animal become part of your family? And what purpose
was it serving? It was your emotional support animal or.

Speaker 1 (48:29):
Another child to you because you lost a child and
adopted this puppy immediately.

Speaker 5 (48:34):
So there is one thing I thought of when you
I hear I can't help but hear fatigue on people
asking about your husband, asking about your husband, they are
talking to you instead of him. And a friend of
mine got breast cancer years ago. She's only thirty, and what,
I she's good. Yeah, she recovered, but she had broast

(48:55):
cancer and at the time, instead of people feeling like
that to reach out and there's tons of updates, she
just created a little blog website.

Speaker 4 (49:02):
I think it might have been the cancer, yes, but
it was great because like, here's.

Speaker 5 (49:07):
My link I'm going to update it when I have
updates like whatever that is. And I loved that because
I would just go periodically check. I'm like, oh, I
wonder how how she's doing. Let me go see. And
so then nobody's like bombarding her. I mean, she flew
to Houston, did treatments and so, like she was gone
so and she's from Vegas. So I was just like
that she was doing it. But you want to know

(49:28):
what's happening. You don't want to bother them or people
are bothering you. And my kind of advice it might
be too late. Y'all are in the thick of it now,
but I would say start a little blog for your
dog and for your husband. Just say these are my
updates as family updates right tab for husband, tab for dog,
tab for kids. Whatever you want, like family, feel.

Speaker 3 (49:49):
Free to call me to visit, feel free to check
the website for updates.

Speaker 5 (49:53):
Part of me feels like if it's just out there,
it's less opportunity for people to comment back and say
why are you wasting? Like they might think that still,
but they aren't telling you it and just berating you
with it, like.

Speaker 1 (50:05):
In front of other people.

Speaker 2 (50:06):
Right because in it's social media, you know, then other
people can read that too.

Speaker 5 (50:11):
Well, yeah, they're not going to do it there. It's like, oh,
now I'm the ship had been like just kill your dog,
like yeah, just type that out with your name attached.

Speaker 4 (50:19):
Good luck.

Speaker 5 (50:20):
But I don't know that was something I thought could
be helpful or for anyone else listening, because nobody is
used to navigating.

Speaker 4 (50:26):
That's not something we're used to navigating. Like, yeah, a
spouse getting.

Speaker 1 (50:29):
We've done like a spokesperson type thing before as well.
I like that.

Speaker 3 (50:33):
I like the blog better though, Well, we've done like
you know, call this person or this person is going
to disseminate updates on on so and so, like that's.

Speaker 1 (50:42):
That's the info person.

Speaker 4 (50:43):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 1 (50:44):
It's always like a family friend or something like that.

Speaker 5 (50:46):
Yeah, but I'm sorry that is so emotionally taxing for
someone to go through and both at the same time,
and just I swear life. Life sometimes it just hits
you with a.

Speaker 3 (50:59):
Lot or the dog ate the cancer riddled testicle, and
that's where the dog cancer came.

Speaker 1 (51:06):
I think that's how that works, and.

Speaker 4 (51:08):
That's why you saved it.

Speaker 1 (51:09):
That's right.

Speaker 4 (51:10):
They did the lord's work.

Speaker 1 (51:11):
That's right. I assume.

Speaker 3 (51:12):
I assume after they took the testical out, you brought
it home and then the dog ate the testicle.

Speaker 1 (51:17):
I'm assuming that's what's happening. That's not what happened.

Speaker 3 (51:20):
It's a communical you find the dog the elpow right,
not that can you've all.

Speaker 1 (51:26):
That was coming to ABC on Friday nights.

Speaker 2 (51:29):
Yeah, I just imagine it was something kind of like, uh,
like yeah, the dog. The dog took it on, kind
of like you know, in the Green Mile, like they.

Speaker 1 (51:37):
Just kind of there, you know, so you you famously
have puppies famously and they are getting up there.

Speaker 4 (51:47):
I was wondering what and like, obviously.

Speaker 1 (51:49):
My dog died a couple of years ago, and I
was devastated and it was really hard because like when
you tell people like my dog died, like I was
saying earlier, they don't know how to react to you.
And for me, the dog very much felt a lot
more like a child than a pet, you know.

Speaker 3 (52:04):
Right after Jim's dog died, we recorded a show that
ULV and The Raiders had both lost in the same weekend,
and Jim comes into the studio wearing a UNLV jersey
over a Raider's Jersey over a shirt with a picture
of his.

Speaker 1 (52:21):
Dog on it. Things are happening, buddy, all at once.
But it's tough because people don't know how to respond
to you, because it's like, again, you're you're trying to
gauge what that person's reality is. And it's tough because
and I feel I feel for Foxy because I would
struggle when when this happened to me. I was having
a hard time telling people how much it hurt because

(52:43):
I felt insecure saying that because it didn't seem masculine
to talk about, like my dog died, and it's actually
destroying me because people would just kind of give me
the the the traditional correct sized response, right like, oh, buddy,
I'm sorry man, how long have you had the dog? Like, well, yeah,
like twelve years. Oh my goodness, that's terrible. Man. At

(53:05):
you go, well, you know, not peacefully, it was pretty bad.
Oh Jesus, your family, Okay, how are the kids taking it?
Not great? Oh? Gee'z hanging there buddy, and like they're
not doing anything wrong. But like I wouldn't necessarily feel
comfortable when people say, how are you telling them the truth?
And I really admire Foxy because fox is being brave
enough to say I'm not okay, right, And I think

(53:27):
that startles people because they're like, because of the dog thing,
what about your husband? And it's like all she's doing
is just I'm not ok about that either. Sure, but
like I'm being right to go fuck yourself. It hurts,
It really hurts. It's hard to explain to people. Whenever
my dog died, I was so grateful for our Discord community.
They were so kind. They wrote me this big, huge card.

(53:49):
Nobody trivialized it, nobody minimized it, and and people in
the community who especially related, they reached out directly and
shared or shared in a card that they very much
related to the magnitude this had in their lives. And
people who did not relate to the magnitude were not
dismissive of my pain because I didn't match their pain, right,

(54:09):
They just said, hey, you're allowed to grieve at your
level whatever that is. I don't relate to you. I
put a dog down and I was okay with it,
but like, I'm not going to tell you how to feel,
Whereas in Foxy's case, people are very fucking quick to
do that, which I think they're they're quick to do
anyway with animals, but now they're doing it on top
of the fact because they're like your pain is invalid
because there's a greater thing over here, and just I

(54:31):
just relate to that, like I know what that feels like.

Speaker 2 (54:33):
As if you can't feel it grief for both at
the same right, right, right.

Speaker 1 (54:37):
Yeah, I mean it's yeah, and.

Speaker 3 (54:40):
D spend your money on how you want to spend
your money on if the VET says that it's good
money and that you're going to get good months years
out of the out of the pet because of it
or whatever, like that's it your money.

Speaker 5 (54:51):
Yeah, have you lost other I mean like had dogs before.

Speaker 1 (54:56):
Yep, I had another dog before.

Speaker 2 (54:58):
Yeah, And yeah, it's tough because they don't all you know,
dogs don't mean the same thing to everybody, you know,
Like I mean, if you're a dog person, then another
person has a dog, like okay, yeah, I get that,
but then there's also your individual relationship with that animal.

Speaker 4 (55:13):
I agree.

Speaker 5 (55:13):
I heard too many people with kids say like, oh,
I don't like other people's kids. I like my kids,
like I'm obsessed with them. Like I don't know, not
that they don't like kids, but it's I feel like
it's the same.

Speaker 2 (55:28):
Like the other dogs. The other dog that died, I
kind of inherited.

Speaker 5 (55:35):
Okay after it, like yeah, here you go.

Speaker 2 (55:42):
So like, but it was still really difficult because you
know I was around that dog. I had that dog
for ship like nine years, so it was still long inheriting.

Speaker 1 (55:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (55:54):
And so then but like my two dogs, you know,
that's going to be really difficult because they were in
my life during a really difficult part of my life.

Speaker 1 (56:04):
You know. So like I got getting.

Speaker 2 (56:08):
When I got when I got divorced, like that's the
only thing I wanted, Like I don't want the house,
I don't want anything. I want the dogs. And so
I got the dogs, and they were kind of mice
and hindsight, do you wish you had got some of
those other things too.

Speaker 1 (56:23):
I wish i'd taken the house.

Speaker 3 (56:26):
And the dogs, I thought.

Speaker 2 (56:33):
But yeah, I mean that that was like it helped
me get through it. So like when they when they passed,
that's going to be very difficult.

Speaker 4 (56:40):
That's so true.

Speaker 1 (56:43):
And it won't matter if there's other things going on
that are also terrible. There can be fresh horrors every
single day, Like it doesn't have to be this I
can only go through so much, like nope, each thing
can be horrible objectively on its own, and I just
I think we're all validating and I think the thing
is like it's kind of the sticker shot or the
sticker shock, but the shock that people are experienced because

(57:03):
they're like, oh my god, you know her husband is
going through this. Let me ask her and she says
something about the dog. It's like, well, okay, husband's doing good.
This is the new thing now right. The other thing's
not bad and it's not going away. We're still dealing
with that.

Speaker 5 (57:16):
They don't understand the full perspective, like when you got
the dog.

Speaker 4 (57:20):
Went, you know what your attachment looks like. It's not
just a dog.

Speaker 2 (57:24):
Yeah yeah, I mean so I guess you know, maybe
a different strategy is instead of you know, talking about
the dog, finds something else that's even more trivial.

Speaker 1 (57:35):
Okay, yeah, yeah, I can't. It's not even dead. It's
just not doing well. She's not blooming.

Speaker 3 (57:44):
It seems a little I don't know, it doesn't seem
it doesn't seem unhealthy, but it's not really doing what
I wanted to do.

Speaker 4 (57:50):
You paid a lot of money to get that.

Speaker 1 (57:52):
How's your husband doing?

Speaker 3 (57:53):
Who oh, hopefully if he hopes to continue, well, he's
hopefully working out that fucking roads.

Speaker 1 (58:01):
Make sure it isn't out there helping.

Speaker 4 (58:02):
I'll tell you that someone who understands my person my.

Speaker 2 (58:06):
Lemon tree only six lemons, the entire tree almost six limbs.
I can't believe I can live like this anyway, Fox
shut them down.

Speaker 1 (58:14):
I really do hope that everybody in your life regains
their health, and that all these procedures ultimately come out successful.
Of course, we are glad to hear that so far,
knock on wood, so far, so good for both your
dog and your husband, and that ultimately everybody you love
is improving, and I hope that it stays that way.
I really hope that that news does not change. But yeah,

(58:34):
just know that everybody on this side of the mic
relates to you. We support you. I think we're all
just on the same side. I like that you're being
gracious with your friends. You're not seeing them as villains.
You're seeing them as incapable of grasping how your heart
can be destroyed by two different things, and those things
may not be perfectly equal. But you're asking the wrong
question it's not about equal, it's about damage. It's just
about I am wounded. That's it. Like if I got

(58:56):
shot by a shotgun on my left side and a
pistol on my right kind of fucking hurt, and it's like, oh,
you got shotgun right, Like that's the harder one. It's like, no,
they're just gaping fucking wounds in my chest. Like it's
just kind of a problem, no matter which I don't know.
A second ago. It was on your sides and switching around.
It's gonna be side of the ankle. You can't do.
That's silly. It's just silly. It's your example. Anyway, Foxy,

(59:19):
thank you for all your support of the show, and
thank you for writing in and good luck with this.
I hope to only hear good updates in the future.
We are going to take a quick break and when
we come back, we are talking about chronic pain. You're
listening to pod therapy. Oh bye.

Speaker 2 (59:40):
Today's episode is brought to you by Robert Brownie, Junior,
Mint's Kayla Lansbury, Kevin Chamberlain, Ben Stanley, Adam Hathaway, Dan Martin,
Live Hey Yo, Andrew Langmead, Chad May and Inca le Prince,
would you like to spoust the show become a therapy
Patreon dot com slash therapy.

Speaker 1 (59:56):
Where we last left our heroes. I'm in the lead
ending two points. You're you tied with Nick. I think Nick,
it's like five every time we all strike out, that
is true, I think so okay. I think he just
gets a touchdown every time it happens.

Speaker 2 (01:00:11):
Jim which US president kept a pet alligator in the
White House?

Speaker 1 (01:00:15):
Oh my god?

Speaker 2 (01:00:17):
What President Irwin? Which the way I know this is
old and outdated. Have you guys seen the the the
pictures of.

Speaker 1 (01:00:29):
Robert Irwin his son. Yeah, no, he did.

Speaker 2 (01:00:33):
He did like a photo shoot, like in his underwear
and like an underwear model type things like channel Yeah
you need to be Oh yeah, he's jacked.

Speaker 1 (01:00:46):
Okay. So that's the bunch line is that he's doing
very well.

Speaker 2 (01:00:48):
He's doing really looks he's doing okay, he's doing.

Speaker 3 (01:00:59):
What the mic there, jesus, I'll take options on that president?

Speaker 1 (01:01:04):
What president the one.

Speaker 3 (01:01:06):
You're talking about before you start?

Speaker 2 (01:01:11):
John Quincy Adams, huh, Teddy Roosevelt, Andrew Jackson or Calvin Cooliz.

Speaker 1 (01:01:17):
So the two that I was gonna guess are Teddy Roosevelt,
who is such an ad like outdoors guy, interesting guy.
I could see him doing it, and then psychopath. Yeah,
the bear thing was Teddy, right, Okay, and then Andrew
because he's not the Teddy bear. And Andrew's also from
the South, so I feel like I could see a
wall with.

Speaker 3 (01:01:37):
Jim and Andrew Jackson are on a first name basis. Yeah, yeah, Andy,
you know we go by that, all right.

Speaker 1 (01:01:43):
Give me give me all Hickory. I'll take Andy Jackson.

Speaker 4 (01:01:47):
Sorry, shit, what are the options again?

Speaker 2 (01:01:50):
John Quincy Adams, Teddy Roosevelt, Andrew Jackson or Calvin Coolidge.

Speaker 3 (01:01:56):
Calvin, Now you gotta take the lay up? Yeah, give
me the give me the easy one. Give me uh
who was it was? I'll take Teddy.

Speaker 2 (01:02:06):
That's five points for Nick Oh, John Quincy Adams, John Quincy,
Alligator Adams.

Speaker 1 (01:02:14):
Damn damn. I did not know that. I feel like
it's bullshit. I feel like I was just fucking lying.
She has no explanations attached to these, and she knows
we're not going to look them up again.

Speaker 3 (01:02:25):
Only attach explanations are the ones that we are definitely
going to be interested interested in that Alligator's.

Speaker 4 (01:02:33):
Not googling a better tell us.

Speaker 1 (01:02:35):
That's right, all right, Whitney.

Speaker 2 (01:02:37):
During Prohibition, what was often prescribed by doctors as medicine.

Speaker 4 (01:02:43):
Medicine.

Speaker 1 (01:02:43):
I need options, really, you need options during prohibition? What
do you think it would be? Alcohol? For Christ's sake? Obviously,
let's give her options and we'll see. Go ahead, how
this works out. You may proceeds.

Speaker 4 (01:02:57):
I feel like it's got to be a code name
for alcohol.

Speaker 1 (01:02:59):
That's what they're vodka, whiskey, rum or gin. All right?
So I was right, thought.

Speaker 5 (01:03:08):
Right, in an ironic world, I would have guessed gin.

Speaker 1 (01:03:14):
That feels the most medical.

Speaker 4 (01:03:16):
Well, and just like that time period, prohibition wasn't gin heavy?
That's what the laundry room says.

Speaker 1 (01:03:23):
Sure gin, No, okay, whiskey, yes, of course it's the whiskey,
all right.

Speaker 3 (01:03:31):
It also looks like the John Quincy Adams thing is
a myth. Women He was given a pair of alligators
at an event, but there's no real record of him
actually keeping them.

Speaker 4 (01:03:46):
They were still in the White House.

Speaker 1 (01:03:47):
Long where do you put these? Oh?

Speaker 3 (01:03:49):
It was rumored that he was keeping them in an
unfinished bathroom in the east wing.

Speaker 1 (01:03:53):
That feels right, okay, I'm back.

Speaker 5 (01:03:54):
To alligator Louisiana. That feels right, Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 2 (01:04:00):
Uh Jacob, Yes, what did ancient Greek athletes sometimes use
instead of clothes?

Speaker 3 (01:04:07):
The Olympics was much darker. I mean you were going
there was just a little loube.

Speaker 4 (01:04:20):
Everyone uses lube gym.

Speaker 1 (01:04:22):
I don't could use loube gym. Listen, those dirty Greeks,
they know what they did. What did they use instead
of during the Olympics. I didn't think they used anything closed.

Speaker 3 (01:04:33):
I thought they strap on competing. I thought I thought
the original Greeks competed nude.

Speaker 1 (01:04:39):
So your final answer, it could be sure, Yeah, going
for two?

Speaker 4 (01:04:44):
Yes, high five for that one. I'm impressed.

Speaker 1 (01:04:49):
Angling around man, that's right. The wind it was that
let them be able to keep women from competing.

Speaker 2 (01:04:58):
It worked.

Speaker 1 (01:05:00):
It was sexist, the good old days.

Speaker 3 (01:05:02):
Yeah, when men just wrestled other men, right, Greco Roman
that is though it were a condemnation as it came
out of my mouth, though I realized it sounded nice.

Speaker 1 (01:05:13):
Yeah, it's all fun. So I think I'm in. I
think it was just Greco. I'm winning. That's I think
I got ten points.

Speaker 4 (01:05:21):
Yeah, next got a lot of points.

Speaker 3 (01:05:23):
I think I would second. I think I got three
points just at that round.

Speaker 1 (01:05:26):
Yeah, I think, Wow, I need.

Speaker 3 (01:05:30):
To go back to the good old days and we
all get naked and do some trivia.

Speaker 1 (01:05:33):
That way, Whitney can't play. Yeah, just the boys this time.
Look at how smaller Dick is. Guys, here about what
I was gonna laugh into the mike. Witn't just like
fell over all right? Hello, I don't want to know

(01:05:58):
hello about their baker.

Speaker 3 (01:06:00):
I was going to compliment your penisank.

Speaker 4 (01:06:10):
You, thank you. The pump is working.

Speaker 1 (01:06:14):
The pump is working, the Swedish penis pump. This is
my bag baby, Hey, pod therapy crew, I'm reaching out
about my mother in law. She's in her late sixties,
very tall, and has dealt with hip and chronic pain
for years. She's had multiple surgeries, ligament repair, hip replacement,
vascular surgery, back injections, each helping briefly, but the pain

(01:06:35):
always returns. Doctors now can't find any physical explanation. On
top of that, she spent nearly her entire life prioritizing
thinness and appearance over health, despite having basically unlimited resources.
Her diet is poor, mostly just processed food, no fruits
and veggies, et cetera. She avoids preventive care, she vapes,

(01:06:56):
drinks diet coke constantly, and spends nearly all day watching
the news. What used to be quirky sass has turned
into overwhelming negativity and her world has shrunk to almost nothing.
We planned a Disney cruise with both sets of parents
to make memories, went all out on rooms and private cabanas,
and my in laws never engaged in the planning. Now,

(01:07:17):
only weeks before the trip, she began railing against the
whole idea, saying she hates Disney, doesn't want to be
around kids, and refuses to participate. A few days ago,
my father in law confided that she may need a
wheelchair just to get around, and that it feels like
she's given up. My husband wonders if this could be
depression or BPD showing up as chronic pain, especially since

(01:07:41):
her own mother likely had untreated depression and alcoholism. However,
she refuses to even acknowledge that mental health is a thing,
which is slightly comical since I, her daughter in law,
am a therapist and counselor educator and really in training.
Happy face. The situation is as scalated further. Yesterday the

(01:08:02):
morning before leaving, we received a tearful call from my
father in law that he cannot even get out of
bed to go to the bathroom. It's the end, and
my husband needed to come say goodbye alone before leaving
on the cruise, which they were unable to attend. We
moved flights around and made it happen where he flew
into the airport by them, before renting a car and
driving across the state to join me and my parents

(01:08:24):
near the port where we leave tomorrow morning. He informed
us that now she suddenly believes she's dying of cancer. No,
she cannot say which cancer she has or where it is,
despite having no symptoms.

Speaker 3 (01:08:37):
Yes, a second, Yeah, he couldn't get out of bed,
or he couldn't get her out of here.

Speaker 1 (01:08:41):
I think she can't get out of bed. So I
think the message was we're not going to be able
to make it. She can't get out of bed. Could
you come over and say goodbye? Yes, not goodbye she's
dying though, Oh I thought it was goodbye. She was dying. Yeah,
that was the vibe of the message. I don't my
hypothesis is that's not what they were saying. I don't
think they would go to a crew directly after that.

Speaker 3 (01:09:01):
You think he would drive across state to tell her
goodbye before he left on a cruise.

Speaker 1 (01:09:05):
Though, let's keep reading. Let's let's figure out where this. No, no, no,
let's we've got enough information. Let's just go through, all right.
I'll just ask about the one typo. He informed us
that now she suddenly believes she's dying of cancer. No,
she cannot say which cancer she has or where it is,
despite having no symptoms, no tests, and refusing to seek

(01:09:26):
any evaluation when questioned. She just knows and there is
nothing anyone can do. My father in law wants to
take her to the millio clinic and run every test
they possibly can. She adamantly opposes and believes there is
no point she's near death, et cetera. And she is
also refusing to eat. My poor father in law is
beside himself. So here's our question. How can family support

(01:09:48):
someone who doesn't believe in mental health but shows well
all of this, plus refuses to try new treatments or
even get checked for conditions she insists she has and
has this essentially given up. How do we help her?
And my father in law, who is desperate find any
hope or a path forward. You are all the best.
Thank you so so much for all of your insight

(01:10:10):
and help. If you want to say who it is,
that's fine. If you want to say anonymous, totally cool.
Or come up with some fun anonymous names or like
Pony Soprano's parents or something like that works too. Thank you,
Signed anonymous, adorable.

Speaker 4 (01:10:26):
We'll never know who is whoever?

Speaker 1 (01:10:28):
This mysterious? That was fun, all right, So we need
to agree on an operational theory of how we're understanding this.
I get the vibe the letters about mother in law.
Father in law is saying, I guess you guys need
to come over here and say goodbye, because mother in

(01:10:49):
law is dramatic, putting her hand to her forehead and
feigning and saying, this is it, son, come say goodbye
to me.

Speaker 3 (01:10:55):
I don't think so, okay, I think the I think
the dad is called calling the sun and saying you
need to come here and say goodbye to your mother.

Speaker 1 (01:11:05):
Yeah, before you guys leave for this cruise.

Speaker 3 (01:11:08):
Because if he weren't saying that, he wouldn't be talking
about things like the Mayo Clinic and everything else.

Speaker 1 (01:11:13):
Okay, my dad wants to take mom to the Mayo clinic. Right,
I see, So maybe he's saying, come engage with your
mother because I think we're going to have to do
an episode of healthcare or something.

Speaker 3 (01:11:22):
Like she might be feels she might be dead by
the time you get back from the cruise. That's how
I took it.

Speaker 1 (01:11:27):
And I wonder how much husband believes in it, because
writer whoever she is, she's saying like, hey, look, our
impression is this is inside of mother in law's mind,
that this is hypochondria, right, mixed with an anxiety to verify,
so like too afraid to look into it, and somehow
maybe even somatically projecting physical symptoms. So she's maybe really

(01:11:47):
experiencing pain. She's going through things. She won't properly investigate
what those are. Her personal health and self care is poor.
She seems to have a lot of fear, and she
gets herself all wound up. That's probably exacerbating her experience
of pain, but she won't take practical steps to solve this,
Like when when husband is saying, I will literally take
you to the world's best clinic, she declines, and she's

(01:12:08):
almost just saying all all is lost. I it sounds
like she winds husband up as well. She winds that
up as well. At a minimum, he's frightened. Sure, yeah,
and I'm sure he's, like the writer says, beside himself,
you know, unsure what he's going to do. Your spouse
says she's dying and can't get out of bed. You
can you take that serious? Yeah?

Speaker 4 (01:12:25):
Yeah, I would hope.

Speaker 5 (01:12:26):
So, even if it does seem kind of exaggerated like that,
that's kind of what we do for our partners.

Speaker 4 (01:12:32):
It's like, you believe them, right.

Speaker 5 (01:12:36):
That's really tough on the husband and for you watching
somebody not believe in mental health. Yeah, very relatable. I
feel like it's don't you dear parents?

Speaker 4 (01:12:48):
Are they like would they go to a therapist?

Speaker 3 (01:12:50):
Both have been geez.

Speaker 4 (01:12:52):
I thought about this.

Speaker 5 (01:12:53):
So that I'm like, it'd be weird if my parents
were like, I'm going to therapy, Like, oh my god,
what Either of them never mentioned therapy.

Speaker 1 (01:13:01):
Really, Karen wouldn't see a therapist. I know we see
her all the time. That's so weird socially.

Speaker 4 (01:13:06):
Uh huh. So I don't know.

Speaker 5 (01:13:09):
My strategy here would be like instead of trying to
fight it or argue or not argue, but you know, push.

Speaker 1 (01:13:16):
Back, right, debate the facts.

Speaker 4 (01:13:18):
Debate Yeah, I like that word better.

Speaker 5 (01:13:19):
Instead of trying to debate the facts, maybe just kind
of go into like, all right, she's saying these things.
Let's take her at face value. Not that you have
to believe it per se, but take it at face value.

Speaker 4 (01:13:31):
You don't want to come on the cruise.

Speaker 5 (01:13:33):
You don't want to do these things, Okay, you let
us know what you need from us, right, Like, I
wonder what she'd say.

Speaker 1 (01:13:40):
Yeah, it's a tough situation.

Speaker 4 (01:13:42):
It's really with borderline.

Speaker 2 (01:13:44):
Yeah, it's hard to be in that situation with somebody
that like they're convinced that they're dying. And when you
ask like, okay, so what are you experiencing? What tells
you that?

Speaker 3 (01:13:56):
I just know? Oh, also, day that you're supposed to
leave for a cruise, that you announced a couple of
weeks ago that you were against.

Speaker 4 (01:14:06):
It, and they were going to go on the cruise
with you, and they backed out.

Speaker 1 (01:14:10):
Which means that they're out the cash.

Speaker 3 (01:14:12):
Like the writer was nice and didn't just say like
we're all out this cash too, but I bet they are.

Speaker 4 (01:14:18):
Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 5 (01:14:20):
I feel like she's going through something. I do think
you're onto something with the like irritability and all that
coming with like being tied to depression and something.

Speaker 1 (01:14:32):
The mental health conditions exacerbate this. I had a patient,
uh in the past who had a situation kind of
similar to this where her mother was diagnosed with cancer,
and so that was that was known, this had been revealed,
and when patient went to mom and said, so, Mom,
we need to address this. We need to deal with this.
We need you to get tested, me to understand all
this stuff. We need to understand what to do. Mother said,

(01:14:54):
I choose not to. I am going to die. I've
accepted this. I'm too frightened to look into this, and
so I'm just going to live my life without looking
at it, and then one day I will pass away
from this. Because all they knew is that yes, you
have cancer, no clue as to how severe and how
far along. And so the patient and her siblings were

(01:15:17):
all trying to say, Mom, please, you know, look into this.
Mom would not do it. So the way that we
ultimately helped in this case was sitting down with patient
and I kind of taught the patient motivational interviewing techniques
and Motivational interviewing as a theory is something that was
designed for addictions treatment to roll with resistance. When you're
dealing with somebody that you need them to take action,

(01:15:37):
but they're unwilling to take this action even though that
is in their best interest, and they're doing all kinds
of mental gymnastics to avoid and pointing in all the
wrong directions. Motivational interviewing is this whole theory set and
this language model for how you can slowly direct somebody
toward good choices. And in this case, the patient kind
of trained in this for a little while, sat down

(01:15:58):
with siblings. They all kind of collaborated and they went
over the playbook together and ultimately they were successful. They
sat down with mom and said, look, we respect your
right to not look into this, but Mom, if you
do not learn what kind of cancer this is and
how far along it is, you're dooming us to never
have that information. And this could be genetic. Now don't

(01:16:21):
you want us to know what is killing our mother
so that we can save ourselves? And that ended the argument.
Mom was like, oh, well, fuck, checkmate, yep, let's go,
and so immediately did all the correct tests, got it
all figured out and then through that discovered what treatments
were available and started getting it treated and ultimately had
a great deal of success with that. So like in

(01:16:43):
these kinds of scenarios, sometimes it's really hard because you
want to argue factually or you want to have a
conversation about what you ought to do right and say, look,
this doesn't make sense, here's why A doesn't equal B.
But like sometimes you just have to meet them emotionally
where they're at, because the emotional fusion with the physical
pain or physical symptoms. You're right, anonymous writer who is

(01:17:03):
possibly a therapist, then a horse owner, These things cannot
be separated. Right there, The Venn diagram is a circle.
But because you are a therapist, then I would tell
you then you have to use your therapeutic toolkit. Things
like motivational interviewing. Treat this like a human who is
in a pre contemplation stage or a contemplation stage of
change that is only vaguely aware that there are problems

(01:17:24):
in the first place, and trying to get them to
nudge over to the next stage of change that might
be borrowing from motivational interviewing techniques, but especially with this idea,
of cancer. If Mom says I know I have cancer.
I just know it. I'm going to die, but I
don't want to look into it. I could see your
husband going to mom and pulling the exact same play
I did, yeah, and saying, look, Mom, I believe you. You're
probably right. You know your own body. You've gone through

(01:17:47):
so much mysterious pain and mysterious stuff. But Mom, if
you don't figure out what it is, I may get
hit by the same bullet. I need you to help
me so that I don't get this, And a lot
of mothers are like, ugh, fuck, Okay, I guess now,
I'll do it. Do your own work. I'm not going

(01:18:08):
for you. You figure it out. So that would be
my big best advice in this situation.

Speaker 3 (01:18:12):
Either need you to go to the doctor, mom, or
taking your blood to the doctor.

Speaker 1 (01:18:17):
One way or another.

Speaker 3 (01:18:18):
Your blood is leaving here and going to the doctoress
will with it or not, it's up to you. I
hope it's a violin not a pint, but I'm willing
to take whatever comes out of you.

Speaker 1 (01:18:27):
I can jug if needed.

Speaker 2 (01:18:30):
I definitely like the concept of being able to roll
with the resistance, because that's kind of your only option
at this point, like you can't you can't force somebody
to do something that they don't want to do. You
just kind of have to be able to go along
with that. And that's I think they're really frustrating part,
especially for someone that you care about. They're like, Okay,
I don't think that you are dying. I don't believe

(01:18:52):
that's to be the case. But also it bothers me
that you are okay with it. I think that's the
thing that's difficult for family membership here. It's just the
difference suffering.

Speaker 1 (01:19:04):
Sure.

Speaker 5 (01:19:05):
That is literally what I was about to go to next.
I kind of went back to that first paragraph. I'm like, damn, mom,
is it has been through. She just had all those surgeries.
She has chronic, chronic pain that has no explanation. And
although I will not sympathize with Peter, I very much
sympathize with this mom pain.

Speaker 1 (01:19:24):
Yeah no, but.

Speaker 4 (01:19:26):
For real, I mean, on a side note, watching Peter
go through.

Speaker 5 (01:19:29):
Just ten days, it is hard to watch when you're like,
oh my god, there's just pain all the time, constant,
like pain that keeps you from sleeping, that keeps you
from like I would be a miserable bitch. If I
had been through certain yeah more than I am now,
way more than I am.

Speaker 1 (01:19:46):
To g I wouldn't say that Whitney's miserable.

Speaker 4 (01:19:49):
Yeah, I would be miserable. I would be miserable, not
just a bit. Now I'm just a bitch. Okay, I'm
a happy bitch.

Speaker 1 (01:19:57):
Do you think about diseases like fibromyaldra, right, Like chronic
pain that's very much real but is also linked to emotion, right,
and so like, what's so profound about this? And we
had a question about this several weeks ago that talked
about chronic pain, and like the suffering and stress that
comes with the pain and the management of the pain
creates this feedback loop where you're you're now feeling elevated
and anxious and frightened for this pain and bracing against

(01:20:19):
this pain and discourage about this pain, and those emotions
actually get interpreted by the brain as pain signals, and
so there you are suffering even more and it's all
very real. And when we say it's all in your head,
it sounds dismissive, but actually what we mean is because
pain as a concept only exists inside of the nervous system,
of the body and that is a brain thing. So
it is all technically in your head, because clearly there's

(01:20:41):
not it. Yeah, tell Peter, Yeah, the nerve pinched in
your spine is all in your head. Jim said so,
and he's a current that all my friends think you're dumb,
save Peter dup is so. Yeah, but no, I think
that this is very relevant in that case because you
know the mother is probably going through something very similar

(01:21:02):
and there is I think a healthcare fatigue at some
point where mom has clearly gone through so many tests,
so many procedures, and when you're like, Mom, you gotta
go to the mail clinic, call me to figure this.

Speaker 4 (01:21:10):
Out, and she's like, I'm tired.

Speaker 1 (01:21:11):
I just want to I'm gonna die, and like something
cathartic about that, just giving up, saying my goodbye. I
don't have to keep working at this, I don't have
to fighting this. Throwing myself into the.

Speaker 5 (01:21:21):
Despair and maybe giving it like names like cancer or
whatever she wants to give to it is feels validating.
Validing her honestly, even if she's making that up, she's
just saying that so you will take her seriously and
just leave for sure, of it.

Speaker 1 (01:21:35):
Yeah, because if you say, well, what's causing your suffering?
I don't fucking know. So let's call the mystery thing cancer.
Well what kind of cancer? I don't need to tell you.
I know something's wrong. I am in chronic pain, and
it sounds like what people with cancer live with. So
like I empathize with her on that point. And it
is tough, right because like you put on the therapist
hat for a second, and if you had to pay,
if this mother in law was your patient, we would

(01:21:57):
have an ethical obligation to respect her autonomy, right, and
her medical autonomy. Maybe I choose not to pursue treatments.
I choose not to pursue these angles, and I would
still take an m I approach to sort of like
make sure that we're knocking on all good ideas and
seeing if any of those could become persuasive to her.
But there is also this room to say, I have
to give respect to your personal autonomy. I wouldn't feel

(01:22:18):
that way if I was your son, but I would
feel that way if I was her therapist.

Speaker 2 (01:22:21):
Yeah, yeah, that's a tough situation.

Speaker 1 (01:22:25):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:22:25):
I always look at you know again, kind of going
back to the U. I guess the analogy or the
explanation of physical pain and emotional pain. I always imagine
it kind of like a baseball inside of a basketball.

Speaker 4 (01:22:38):
Yes analogy, yes.

Speaker 1 (01:22:40):
Yes, so much better than gym analogy.

Speaker 3 (01:22:42):
So surprised there's not a golf ball. Uh, we haven't
got that small of a ball yet. Oh okay, yeah, patient, No, it's.

Speaker 2 (01:22:48):
A you know, the baseball is kind of the physical
pain and the basketball is the emotional pain, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:22:54):
So it's like the golf ball is the soul. Oh
there is. It's just a golf ball. It's just why
is it here? Don't worry about it that. It's fine.
It's a titleist. It's not part of the story. It's
always the through.

Speaker 2 (01:23:07):
Yeah. You know, being able to deal with the emotional
pain doesn't mean that the physical pain goes away. It
just means that it's a whole lot more manageable when
you've eliminated half of that equation.

Speaker 1 (01:23:21):
Yeah, yeah, I like that. And if a person is
unwilling to get care and this is part of their
experience unfortunately, I mean I I don't like a person
putting themselves in the hospice not eating at that point,
we're having a conversation about does this need to be
a legal two thousand? Yeah? Right? Because if I have
no evidence that you're dying of an actual physical disease,
and you're what appears to be mental emotional behavioral functions,

(01:23:45):
are what is now causing you actual medical problem? If
you're starving yourself, you're not eating, right, you're your lack
of care. At that point, I'm calling a nine to
one one. At some point, if this goes on for
too long, and if father in law cannot persuade mother
to eat, not go to care, then at some point
I'm taking this decision out of her hands. Right, And
we're gonna meet as a family. We're gonna talk about this, uh,

(01:24:05):
and we're gonna to talk to mom before that happens.
I think we're gonna have an honest sit down.

Speaker 3 (01:24:10):
You're gon have a conversation with mom and say like, hey,
we don't know what to do here. Yeah we want
to we want to help with this, but you're gonna
have a serious conversation about that with mom.

Speaker 1 (01:24:18):
Right. Observing you kill yourself slowly is not an option, right,
We can't do that. We're not options. Are You're going
to have to make some amount of behavior change, which
can look like pursuing care, or it can look like
self care, or we're gonna go ahead and admit you psychiatric,
which you know the therapist in this story does not
have to exert those powers over state lines or anything

(01:24:39):
like that. That is just a typical non emergency phone
number call to the state authorities to let them know
this is our situation, and they'll send out an assessor.
They'll do an evaluation and they'll say, yeah, this person's malnourished.
They're they're clearly emaciated. Uh I'm reading, I'm hearing the
reports of all their loved ones and they're telling me
they're suffering. We are not going to continue this. This

(01:25:00):
is not just going to continue unobated. So if it
gets to that point, anonymous rider who owns horses, I
think that's gonna have to be something you as a
family consider and that may be the intervention she needs.
When you get the little sticky socks and Jello at
the psych hospital and you see people that are screaming
at the ceiling, it's a wake up call for a
lot of people to think carefully about where they're at
and what they're motivated to do right now, So that'd

(01:25:23):
be a hard final option. But I think before we
just let somebody die on the couch, that has to
be something we've considered as a family, especially if they're
unwilling to have conversations any other direction. Are really good
at that, that's called good.

Speaker 3 (01:25:35):
Yeah, all right, anyway, Sorry, sorry you're dealing with all that.

Speaker 1 (01:25:40):
Yeah, that's a lame. You can start to vacation if
you need people to join the Disney cruise. I mean,
some dikets. I'm not going, even though it's on my
forty by forty list? Should I go? Should I just
fucking do it? You don't, I don't. I didn't hear
you get invited? Okay, Well, I think the whole point

(01:26:01):
of the letter was, Hey, we got a couple of spots.
Couples can't get that refund. You know, you can't get
refunds from a cruise that fast, so I would bet
you can't. Maybe we redeem.

Speaker 4 (01:26:12):
The cruise credits, probably, Nick, would.

Speaker 1 (01:26:14):
You go on a cruise with me?

Speaker 3 (01:26:16):
If this mysterious writer called us right now, we've got
we've got to Oh, come on, man, there, you don't
have to hang out with me on a cruise with
Jim tomorrow, just to laugh at Jim on a cruise.

Speaker 1 (01:26:28):
He's just following me around. I don't have to do
anything with him on the cruise. I don't know. He's
not my responsibility of the cruise. I think you have
a gentleman's responsibility that if I fall off.

Speaker 2 (01:26:38):
I would do it from like a journalistic perspective. Yeah,
like I would want to record it, like Charles Darwin,
just filling me around with a journal.

Speaker 3 (01:26:46):
Like here's a newly discovered species that we need to
learn about. Watches, He tries to understand how shuffle board works.

Speaker 1 (01:26:53):
He's almost got it. He's getting there.

Speaker 2 (01:26:55):
This asshole keeps taking the same plate back in the buffet.

Speaker 1 (01:26:59):
It's the same whatever. We have a water crisis, ma'am. Anyway,
we are gonna.

Speaker 3 (01:27:03):
Take quick breaking in when we haven't noticed that he
and his wife are sharing one drink package.

Speaker 1 (01:27:10):
Drinking right from the listenerine bottle. We're taking quick breaking.
When we come back, we're wrapping up the show. You
are listening to pod Therapy.

Speaker 2 (01:27:17):
Today's episode is brought to you by Robert Brownie, Junior,
Hala Lansberry, Kevin Chamberlain, Ben Stanley, Adam Hathaway, Dan Martin
blub Hey, Yo, Andrew Langmeade, Chad mag and Inca le Prence.

Speaker 1 (01:27:28):
Would you like to sponsor the show?

Speaker 2 (01:27:30):
Become a therap producer pictureon dot com slash therapy.

Speaker 1 (01:27:33):
All right, end of trivia. I think we got it.
I got a couple more if you want, yeah, throw
throw one more out there, get one rapid fire.

Speaker 2 (01:27:42):
In the eighteenth century. In eighteenth century France, what color
was reversed was reserved only for royaltyware.

Speaker 1 (01:27:51):
Oh, purple, damn it, it's gotta be. It's always purple.
It's not purplel rain. Nope, purple rain.

Speaker 5 (01:27:58):
Oh.

Speaker 3 (01:27:58):
I just listened to that whole album this last week.
That album is so good it is.

Speaker 1 (01:28:03):
You can't say blue. You said green.

Speaker 4 (01:28:05):
I've said a lot of things.

Speaker 1 (01:28:06):
I'm going with gold. I believe women, Thank you. I
believe women. And you're correct, it's blue.

Speaker 4 (01:28:13):
I finally got half a point by that.

Speaker 2 (01:28:15):
I think which founding father wanted the Turkey to be
Wes National Bird.

Speaker 1 (01:28:19):
Yes, beIN Franklin. Correct, Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (01:28:22):
In nineteen twenty four, what unusual event was part of
the Paris Olympics?

Speaker 1 (01:28:28):
In what year?

Speaker 2 (01:28:29):
Nineteen twenty four.

Speaker 4 (01:28:35):
Uh no, underwater basket weaving.

Speaker 2 (01:28:37):
No, no, here are your options competitive painting, cheese rolling,
horseback soccer or egg juggling.

Speaker 1 (01:28:49):
Egg juggling please be I'm gonna go with the horseback
soccer because it sounds way too close to an actual
sports five points for Nick. It's competitive painting. That is
a very French Olympics.

Speaker 5 (01:29:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:29:01):
I just feel like they would do that just so
they could tell everybody how bad their art is.

Speaker 1 (01:29:05):
That is is one My pay is the best pay.
I am la champion. French art is great. Yeah, all
right to ask the French which US president got stuck
in the White House bathtub? And yep, taft, yep, oh
got back that taft. They made a special bathtub for him.

Speaker 3 (01:29:25):
He's a big he's a big guy that I think
he'd be considered slightly overweight today. Yes, by today's standards,
I believe it would be. Yeah, I believe it'd be
uh fine. You wouldn't even be big enough to be
like on an NFL team. He's like way too small.
He would not even shop in the plus size of
the story. I'm about to look it up over under

(01:29:47):
on uh Taft's weight before before he looks.

Speaker 1 (01:29:50):
Are we doing prices right? But no, we don't highest
without going over right close to that going on? I
think yeah, I think highest going over, That's that's about
the day. I'm in. I'll go to sixty. Let's see.
Oh no, he broke two hundred. He broke three hundred,
all right, about six feet.

Speaker 4 (01:30:17):
He's a big dude.

Speaker 1 (01:30:18):
Topped out at three forty three fifty four. That's six
NEVERI that's a that's a larger Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:30:27):
I withdraw my comment. Considered slightly overweight.

Speaker 1 (01:30:31):
I would feel that very safe with Taft as an
offensive lineman.

Speaker 5 (01:30:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:30:35):
If I was the QB, that's my center, I'm in great. Yeah,
I'll be just fine. He's throwing dudes. As we wrap
up the show, we want to remind you you can
sign up at patreon dot com slash therapy. You can
get our extended show ad free a date earlier, as
well as enjoy our live chat, discord community, and our
spontaneous deep dives, interviews, skill shares, research roundups and rants.

(01:30:55):
And we've got some new friends to welcome to the
therap party who has joined us at adreon dot com
slash therapy.

Speaker 2 (01:31:02):
Sorry, I was looking up how I was looking at
how Napoleon was there. You go, all right, new therapeyalace
Sam wekay, and we got a new therapod. Joshua Schultz.

Speaker 3 (01:31:15):
Welcome, josh Welcome to the Napoleon.

Speaker 1 (01:31:19):
Well, that's what's weird.

Speaker 2 (01:31:20):
He says five to two, But then it says in English,
in like the meters. No, then it says five foot
six point five inches in English measure he.

Speaker 3 (01:31:31):
Was around five foot six according to his death certificate.
Those autopsy height was listed at five to two due
to the different inch measurement used by the British autopsy team.

Speaker 2 (01:31:45):
Yeah, the French units. Okay, a measurement based on French units.

Speaker 1 (01:31:49):
So what is he in fahrenheit? How much water does
he displace? Yeah, that's how i's yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:31:56):
Napoleon Bonapart was approximately six feet or five six and
a half inches one hundred sixty nine centimeters for our
euro listeners, and which was just above average for a
fringeman of that time.

Speaker 1 (01:32:10):
Per Okay, all right, I've always thought of him as
an average Frenchman. We'd like to thank the benevolent, revered, generous,
and flagrantly pro therapy diehards who love you all. So
much they give till it hurts. Partners, Dirty B and
Pickett speak and we and we'd like to thank our bosses,
the Mysterious and shrouded Illuminati, members of the fan Club,
the their producers. Thank you. Jake Schneider, Meira, Robert Brownie, Junior, Mint,

(01:32:33):
Smitty Scoop, Richard Fucking Macy, Judy Schneider, Malia, Leon Cassab
Carol and Albert, Kevin Chamberlain, Tess Miller, Dan Martin, Sammy Scoop,
slurpp Kaye, Motherfucker, Ben Stanley, slapping your face, Sarah Smith,
Adam Hathaway, Builer, t Mike helm Oscar Swan Rose, paris
A Sunny Boy, Darren Cunningham, Lib Sandra Mcwoffle Team Monaco,

(01:32:54):
Thunder Cougar, Falcon Scoop, Heyo Hannah, Marie Andrew Langmead, Emma
Tonka and Pony Soprano, Alina codd A Lourian, Guy Brady
Malaychick Chick Fillratio gabriel A, Dame, Sean Sutherland, Max the Ginger, Scoop,
Chad mag Adam Warren Inca, Le Prince, Sam Cone and
be Gay do crimes.

Speaker 2 (01:33:12):
If you would like you to this episode uncut and
unedited and why well you and enjoy our spontaneous side projects.
Go to patreon dot com slash therapy and thank you
for supporting mental health.

Speaker 1 (01:33:22):
That's all the time for this week session. I want
to thank our landlords, s J and the Ruckus and
thanks to those of you who contributed to our show today.
We really appreciate it. Remember, pop therapy isn't something to
keep all to yourself. Share the episode with the world.
Tag us all the socials ready to do is that
pot therapy guys on Instagram, threads in Twitter. You'll find
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(01:33:43):
don't forget all the extra goodies at patreon dot com
slash therapy.

Speaker 2 (01:33:47):
Do you want to some of the questions of the show,
you can ask anonymously at pod therapy dot net, email
us at pod therapy guys at gmail dot com, or
click the link in the episode description to be taken
to our anonymous Google form. I'm Nick Tansmin, I'm Jim,
and we'll see if your appointment next week.

Speaker 4 (01:34:02):
Did y'lsee I got a point back from Trivia last week.

Speaker 1 (01:34:06):
No discord?

Speaker 4 (01:34:08):
Oh he said that? Uh?

Speaker 5 (01:34:11):
I was right about who played Oh.

Speaker 1 (01:34:17):
That didn't see that it was the Joker, Yeah, the joker.
It was Mark Hamill. It was yeah, And I defended
you when it was going down. I said it was
Mark Hamills. She is right, terrible Nick over here. Yeah,
And then the internet rose up in one voice and
was like, definitely Mark, Yeah, he got him mixed up.

(01:34:37):
You put the voice to Batman.

Speaker 3 (01:34:40):
I think it means I get the point, doesn't It didn't.
I guess Mark Hamill first, and I thought it was wrong.

Speaker 2 (01:34:45):
I think the rule is in this particular situation, I
get the point.

Speaker 1 (01:34:50):
That makes sense. I think the force gets the point.

Speaker 5 (01:34:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:34:53):
For the autopsy person. You know the story about the
autopsy person steal Napoleon's penis. No, the British autopsy doctor.
This is a story that is like mostly accepted as fact.

Speaker 1 (01:35:08):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (01:35:09):
Uh, the British autopsy doctor cut his penis off and
uh had it smuggled back to France. Wow, there's a family,
I wonder, Yeah, exactly, there's a family in the US
now that that owns it. Uh, Like it's been checked
and like they can tell that it's a human penis,

(01:35:31):
they can't tell for sure that it's Napoleon's penis.

Speaker 1 (01:35:33):
They can tell it's a French penis. How Jim all
the marigold and you know a French penises are highly ornamented.
I love that it. Then you know somebody had to
ask her questions. No, no, this is not penis. This
is mine. Clab it, foot.

Speaker 3 (01:36:00):
Hose, days stepped on cheese day, dish its tasty.

Speaker 7 (01:36:08):
You have a packet, a blanket? Is this the basic thing? See,
I'm friends, we were.

Speaker 1 (01:36:20):
Goodbye everybody,

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