Episode 9: Transcript
"I don't know what my brain is going to do." - with Jodie Ousley
Doug French (00:00:00):
How great was it to see Jodie again and see how, at least on the exterior, how great she looked?
Magda Pecsenye (00:00:07):
It was really good. I was super worried when the accident happened.
Doug (00:00:12):
‘Cause we wanted the details but at the same time we weren't in the position to demand them. We're just following along what they had the energy to post on Facebook and whatever to update us. Because when something that horrible has happened, you kind of have to wait until the flow of information matches their willingness to share it.
Magda (00:00:28):
Yeah, exactly. So today we're talking to our friend Jodie Ousley, who is a lawyer who is a partner in her own firm, and has a really busy demanding New York City kind of lifestyle. She is married and has a child who had just gone away to college, and then she ended up in a freak accident that did a lot of physical damage to her. So that's what we're talking about today, is being in your fifties, having something completely unexpected happen to you physically, and how you go through that recovery.
A thing that was really interesting to me in talking to Jodie was that she spends no time talking about, and I don't know how much time she spends thinking about, but she didn't bring it up, it's not top of mind for her, about the person who caused the accident. I mean, she told us what happened, but there wasn't any recrimination or any dwelling on that person. And I think that's kind of amazing,
Doug (00:01:30):
I think there's just something very no nonsense about the way that very Texan family just says, “Look, we just have to focus on this.” I mean, frankly I didn't even ask about it. Who knows if that guy's even still alive? I mean she said he was doing 120.
Magda (00:01:46):
Yeah, she really didn't mention anything about him. And I thought that was very interesting ‘cause I think a lot of people who are in situations like that are very just sort of compelled to think more about the person who caused the accident. And I don't know, maybe she was earlier, and just hasn't been thinking about it now. That was a detail that struck me.
Doug (00:02:06):
The other topic that I wanted to talk to her about, or at least it occurred to me to talk to her about was that her husband Rob, she refers to Rob a lot and I don't think we actually established that Rob is her husband.
Magda (00:02:17):
That Rob is her husband. Yeah. <laugh>.
Doug (00:02:19):
But he works at the firm, too. He's actually the controller at that same firm. And so I think now that's become an advantage just because he can be a liaison between her firm and her needs. Because remember she was like, she was told “You're going to need at least a year to recover from this.” And now here it is almost a year. And she's like, “yeah, I'm no way ready for this yet.”
Magda (00:02:45):
It's just a tough situation. But she's handling it really, really well.
Doug (00:02:49):
I mean, if there were a person we know that would be as well-equipped to recover from this, given the strength of her family, given the strength of her marriage, it's her.
Magda (00:03:00):
Well, I think this is the age at which a lot of us start to have these sort of physical things that are like, oh you have to go in for some kind of surgery. And people say, “oh, you're not even going to start to feel normal until six weeks out” and we are all antsy at like two or three weeks. Like why don't I feel better? Why don't I feel better?
Doug (00:03:18):
I’ve got to say the best part for me was when she said that because that's how you cope with being told you can't do something again. If you're putting something off, if it's something you really wanted to do and then something happens, it means you're never going to try this. That's just devastating. I mean when you have done so many things for so long and derive so much joy and whatever else from them, being prevented from doing that again is less of a blow. She's more positive about this recovery than she absolutely deserves to be, and when you think about what she's going through, you’re really inspired to get on with your life and recognize that every episode is an abrupt change in people's lives that we think we are prepared for. And we're absolutely not. And so I think a story like this is one of those things where you can listen to her, be inspired by where she is and also be inspired. If you can get halfway to where she is, you're in a pretty good spot. So that's why you're getting on with your life and planning out a wedding that's going to happen before you know it.
Magda (00:04:21):
Yeah, it's true. I think we're at like 90 days out or something like that. So Yeah.
Doug (00:04:25):
You and I are going to talk about this, right? ‘Cause at some point we're going to have to transport these cats over long distances. And have you talked about what that's going to
Magda (00:04:31):
Uh-huh. Oh boy. I'm terrified to figure out how to get Stash to Massachusetts. Yeah, right. Both. I think there's a miserable option of driving him the 12 hours and I think there's a miserable option of taking him on a plane and flying.
So our older child told me that on one of his flights over the weekend, there was somebody who brought a cat in a carrier on the plane and somehow the carrier got open and the cat got out and was running around the cabin.
Doug (00:04:59):
Oh my God.
Magda (00:05:00):
If nobody on the plane was allergic, it's hilarious.
Doug (00:05:02):
That's a great little, you know, object lesson for you to consider when you think you might be doing the exact same thing.
Magda (00:05:08):
Exactly. <laugh>. Yeah.
Doug (00:05:12):
Yeah, there's got to be just some kind of service you can just cryogenically preserve them and they arrive fresh as a daisy at the new place.
Magda (00:05:19):
Oh, that would be kind of miserable.
Doug (00:05:22):
Not for the cat.
Magda (00:05:23):
Well, I guess not for the cat. The cat wouldn't know it had been cryogenically preserved.
Doug (00:05:28):
It can be the same experience. Like, ‘cause Jodie doesn't remember like 10 days of the entire thing. Right. So.
Magda (00:05:34):
Right, right. Well, and I mean, Stefano DiMera has been cryogenically preserved, like, I don't know, a total of like five years over the 25 years he was on the show.
Doug (00:05:46):
Aaaaaaaaand you lost me. <laugh> My eyes just rolled back into my skull.
<music>
Jodie (00:06:54):
I feel like we're of that age where we really shouldn't be doing red eyes anymore, yet I still keep doing them.
Doug (00:07:49):
I get it. I don't like red eyes either, but if the alternative is losing an entire day in the air …
Jodie (00:07:55):
Which I usually don't choose to do.
Magda (00:07:58):
Yeah. And we left the reception at 9:30pm California time and had to be dressed and at another wedding at 4:00pm Minnesota time.
Jodie (00:08:13):
<Laugh> You didn't really have a choice.
Magda (00:08:15):
No, we didn't. Like we could have caught a a super, super early flight in California and then missed the next wedding.
Doug (00:08:23):
You know what this reminds me of? When we were in Colorado for your cousin's wedding out at the YMCA somewhere
Magda (00:08:30):
Drive. Yes. And then we had to
Doug (00:08:31):
Drive us down to New Mexico to attend Jodie and Rob's wedding.
Magda (00:08:35):
Yes.
Doug (00:08:36):
That's the last time I can think of going to weddings. Back to back. Yeah. Anyway, how are you, how are you feeling? Jodie? You look great.
Jodie (00:08:43):
Thank you!
Doug (00:08:43):
How's the mothership holding up?
Jodie (00:08:45):
You know, it's a day-to-day. Most of the time I feel okay mentally and physically and some days I have a complete kind of meltdown.
Doug (00:08:56):
That's, and do you want to say what a, what a meltdown is or you just kind of meltdown means you're just you're on the couch, you're out.
Jodie (00:09:02):
I mean, I guess like a psychological meltdown where I'm just tired of everything and don't want to do this anymore and depressed and listless and super tired and yeah. I'm on the couch watching back to back episodes of something or other
Doug (00:09:16):
<Laugh>. Well see, I I do that too. And I wasn't hit by a bus or whatever it was <laugh>. That sounds perfectly normal to me.
You know, I, I read about it on Facebook about the inciting incident. You were vacationing somewhere, right? Or were you with the parents?
Jodie (00:09:33):
We were in New Mexico at our house. Outside of Taos that we've had since I was about seven. It was our wedding anniversary so we tend to go up there around Labor Day weekend to celebrate our anniversary with my parents whose anniversary it also is. So we had all been at the cabin and we went into Santa Fe for dinner to celebrate and then we went into Albuquerque to drop my mom at the airport. She was on her way to Iceland for a thing that you go to with lots of people on I <laugh>, I go
Magda (00:10:11):
Convention.
Jodie (00:10:12):
No, it's like a mark. I have a training thing in artsy and …
Doug (00:10:16):
A cult meeting? <laugh> Burning Man?
Jodie (00:10:22):
Workshop, maybe?
Doug (00:10:25):
An artist retreat type thing?
Jodie (00:10:27):
Yes, yes, yes. She didn't get there <laugh>. So we were driving back to the cabin on the interstate going about 70 and we got rear-ended by another car going about 120. And we flipped and rolled, I don't know, eight or nine times and wound up on the other side of the highway.
Magda (00:10:46):
Wow.
Doug (00:10:47):
Oh my God. So you and Rob were in the car?
Jodie (00:10:49):
And my dad.
Magda (00:10:50):
Oh my goodness.
Doug (00:10:51):
Yeah. Wow. So and then there's three of you and the men walked away in better shape?
Jodie (00:10:58):
So Rob walked away without a scratch. He got like Tylenol in the hospital and that was, that was it. My dad was in the back seat. He broke a few ribs and punctured a lung. So he was in pain for a while and he walked around with an oxygen thing for a couple of weeks.
Doug (00:11:16):
Wow. And you're in the passenger seat, and you are all messed up.
Jodie (00:11:21):
Yes. Which I've since heard is the death seat <laugh>.
Magda (00:11:27):
Really?
Jodie (00:11:28):
Yes.
Doug (00:11:34):
Do you remember anything about the collision at all? When you were pulled from the car? What do you remember?
Jodie (00:11:40):
I don't remember anything after dinner. I don't remember taking my mom to the airport, and then I don't remember anything for about a week and a half.
Magda (00:11:47):
Wow.
Jodie (00:11:48):
Luckily I don't remember any of that. <Laugh>.
Doug (00:11:52):
It's kind of like a colonoscopy. You just wake up and <laugh>. It's all over. Holy crap.
Magda (00:12:03):
Do you want to run down the list of what happened to you?
Jodie (00:12:07):
So, let’s start at the top <laugh>.
Doug (00:12:11):
Yeah. If you could either that or alphabetically, whatever works. <laugh>
Jodie (00:12:15):
I had a concussion, I had a brain bleed, I have a brain injury. I broke my occipital bone on the right side of my face. I slashed my tongue, I broke my front tooth, I shattered my C1, got compression fractures at C2 and c3. I broke all my ribs. I shattered my right patella and I degloved my left hand, which is a new word for me, which just means I got all the skin and everything else pulled back. Not off, but back off my hand.
Magda (00:12:51):
Oh my god.
Doug (00:12:52):
That's a term? Degloved? Oh my God. I mean it looks fine now. Is it functional?
Jodie (00:13:01):
This is what I've been working on the hardest for 10 and a half months now. So I am super proud. Cause I can also see it, it went from absolutely no mobility at all to this. Every single bit of this was painfully earned. So I'm like, I did this!
Magda (00:13:20):
<Laugh>. So Jodie is opening and closing her hand then she looks just like a regular person opening and closing their hand regularly.
Doug (00:13:30):
Yeah, it's not a fist, but it looks like she's holding a golf ball or something.
Jodie (00:13:34):
I can't make a complete fist and my pinkie is kind of recalcitrant and doesn't do a lot of what I want it to do. But otherwise, I mean, the hand works pretty good. Like if this is it, I've been told this, isn't it it, but if this is it, like that's that's okay. I can live with that.
Doug (00:13:52):
And that's not the hand you write with.
Jodie (00:13:54):
It's not, it's my left hand, so. Right.
Doug (00:13:55):
Well, I get the impression one of these days you're going to get just super mad at something and the adrenaline is going to kick in and you're going to clench that fist to the fullest <laugh> en route to knocking somebody out.
Magda (00:14:08):
She's going to be like the Arthur meme, right. With Arthur that aardvark the cartoon art artwork with his handballed by his side <laugh>.
Doug (00:14:16):
I like when Tobey McGuire looks at his fist when he is just turned into Spider-Man. He, when he punches that kid in the cafeteria and he is like, what? Did I do that?
Jodie (00:14:23):
<Laugh>?
Doug (00:14:24):
Is there stuff below the patella?
Jodie (00:14:26):
My ankles are numb, which is, nobody knows what that's about really. And I have some nerve damage here and there in my tongue and and my leg and, and, and I have a this brain injury. But …
Doug (00:14:38):
Well I mean that's, yeah, that's, that's the topic of conversation. You're a lawyer and you are the proprietress of your own business in that extent. So there's a lot at stake here. And you're on leave right now. Right? Do you have a a time for when you might go back to the office at this point?
Jodie (00:14:55):
What all the doctors and people have said is to not even think about anything or try to do anything or assess anything until it's been a year, which seemed absurd the first time I heard somebody say that. It was like, you've got to be kidding. That's so long <laugh>. Yeah. But you know, now that I'm getting on like 10 and a half months, I'm like, okay, yeah, it's nothing's right. So yeah.
Magda (00:15:28):
<Laugh>. I had a client who had a PhD in emergency medicine and one of the things she told me that I thought was super fascinating was that even when your body is healed on the outside and you've gotten like function back of stuff like that, there's damage on a cellular level that you can't see on the inside that takes a full year, at least from the time you leave the hospital. Even if you had some sort of episode that was like a scheduled surgery and people tend to try to push themselves too hard, but you have to wait a full year before you actually have enough, like enough ground under you to begin the real healing part. She said that we tend to try to rush things too much and we think that if the scars and the cuts on the outside are healed that we're ready to go. But it's the inner damage and it's just like the shaking up of the cells that really causes the problems for people. And we push too hard and we're like, oh hey, I can walk a mile now again, but then we're sort of collapsing or having nightmares all night or something like that because the body's just not ready. And that has really guided a lot of what I've done for myself in the last few years, which is basically just like assume that I'm weaker than I think I am and that I need more time. <laugh>
Doug (00:16:59):
Now is that a matter of aging or is that just you?
Magda (00:17:01):
Well I think that's just me, but this is what this PhD told me and she told me this, I don't know, I want to say like 10 years ago. So, you know, before I went into curious about menopause and my entire body fell apart.
Doug (00:17:13):
Absolutely, there's emotional trauma here as well. I just wonder how different that is when you're 20 as it is the, when you're 50. ‘cause most 20 year olds wouldn't think about, wow, I've got to make sure I'm all right in the brain. I'm all right in my mind as well as I am, you know, doing physical therapy. That's interesting now because you're, you say you're nowhere near going back to work and you're doing therapy left, right and center. And we're going to talk about a few of 'em, which looked super sexy by the way. <Laugh> Oh yeah, I, she sent me a bunch of pictures in like headgear and electromagnetic pulsing and it's all very sci-fi.
Magda (00:17:53):
Can we put those in the show notes?
Jodie (00:17:55):
Sure.
Doug (00:17:59):
Yeah. I mean she, she texted them to me, she was like, sure, here you go! <laugh> Here's my headshot. How much of your recovery has been emotional and mental in terms of seeing a therapist and putting to rest some of the, the nightmare of just the assault on your body?
Jodie (00:18:19):
I mean, I guess that started really quickly. I was in the hospital in New Mexico for two weeks before they said, okay, you need a hospital with physical therapy. So I got transferred to a hospital in Texas because I was, at that point I was in a wheelchair and I wasn't moving around much. So I just, the idea of coming back to New York was just, it, it wasn't doable. We couldn't, we have a four-story brownstone.
Doug (00:18:46):
I was going to say. Yeah. I mean, massive internal injuries and a four-story brownstone. Not the best combo.
Jodie (00:18:52):
<Laugh>. So we were in Dallas and the, the therapy, I mean there was so much therapy. I was in the hospital for three weeks, and then I graduated to outpatient and I stayed with a friend who had a part of her house that she had designed for her aging parents. So it was all handicapped accessible. So I stayed at her, slept at her house, and then I came back to the hospital every day from nine to three for therapy of all sorts and all kinds for another three weeks before we came back to New York.
Doug (00:19:43):
Yeah. The nurse says don't skip leg day. And that's a whole different thing. <laugh>
Jodie (00:19:46):
I was waiting for me to be able to do stairs. He watched me. I mean I, I had a bunch of braces but I could do stairs. They had me practicing stairs and he came in one day and saw me doing stairs. He's like, that's it. We're moving back to New York. <Laugh>
Doug (00:19:58):
How scaffolded were you when you had to make that make the initial move from New Mexico to Dallas? How secure did you have to be with braces and trusses and …
Jodie (00:20:08):
From New Mexico to Dallas? I had a neck brace and I had a leg brace and I had a big, my left arm was all wrapped up and not functional. I took a medi-flight, which was crazy. I was the only, it was just Rob and I and two doctors and a nurse on the plane and I was on a gurney that I was like bolted into, couldn't move anything.
Doug (00:20:33):
<Laugh> What was the inflight movie?
Jodie (00:20:35):
<Laugh> Exactly. It was the most expensive flight I've ever taken and I don't even get peanuts.
Doug (00:20:43):
I'm picturing the Statue of Liberty in 1985, you know, know the big renovation before they, they unveiled it for the hundredth anniversary.
Magda (00:20:51):
<Laugh>.
Doug (00:20:51):
Well this is all fascinating so, so far, and I'm really grateful you're able to share these details with us. The, the family itself is one thing. You have a great, great family. One that I've always just looked at from afar. I mean, I met a bunch of them when we went to your wedding way back in the day. Met your mom when she came out to Brooklyn and got her art degree and now they inhabit the top floor of your house several months out of the year. So there's a closeness there as well and a proximity and your brothers are 6-foot-6 cowboys. <laugh>. So first of all, how's your dad? How has he fully recovered? Ish?
Jodie (00:21:34):
He is, he's fully recovered.
Doug (00:21:36):
And has Rob recovered from his headache?
Jodie (00:21:38):
Yes. He, he's all good <laugh>.
Magda (00:21:42):
So a thing that is interesting to me is that this happened sort of right after your child moved out of the house to go to college. So it was like you were just on the verge of really being an empty nester and then suddenly it was like having a newborn again. Only the newborn was … yourself.
Jodie (00:22:05):
<Laugh>. So it was very weird. And I mean, in some ways we thought, well that's kind of lucky we didn't have to experience any of the weird first year, getting used to having this empty nest because you know, we weren't there. We were in the hospital, we were in Texas and then there was things to happening. It's like there were other things focused on. I did feel bad ‘cause Miles had been in college for all of you know, a week and a half before he was on a plane flying to the hospital to visit me. So that was kind of a hard way to start college and being away from home is flying back and forth to the hospital to visit your mom. But he seems, he seems to have done okay, <laugh>. He seems all right and he had a great semester. It was all fine.
Doug (00:22:49):
How much school did he miss or how long did he stay with you before he went back up to the campus?
Jodie (00:22:54):
So he came up when I was in New Mexico. He came to the hospital then, which I don't remember. And then he came to Texas to visit and I think he needed, after he came to New Mexico, I think he was very nervous. Apparently my brain injury at the beginning was just much more noticeable and I sounded like a seven-year-old girl for a couple of weeks. And I, you know, if you could, you could ask me questions and I'd answer, but I think I'd say Uh-huh to just about everything <laugh>. So I didn't make any sense and I sounded like a toddler. And that absolutely freaked him out, which it would. So when he flew to Dallas like a few weeks later to see me again, or I guess it was like two weeks later or three weeks later, I was already sounding more like myself and he felt better and I was able to convince him my entire family is here in Dallas. My parents are here, my brothers are here, my childhood friends, all of whom are doctors are all here. I'm so well taken care of. You go do school, take care of yourself.
Magda (00:23:56):
In hindsight, I wonder if it would've been easier for all of you if he hadn't come to see you right away. You know, like he probably thought he had to be there for you to know that he was there, but you didn't really know that he was there. I don't know if this has happened with your parents, but with my parents, they have some sort of medical incident and they don't bother to tell us about it ‘cause they don't want us to know that it happened or worry about it until it's over. And that always irked the crap outta me, but now I feel like I'm on the other side of it. Right? Like, if something happens to me, do I want to let my kids know? Right. Until it's resolved.
Jodie (00:24:33):
I think at the point that he flew to New Mexico, I don't think it was resolved or known.
Magda (00:24:41):
Oh right.
Jodie (00:24:41):
I think everything was still pretty up in the air and I wasn't, I wasn't looking so good.
Magda (00:24:46):
Okay, so that makes sense.
Doug (00:24:48):
So did he fly to town thinking that, that it was time to assemble the family? That was a possibility?
Jodie (00:24:53):
Maybe. Yeah. And he was also completely panicked because whoever had been calling him, I don't think it was, we, we didn't have any phones. Like all the phones got destroyed in the car. So Rob had called up the one friend whose number he actually remembered and they were calling around trying to get my family all together and circling the wagons and whatnot. But all the people that were talking to Miles and giving him information didn't mention my mother. They were talking about Rob, they were talking about my dad. Nobody mentioned my mother because she wasn't there. Like, we dropped her at the airport. And so he was in his mind, I just found this out the other day, he was completely panicking because nobody was saying a word about his grandmother. And he was like, holy, what does that mean that nobody's talking about her?
Magda (00:25:41):
Oh!
Jodie (00:25:42):
I know. I'm like, oh, no! <laugh>.
Doug (00:25:46):
Yeah. “Grandma's gone to Iceland” is not a euphemism. <Laugh>, what did she do? Did she stay at the conference or did she just turn right around and come right back?
Jodie (00:25:55):
So, you know, we had dropped her at the airport, you know, an hour before the accident happened. So she was on her way to New York where she was changing planes. It took her an entire day to get a return flight.
Doug (00:26:08):
But she never made it out of the country. Okay.
Jodie (00:26:10):
No, no. She was in New York.
Doug (00:26:11):
Well, I get that the whole idea of just kind of shielding your kids, that's the conundrum, right? Because if you know you're going to be fine, I would've said Miles, really just, we'll let you know when it's actually a better time to come see us because all this is going on, but I didn't know that it was touch-and-go there for a while, in which case the kids got to be there.
Jodie (00:26:30):
And I wonder too, I mean it might be that Rob needed him. That seems selfish, but I don't really know. I mean, Rob was going through a lot of psychological trauma of his own at the time. And I know for instance, he called his best friend who lives in San Francisco. He couldn't get ahold of him. So he called his friend's wife and said, I need him, I need Richard please put him on a plane to me now. And she did. And he came like, he was there the next day. And I mean, it might have been that Rob needed to be with Miles, you know, I, I don't know. I have no idea.
Doug (00:27:03):
Well, I'm glad he knew that about himself. You know, he wasn't coming across as the the Iron Man who can just take it all. He recognized that he needed help and needed companionship, you know, someone outside the family. Right. To help him on a much more personal level. And that's, that's not as common as it should be, I don't think.
Jodie (00:27:20):
Think it was tricky too because I was in a different hospital in a different city than my dad because we both got taken to Santa Fe, but then they decided I needed a trauma hospital, so they sent me to Albuquerque. So Rob went with me, but my dad was in Santa Fe, and at that point in time there was nobody else, you know, nobody from my family was there. People all came, but it took a day for everybody to get there.
Doug (00:27:43):
So let's talk about therapies, if you don't mind. Because I'm curious both about the physical stuff and the emotional stuff. You've been on the mend now for 10 and a half months. What kind of therapies are there for brain bleed? That's the main issue to try to bring back online, so what type of therapies are involved in kind of bringing your faculties back?
Jodie (00:28:02):
So that actually runs through speech therapy. I mean, after a few weeks I didn't have that many difficulties with speech, but all the mental cognitive things go through speech therapy. That's where that all comes in. So I mean, I had speech therapy every day, multiple times a day, <laugh>. And it was a lot of exercises. I mean they, I guess right at the beginning when they figured out what my, I don't know, my level of education, my level of work and what my responsibilities were, they immediately, you know, told Rob. They're like, all right, we have to step this way up. So I would have speech therapy where I would practice certain things and they would have, there would be like a worksheet, you know, there were boxes and charts and it was trying to figure out like who has on the red shoes and who has a dog versus a cat. And you know, Michael has that!
And so you're fig trying to figure out all of these things. But they decided early on that I needed harder practice. So they would move my speech therapy sessions instead of in a room. They would move me into the middle of the gym where there's, you know, 50 people doing exercises and I'd be right in the middle. So there's all these distractions and they would have me move around the hospital. So I'm in a wheelchair, so I'd have to have people push me, but they would have me do things while I am thinking and trying to multitask and constant disruptions and constant other things. So they would be like, okay, so starting with the alphabet, you know, starting with A, every other letter you're going to do an animal. So A, you'd say aardvark. And then B is a city, so B is Boston. C go back to animals. C is a cat, D is Detroit, E is an elephant. So I'd have to go back and forth between things while I'm guiding them through the hospital. They're like, and now take me to the pool in the hospital, which is on a different floor. And you have to go through elevator banks and turn and you know, and there's people and there's all of these interactions and disruptions. And so that's brain therapy. <Laugh>.
Magda (00:30:11):
Wow. It sounds very clever to me that where they work at, that it's all about where you are and what you're doing right there because it's really training your brain and not your memory. I think I would've assumed that it was more about remembering things instead of just being able to process what's right in front of you. But that's, I mean, that's what's important. You can remember all you want. And I mean, I guess having had a grandmother who went out after 10 years of Alzheimer's, I think like the memory wasn't the problem. It was the interfacing with what was right in front of her.
Jodie (00:30:48):
You know, my appointment every day started with, okay, who am I? What's my name? Okay, do I have a dog? What's my dog's name? Okay, right. How did you get here? Tell me how you got here. What elevator did you take? What floor are we on? What's the name? What's the number for my room? And things like that. I'm like, I have no idea. <Laugh>. That was my answer for most of this. I'm like who am I? What's my name? I'm like oh dear. You know, you're that woman <laugh>.
Doug (00:31:14):
Well, has it become an issue of like short-term memory and long-term memory? I mean, the bottom line is your profession now relies so much on your memory and the body of knowledge you've amassed all these years.
Jodie (00:31:26):
So my long-term memory seems to be completely fine. The issue I had for a long time was word retrieval. I have difficulty coming up with words sometimes. And then also at the beginning I would, I would just switch words a lot. I'd be talking, and Rob be, would start laughing and say, you just said “taco.” I'm like, I said “taco”? <laugh>, <laugh>, yeah. Twice. I'm like, I don't think I did. He's like, yeah, no, I'm, I'm absolutely sure you did. I'm like, <laugh>. So I would just switch up words and not even notice and I would not make sense. And I had trouble with word retrieval. I don't generally have trouble with word retrieval now though. Sometimes I do, sometimes I'll get stuck on a word. I do have pauses and gaps that are not common to me. They're not necessarily noticeable, even if you know me, they're not necessarily noticeable, but they're noticeable to me.
I mean, I have huge gaps in pauses while I try to figure out where my sentence was going, what I was trying to say, what the word was I was looking for. There's a pause and a gap. And if I'm talking to Rob, this almost never happens if I'm talking to a really close friend. One or two also almost never happens. If I'm somewhere where there's disruptions and noise and other interactions, then it starts happening more. If I'm tired, it happens more. I mean, my word retrieval goes down the tank. If I am pressured. So like if I feel like there's somebody that I don't really know, but they're expecting me to be kind of normal. If I'm trying to be normal or appear normal, the more stressors and pressure that I feel, the worse it all gets until it just completely falls apart and I freeze.
Doug (00:33:17):
Which is why you're nowhere close to going back to work.
Jodie (00:33:20):
Yeah, because normally, like right now we're talking, it's fine, it's early in the morning. I'm not tired. You guys are safe, <laugh>, I know you, you know me, you know what happened. I don't feel the need to appear normal. I don't feel like anything particular's expected of me. So that's okay. But I, I, I mess things up all the time still too. Like, we have date night every Wednesday. Rob and I we have since Miles was born, so that's, that's good 19 years. So I took over, I was like, okay, I'm going to plan date night this week, which great. So that was I think last week. And I planned date night and Rob was like, fantastic, you're going to plan something. I'm like, yes, I'm planning date night. So we got to the restaurant and I had picked and I had made the reservation for the night before <laugh>. So I was like, so we, we got that all fixed out and then we went to a movie afterwards. We got to the movie, I had no tickets. I had made reservations for the movie the next week, the following week. So this is kind of the way my world works now. I spend half of my day in therapy and I spend the other half of the day fixing everything I fucked up the day before. <Laugh>
Doug (00:34:41):
Ma’am, this is a, Wendy's
Jodie (00:34:46):
I tried to board the plane on the way back, and I gave the guy my, my phone and he's like, “are movie tickets.” And I was like, Hmm, ok, <laugh> <laugh>. I'll tell you though, it's really handy to, for the last 10 and a half months, it's been really handy to just stop for a second. Whenever any everything's going right. I can just stop and go. I have a brain injury <laugh>. And everybody starts laughing, but I'm like, yeah, I'm sorry, you'll have to bear with me. I have a brain injury and I dunno what I'm talking about. I dunno. What I did, I stuff is, and you know,
Doug (00:35:18):
I might end this sentence with the wrong … sandwich.
Jodie (00:35:22):
Exactly.
Doug (00:35:24):
Well, and now I know you to be among the most friendly people. I know the most joyful people I know, but you're also a driven professional. How patient are you with yourself with this? Because to live in New York, to do the work you do, to be the person you are and to be as goal-oriented as you are and your whole family is, there's got to be a level of, “come on, Jodie.” I mean, I say this to myself all the time, and again, many of your symptoms sound perfectly normal to me …
Jodie (00:35:53):
<Laugh>.
Doug (00:35:55):
But how patient can you be with yourself as you're making this mental recovery to kind of get all your faculties back?
Jodie (00:36:01):
I mean, it's interesting because I've been stupendously patient with my body and everything physical. And from day one I've been really struggling with being patient with my brain. Yeah. You know, being patient for my bones to knit and for things to heal. And you know, my neck doesn't move, but it did, doesn't move a lot <laugh>. And it, you know, when it gets to the, you know, end points, it hurts. So there's pain and there's limitations that I have for all kinds of reasons. And I have ultimate patience for all of that in any of that. And, and I don't, I don't judge it. I don't, you know, I'm, it's like, it is what it is. And I'm excited for every bit of it I have and it's all great, but somehow that doesn't translate to my brain. It's incredibly frustrating. And I struggle with patience for that all the time. That's very hard.
And I hate <laugh>. I hate messing up! And there are things, I mean, when I have new appointments with new doctors or when they test me for things, they do all these, you know, brain tests all the time or mental tests and it's like, you know count backwards from a hundred by seven and I'm like 93? Okay, we're done <laugh> that’s it, I'm stopping there. But that'll be like, okay, now I'm going to, I'm going to time you tell me as many words as you can that start with the letter F and I can do like two or three, but then I'll, I'll have a pause or I'd say, I think I came up with like “frigerator.” And I'm like, no, that's not, that doesn't start with, that's not really a word. It doesn't start with f And I got so flummoxed and off at myself that that was it.
Like the whole rest of the time, like I came up with absolutely nothing. I couldn't come up with one single F word because that's kind of how I work. It's like I get so distraught by the pause or the mess up or the whatever it is that I completely shut down and freeze and I can't, they're like, you have time? I'm like, yeah, no, I'm, I'm my, I'm, nope, I can't come up with one word, F word. That's not a thing. But then I'll think about it, you know, for weeks. I mean this, this actually was months ago that I had this f test. I'm still thinking about it. And I'll come up with f words. I'm like, I can come up with f words <laugh>.
Doug (00:38:16):
This is exactly what I mean. There's a real impatient person in there. Yeah, that's, I get it. I think I would be the same way. And I, I'm just asking this, you may remember some, almost 10 years ago now, I had a heart attack and that's a real emotional issue as much as a physical one. Sure. You know, I had to come back and learn how to, to, I mean, I didn't have to learn to do things anymore, but I was, they, they wouldn't let me drive until I adjusted to my medication. Magda moved into my house to take care of our young boys.
Jodie (00:38:44):
I remember.
Doug (00:38:44):
And I was on the couch looking kind of glassy-eyed. But right there with you is whenever I could, the point is it's a, it's an emotional thing because I wanted to be back on my feet. I wanted to be the dad. I wanted to be, I wanted to be the person, I wanted to be the business owner I wanted to be. And I still look at these last 10 years as borrowed time. So how do you approach like this third act of your life knowing that this happened right at the second climax point in the screenplay?
Jodie (00:39:12):
I think it's just happening now. Cause it's been such trauma and needing to heal and to do things up until now that there hasn't been time. Honestly, there hasn't been time to think about the overall bigger picture until just recently. And I have I mean I have so many therapists, I can't even start, but one of my main therapists who specializes in full body trauma and brain injuries has said, “this is right where you are right now. This is the hardest part. This is the hardest time for most people,” because I look fine. I sound mostly fine. People think I am fine, and I'm not fine <laugh> and I'm frustrated and I have to start thinking about what things look like.
I don’t think I’ve had a hard time mentally until now, because most of the doctors from the time I remember, the doctors would all come in and say, this will heal, this will get better. This will be okay. And I was in a brain injury unit at the hospital so I could see all these other people who were clearly having a more difficult time than I was. And you know, the floor below the brain injury unit is the spinal cord injury unit.
So I was in a wheelchair, but you know, I could get up to walk to the bathroom. I mean, I had to have help. I can't do it by myself, but <laugh>, you know, so I, I always felt pretty good and things were healing so fast. It's like you didn't even need time lapse. Like you could almost watch things heal. Like I could watch with my eyes watch gabs and bruises and things correct themselves. And every half a day or a day I'd be like, oh my God, look, I couldn't used to be able to do this and now I can do that. So it was all very exciting. I mean, that sounds goofy, but it's like, I do things to be really excited and happy about.
Doug (00:41:13):
That makes perfect sense. It's a tangible milestone. Yeah. It's something you could point to as a rung that you've climbed and that's a tangible, empirical goal that you've achieved. Yeah. That's something to really rely on as a boost, as an emotional boost.
Jodie (00:41:26):
Yep. But now it's, it's, it's, it's different now <laugh> and I think I'm struggling more now, which she said is normal than I have in the past. She was saying that since I look so good and sound so good that I'm not under anyone's wing anymore. So I'm just out there on my own in the world and on the street and in the subway and you know, people jostle me or mow me down just like normally do in New York because I look like a normal person and they don't realize that like now I'm so unsettled and lost my balance and I'm in a complete panic and I have to sit down and like calm myself down now for five minutes before I can walk on again because you jostled me <laugh> That's like the thing that panics me the most. It's like if I lose my balance for, not even lose my balance, but like if I step on a crack that makes my foot barely, you know, do something wonky, like I have such terror and panic that shoots through me. It takes me a while to collect myself.
Magda (00:42:28):
That's really rough because New York City is an entire city built entirely of uneven pavement,
Jodie (00:42:35):
<Laugh>. Right. I have to look at my feet every time I step.
Magda (00:42:40):
I remember when I lived in New York City one time, I, something happened to, I don't know, I sprained a finger or something like that. I ended up with one of those, you know, the splints that you put on that are the like shiny metallic splints that you put on your hand or something like that. And wearing that through the subway for whatever it was, 10 days, I was amazed at how people just stayed away from me and they gave me like a little bubble. That was the very suburban bubble. You know, like in New York, people just get closer to you because we have limited space. So I wonder if you just put on a big metallic blue splint on one arm every day when you went out, people would give you just like four more inches of space and that would help with the jostling thing.
Jodie (00:43:24):
Well, I mean it definitely changed once I got the braces off. I didn't get the neck brace off for a long time. The, the leg brace I got off after, I don't know, three months or so.
Magda (00:43:34):
So wait, you were walking around in the subway with a neck brace?
Jodie (00:43:37):
And a leg brace? <Laugh>.
Magda (00:43:38):
Oh my god. I would be terrified if I saw a lady in the subway with a neck brace on. I'd be like, just getting off the subway would be enough to put somebody in a neck brace.
Jodie (00:43:53):
It was definitely different in New York than in Texas. In Texas when I had all my braces and my hand and a thing and I, I was walking with a cane, I would go to the grocery store, and people would turn the corner and see me and they'd be like, “oh my God, I'm so sorry!” And they'd run off like, I, I'm sorry, I, I'm like, you can go to the grocery store, we can be in the same aisle. Like it's ok! And that didn't happen in New York, you know, in New York they, they give you a little room, they give you a little, a little bubble buffer, but they don't, you know, they're not, they're not changing
Magda (00:44:24):
In New York a neck brace is just kind of like a descriptor. Right. Like Jerry Seinfeld probably dated some, you know, low talker, high talker and neck brace. Right?
Doug (00:44:35):
I'm just still thinking of you being confined to those, you know, elevators and the concentrated scent that those elevators conjure. Oh
Magda (00:44:43):
Wow. Yeah.
Doug (00:44:44):
Is that actually part of your therapy to hang out in these elevators so that you can kind of, I know stimulate your red blood cells?
Jodie (00:44:50):
I know which subways have elevators. I know which ones have escalators. I know where everything is. Yep!
Magda (00:44:55):
Well I mean the good thing is if you dissociate for a minute and then you're like, wait, where am I? The smell will tell you exactly. Oh, I'm in the elevator in the New York City subway system.
Doug (00:45:04):
So tell me also about the therapy, ‘cause you've shown us that you have the headgear and the, and the bolts, you know, the electrodes. And when you do that type of therapy, what is that doing and is that working that you've noticed?
Jodie (00:45:15):
So therapy-wise, I have a third, a certified hand therapist. I had a knee therapist, I had a neck therapist, I had the speech therapist. I have that overall therapist for full body trauma and brain injury. What else? Oh, I have vision therapy because you get double vision when you have brain injury. That's a thing. And I forgot the question. <Laugh>.
Doug (00:45:46):
There you go.
Magda (00:45:47):
That's right. Exactly.
Doug (00:45:50):
Course of your therapy, you're also doing, oh, you're massaging your brain and the headgear and electrodes…
Jodie (00:45:55):
I have doctor's appointments all the time. Not just therapy, but doctor's appointments. So I have an audiologist, I have an opt optometrist for all of these different parts. The electrodes all over my head were an e e g that my neurologist wanted me to have because when you have a brain injury, the percentage chance of you having seizures increases.
Magda (00:46:17):
Oh.
Jodie (00:46:18):
You know, when you try to screw the lid on a jar and you get a cattywampus, and it's not on right? That's how my head feels on my body all the time. And so I don't feel right in my body. I don't feel right in the world. I don't see things right. I'm not exactly dizzy all the time, but it's like almost dizzy.
Magda (00:46:42):
So you’re just kind of in the uncanny valley all the time.
Jodie (00:46:45):
Yes, yes. So that's disturbing to my neurologist. And so he wanted to do an EEG to make sure I'm not having seizures or having other issues.
Magda (00:46:56):
I'm just thinking about how difficult that would be again, because the stuff that you were talking about that you could see healing, right. And the movement of muscles and bones and tendons and all that kind of stuff. I think that's like, it seems very knowable and it also seems like if you don't get full function back, it's okay. Like you can understand it. I don't even know, like that feeling of being in the uncanny valley doesn't even seem like brain function. That almost just seems like how you are in a way. And I think that's got to be really just weirdly disturbing to feel like you don't really sit like your head doesn't sit on your body the same way it used to.
Jodie (00:47:39):
That all of this is the most disturbing. Sometimes I feel like I'm just an observer, like I'm not really in my body or in my life. All of that whole part is a little unpleasant. I love being in the water. Nothing feels weird in the water. Everything floats, nothing hurts. I'm like, ok, <laugh>. So I float in the swimming pool all the time. We were at a friend's last weekend, maybe two weekends ago who have a great big pool upstate. And I went in to change and I came out and I just walked right out of the dressing room to the deep end and I jumped in the pool just, you know, feet first I just jumped in and I came up out of the water and looked over and Rob was standing there white with his mouth hanging open. And I said, what? And he said, I thought you were going to splinter into a thousand pieces. You just jumped in the pool. That's incredible! And I was like, well, it's water. But he was like that. Wow. That was amazing.
Doug (00:48:35):
And you were wearing a tuxedo <laugh>. That's another part too. I wanted to ask, because how much of this do you think is exacerbated by life in New York? I mean, is part of your therapy to head up state as much as you can to kind of get away from this constant barrage of sensory overload when you're in New York?
Jodie (00:48:55):
So my main therapist who's in charge of all that kind of thing said that lots of people with this mini injuries or this kind of brain damage or whatever, just leave New York. They're like, they find New York to be too much. There's too, it's sensory overload all the time. And, but she's like, they leave, they go to the beach for three years maybe.
Doug (00:49:14):
That sounds nice.
Jodie (00:49:15):
<Laugh>. I've been really wanting to spend more time upstate, but I have so many doctor's appointments and so many therapy appointments in the city. I haven't really been able to get out much. So I haven't done that. And I, there are definite sensory overload periods that I have, but I can usually stop one of them I got, I went to an audiologist and one of the things I had him do was make me earplugs. So I have earplugs I can put in. If there's visually too much I can stop and close my eyes. And that works. That's the best. It's like just stopping and sitting and closing my eyes works really well to get me kind of re-centered most of the time.
Doug (00:49:57):
And it's not like getting upstate is across the street, either. That's a couple hours in a car. I mean, how are you in a car now?
Jodie (00:50:03):
I am fine in a car. I kind of have been from the beginning, which surprised me. But I don't pay any attention. I have to not pay attention. I'm on my phone or reading the book the entire time. I don't look up or out. And if I start paying attention, I'll get nervous. And sometimes Rob will do something that just makes me nervous anyway. I start thinking about it. That's the problem, problem. It's like, if I don't think about things, I'm okay. Not just in the car, but in, in regular life.<Laugh>.
Magda (00:50:52):
I think that's the way I am about everything though. <Laugh>. I don't think about it. It's all okay.
Doug (00:50:59):
I think everybody's like that. I mean that's, that's why we go to the movies.
Magda (00:51:04):
Right, right.
Doug (00:51:05):
When you think about now recovering from this and living the rest of your life, having dodged one hell of a bullet, how do you view your, your life differently or what you'd like to do? Has your bucket list, if you want to call it that, has that like shortened but become more intense? You're looking forward to when you have your full life back and are you thinking about what you're going to do with it once you get there?
Jodie (00:51:27):
But I think my full life is going to look a lot different than what I thought. I mean, there's, there are many things that I won't do from here on out. You know, there's a, there's a timeline for work and for, you know, when I was going to maybe, you know, leave the firm and you know, the plan that I have for bringing people up and having people take over and take on this client and do these things. And so there was a plan at work, there was a plan for money. There was a plan for all of those things. Cause I'm what, I'm 54. So all of those things, like there's a plan for the next five or 10 years and now that plan is just completely out the window and I don't know what it is. It's like that everything's a big question mark.
I don't know what my brain's going to do. I don't know what my body's going to do. There are some thoughts that I had for things that I probably shouldn't do anymore. Like I was talking to one of my doctors the other day and I said, you know, I, I was just thinking the other day that there's probably things that I'm not supposed to ever do now. And she said, like, what? And I said, like, the things where they recommend a helmet for. She said like, what? And I said, like, skiing? And she said, oh no, you're never skiing. And, and I said, riding a bike? She said, you're never riding a bike. I said, riding a horse? She said, no, that's not a thing. And I mean, it was a huge disappointment. And it was something that I envisioned for my retirement and in my future. And so it was just all of the, I was, it was a big day where I was like, holy crap, because I'm not allowed to fall. That's, that's the other thing. Like I ever, everybody has made that clear. I am. And I guess that's maybe why I get so panicked when I get even the least bit of a bobble. But it's like, I'm not supposed to fall. I can't hit my head <laugh> ever again. <Laugh>
Doug (00:53:08):
God.
Jodie (00:53:08):
So that's a thing. I went see my neck doctor last week, and he took new X-rays and he said, yeah, that's your neck <laugh>. That's what it's going to do. That's what it is. It all shattered to bits and now that's what it looks like. And you know, it is what it is and your movement is what your movement is. He's like, I can't do anything about your mobility. He's like, the only things I could do, the only surgeries I could do, the only intervention I could do would make you move less, not more. So that's what it looks like. That's what you have.
I'm kind of getting to that point with, with everything. But my, you know, my brain and lots of this stuff, it be the whole body trauma, you know, two years. It's my two years. I don't, I can't have all these question marks like how long do I not work? How long does disability pay me? Like how long can I pay my mortgage? How long, I don't know, like all, there's just big question marks everywhere. And part of it, like you were talking about being the age we are, like I shattered my right patella, but my right patella, I dislocated and broke when I was 16 and then I dislocated again the next year playing football, then the next year playing soccer, then the next year playing softball. And then I had a big, huge surgery. And like my right knee has never been good. Like it's hurt me every day of my life since I was 16. So now it's shattered and it's not happy. But you know, it's not like I expect it to be better than it was, but I don't know what to expect. You know? Pain didn't keep me from doing stuff I wanted to do before. But now it keeps me from doing stuff and I don't know what that's going to look like. ‘cause part of it is like, yeah, well we're, I'm 54, like what am I supposed to be able to do? I don't know.
Doug (00:54:54):
Well it sounds like you're going through something that all of us go through. I think you're going through it in a very extreme way You've had one of the most active lives of anybody I know you travel a lot, you do a lot of physical activity as you mentioned, skiing, horseback riding, biking, all that stuff. And everybody our age has to kind of come to terms with when that gets harder. But at least you can kind of let that decline a bit. And your lifestyle has come to a very abrupt change in terms of all these things that your doctors won't let you do anymore. So how at peace are you with that?
Jodie (00:55:45):
I mean, I guess it was overwhelming at first, but it didn't stay overwhelming for long. Because one of the things that was really nice that I could look back on was like, okay, I'll never ski again. But you know what? I moved to Telluride and was a ski bum for two years. Like I have skied, like I did skiing, so if I can't ski anymore, fine I did ski, I will do something different. And it's kind of that way for I guess all the aspects of the things I can't do. Like horses. Like I did horses, I rode, I had a horse, you know, I showed, I did competitions. I, you know, did trail rides in Colorado as a job. So lots of that has been really tempered—I guess the fear or the panic or the disappointment has been tempered by the fact that I feel like I really did them already. And there's so many things to do. I don't feel like, well now what the hell am I going to do? I'm just going to sit here and watch TV? It's like, there's so many things that I haven't done yet that I can do. I don't know, I don't know what they are yet, but <laugh>. Pickleball, maybe?
Doug (00:56:52):
But that's you, though. That's exactly why I'm so happy to talk to you about this because if there is someone who can have that attitude to see this more as a beginning than an end, that always struck me as something you would come up with just because you're you.
Jodie (00:57:07):
I think about this all the time. My sister-in-law, Vivian actually at one point in time was talking to me and was saying, you know, you have to, she's like, you need to have like some kind of ceremony or, or not a funeral exactly, but you need to let the past you go. The goal is not to get back to what I was, it's because that's gone. So I have to completely let it go and embrace who I am now and what I'm doing now. That's, you know, that sounds easy. That's not easy. I struggle with that a lot. <laugh>
Doug (00:57:37):
When you do struggle with that, whom do you consult? I mean, I know you talked to Julia Ousley, who's a lovely person. And your family, to the extent I've met them, seem to be a real safety net for you. I mean, and you have Rob and when you think about when you need the most help, who do you talk to and what do you talk about?
Jodie (00:57:56):
Usually Rob, and Rob is the shoulder I cried on in the hospital. Not often, but I mean some nights it'd just be like, okay, like I'm tired of this, everything hurts and everything's, this is awful and <laugh>, you know, I would just lose it. And I cry on Rob's shoulder and the other person that for whatever reason I've always reached out to in times of big trouble is my older brother Jack. Timewise, he's a couple hours away, but but he gets up really early. So in the morning when I wake up and I'm having difficulty, I'll call him a lot. That makes everything better. He had night duty when I was in the hospital. He would stay with me at night, you know, when I explained I was waking up with nightmares, which were weird. They weren't accident related. They were Queen of England-related ‘cause I guess it was on the TV at the time <laugh>. He's the one who just plastered my ceiling with signs of encouragement. You know, it's like, you got this, we're here, we're you, we love you. You know, and pictures, all these pictures so that my ceiling in my hospital room was just, cause I couldn't move. I mean all my ribs were broken. I was just laying there staring at the ceiling all the time. So that was very nice. <Laugh>.
Doug (00:59:07):
That is cool. Yeah. Jodie comes from a family where you think every man is named Jack <laugh>. And Jack's a great dude too. I that's, I'm not surprised to hear that at all. He's definitely looking out. You're the only woman in the, among the siblings, right?
Jodie (00:59:25):
The middle, middle child, only girl. Yep. So Jason and Jack have me sandwiched. They're taking care of me. <Laugh>
Doug (00:59:37):
All right now Jodie, how are you feeling? I mean, I know you've been through a lot here. This is a little over an hour. How's, how you holding up?
Jodie (00:59:42):
I'm tired. I will get off of the phone and I will take a nap, but I'm okay.
Doug (00:59:46):
<Laugh> You mentioned also some of your therapies have not always been of the most Western variety. So I want to hear about that. I know, I, I totally get how you would want to have all levels of potential therapy available to you. So what was this most recent endeavor?
Jodie (01:00:13):
I am in a group of entrepreneurial business owner women. And we meet once a month and there is a yearly retreat. I obviously missed my once a month meetings for a while, but it was becoming time, it was coming time for the retreat and they were all being very insistent that I go on the retreat. The retreat this year was in Guatemala. I thought that seemed like a lot for me to <laugh> not have Rob who's been my, you know, everything. But they insisted that I do this so, and that they would take care of me and they did, and it was great. So I went and one of the things that the woman who arranged the retreat had done was she arranged for us to have this day with Guatemalan shaman.
And so we were in like a mud hut thing and we had a mud, it was a mud ceremony and it was a sweat lodge-y kind of thing. And it was, you know, there are all these herbs, it was really amazing. And there was so much to the day and there were so many parts to it. But the thing I remember most was there was a part where she was talking about, you know, your body and what is your body saying and what is your body trying to tell you? And it was very, very loud and clear what my body had to say to me and what my body had to say was, “you can relax. You are okay now. I've got you and I always have you, and see I had you during the accident and I will have you going forward, and you're okay. You can calm down and relax.”
And that was a huge, pivotal moment. I mean, it sounds goofy or out there, or whatever, but it was so clear that my body was saying, “you're okay. Calm down. I got you.” Just the whole experience made me think about things a lot differently. Like I was saying before, I hadn't been impatient with my body, but I had frowned at it a few times. It was kind of that like why aren't you stronger and not that you're not healing fast, ‘cause oh my God, the healing it was doing was incredible. It was, that always seemed amazing and miraculous how fast things were healing. But still it was a little bit disappointing.
And after that I was so happy with my body. I was like, oh my God, you do take care of me and you saved my life. I have a very different relationship with my body now since that experience. And yeah, it just, it feels very … <laugh>. I feel I'm very grateful, very grateful for my body as opposed to where I was before.
Doug (01:03:14):
That's, I think that's extraordinary and the fact that you're relying on it in the way that it is and being nice to it and it, it seems to be reciprocating that sounds to be the best news of all.
Jodie (01:03:23):
I have a massage therapist and the first time that I went to see her, you know, at the recommendation of one of my therapists, I was talking about all the exercises that I was doing and all the physical therapy and occupational therapy I was doing and all the exercises I had to do for my hand. And I was explaining them all and she's like, it sounds like they all hurt. And I'm like, well, yeah, I mean, everything hurts <laugh> and like all the exercises I do hurt. And she said, so do you have, like, who is touching your body nicely? Like when, when is your body being touched kindly? And I was like, oh my God. And that was a huge realization too. I was like, oh wow. All I do, you know, from morning to night is torture my body into position or submission or the, you know, to, and and I have a, a standing appointment with the massage therapist who does, you know, and for things like pedicures. So people will touch me nicely and things get massaged and it's not all torture <laugh>.
Doug (01:04:19):
I think you've offered some really great advice for people who are going through something similar. I know Rob would have some amazing insights about what it's like to care for someone in that situation, to see someone you love and built a life with in that level of pain and trauma. Any bit of advice for anybody else who's been through this or is going through this that someone should know about how, what recovery of something, what recovery from something like this looks like?
Jodie (01:04:46):
Different, it looks different for absolutely everybody is what I've learned. And that the, the more I speak up and I'm open about what I'm experiencing at any given point, the better all the people who love me can relate and respond. And so usually if I'm not getting the responses that I want or I'm finding people to be frustrating or unhelpful, I just start talking more and a little more openly and well and, and the willingness I guess to be completely vulnerable about what's going on and where I am is very helpful for everybody around me in figuring out where I am and what I need. Because everybody wants to help.
Doug (01:05:31):
Yeah. And that's got to be something, too. It's like, you know, eventually you want to be just treated like a regular person. I mean there's something about, there's a, there's a threshold of care that you can endure. You know, people just kind of fawning over you for a bit and you're just kind of like … I just want to be a person, please.
Jodie (01:05:46):
Oh, I’m not there yet. <laugh> When people don’t fawn all over me, I'm like, “what is wrong with you?” <laugh> You know what's going on with me? <laugh>
Doug (01:05:59):
And that's healthy, I think. Cause you also need to be assertive in terms of what you want and what you need. That's what adults do. Adults ask for what they want. Jodie, it's so great to see you. I'm, I thank you for also that insight. I think even though you look as great as you do, I can ple I can completely appreciate that the looks don't always match what's feeling inside. Yeah. And I, you went through a lot to do this for us and I really appreciate it and thanks for talking to us.
Jodie (01:06:23):
I'm taking a nap now. <Laugh>. It was so good to see you guys.
Magda (00:59:32):
It's good to see that you're alive and that you're functioning!
Doug (01:06:42):
So as Jodie takes her nap, thank you for listening to episode nine of the When the Flames Go Up Podcast with M de Petina and me, Doug French. Our guest has been Jodie Ley who looks fantastic, 10 and a half months removed from a catastrophic car accident in New Mexico. If you've been through something like this, I hope you got something out of it. I really appreciate your listening and we'll be back next week. Talk to you then. Bye-Bye.
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