Unlearn16: Class is in Session - The One Where I Was 'Nursed into Health'...That's Not What This Book Is About

00:00:00.000 classes in session hey everybody and welcome to unlearn 16 classes in session guys listen

00:00:08.760 trying to get my mom this is my mom angela johnson you guys have seen her in my videos

00:00:14.060 don't pretend you don't know she is trying to get her on this podcast has taken some work and she

00:00:19.500 just stepped up here and said what'd you say why do i look so horrible guys in the comments tell

00:00:26.520 know how good she looked first of all you just oh i don't need for people just to tell this old lady

00:00:31.480 that she looks old lady when she really doesn't look good she's already taking a turn i like it

00:00:36.380 already i look way better downstairs than i looked up you look better downstairs you think it's the

00:00:40.680 light it was darker i don't want to look like 77 you don't want to look 77 70 is that how old you're

00:00:51.020 to be uh-huh 77 i looked okay at 68 listen the the can you took a bit of a hit the cancer you

00:01:00.640 took a bit of a hit but it didn't knock you out and it is your hair in your eyes there's that 0.97

00:01:05.980 fucking you it's supposed to look like that i just pulled a hair off her shin that was like this long 0.98

00:01:10.020 just so you guys know uh it's supposed to look neat okay sorry i didn't need i didn't make it 0.99

00:01:15.480 look neat i just guys you're just gonna sit here for an hour while we squabble remember that time

00:01:20.320 we got caught in Walmart talking bad to each other. Like, Oh my God, I learned 16. I'm like,

00:01:24.200 Oh, I know. We learned a long time ago. We can't really say what's on our line sometimes.

00:01:33.660 So this chapter, you've read my book, you've read the chapter and this chapter is all about

00:01:40.040 our relationship, but not so much about just our relationship, but about, I guess, well,

00:01:46.100 the way that I was raised, but the kind of person you were,

00:01:49.680 not just the kind of mother you were. So most of this, I mean,

00:01:55.060 you got divorced or separated when I was like three, three. Yeah. Right.

00:01:58.420 You're like, I'm done. Yeah. Uh, all done. Now you were always friends with dad.

00:02:03.720 He was always in our world. Um, he was, you guys were always, you know, um,

00:02:09.220 did you want to know why I terrified right now? Yeah, sure. Why I was at three.

00:02:14.620 You can tell these people anything you want.

00:02:16.640 It was because my little baby, Joanna, three years old, actually, I was looking out of a window in my kitchen.

00:02:25.480 And the window looked towards the street.

00:02:28.960 And she saw me doing that one day.

00:02:31.340 And she said to me, are you mad at daddy again because he's not home in time?

00:02:36.600 That was my decision.

00:02:39.360 because up until then i didn't understand that joanna i didn't think joanna clued into anything

00:02:45.360 that was going on in our house like we were both her her dad and i um behaved well in front of her

00:02:53.440 we didn't we didn't really fight in any anywhere dad's not a he wasn't a fighter no it would be a

00:03:00.800 lot of energy but but this little three-year-old had the intuition of knowing that something was

00:03:06.240 wrong. And that's when it was, you know what? I, I don't want to go. I was there because I thought

00:03:13.440 I was doing good for my daughter and I wasn't. Well, that's horrible. So technically when the

00:03:19.460 kids say I caused my parents divorce, technically my kind of did. Okay. So, and by the way, I never,

00:03:30.440 a lot of people think that divorce causes, you know, and all sorts of things cause harm to,

00:03:34.960 to everybody but i don't have funnily enough just so you know and i mean you already know but i don't

00:03:40.380 have sort of a negative recollection of any of that i think until i was about 12 i thought you

00:03:46.880 guys split up because you liked watching figure skating and dad liked watching mash true story

00:03:52.180 like i remember that thought because obviously at some point you guys must have said i want literally

00:03:59.520 and this is how big the fight would have been i want to watch figure skating the olympics are on

00:04:03.200 dad's well mash is on you can watch it it probably was like that you don't even recall i don't even

00:04:08.260 think we had that kind of conversation it again was something because she knew he liked mash and

00:04:15.740 you knew i liked the olympics and you put that together you think i just manufactured it i i

00:04:20.600 think you sensed it interesting interesting now and again you know a lot of people you can talk

00:04:27.300 as openly as you want on here about about dad and your relationship but when you decided to

00:04:33.220 get a divorce technically you decide you you put it on him I did you said so isn't that interesting

00:04:40.160 you said if you want to come back you come back but you stay and we fix it and we do all these

00:04:45.440 things if you don't just don't come back and pretty much actually I gave him a two-week period

00:04:52.560 you got two weeks if you're if you're well we were separated before that because i and after

00:04:58.440 that conversation that you're looking at the street or out the window i said let's go visit

00:05:03.880 grandma and so we left side note ruby not happy with this or my dad forever but anyway but they

00:05:15.260 did get past it oh but you know why well they did get past it they did and my grandma grandma had

00:05:21.640 very soft feelings about my dad. It's just that she knew there was infidelity. My dad was a nice

00:05:31.320 person. He was never, you know, never yelled, never any of those things. He was a guy that

00:05:38.400 was unfaithful because we've talked that he was just looking. My dad, at this point, if I could

00:05:44.140 look back my dad was um somebody who was he always felt like he was looking for something to make

00:05:52.220 himself happy outside of himself right and we don't need to go down that road today necessarily

00:05:57.220 um and grandma was mad that he hurt you and you broke up our family and you know rightly so

00:06:03.660 as any mom would be you know you're the one that did this to my kid but you kept out or like he

00:06:10.540 came to he was at every christmas yeah every family gathering whether grandma was there you

00:06:15.720 know grandma was there or not yeah he was always invited he was always there ray and he always came

00:06:22.180 ray would come with us to his side of the family which ray just absolutely well it wasn't any fault

00:06:28.880 it wasn't your fault you shouldn't have had to suffer any of that i felt it was bad enough that

00:06:34.000 you had to come from a broken home and i didn't want that for you that's an interesting word

00:06:39.180 though, right? A broken home. That is exactly what it's going to say. And it didn't just fix

00:06:47.040 that dynamic. But I think, and this is what I want to talk about, in some ways, I don't want to mean

00:06:52.380 that you were broken before, but you've talked about this before. It kind of fixed you. It kind

00:06:57.060 of gave you a shove. It did. So why do you think that was? Before that, I was a very meek, mild,

00:07:06.900 young woman child even before i at school i could not speak it's kind of funny that

00:07:13.420 sorry that i have joanna here that doesn't ever know when to stop but you just left all that

00:07:19.760 yeah i wasn't i wasn't like that i was the exact opposite very shy i i hated to be asked a question

00:07:28.280 in school so that's how i continued in my life now i don't think it was totally your dad i think

00:07:36.980 it was also that i was by the time i did separate from him i was nursing yeah and i was becoming

00:07:45.760 comfortable in what i was doing and i i knew i knew something more than someone else and until

00:07:54.740 then i don't i don't think i really thought that i don't think you've ever said that before so

00:07:58.600 there was an aspect of like gaining uh not just knowledge but sort of a capacity like you felt

00:08:05.480 empowered because for the first time when you say you know something more than somebody else

00:08:09.480 i think what you probably felt was value yeah like a personal level of myself yeah maybe you

00:08:16.600 didn't feel from school or you didn't feel from you know relationships yeah um but i found that

00:08:24.200 I had to do that. It evolved, but I had to because I had a little girl and she was going to have the

00:08:32.080 best life going. And so she needed to have a stronger mom that took care of all that needed 0.57

00:08:38.140 to be taken care of. Do you think you thought that though at the time? Yeah, I did. You think you

00:08:41.320 thought that big? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Interesting. I thought long and hard about, which is kind of

00:08:48.780 funny um but long and hard about every decision i made with you or you know like i never it wasn't

00:08:58.220 spontaneous one time i spontaneously got angry at you careful this is pj i know but angry at you

00:09:07.580 and you actually you because you were only little and you ran into the street and a car was coming

00:09:14.040 oh this is a good story i i ran after you just a little bit and i brought you back to the house 0.95

00:09:22.520 hand on on the bum slapping yeah slapping on your bum holding the other hand

00:09:30.440 people right now are like oh my god but i can just envision the the scene and and the panic

00:09:38.440 that you would have had that you would have reacted with and it but but it and and so yeah

00:09:43.960 and that was the only time i've ever hit joanna um and i hated myself for doing it but i wasn't

00:09:51.700 in control and so that's when i realized i had to be in control because she even in that kind

00:09:58.420 of a situation it's not good to smack a child it's not show them what you do when i was little

00:10:03.500 go on show them show the people but this is abuse it's not guys when i would talk too much and this

00:10:09.820 is the only thing my mom's ever done to me stop talking right now that's what she would do i

00:10:15.540 developed a tmj dysfunction i think because of that that was it but that was it i was never there

00:10:21.500 but but i think being out of control that's just funny but i think being out of control

00:10:28.700 um because a lot of parents talk about this a lot of parents talk about that we that that should be

00:10:35.260 allowed that shouldn't be allowed and you just decided that no because you weren't in control

00:10:40.940 and the moment you're in control that's not the go-to way to discipline or teach or inspire your

00:10:49.980 kid right like if you have a moment where you're calm cool and collected about it you're not going

00:10:55.740 oh i'm gonna go get that you know no no it's well that's like i used to discipline you when you were

00:11:01.820 small right right right small and and joanna did some naughty things you know she her the first 0.94

00:11:10.540 thing she did and you had to be in two to three somewhere in there because you still slept in your 0.96

00:11:17.100 in your crib with the side down so you can get in and out but you were still that small

00:11:22.620 and you were in and having an afternoon nap and she she loved even then you love going to bed

00:11:29.840 you like it now yeah it's true and so she'd be up there and i heard her little steps so i i got up

00:11:37.220 i i was in the living room downstairs and i went upstairs and looked at her and she was

00:11:44.160 in her bedroom she and i don't know if you guys remember but you used to be able to get a blush

00:11:50.080 stick so it was something like this and you just sort of rubbed it on here so it looked like a

00:11:56.160 deodorant stick almost right and and here she was painting the floor under her crib

00:12:03.680 I thought you were going to say I put it on my face no no I've never worn makeup a day in my

00:12:10.360 life didn't want to do that no and and you just were rubbing it on I was an artist on the carpet

00:12:17.860 on the carpet oh in my head it was hardwood no of course not no the carpet was white

00:12:23.580 anyway and I went in there and I looked at her and I said get out of my sight for a while

00:12:34.420 go in your room I don't want to see you but it was in my room oh well it was going to yeah it was 0.82

00:12:41.020 but no it was going around to the next room kind of thing and um no more than she did no more than

00:12:49.980 five minutes i can't believe i didn't put this story in the book she came back to me and she

00:12:54.380 stood over my shoulders and don't ask me how chief knew this but she said i think he can get that out

00:13:02.700 with vinegar i i should have been given up for adoption oh i just you know what a a minute of

00:13:11.660 just like awe and then i laughed because maybe that's why maybe that's why i pressed so hard on

00:13:21.020 comedy as a maybe but that's how you would you would too if we weren't to the mall and you'd

00:13:28.060 lay down on the floor because she'd had enough and we used like a like raggedy andy exactly and

00:13:34.220 i it's a protest technique come on we're gonna go we gotta go and you just lay there until i actually

00:13:41.020 had to get down on the floor and sit beside her and laughed so that's we we just did that right

00:13:47.340 that's so funny so the fact that you didn't you know give me away at that point i guess is pretty

00:13:53.740 impressive oh because she was so cute and so lovely that was it i'm like the dog kind of

00:13:58.700 anybody know presley he really is the prize child now from little yeah and this is something that i

00:14:06.200 think is super important i do talk from little you took me to work i did from very little yeah

00:14:12.160 i don't know if that should have been allowed well like it was a hospital my mom was a nurse

00:14:17.900 forever and i mean take me to work not for a visit when she wasn't on duty come with me for

00:14:23.960 the whole day but little little but you would be well we did go for a short visit yeah that's when

00:14:32.300 you when you walk to my manager for the first time my first step you took your first step but

00:14:38.300 that would be just a little bit visit but it started because i used to work nights over new

00:14:44.740 years and um so it started where on new year's night myself and a friend of mine that nurse there

00:14:55.620 um brought her daughter and we put them in jerry chairs they are now you know the chairs that you

00:15:01.740 see all patients in the halls like they're like chairs like big recliners like hospital recliners

00:15:07.900 that you're leading back in and we put we feed them dinner late oh they're still around but not

00:15:13.840 too many so we'd give them something to eat and um and then put them to bed and they'd sleep there

00:15:21.300 all night so that's when that started wonder why i've never liked new years

00:15:25.140 but you were fine then you got really oh that's nice that's perfect my is this is the perfect you

00:15:33.920 keep telling the story i'm just going to get up and shut off her thing continue that's when it

00:15:39.980 started and and by then i mean you you have to have got that i was i was pretty good friends

00:15:45.920 with my manager and and she let us do that and it was both of us so it wasn't just so this would

00:15:52.040 have been in the 80s right that's what we're talking about right now right because i would

00:15:56.000 have been five in 19 yeah yeah so i don't think it would be very early yeah no yeah no but around

00:16:01.940 then. Yeah. But then it would, it would be, um, there was a day I couldn't, couldn't get a

00:16:09.100 babysitter or was having a hard time. And my manager said, Oh, just bring her in. And so 1.00

00:16:14.520 then she started coming in and you were going in until you were seven. So it was a couple of years

00:16:20.920 in there. Right. Because it was at seven. Yeah. And, um, and we go in and you do rounds with me

00:16:30.440 in the morning so I'd introduce you to all of my patients and it was days I tell you when when I

00:16:37.080 worked on a floor a 15 bed no 28 bed unit 15 of those patients were plastic surgery patients so

00:16:46.280 they could be burn patients some disfigured people um some nose jobs some facelifts so

00:16:56.320 some minor stuff and some not so minor and then there's 15 of those and 13 ear nose and throat

00:17:02.640 patients and you had some of those that were tonsillectomies so we had different kind of

00:17:08.420 people that in the hospital then that you have in now like all that stuff would be going home

00:17:14.160 you have a day surgery yeah yeah yeah tonsils in out you go yeah but in the middle of all that we

00:17:20.280 had laryngectomy patients that's where people um have the hole in their throat tracheostomies

00:17:26.200 laryngectomies um facial disfiguration it kind of meshed with the plastics um so so there were

00:17:36.440 was a lot of noticeable things going on with these patients and anyway i'd take joanna and never

00:17:43.720 hid her from anything um you know we'd go and and she'd meet people she you never really

00:17:50.700 as as a young person well even as a you never really questioned how anyone looked

00:17:56.340 I don't know that you really did do still but I did I get grossed out because now I'll pass out

00:18:02.880 no but I think yeah the the getting nauseous and all that I really just think it's you

00:18:09.440 If I'm in an emergent situation, I'm fine.

00:18:12.320 Oh, and it's me getting sick or something.

00:18:13.840 Yeah, but I can negotiate, right?

00:18:16.120 But as soon as it's not emergent and it's a problem.

00:18:19.040 Like when the ambulance is coming in, you're going to lay on the floor.

00:18:20.500 Once the ambulance is there, I have to lay on the floor.

00:18:22.520 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:18:23.500 So, yeah, so I would go in these rooms. 0.87

00:18:25.900 People would have holes in their throats.

00:18:27.700 And sometimes there would be, you know, it would be bloody or it would be messy or whatever.

00:18:33.380 And I don't think I reacted too poorly.

00:18:35.640 No, you didn't at all.

00:18:37.080 I don't I don't know that that's I didn't think that you ever really just noticed that

00:18:43.560 maybe you know that wasn't because you were taking me so young I guess I just thought it was some

00:18:50.520 people look some people had this issue yeah it wasn't like anything I mean I don't remember it

00:18:56.900 to be honest yeah yeah no and and it would be the same if we were out too because you would see other

00:19:03.900 people outside you when i grew up um i don't know if any one of you were around when um people that

00:19:13.020 couldn't hear so deaf people would be out outside you'd be walking in the mall or something and

00:19:20.380 someone had to come and stand in front of you and i remember one time saying this person's standing 0.95

00:19:26.220 and i was older um what's this person standing in front of me for and i kind of move away and they

00:19:31.740 come in again until I sort of looked and they were holding a little card on on sign language

00:19:38.800 oh to teach you and and I remember feeling really bad now my mom was with me who said

00:19:45.880 don't don't look don't go so my mom was like that that was grammar movie and because because she

00:19:52.680 thought it would be upsetting and that that's why that came to me yeah interesting yeah and so so I

00:20:00.460 think I think that I made sure that you didn't respond to people that way well I think that's

00:20:07.980 what you did though like you you and and I don't know it must have been and it is so subconscious

00:20:15.680 all of that time that I spent with you at the hospital or you coming home talking about the

00:20:22.820 hospital and talking about like what you've what you've done and what you've gone what you've gone

00:20:28.660 through or all of those things. And it made me, it's funny that you said that you got your

00:20:34.600 confidence from having a sense of esteem from what you did and that you did it well, because I

00:20:41.380 honestly believe that my baby confidence, even though, you know, I'm telling you to paint the

00:20:47.120 floor, I think it came from that. Watching you do cool stuff and not just like, you know,

00:20:55.740 I used to think dad typed because he had a typewriter I saw what you did like it was it was

00:21:00.780 very crystal clear what you did the way you did it the way you connected with people the way you

00:21:06.300 took and finally enough and as we talk about teaching the way you educated because you always

00:21:11.980 thought when you talk about that you always thought that you that was your job oh yeah for

00:21:17.600 sure well because and I think that's because I knew what I was doing was good it was excellent

00:21:24.900 work. I cared about all my patients and I wanted to teach other people how to do it my way because

00:21:32.240 it was the best way. There it is. You wonder where I get my bravado from. That's it right there.

00:21:41.420 Because you, and I, and I lived that for such a long period of time. Then we moved up to the store,

00:21:47.020 right? We bought the store with, with grandma and grandpa, and we lived up there for a relatively

00:21:51.480 short time not really that long like three years really from grade three to grade six and then

00:21:56.500 grade seven we moved back and yeah yeah yeah did you miss nursing in that period or did you just

00:22:03.040 hate running the store with grandma and grandpa no no i really missed nursing i i nursing was my

00:22:09.600 career and i and i loved it i loved everything about it i shed tears over my job and i don't

00:22:16.840 know if a lot of people think that that's a good thing. Why wouldn't that be a good thing? You mean

00:22:23.060 because you lost patience or because it was hard? Because I lost patience. And you think people

00:22:28.920 would think that's a bad thing? Why would that be a bad thing? Because you need to be empathetic,

00:22:33.720 not sympathetic. No, I think it's the opposite. You need to be sympathetic, not empathetic.

00:22:37.680 You don't need to feel it. I think that's garbage. I don't believe that at all. Because 1.00

00:22:45.140 because if you're not letting in sometimes that negative stuff doesn't affect you then all the

00:22:48.940 great stuff like people healing and and and triumphing and going through all that doesn't

00:22:54.300 get in either no what a waste of a job but i but i think that that's what is the expectation

00:23:01.520 i think it's a bad expectation i mean obviously i did because i didn't do it

00:23:07.000 do you think that can yeah i mean oh we can't speak to the way that training works now i just

00:23:12.780 think it's a person, but, but the more, the more people like all of the good nurses that I've ever

00:23:18.480 met have empathy. Yeah. That's what they lead with. Yeah. And then close behind comes competency

00:23:24.280 and, you know, intelligence. Yeah. But if you're not leading with empathy in that job, which again,

00:23:30.480 I think directly transfers to how I teach. Um, I don't think you're doing a good job,

00:23:35.740 but same truth. Maybe that's because that's what you've seen and you saw it as you thought it was

00:23:41.540 good and as i thought i what i was doing was good sure but there are many it's kind of hard because

00:23:50.960 i i i totally believe in that um so it's hard to explain why someone that has a degree in english

00:24:02.000 could be a better nurse than someone that doesn't have a degree in english oh yeah you're talking

00:24:07.860 about there was a shift in training for nurses the whole training thing i trained in the hospital

00:24:12.100 that's where i was a wellesley nurse and forever until they ripped it down and um and they they

00:24:22.080 trained good nurses there's still people nurses i know today that are well are the similar kind

00:24:30.540 of nurses that actually appear to care but you can see those all regardless of training yeah

00:24:36.000 We've spent a fair amount of time in hospital settings.

00:24:38.940 But the majority don't care now.

00:24:41.520 Yeah.

00:24:41.820 Let's face it.

00:24:42.620 Like, I'm so disappointed in those things.

00:24:44.880 Listen, that's a whole lot of this.

00:24:46.000 But do you think the majority don't care?

00:24:47.600 Or do you think the majority have been forced in a position where they don't necessarily...

00:24:51.540 Although, I don't know, Mom.

00:24:52.900 I think you had one bad experience when...

00:24:57.540 We won't be naming hospitals today.

00:24:59.300 But one bad experience, unfortunately, that kind of lingered.

00:25:02.620 But I will give a shout out.

00:25:03.740 But when we were in that Ajax hospital...

00:25:06.000 when you had a heart rate of 26 and that entire hospital was in there and not just that entire

00:25:11.520 hospital, but nurses and doctors that actually you could just see you, you, cause then you were

00:25:17.380 taken care of. Yeah. I don't know. I, I think possibly you remembering the bad more because

00:25:24.640 it was disappointing and because it felt like a letdown for what you put into a profession and

00:25:30.280 than the way that you were treated, but that's one hospital. That was one hospital, unfortunately,

00:25:36.640 in one particular circumstance. In a hospital that is very specialized in certain things,

00:25:42.660 and you get that special care there. So, you know, you go to the hospital so you can get well and get

00:25:48.520 out. There's just the softer skills that I think they've forgotten. Well, I think, but again,

00:25:55.320 I think some people forget. I don't know if some people are good at them. I don't know

00:25:59.000 if those soft skills you're talking about, I don't know if you could teach them.

00:26:03.400 No, I don't know if you can teach somebody how to have empathy and how to lead with those soft

00:26:09.240 skills, because you said, maybe that's not the way we should, they should be nursing or, or

00:26:14.280 doctoring. I don't know if that's right. Maybe that's not the way the healthcare system should

00:26:18.020 work. However, you've just been through hell and back and still, you know, having to struggle with

00:26:23.080 different things. But your mindset, you know, your mindset made a huge difference for positive

00:26:32.420 or negative. So if that's true, then the soft skills have to matter. But maybe they matter on

00:26:38.440 the kind of satisfaction that you get out of your job as opposed to anything else. But if I'm saying

00:26:47.340 like putting you in the right mindset, you know, like Anna telling you to like repeat those things

00:26:53.020 at night or, or, you know, you have a moment where you get to be sad and you get to be frustrated

00:26:58.740 and you get to be all of those things. And then we, we have to shift our mindset a little bit.

00:27:04.820 If that's true and that helped you heal and that helped you forget heal, wrap your head around how

00:27:12.720 to then take another step the next day, even if it wasn't always, you know, to me having a healthcare

00:27:21.800 system that has been trained and understands that that's just as important as the chemo,

00:27:27.660 as the immunotherapy, as all of those other things. Because if your mindset's not right,

00:27:32.620 like when you sat, when we sat in that room and they said, you know, they took out your bladder,

00:27:37.980 we thought it was gone. We thought you did the chemo. We, and we got called back in.

00:27:42.300 And she said, well, you have three mets in your lungs. I know for a fact, you looked at each other

00:27:49.380 and went well that's it that's it we had a moment where we looked at each other and went

00:27:54.720 if i swore on this i would say it but because that's you we knew you knew from your history

00:28:02.540 i knew from all the house and gray's anatomy i watched that once it metastasizes you're it's

00:28:08.980 like rust on a car right then but the best thing is it's not anymore well but this is the thing

00:28:16.120 in that moment we didn't know that that's right i thought i thought i was gonna fall apart i didn't

00:28:20.920 have time to fall apart i thought you were gonna fall apart and then we talked to the doctor with

00:28:25.000 the immunotherapy guy and he started talking about it and what he said to us and i swear to god this

00:28:31.080 one i don't even remember his name do you remember his name no i only ever saw him the ones actually

00:28:35.640 it was the he was the respirologist doctor did by the way her oncologist dr jang i'm gonna say

00:28:42.380 her name because she's incredible uh princess margaret um oh i wish i could remember his name

00:28:47.620 he sat down with us after hearing all this and they said they're going to try this new thing

00:28:51.860 called imniotherapy which had only been going on for about five years when she started it

00:28:55.840 and he said listen two things number one imniotherapy is is doing great things and what

00:29:04.000 our goal is with immunotherapy is to minimize the any progression so however big the met was

00:29:12.100 our goal is just to keep it that way yeah so you know if it's a centimeter cool you can live with

00:29:17.160 a centimeter you know tumor somewhere you can live with it forever and he said people talk

00:29:25.360 about cancer like it's either end of life or you're in remission and he said the vast majority

00:29:33.600 of cancer is neither. The vast majority, he said, is fighting it in different ways every single day,

00:29:40.820 or maybe not every single day, maybe going into remission, coming out of remission, fighting it

00:29:44.160 this way, fighting it this way, maybe surgery, maybe in all of these different things. He goes,

00:29:48.940 and that could be 20, 25, 30 years. He goes, that's the way it's going. And there was a moment,

00:29:55.500 that was before it worked, just to let you guys know it worked. Before it worked,

00:30:01.520 he changed both of our mindsets then he did in that moment yeah right and i don't know

00:30:09.540 if that mindset helped it right because you i mean she's been in remission for how long

00:30:17.360 almost two years almost two years and she's like a little bit of a poster child because they keep

00:30:22.480 taking her case everywhere they go saying look immunotherapy remission because that wasn't well

00:30:26.940 you miss remember because immunotherapy was something to expect every three weeks for the

00:30:32.760 rest of my life right not yeah never stop it was never to stop and it sort of worked for that period

00:30:38.580 of time you had to go back for another shot which is what it was no big deal that was fine to do

00:30:43.900 that but then all of a sudden my tumor was getting smaller and smaller and smaller until they really

00:30:51.260 can't see it very much or or you know there's the mention a node that it's the same as before

00:30:59.820 and whatever that means right um but but i was one of the first people that they actually

00:31:08.780 stopped the immunotherapy because they thought i and i won't say remission i won't say cure

00:31:15.800 they thought it was controlled well enough not to do it anymore yeah and and that's what they said

00:31:22.300 every stopped every three months yeah and now every three months i still have to checkups

00:31:27.520 four months now they've moved it to four months right and i think probably she would have moved

00:31:34.160 it to more than that but she could she could hear the tenseness in my voice when they were going to

00:31:42.420 back off a little bit because you get pretty dependent on going in there every three months

00:31:46.420 and getting all you're getting it checked although it's a hard week but other than that

00:31:51.140 it gives you the rest of that time right but i think anyway but i think all of that i mean

00:31:57.640 it's funny because really before that our family hasn't really experienced well never really

00:32:06.060 experienced cancer and, and never really gone through, you know, you know, grandpa passed when

00:32:12.420 I was younger, but, um, we'd never gone through significant anger. Grandma was lasted until 97

00:32:18.540 smoking every day, drinking coffee and eating straight up sugar. So what did they call her? 0.99

00:32:24.860 She, there was, she had superior genetics. Yeah. Superior genetics. We call her Wolverine. 0.99

00:32:30.460 until we we all thought we had it yeah until i got sick yeah yeah we all thought oh that was

00:32:36.080 so maybe i got it i think you got skip a generation well but maybe it's got to do with

00:32:40.680 talking so much i gotta get it out but it's interesting because i think it has a lot to

00:32:46.360 do with stress a lot of people talk about how much stress impacts right yeah and you've always been

00:32:53.820 let's be honest a little bit of a worrier i actually think isn't that so weird you going

00:32:58.900 through this has minimized how you worry about things yeah and could try to control other things

00:33:07.400 you don't do not as controlling as i was no and anything no because you well you have to let go

00:33:14.060 of it but i think you also realized all of that control was actually uh um useless anyway yeah

00:33:21.340 maybe you know what i mean right it was always like well i could never control everything i was

00:33:27.560 doing anyways. Um, so all of this being said, I sort of skipped to, you know, being a teacher.

00:33:36.460 Uh, and, and there were lessons that you taught me from this that I think are that I didn't even

00:33:42.500 know I learned. Number one, I never make a kid read out loud. Never 23 years. Have I ever asked

00:33:49.180 a kid to read out loud? Now what I do make them do sometimes answer a question. They do have to

00:33:57.080 answer a question but i think your problem wasn't that you didn't want to read out loud it wasn't

00:34:03.560 that you didn't want to answer the question is you thought you weren't smart enough good enough

00:34:07.320 capable enough yeah so i think i instead of just like abdicating and say oh you never have to read

00:34:12.980 out loud or you never have to i sort of err on the side of like gassing them up like making

00:34:18.580 making them feel a level of confidence and empowerment in whatever yeah so that they'll

00:34:24.620 answer questions so that they will give it a go so that if they read and they stink at it oh well

00:34:30.200 but you learn that early too and you taught yourself that joy and i don't know where you

00:34:35.480 where you get it the apple orchard well that's but that but that was my it that was a level of

00:34:43.920 confidence you can tell that story but that was a level of confidence that it i got that from you

00:34:49.780 i didn't have that i got that from you i got that from a mom who said a two-year-old gets to have an

00:34:55.780 opinion when grandma would say who do you think the mother is here that's true that's true that's

00:35:00.860 where i got that well i guess you did get it from the fact that yeah you don't just you're not

00:35:05.320 bored with it felt at any any age that it was important what you had to say you can tell the

00:35:11.200 apple orchard story i didn't put that in the book what happened it was very cute because joanna used

00:35:17.120 want me to go to school to meet her teachers always all i never missed a parent night or an

00:35:23.840 or any um or any kind of outing i i i was a nurse so i could change my schedules around a bit

00:35:33.660 so i so i could do that but one time the one of the first times and you were in regular school

00:35:39.900 so you had to be in grade one or two because it was in it was in markham and um we went to the

00:35:49.040 apple orchard and and there i found this little girl who had her hand up all the time she wanted

00:35:57.000 to answer every single question and the interesting part is she didn't even she wanted to answer it

00:36:05.180 Even if she didn't know, I didn't know any answers.

00:36:08.180 Did I actually put her and it wouldn't be a, just to put your hand up.

00:36:11.160 It'd be me, pick me, pick me. Right. And, oh yeah.

00:36:14.880 You would answer some of them. I mean, obviously the teacher knew you. Right.

00:36:19.600 Right. So she wouldn't ask you ever, you know,

00:36:22.060 she'd try and get some other people involved because it would,

00:36:25.080 it could have been a, just a one on show. Um, and,

00:36:28.920 and you'd have some answers, but then, then it started where,

00:36:32.780 where I noticed you didn't,

00:36:35.180 You put your hand up the same way, and when the teacher asks you, okay, what is, you know, what's the answer, you'd go, I don't know.

00:36:44.840 And that was all you wanted, but you wanted to be heard.

00:36:48.040 You wanted people to know that you didn't know, or you did know.

00:36:52.040 It did not matter.

00:36:53.260 It's weird.

00:36:54.080 I just wanted to be called on. 0.93

00:36:55.780 Well, even, okay, so even, and it was around the same time, we had the big sex talk at home because you and your. 0.95

00:37:04.680 two girlfriends were playing Barbies. Yes. And they came over and they made a joke to me and 0.59

00:37:13.420 they said, you don't know what sex is or whatever. And I said, well, fine. I don't know. I stomped

00:37:21.360 home and asked mom. And then mom had to give a call to all their parents and say, listen,

00:37:27.040 my daughter's asked this question. I'm going to answer it. Do you want me to send your kids home?

00:37:30.660 And these other parents are like, no, no, you're the nurse. 0.61

00:37:34.220 Please go ahead and give the talk.

00:37:36.760 There was never a sense of embarrassment.

00:37:39.840 No.

00:37:40.260 I've never felt a sense of embarrassment asking you a question or trepidation asking a question.

00:37:45.940 But again, that has to be something.

00:37:49.100 I don't, do you think it was because like you were embarrassed to ask questions?

00:37:53.580 You just wanted to make sure that I never, do you think it was conscious?

00:37:58.860 Do you like, you know what I mean?

00:38:00.220 like I you brought me into you know I was always in I was an only child so I was I was the only

00:38:05.740 kid in the family well for a long time and um almost till I was like nine years old so growing

00:38:13.500 up I just always had the ear of a full room of adults exactly no matter where I went right so

00:38:19.380 I was never I was never playing with other kids I mean my friends but for the most part I sat at

00:38:24.580 adult there was no kids table no no metaphorically or literally that's right so and i always felt

00:38:30.260 like you always made it seem like i got to have a say and my say had value well and i thought it did

00:38:39.380 well but that's the difference that's the difference everything if i'm wrong or not it

00:38:44.420 doesn't matter i just now have a big mouth yeah no yeah i started letting you have an

00:38:52.020 letting you have an opinion. You always had an opinion, I think, but listening to your opinion

00:38:57.340 over, I'm sort of skipping back, over cleaning. Oh, not cleaning, disciplining. Because I,

00:39:07.000 oh, this is a great strategy. By the way, I use this strategy. I use this strategy just last week.

00:39:12.600 Go ahead, tell the story. Because it's funny. Again, it's about how I take what you've done

00:39:17.860 and I just keep applying it to all these other children.

00:39:20.880 Go ahead.

00:39:21.520 Well, you, yeah, because I was a single parent,

00:39:25.040 so I didn't have someone else.

00:39:26.620 And this is what I,

00:39:28.600 probably the only thing I did miss having two parents.

00:39:32.280 To bad ideas off of me.

00:39:33.640 To really talk about how,

00:39:37.480 what you should be doing about punishing for certain things.

00:39:40.580 So it was always me.

00:39:41.780 Well, I wasn't totally, I wasn't always reasonable.

00:39:45.880 um because it would be go away and i'll talk to you later and if it wasn't that it would be

00:39:54.680 okay so you go in your room you don't look at any toy in there heaven forbid you don't reach

00:40:00.740 don't put a tv on although you didn't have a tv in my room um you don't do anything but you go

00:40:09.860 in that room and you think about stuff and you by the way you're not playing with your friends

00:40:14.840 for two weeks and you're not going out that never lasted i don't ever remember you not letting me

00:40:20.820 because it's a silly thing right so so i'd send you off and then it started i started to realize

00:40:28.420 well i'm not going to do any of that i sound like a crazy woman telling you all right yeah

00:40:35.900 so i'd call you back and and i would say that and and this is something that i i think i taught you

00:40:42.020 or i hope i did is that i admitted i was wrong to my child so so it's kind of nice that

00:40:50.620 if if your child understands that they can admit that and it's not the end of the world

00:40:56.780 yeah um but but i would say you know like that was a little crazy because i was upset but we

00:41:04.220 you did do something wrong there so we need to fix it so it's not going to be happening again

00:41:09.500 and so we sat and we sort of talked a little bit and i go well what do you what do you think you

00:41:15.440 should run your punishment should be and she said i can vacuum well that was the best that's the

00:41:23.900 worst thing i've ever said guys i spent my whole life i still would get a vacuum

00:41:28.160 and what i what i thought was awesome i might have been four or five years old it didn't matter

00:41:35.980 and i would never go over it by the way a vacuum in 1980 weighed 417 pounds just so we know and

00:41:43.300 and you would on a shag carpet nonetheless and i would say to you okay i've hidden four pennies

00:41:49.060 on the floor i want you you're finished your work when those four pennies you found the pennies

00:41:55.440 because they're in situations punishment nowadays i think i think that's still a good punishment

00:42:02.000 yeah anyway and she'd give me the pennies and it was not long ago and and and that's from then on

00:42:10.160 joanna got got to to clean for um for punishment which until she was really older but i i didn't

00:42:20.340 ever believe you had to not play with your friends because when you're a kid that's when you're

00:42:24.860 supposed to play with your friends for crying out loud you know like why would i punish you and 0.98

00:42:29.220 punish me yeah yeah you know like a stupidness like this is one of the most brilliant things 0.98

00:42:34.580 that i've tried to and and very recently funnily enough tried with a student so so last week 0.88

00:42:42.400 yeah it's funny because i she was so baffled last week you know i'm not gonna talk about who it was

00:42:50.640 but um you know a student stepped out of line a little bit made some a couple bad choices and

00:42:56.460 she knew i was upset so she came to me and you know she's like well obviously i'm gonna have

00:43:01.440 detention or i can't go for whatever whatever she thought my punishment i said you know what

00:43:06.180 i go you know how upset i am and and how disappointed you know i said you know how

00:43:11.780 upset i am and she she said i know you're disappointed which is like it's like a arrow

00:43:18.340 to their tiny little hearts but i said um i go she goes well what what's my punishment and i said

00:43:26.100 I don't know. She's like, what do you mean? I go, I want you to know this is serious. I want you to

00:43:32.920 know this has weight. So what I want you, I'm not going to give you a punishment right now.

00:43:37.520 I want you to go home tonight. And I want you to think about what it should be.

00:43:42.880 Her face, she was like, I can't just know now. I just want to know now. She's like, I'll give you

00:43:49.120 my phone. I'll do this. I won't go to lunch. I'm like, your punishment's not eating. That doesn't

00:43:54.840 make any sense um and she's going on and i said no no i want you to think about it and i want you

00:44:03.680 to show up in my office tomorrow morning tell me what you came the conclusions you came and she

00:44:10.660 was out of her mind first thing in the morning she came to me she was dead serious we discussed 0.98

00:44:18.460 and to be honest i didn't even need to give her punishment by that point because she spent the

00:44:22.000 last 12 hours punishing yourself thinking about it and contemplating it and understanding it and 0.98

00:44:27.820 I'm like and she came and she had you can tell when kids give a crap right yeah when they really 0.94

00:44:33.120 are sorry and they get it and and otherwise when they're just saying sorry because they want to 0.64

00:44:37.640 move on right and she go after having the conversation in the morning she's like so

00:44:43.240 you know what's my oh she said consequence because I kept trying to reinforce the fact that

00:44:48.000 punishment's weird consequence means that there's you do something that's out of pocket you have

00:44:53.560 there's there has to be a related consequence it can't be like you know you skip class and I take

00:44:57.720 away your lunch that doesn't make any sense there's no there's no connect and she we had a

00:45:02.600 very like a half hour conversation and at the end of it she goes okay so you know I came up with

00:45:08.040 some she came up with some decent consequences kind of thing and and she goes which one are you

00:45:12.800 going to choose and I said none of them she goes what do you mean I said well you spent the last

00:45:16.960 12 hours really thinking about what, what happened that you made a mistake and you know, it, that was

00:45:23.160 it. And she, you know, it was one of those, and I, that's brand new. I don't know. Historically,

00:45:30.080 I don't think I've been that great with that. Cause you get so, you get another thing you told

00:45:36.040 me always never put a kid in a position to lie. I hate it when kids lie to me, hate it. And I'll

00:45:42.000 say to them listen don't do an assignment okay there'll be a consequence but if you lie about it

00:45:47.820 yeah it's just it breaks everything um but having a space where kids don't lie but there's still

00:45:55.860 consequence that's if you can do that as a parent or as a teacher i think that's the best thing you

00:46:03.540 possibly can do well i got that from grandpa right yeah yeah that was the one thing i remember he he

00:46:10.100 just don't ever put your child in a position to lie because they will just to to protect themselves

00:46:16.980 to get avoid getting in trouble right so anytime it makes it worse i have done that with students

00:46:22.260 so anytime i know they've done something wrong i don't ask them if they've done it they're gonna

00:46:26.580 say no um i say grandpa's hat it is grandpa's hat i say uh i know you've done it i know this has

00:46:34.380 happened. Let's not waste time back and forth. Yeah. Let's just carry on with what happens next.

00:46:42.840 It works better with some kids than others. Some kids will still want to deny it happens, but

00:46:47.660 you know, for the most part, they, they usually go, okay. They, and they know that's how I'm

00:46:56.200 going to lead. Right. But consequence is hard. Consequence and follow through is very, very,

00:47:01.980 very hard you're lucky you had such a good kid i know the consequence how i knew if you you were

00:47:07.960 almost gonna lie at the time one time you had was gonna lie they um free not free yes freezies are

00:47:19.880 the ones in the plastic bag right yeah um i was doing something and came out and you were playing

00:47:27.640 with your friends and you had about eight people in the front lawn jump running all around and

00:47:32.760 there were there were freezy packages on the ground and because i went in the fridge and got

00:47:40.600 them ah and so in instead of saying instead of saying where did they come yeah don't put me in

00:47:49.680 the spot where did they come from i don't know some guy in a truck just dropped off a bunch of

00:47:54.340 it was it was joanna look at all these freezies and you didn't have to feed the old street well

00:48:00.640 that seemed nice though that's fine so i suggest that you not your friends pick up every one of

00:48:08.920 those packages and you put them in the garbage that that was as simple as that and that was

00:48:14.880 the first time yeah more cleaning that was the first time that i that i thought

00:48:21.000 um that it could have gone wrong if i'd have said to you where did these things come from

00:48:29.660 i don't know it would be like that cartoon i kind of want to know what the lie would have been

00:48:34.980 well i don't know it would have been an i don't know i didn't do it you remember that little

00:48:39.920 cartoon that it was i didn't oh family something or other anyway doesn't matter um

00:48:50.420 to to end this i do want to talk about one parenting uh draw that that you made uh but

00:48:59.080 it is funny story to tell at the end um look i grew up in the 70s early 80s parents didn't know

00:49:07.060 where we you didn't know where we were we're out of the house like we could walk up to the little

00:49:12.140 park right we we were out of sight it wasn't like play in the backyard i don't we played in the

00:49:18.800 front yard. We rode our bikes places. Right. And this one time, so my friend and I, Greg,

00:49:25.840 we were outside and we're playing and, um, we come back in the house and I tell my mom that

00:49:32.800 I'm going to be on TV. Now guys, I'm wondering if this was always my, my desire was to always be on

00:49:40.960 TV. I love TV. We always had the TV on, you know, whatever. Anyways, I come in and I said,

00:49:49.040 I'm going to be on TV. And mom goes, what are you talking about? There was a news truck,

00:49:52.680 I said, out front of the house. And they invited us in their truck, their white

00:49:59.480 panel van with all of this like in my memory uh like technological stuff in it and the two men

00:50:11.780 that were driving this truck invited greg and i into the truck and i guess pretended to film us

00:50:20.800 at some point i don't remember that but we got in their truck we were fully in the back

00:50:26.540 two kids of a panel van truck and i went in and i told mom all about this and my mom then

00:50:34.940 proceeded to call like um all of these different news agencies to find out if they had a truck

00:50:42.820 in our vicinity none of them did so to this day i mean that could have been a really interesting

00:50:54.960 end i think i think we didn't think it might have been or was it like a roger like a cable truck a

00:51:01.040 cable or an electrical thing and there i because i i think that's what someone eventually did say

00:51:08.460 there was one of these kind of trucks in your area because i called like somebody that you called

00:51:13.600 yeah yeah but it was it wasn't that day it would would have been later you know what i mean

00:51:21.460 guys that was that would have been it in 1980 but it was scary way after the fact

00:51:27.980 but nobody watched their kids joanna the times that i we'd go shopping and i couldn't find you

00:51:34.840 because you were in the shoe store guys like i i i would go i would look for you and i thought

00:51:42.880 you knew where to go but yeah and it was always a shoe store see there you go but at least i'm

00:51:48.400 consistent but how i did that like i anything could have happened to you but we did we did not

00:51:56.080 even think about it and the park business you before we left park was far before i could go

00:52:02.520 to the big park that was at seven that was down a major street that's right so the big park yeah

00:52:07.800 big park and little park i should go and take some video and you used to be able to you had

00:52:12.100 just started so you were seven years old and you must have just been seven because we moved before

00:52:19.280 you got to be eight um so your birthday's in july right and um oh no well no it could have been

00:52:29.940 the beginning whatever anyway we were also allowed to go to the store behind us by yourself

00:52:37.900 that was that was a brand new that was a great convenience store

00:52:42.780 guys listen the convenient and we used to hop the fence one time i tried to hop that fence

00:52:49.240 in my bare feet slid all the way down and got slivers all in my hands and my bare feet and

00:52:54.740 ray had to take them out but i'm gonna have ray on the podcast so you're gonna you're gonna get

00:52:58.180 to talk to him about that can you give the people one your best piece of parenting advice

00:53:05.680 one thing if you had to say one thing to parents somebody's going to have kids what would be the

00:53:12.280 one thing you would say listen everything else you're going to decide but this if you could do

00:53:17.540 this one thing what would it be make them know that they are loved that's it you know yeah they

00:53:28.820 are loved and they're for they they come first and on that note guys thank you so much look at

00:53:35.780 this long time coming you've been talking for 53 minutes oh my god was it okay all right it was fun

00:53:41.220 maybe part two later if they like it oh you don't need to be crazy all right guys thank you so much

00:53:47.840 for hanging out go check the rest of my podcast as they relate to each chapter on my book thanks

00:53:53.540 for hanging out. I will see you next week. Same bat time, same bat channel. Dismissed.

Unlearn16: Class is in Session - June 25, 2025

The One Where I Was 'Nursed into Health'...That's Not What This Book Is About

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