23-Iron Sharpens Iron: Glioblastoma Warrior Hedy

Hi Warriors, welcome to 1-in-3. I'm your host, ingrid. Please bear with me as I try to get through the rest of Shelley no Tech's story. This is a really heavy one. While I continue to finish working on the last few episodes, I want to leave a different kind of episode with you. This is an episode from my other podcast I have with my sister, jessica. The podcast is called Another Situation. In the summer of 2022, we had the privilege of interviewing one of our childhood friends and Jessica's hero, hedi. She was diagnosed with glioblastoma and agreed to share her story. Hedi has fought long and hard over the last almost two years and she's come to the decision to proceed with hospice. While this is not a domestic violence story, this is a story of a strong survivor. Here is Hedi's story.

Hey guys, I don't want to take too long on this introduction because I want to get right into Hedi's story, but here are a few statistics for you. Glioblastoma is a very aggressive and fatal form of brain cancer. It's most commonly found in Caucasian males with a median age of 64 years. The survival rate is only approximately 5% at 5 years.

Yeah, I know we don't have a lot of time, so I don't know. If you want to, just yeah, let's get to it. Okay, do you want to maybe just do a little background about yourself? Sure, first, okay, sure.

So I guess, well, I've known you guys since grade school, so back in the 90s, right, yeah. But after high school well, actually, during high school, I joined the military my junior year of high school, so I joined the Wisconsin National Guard when I was 17. So it's been, you know, 29 years in the Guard. Now, well, july will be 29 years for me. But you know, on and off active duty, you know deployments here and there. My last assignment, my last assignment, when I was diagnosed was as the university at, was the APMS or assistant professor of military science at the University of Wisconsin, eau Claire. So I had done my first 18 years as a non-commissioned officer. So I made my way up to E7 or Sergeant First Class, and then I switched to become an officer in 2011. I did graduate from Martin Luther College, though. So I did teach at Luther Prep in Watertown for a couple of years and before I got deployed, and then I ended up having like back-to-back deployments and I ended up just staying on active duty, and so that kind of my career and the course of my life just kind of went with the military then. So I spent a lot of my time away from home and you know, having to balance that, you know, because my husband's also military and he's retired military and he retired in 2018, april of 2018. So I think, in that manner, it's kind of been a blessing because he's able to be around all the time, I guess. So, military, a teacher, a coach. As far as, like fitness enthusiasts, my entire life I've competed in bodybuilding CrossFit, that one's more recent, but you know, I did a half ironman, I wow. So endurance sports and, oh goodness. But you know, through college I played sports too. So I had never played soccer before and I ended up loving soccer. So I ended up playing all four years of soccer and college and then softball as well. This year. Recently, I started roughing basketball too, so I was able to ruff my son's basketball games and I coached his team for a little bit too, at St Paul and Tomah for a little bit. No kidding, yeah, yeah. So we had, I've had a lot of time that I've had to kind of force to get in there to make sure I spend time with my family, but I want to say that's always kind of I hate to say that because I think back on it and I think, man, I really let and I don't know if you can say, when you do sign that dotted line and you, you know, take that oath and you know, for your country. I think a lot of times you end up like they take it takes precedence over everything else, because you don't really have a choice. It's almost like I signed the, I swore that I would do this, and so it's not like it can be like, well, sorry, I don't want to, I don't want to do this anymore, I don't want to go, or whatever you know. So I think that was. It's not certainly not a regret, but it's something that I think, with with being diagnosed with GBM, it just kind of made everything come to a head as far as realizing and recognizing what's really important. What's really important Did you want me to talk about, like leading up to?

Yes, quick question how old is your son now? He's 14. 14.

Okay, yeah, in fact he is. He wants to go to prep, so he's going to go to Luther next year.

So, yeah, that's awesome. And then, did you meet your husband in the military? I did, yeah, we both were recruiting.

So we like, when I came back from deployment, that's where I spent most of my. Most of my career was was with recruiting and retention command and and then I switched to becoming officer and I I took command of the 108 forward support company in Sussex, after being a lieutenant at the 108th, and then I was also in the 157th maneuver enhancement brigade, but part of the field artillery unit, and I ran a company I had a company of of about 125 soldiers and but we were part of the field artillery so we supplied logistical support for a field artillery battalion and and then I was a training officer for a little while. And then I don't want to say ironically, because, well, maybe it is, I guess a little bit, but I ran the Army resilience schoolhouse in Fort McCoy for for a few years. So we have, you know, taught how to overcome like obstacles in your life, build relationships how you, because we've had the military in particular, we have a lot of people with PTSD, a lot of people that were deployed. You come back from deployment and you're trying to figure out how to fit back into civilian life, and so I look back on all of these things in my life and I think you know God really like kind of laid the groundwork and prepared me for what I'm going to right now in particular.

My husband's still active duty and I was in the Navy for a little bit, but like I what? And now I work for the VA as a social worker and actually one of the things that we see is a lot of people that have the hardest times are like the reservists in the National Guard, because they come back and your unit's not together anymore. So like when you're active duty, you all stay together and so it's super hard. So exactly what you're talking about it's just so much harder for you guys.

Yeah, and people trying to go back to school too. It's. It's often difficult because when you've seen the things you've seen overseas and in third world countries and then coming back to you know, the richest country in the world and you see, you know that people take so much for granted, it's tough to integrate back into the college life and be around. I think people that you almost, you almost have to kind of bite your tongue and just be, you know, be accepting and be tolerant of other people that that have you know that maybe don't necessarily, maybe aren't necessarily thankful or recognize what they have, because they've never seen anything else or they've never been forced to be in any kind of Pressure or or high stress situation, absolutely.

Yeah, okay, yeah, if you want to go ahead and look up into the start. Yeah, sorry for that kind of sidetrack, but well, that's okay.

So Everything started, honestly, I started at ROTC as the assistant professor of military science and in July of 2019 and I want to say maybe a month after that because I remember when the first incident happened, I was in the weight room and I remember I was warming up with a bench press and I just remember having a. You know it was lightweight for me and it should have been lightweight for me, but what happened is, as I pushed up, my left side just completely gave out and I ended up kind of having to roll, roll the weight off off me, and I Remember thinking what's going on with my left side? So I lowered the weight, I lightened the load and and the still same thing, like this side, just was giving out on me. So I and you know what I'm just gonna go get checked out. And then I proceeded to go through physical therapy for a good year and a half because you know insurance makes you do all physical therapy Before they decide, hey, let's do an MRI or let's, let's see if there's something else going on. So they they you know they kept saying you're a medical mystery, because this my left side, especially towards the back of my arm, my tricep, back of my rear delts, back on my shoulders. They were, or it was at completely atrophy and compared to my right side. And they did the MRI. But they only did it from the neck down and they saw oh well, you know, I'm in my 45. At that time I was early 40s and they said you have, you know, spinal degeneration it looks like, which is pretty common, for you know, being in your 40s, so that wasn't unusual. But what they saw was like maybe a pinched nerve and that's what they were thinking that was causing all of the discomfort and the lack of strength on that side. So they were like let's do an up a girl, do a trigger shot and see if that fixes it. And before I was able to do that, I I Woke up one morning and I ended up like almost, it was almost. I got up and I was like whoa, what's going? The whole room started spinning and I just like fell backwards into back into bed and I started. I was really nauseous. So I and we have PT at six o'clock in the morning and I've never missed a PT session or physical training session with the cadets, you know. And I ended up saying hey, honey, and talking to my husband, I like, can you take me to the emergency room? Something's not right and I'm not I'm usually not one to even that's not my go-to let's go to the emergency room. I just felt something was, something was off and they did a bunch of like just visual tests and they were like I can't remember the name of this maneuver, but they're like turning your head in different directions really quickly and they're lying down, but they thought that I had vertigo and so I started seeing a physical therapist for vertigo, and this was in April of 20 2021. I started seeing the March of 2021 when I started seeing a physical therapist for vertigo and I ended up getting a trigger shot in the epidural and Neither one of them seemed to work very well. And I had gone to Michigan to my nephew, my niece's confirmation, and so it's like a six hour drive. There's six hour drive Back and on the way home I was Experiencing numbness in my my left hand was lasting maybe 36 seconds, and I knew to time it. You know, to time, if you know, you start feeling these. You know weird things. Because I was thinking of you know, I'm wondering if I'm having a stroke. I kept thinking that and then it lasted, like you know, 30 seconds or so, and Then, on the way home, like the whole left side of my body felt like ice and and I thought, and I was driving, so I ended up pulling over and walking around and then the feeling started coming back onto that side. So I had called my husband and I said this is really weird. He's like well, are you sure you're okay to drive? And I said yeah, we'll make it home, which I did. I made it home, but I just thought I'm gonna let my physical therapist know that, that I was having this numbness. So the physical therapist the next day said that's not normal. She said I'm gonna let your primary care doctor know. And I want to say, maybe 10 minutes after I left the physical therapist office, my doctor called and she said that's not, something isn't right. She said you need to get. She's like if you have another bout of that numbness, she said go directly to the emergency room. And she said let's make an appointment for the next day, which would have been Wednesday. Wednesday was the next day and so I was gonna meet her in the morning. Well, that night, that Tuesday night, I went Into I have a gym, a home gym, and I was working out in my home gym and it was kind of a. It was a heavier workout of like a pile of and it was kind of a. It was a heavier workout of like a pulling and pushing movements and I just remember feeling so much pressure in my head and I dropped my phone and I was trying to pick it up and my hand just kept like flopping, like it was just going to. I couldn't move it, I, it was just dead. And I said out loud, I said what's wrong with my hand? And I could hear, I could hear my voice Flurring and I could feel like drool coming out this side of my Face or out of my mouth and I was like what is going on? And so I ran. I thought I was having a stroke for sure. So I came inside and I yelled for my husband. I said I got to go to the ER. I said I think I'm having a stroke and so, yeah, and so he, he drove and called the, the emergency room and let them know I was coming. So they were ready for me when I got in and they took me into. They took me in to get a CAT scan and then they were, you know, doing all these vision, vision tests again. And I still I can still see the lady, that, or the, the female doctor that was kind of pacing back and forth outside of my, outside of my room, and she was doing this. She was like shaking her hands and I said it's not a good sign. You know that wasn't good. So she came in and she, you know, put the the image of my brain On the screen and she said we found them. She's like it. She's like it took me eight minutes to get the courage to come in here and she's like it's. I never like to deliver this kind of news, but she said you have what appears to be a black mass on the right temporal lobe. She's like I Don't know what it is. She said, but you're likely going to be here in the hospital for a really long time and I thought you mean like starting now. I have to stay here. She was well. No, she said, but you know, in and out. She's like, because we don't know exactly what it is, she said. But she said I think it's a tumor and it was. It was a pretty good size, like. The image always looks larger than I think what it actually is, because they said it was like three centimeters, which is not doesn't sound very big to me. But what I could see around the tumor was a large black blackness around the tumor which was swelling because the tumor was starting to grow to such a point where it was pushing my brain and certain parts of my brain, that was affecting this entire side of my body, and it was it was getting very dangerous. And they were like we need certain, you need surgery immediately. And then we need to test, we need to take fluid from the, from the tumor, to find out what kind of a tumor it is, and they needed to find out if I had any other tumors in my body. And so even at that moment, I thought I am naturally a positive person. So I was just, I don't, it's got to be benign. I'm like 40 years old, I'm in good health, there's. You know, I eat well, I watch what I eat and I thought there's no way that this is gonna be anything serious. So but at the same time, you know, I was, you know, I don't think I slept at all that night I just kept running through different scenarios and and Even at that, at that time, I had a really hard time focusing and just like coming back to, you know, my faith and my foundation, like what should I be doing right now? I was so wrapped up in this. What is it gonna be, or what, what am I gonna find out? And they, they came back and they said it's a, it is a, it is definitely a tumor. And it was over Memorial Day weekend, so literally almost a year to the day, and I I had the surgery. I didn't even make it to surgery. I had to come in early because I was having such terrible nausea, headaches, drooling was constant and my left, I was even starting to drag my left leg a little bit, it was starting to not function. And, gosh, I just remember going in and they said you know, we're gonna be able to remove some of it. We're not gonna be able to remove all of it because glioblastoma is a. Well, they didn't know this at the time, but they were gonna try to remove as much as possible without risking damaging anything Like my, you know, motor skills or anything with with cognitive abilities or memory loss or anything like that. So I had to wait until after Labor or Memorial Day weekend. So I had to wait until Tuesday for the pathology report to find out what kind of a tumor it was. And so Tuesday the the doctor had come back in and he said it's a, it's a, it's a glioblastoma, it's a malignant tumor. And I never heard of GBM. I've never heard of it before. It's a rare brain cancer and it's the most deadly brain cancer there is, usually, you know, taking overtaking somebody. And you know they told me seven to twelve months is how much time I had left, and that's with Treatment, that was with the chemo and the radiation, um, but at the same time I, I guess I always start like, well, what kind of patients do you normally have a make? Is this pretty common for someone like I'm, like, what did I do? What did I do something that caused this? And they said it's. They said it can be genetic, it can be, you know, exposure to radio radiation. And I don't know, I don't know if I was ever exposed to radiate radiation. I may have been, but they said that it's typically found in the brain. May have been, but they said that it's typically found in white males. You know, 60 to 80 year old, yeah, and it's. You know, one in every 300,000 people in the world have GBM or get diagnosed with GBM, and every case is different. That's what makes it so just unpredictable, because every single case is, you know, everybody's cancer. If you have cancer, the cancer cells are made up of different types of cells or different type of DNA cells that respond differently to different types of medications, and so, you know, part of it was figuring out what my cells are made of. They just don't know. So it's almost like you're you're playing a guessing game and what they found is that radiation and chemo normally work to help extend somebody's life. You know, to that seven to 12 months. Most patients don't live beyond two years, and in fact they said most die within that year, and so so for me again, it was almost like when he said those words, I want to say when he said the numbers, it's like that's kind of the elephant in the room, like how much time by I got left, you know, it's like we probably evolved an asset question. You know, like if you knew you had X amount of time to live, and I think I remember just at that moment that's when everything became very clear to me like I just felt this overwhelming sense of of peace and calmness about my life. You know, because I was thinking this is, you know, like you know beings, like having such a lot or intrinsic love and joy, of fitness, nutrition, my faith, from the time, you know, being baptized all the way up until you know adulthood, and thinking about being in the army and all of the obstacles and challenges being a woman in the military, I guess, in particular to being, at a minority, female in the military a lot of different obstacles to overcome and challenges that you always are thinking about. I'm an underdog and I have to, you know I have to, you know, outdo my male counterpart, male counterparts or you know just competitions all in. You know, in general and, and you know, being the, the, the officer in charge of the Army resilience program, having to teach it. You know, you, you have to live it. You can't just teach it and and you know like and not live it, and so those are things that I think you know, practicing those certain things on a daily basis. You know devotions and things like that too. I think it started to fall to the wayside because I was so caught up in, you know, the rat race of life. You know. You know kids got sports and you know COVID was just kind of coming to an end too and people were trying to figure things out. Everybody was afraid of everything and to go anywhere and do anything. But I think, like I said, that entire year I mean the amount of support from my friends, from my army, army, friends and family, my own family, my church family, my fitness family. It was just overwhelming the support that I got. I mean, they, they, they ran a you know a competition in my name and I, you know, got to see all these people that came for me to you know compete and and it was just a really you know awesome experience. And they did that in in September and I still remember thinking like this was, you know, in June, that they were starting to plan for it and I was like I mean, I really hope I'm alive in September to see that. You know, just to think about you know the future in in terms of I wonder if I'm going to be there for that and be okay with that. You know, you know, sadly, the things that you're going to miss out on, but I know that you know, no matter what, I don't have any control over this, it's not something that I can, you know. I can, you know, eat the right foods, I can exercise, but you know it's not those things don't cure, cure, cure cancer. This is what God had in store for me and I really think that that it's a message. It's a clear message, because I think, when I started talking about it to those around me too, they're like I, you know, like I'm going to start, you know, spending more time with my family. I'm going to start, you know, if anything it it made people realize that we just can't take, can't take life for granted, can't take what we've been given and what we've been blessed with. Our time here on earth is limited and you know the, the glory that will, that will, that we will see. You know Romans 8, 18, I always think of that Bible passage in particular. You know, all the sufferings that we have in life now are, you know, don't compare to what will be revealed to us later. So I think of that too. But I think that that's it. The hardest part is, you know, knowing what you're leaving behind. And I'm, I'm, I think I'm a natural empath. Like I, I feel what other people feel, and I can do it. You know you walk into a room and you can, kind of you know you, you kind of you feel the energy from different people, or you, or you know you feel their, their lack of energy, and you know those are the things that you know I, you know, with my son too. It's like I just I don't. I want him to always feel, you know my energy around, you know, even when I am gone, and so I think that's just the hardest part is not knowing I'm going to miss some of those things, but at the same time, you know, staying positive about, about the future, because there are, there are a lot of I shouldn't say a lot, but there are people that make it to you know 510. I think I met somebody the other day that it's been living with GBM for, I think, 19 years. Oh, yeah. Yeah, she's had like nine surgeries, maybe 10. And you know it's struggling, but she's, she's happy and she's just, you know, in in awe of God as well. So those, you know, those people that I talked to too, are a sense of comfort and inspiration for me too.

Do you, do you have like a support group, or how did you get into contact with the?

Facebook has quite a few support groups for you. I'm support groups for glioblastoma, and, and there's so much. And then there's a. There's support groups for caregivers too, because that's something that that we don't often think about. Because I mean me personally. I do Because, like I said, I I do tend to be an empath when it comes to other people, but I want to you don't think of the people that are. I hate this, I mean it sounds kind of mean, but they're stuck caring for you. I know they don't look at it like that. I guess I was. I think about it in those terms too, because I feel like you know, you feel somewhat of a burden, you know being that person, but I know, I know that they don't feel like that and most not. I can't think of one person, every single person is all you know from church like what can I do for you? You know and that was overwhelming at first too because I don't know I, you know I always, I don't know you can pray for me. That's what I need. I need prayers, and you know my family was, has always been there for me. You know my sister, you know Johanna, and she came up with her girls and they spent the summer, literally they spent the summer with me helping out at home while I was going through chemo and radiation. And my brother you know, junior tube he's he's he's been a pastor for gosh 20 years now and he's now the Dean at Michigan Lutheran High School in St Joseph. Yeah, so he, he and his family, he had come up for a while to help out and periodically. But you know, and when you guys asked me to do this, I was, you know, I am, I still feel well and I'm doing okay. Yet but my last MRI did reveal tumor regrowth and that it was like in the it's in the exact same spot. So it's this side of my head and it's like a C shaped here where they will just they'll cut an incision in the same exact spot and try to debulk it as much as possible. And glioblastoma is a is a cancer that it's. It has like tentacles that are not seen. You can't see them in an MRI. So even if the tumor looks like it's in a certain location, the origin of it is probably somewhere else in your brain and it more than likely spreads and and so like I've met people, like one of my friends I just became friends with because she has GBM and she's had it for three years. She had her recurrence almost a year to the date after her first surgery as well, but she had four new tumors that had appeared and, and so you know I, a lot of people say that to the second time around. It's not a matter of if you'll get tumors, it's a matter of when the tumors are going to reappear, where and where they're going to be, because some get into into like inoperable locations and then your, your, your resources and your the capability. As far as, like, trial, you have to kind of try to find clinical trials and so you're not necessarily really willing to questions about you know, the submitting yourselves and if you know they're respiratory problems, okay, I'll be your guinea pig. And it has to be to a point where They've done all of their testing on the mice and animals and like, okay, now we're ready for human trials. And I imagine Most people that have GBM have the same feelings I have. If I'm going to die anyway, I want to have a Purpose, for you know, I want to be able to Provide information for those in the future that have it. That could be helpful. You know, like, if the things that I was doing was, you know, outside of treatment has helped. You know it's something that they can use. But I was in a clinical trial Initially after my first Standard of care treatment, after radiation and chemotherapy, and it was working. I guess you know, because I had every single MRI I had I've had up until this last one. They were all stable and Everything looked good. And this last one showed, showed like significant, I thought, and it's crazy because literally nine weeks ago, my last MRI looked clear like it was nothing there except for the, you know, there's like a space there and but then this time you could see that there was definitely growth, that there was something there, and then there was a lot of black surrounding it, meaning the swelling. There was swelling that was occurring and that would that. I Kind of had that feeling, though, because I would say this last, you know, two weeks prior that MRI, I was experiencing numbness in my hand and I was having some headaches, and I Think that's one of the harder things about GBM to is like every time you have Some sort of, you know, oddity or nuance that you're not used to seeing, the first thing is like is it the tumor. The tumor is drawing again. You're, you're thinking that it's the tumor, where it where. And I had, I was probably on 20 different medications and you know that any medication that you're on they'll cause certain side effects. You know. You know I and I had a number of different side effects, from chemo radiation to include the hair loss, and you know I went through a whole bunch of Different hair styles. I say over the last year, from like I was, I was completely bald, for I think I shaved in November, so I was completely bald in November and my hair grows pretty fast because a lot of it's you know back now. But there's a really good chance. I'll probably have to shave it. I can won't go through radiation again because they own it's so hard on the body. They only have people do it once. So after this I'm trying to get into another clinical trial. But if I don't, there's, there's a, there's more FDA approved Devices that I guess have shown to at least extend a person's life longer than what they would have had they not done anything, and that device is called the optune. And you, you shave, your, you have to shave your head every day and there are these like nodes that they're called arrays but they are on your head all the time and you have like a battery pack, so cumbersome. But you know, if you know, I'll do whatever I have to do to, to, to stick around I mean that's. You know, those are simple little things and it's like I'm the, I'm the kind of person that you know, if this is what I have to do, I kind of liken it to. I don't know if you guys did, if you breastfed, but I breastfed and I Remembered, thinking I don't care how hard it is, you know, and it was Because he didn't want to latch and he was, you know, and I think it was maybe around month three where I had, you know, you know you're bleeding and you're like, oh, just getting into the milk and you know You're just it's, it's bad. But then it's like there gets to a point where like I'm just gonna keep on doing it, keep on doing it, it's fine, It'll be fine, and then it did, it got better again, you know, and you just kind of work through it. So it's kind of one of those deals where it's like, if you know you have to do it, you know in the, the why or your reason for doing it is is beneficial and good for, you know, for him it was like a better for for him as far Nutrition-wise goes. So I was like I'm just gonna do it, no matter what. And they have the same feeling here. You know, whatever I have to do, if there's something that I can control that's within my you know means of doing so, I'm going to do that. And especially knowing that I Look at each of those things as God's way of sending these things to me. It's like don't Don't ignore, ignore this, and you know it's put in front of me Because he's putting it in front of me and I need to take advantage of that. So, and the fact that I'm able to walk and I'm able to sell a surgery I couldn't. I had a cane. I had a walk well, I had a walker first and I just remember not being able to do anything with this hand. I remember picking up sticks and like trying to just pick them up and put them in this little hole and I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it on the left side. My right side was like super quick and this side was I couldn't do it. I couldn't chew. It took me like two hours to eat. It was, it was awful. And so it's like you think I don't and I never thought. I never thought am I ever gonna? That was never a question, it wasn't. Am I ever? I'm like it's just like every single day you wake up it's a new day, a new start, and you, you know you just get better every day and I mean that's it, it works, it works and you know, starting your day with with a devotion, starting your day like thanking God for being here, and you know giving you another day to. You know, represent and show that. You know this. Our time here is, is grace, is our time of grace here and and not to waste it.

Do you have a favorite Scripture? So many?

so I know you, so many, you know, I think you see, but this is Philippians 4, 13. You probably can't see it looks backwards, I know, but I can do all things through him who gives me strength? And then I also have one up here and it's it says iron sharpens iron. But Proverbs 27, 13, kind of one of the mantras I live by too. You know, if you surround yourself with with people that build you up, you know, it makes you better. And did your niece get that too? She?

did my niece yeah.

And one of my very closest friends, shay, she also. So the three of us got got that. And then I have one on this side as well, but, and it's an, it's a shield With a rose in it, but it's Ephesians 6, 11, but put on the full armor of God Is that, is that the passage that I have on this, on this, and I got, and I had this one before you. Any of this happened, but it's always been kind of that. You know, don't be afraid. You know, don't be afraid of things, don't be afraid of failing, don't just, you know, fail if you have to fail, if you, if you must. But it's everything's part of that, that learning process, and and you have to go through Failures, you have to go through these trials to get stronger. You know, and One of my, my uncle, my uncle from my, my husband's side, sent me this, this poster of of Rocky Balboa. You know, and it's the, you know how it's not. You know how many times you you fall or how many times you get knocked down. It's, you know, getting back up and just keep on going. I thought that was a pretty cool thing. And then the, the Adelweiss pin I've never heard of it or Adelweiss flower. I've never heard of like what it meant, but the Adelweiss flower is a is a flower that's that only grows in the Swiss Alps, the highest points of the Swiss Alps. So it represents the strength and because not many people get climbed to the top and and they're and are able to find that flower. So if you obtain that flower, it's a symbol of, of strength and and courage. I thought that was really neat gift that that he gave me Before my second surgery here. So my second surgery is Tuesday, this Tuesday, so right after Memorial Day, and, like I said, it's just ironic that it's like almost a year to the day from my, from my last one. So, praying that that'll be my last surgery, at least for a while, and and I'll recover a little better this time around, and it kind of it's, it's all you know, I've done it before, so I definitely Were confident going into and and, to add to it, I don't, I'm, not, I'm, I don't have very many symptoms right now. They're minor, because the first time around it was so bad I just remember it was. It was a dire that I'd have that surgery immediately, whereas this time they caught it early enough. Where they, they I have a little bit of time here, but they I mean, it is aggressive, it does grow fast, you know, without treatment. So surgery was the first, is the first step, and then we'll see what happens after, after that now, with your first surgery, I think did you?

you were asking for people to send you like inspirational.

Yeah, oh, my goodness, I don't know. I could probably send you a picture of of my weight room, but I I've got posters. I framed a majority of the things that people sent me, so my entire gym is lined with inspirational sayings, with with Bible passages, with Flags and things like that, that. But just, you know, every time and I go in there every day, and Every day, I see all of these signs on. Not only, you know, I'm never working out alone. I always feel like there's people around me and they will pushing me to. You know, don't, don't waste it, don't waste the day, even if I'm tired, you know, and there's. So there were so many days like that, but I have not. I had lost so much muscle, I mean, and it's, it's disheartening because you spend here. My entire life has been, you know, focused on, you know, building muscle, maintaining muscle. You know, and you go through periods where you know your, your, your goal is different. But I had never been in a situation where I just looked and I'm like what, what happened or what's going on. I'm like like the skin was just peeling off me and I couldn't even do like a quarter squat. I remembered like getting halfway. I'm like we're. There's no muscles in my legs. I had that. You know the the skinny Asian butt.

The shovel butt the shovel butt.

Where's my butt? I worked so hard for her, yeah.

So I mean it came back because it's again, it's just like that discipline and that consistency, and so I have that same mindset. You know, it was just one day at a time.

Do you have any more fundraisers coming up or any? I?

Think my. So the competition that my my friends ran was at half light, crossfit and Sparta, and they did it in September and they're looking at doing it again and doing t-shirts again too. So you know, I think if she does do that, I could send, send something out to for you, for you guys, or somebody wants to. Get a t-shirt too. That would be cool.

But yeah, that's probably here. Okay, I know you need to get going. Is there anything?

is there anything that you want to say to like anyone in particular, or just People in general with you know, because GBM is such a rare thing, I mean the likelihood of somebody else listening to this and saying, oh yeah, I have GBM too is, but maybe. But I mean anything like cancer just seems to be so prevalent. And it's not a death sentence, you know, and To be, I mean to be honest. I mean we all have a death sentence, right. I mean we're all gonna die at some point in time. It's just you don't think that you know this early in life. It's gonna happen, but you know God can call us home at any time, and that's the fear is not Dying, or you know it's. It's a beautiful thing to think about being with my savior, but at the same time, you, you, you worry about, you know here, and that's something that I think I have to let go, and I would suggest other people do that too because you just live every day as though you, you cherish everybody, you love everybody that you're around and you know, despite what's going on in the world today, you know that's close circle of people, that that really mean something to you. Those are the people that you value, and everything else kind of fades into, into the background.

Okay, well, thank you. Yeah, yeah, thank you so much, for I had no idea any of that, so thank you so much for sharing that.

Yeah, yeah, for sure, thank you for for having me to. I I know, um, my sister had mentioned that she had spoken to you and you know, I hope I'm an open book. You know, if you have questions, feel free to reach out, or or you know, just saying hey, absolutely yeah, we're gonna keep tabs?

Okay, on everything. I think we are gonna switch this around. I think we're going to actually release this Next week. Maybe normally we do Mondays, I think maybe we'll try to do it on, or I mean normally we do it Tuesdays. I think maybe we'll try to do it Monday. Maybe we can get a couple extra people to shoot prayers your direction. Yeah, that'd be great, that'd be great. So you'll go into surgery with support from Everyone everyone.

Yeah, that's great. Thank you so much angered and Jessica, thank you for making time.

Heady. Thank you very much for showing us your strength and your resilience and your positive outlook, your sense of humor, and I know you're you were talking about you know, feeling your presence. I think you have such a I mean, it's been like we were figured out over 30 years since we've really seen you. But Even just via Facebook, you have such a strong presence about you that your presence will be felt for a very long time and I Think I'm happy that we get to help share. Share that presence with anyone who's listening. Thank you, I appreciate it. So okay okay, you guys have a wonderful rest of your night. Thank you you too. All right, bye, bye, bye.

Wow, she is amazing. How do you're?

amazing. How do you had? I mean, normally we ask what's your favorite self-care practice, which I think your entire episode was a self-care practice and then I was. I was going to ask you know, is there? You know, what do you want people to get from this episode? And I think that's so evident about the strength that she has day in and day out, and I really kind of Hit me to, you know, each morning to wake up and just be grateful that it's another day. Yeah, I, let's truck a cord with me too. I mean, especially not to go off on another tangent, but because this is about heady, but given the recent school shooting and the fact that this happened on my daughter's preschool graduation day and the very next day was my second grader and my third graders last day of school, and it just it breaks my heart to think that there are parents out there that Didn't get to have their second, first, second, third, fourth graders come home From school. They don't get to take their summer vacations with them. And I think it's it's just so important, like heady said, to just be grateful For every day that you have and to just really cherish the people around us. And then, at one scene that I heard is COVID. You know, it hit 2020 and almost like it was almost like it sounded like a deliberate thing, because it kind of gave you perfect vision. It brought everybody back from the hustle and bustle of of life and it had everyone refocus on what's important, which is which is your core family and your friends and To hold them close to you, to give frame of mind for one way recorded the shootings happened yesterday.

Yeah, that is still pretty fresh.

Yes, one thing I wanted to share. You know the the numbers of glioblastoma. It sounds so trivial when you think one in 3,000, but there are some well-known people that were diagnosed who I've never heard of it the comms, okay. So Neil part, the drummer for rush. He Was diagnosed and three and a half years later he passed away, at the age of 67 years. Senator Ted Kennedy what? Yes, he was diagnosed After having seizures on May 17th 2008 and at the age of 77 he passed away August 25th 2009 so just over a year. Wow, I did not know that. Senator John McCain, what he went in for surgery to, I think it, was to have a blood clot removed, and that was July 14th of 2017. He passed away at the age of 81 on August 24th of 2018, just a few days shy of his 82nd birthday. Robert Forster is an actor. You would know him, actually, maybe I'll add some pictures of these folks as well to our weekly post. You would recognize him if you saw him. He was diagnosed in June of 2019, passed away October of 2019, just four months later, at the age of 78.

And former he was right with her statistic.

It is yeah, these were all white men Older white men and then Attorney General of Delaware, bo Biden. He did yes. He presented with headache, paralysis and numbness. It was diagnosed in August of 2013 and, at the age of 46, passed away May of 2015. I also did read that there is a gentleman named Todd Self SELF, which might also be a baseball player. I was trying to Google him and stuff kept coming up about some baseball player, but he's from Kentucky and I was Googling him trying to find an updated article, because the article I found was in 2019. And he was going strong 10 years after diagnosis of glioblastoma. Yeah, so I know this was we were switching things around again, but I think it's important to be do this one in May. May is prayers, yeah, and if you have a church prayer list, add her to that. If you don't believe in prayer, send up good thoughts toward Heddy. We'll keep updates on our Facebook page, with her permission, of course, and we'll let you all know when there's fundraisers. I'm getting a T-shirt.

Oh God, yeah, Easily, I'll get one for my whole entire family.

Exactly, you know, maybe we can get kind of a bigger challenge. You know, not just part of Wisconsin, you know, maybe we can. You know, I know a few people who do CrossFit. Maybe we can get a CrossFit challenge that goes, you know, as far as we can get it to go.

You know some in Orlando, I don't know any over here, but yeah, I'm down.

Okay, that'll be the biggest, I'm not kidding.

She was my childhood hero. It's cool, she's my, no, she's my adult hero. Like sorry.

No one's surprised to hear you crying in junior and Shawana, hey, love, love toward you guys too, and Tita Dalo, who is living with Hedy right now. Oh, okay, yeah, Hi, you guys. Thank you for listening. This is a big one. Please share it. Let's get some recognition for Gleoblastoma, Get some recognition for Hedy. Maybe we can help out in any way we can. You know posts little. If you want to do something, you know some positive, influential thing you know. Get it, send it to us. We'll find a way to get it to Hedy. If you're artistic and you want to make something, we'll get it to her. I think that would be lovely.

I think it would be too. Stay grateful, be grateful. That's a fantastic message and well, thanks everyone for listening. Sorry, you heard a lot of crying.

Yeah.

Prayers for Avery Parents out there who lost their child. Prayers for the children that saw their classmates. Prayer for the teachers. Prayers for Hedy.

I forgot about our little mantra is no, stay sane, stay sober, eat full.

I think that's not it. It's been a long day. Stay sane, stay happy, stay healthy, stay grateful, stay grateful.

Thanks you guys, bye, bye.

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Another situation is produced and edited by.5. Panoy Music is written and performed by Tim Crow.